NBA Rumors: Brandon Roy's Potential Retirement a Massive Loss

With the free agency period set to begin in a matter of hours, we now have news on one of the more interesting possible names. 

Chris Broussard of ESPN tweeted that Brandon Roy's knee is forcing him into retirement.

Earlier in the week, Jason Quick of The Oregonian reported that the Blazers would not be using their amnesty clause on Roy. With that, he would be the team's starting shooting guard when the season began.

Obviously, that's not going to happen now. Roy is not a free agent but as Quick detailed, his release was speculated on prior to the team's announcement that he would stay. 

For the Blazers, this is obviously a massive loss. While Roy did miss a significant portion of the 2010-2011 season, he had been the team's best player. Roy had averaged around 20 points, five assists and four rebounds a game in each of his first four seasons. 

Losing a guy like that will hurt the Blazers for a little while. Quick referred to Roy as "the face of the franchise," and losing players like that always hurts.

But there's one other reason this hurts the Blazers. It hurts the rest of the NBA, as well.

This is not the greatest free agency class that the league has ever seen. It's not anywhere near what we saw in 2010 with names like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Amar'e Stoudemire available. It's not what we might see in 2012 with names like Chris Paul and Dwight Howard.

Despite that, the strength of the 2011 class is in the frontcourt. In the frontcourt, there is some depth that will allow teams a few options.

That's not the case in the backcourt. If you're looking at shooting guards, the top names are Jamal Crawford and Jason Richardson. Those aren't exactly the best names on the market.

If Quick was wrong and Roy was going to be released, then it would have added a big, younger name to that mix. But even if he's right and the Blazers we're going to keep him, this still hurts the entire NBA.

If for no other reason, we now have another team looking for a shooting guard in an already weak class of them.

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