Yes, Portland Will Take Durant
College Basketball, NBA May 23rd. 2007, 1:42am
Going to make this brief, but we’ve posted our Mock NBA Draft Lottery at the Fanhouse, and we’ve got Portland taking Kevin Durant first.
We’re all for hearing about potential trades, but as of right now, the Trail Blazers have plenty of centers, including last year’s No. 1 pick, LaMarcus Aldridge. Plus Zach Randolph, one of the league’s best power forwards. He’s got an attitude and an $80 million contract. That’s your starting frontcourt.
Portland may end up trading the pick, but we’ve got them taking Kevin Durant. Seattle and Greg Oden will work out just fine. Not sure how much he’ll like Oklahoma City, though.
Discuss.
19 Responses to “Yes, Portland Will Take Durant”
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May 23rd, 2007 at 2:02 am
I disagree. You have to take Oden if you’re Portland. Personally, I like Durant better and think he’ll have a better career, but I think Portland takes Oden. I see your rationale, but you can play Randolph and Alridge at the forward positions and play Oden at center.
PG - Jack
SG - Roy
F - Randolph
F - Aldridge
C - Oden
If Durant goes to Seattle, which I think he will, he’s going to be scary good. Seattle is a great fit for Durant. I think Durant has much better success in Seattle than he would in Portland.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 am
Rick Sund and Wally Walker had been preparing for this day for the last three drafts: Robert Swift, C; Johan Petro, C; Mohammed Saer Sene,C.
They had practice at drafting project centers. Too bad they were fired. If they were still around, I bet they’d take Hawes. They’re Bill Bavasi incompentent.
Speaking of Bavasi, the biggest media story that no one is talking about is he may trade Ichiro. With Bavasi’s track record, they’d be better off taking a 12-pack and some ice than whatever Bavasi gets for him.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 am
Sorry, I’m not seeing any chance the Blazers skip out on drafting Oden. There’s way too much down side that goes with that, and it’s compounded by the fact that they’ll be watching whoever they don’t take playing a skip up the road in Seattle (OK, maybe they’ll be in Oklahoma).
As for me, I am one of those long-suffering Celtics fans. The one who is too young to remember much of Bird playing in his prime, but plenty young enough to remember the pain that went with Reggie Lewis’ death, the ML Carr era, the Rick Pitino era and the Doc Rivers/Danny Ainge era (oh wait — that nightmare is still ongoing).
So, please spare me the “Luck of the Irish” cracks for the day.
No more leprechaun jokes. No more “Curse of…” comparisons. No more Boston haters telling us to deal with it, because y’all choose to read Simmons every week and are sick of his points of view.
Nope. Pour me an Irish pint for the day, and I’m spent.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:34 am
Randolph isn’t going to be a Blazer much longer. Portland will take Oden and put Randolph up on the block for an athletic, scoring wing. I don’t think you can pass up a potentially dominant center. The Portland team has the feeling of a Spurs-like team with Oden and Aldridge playing the roles of Robinson and Duncan.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:15 am
Sorry man, no way they take Durant. No f’ng way. Durant is sweet, but Oden changes the franchise. Randolph and Aldrige are big forwards who can run. Oden is a true center…who can run. With those three, Roy and Jack…that is a dope lineup. So pissed the Celtics got the 5th. Hoping we take Horford or Brewer, but we’ll probably take the Chinese guy.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 am
Ugh. What a crappy, crappy week to be a Suns fan. Whacked by Stu and Stern, whacked by Horry and Bowen, now whacked by the lottery. What a disaster.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:40 am
Portland should take Oden and find some way to ship Zach Randolph’s troublemakin’ self out of town.
Man, just think of Durant running with Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis in Seattle — that’d be sick.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Portland can’t really go wrong either way… but I don’t see Randolph/Aldridge/Oden existing on the court at the same time for very long… Randolph is, and always will be, a black hole on offense… As long as he’s there, the O will be slow and piss-poor.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Portland already has centers? Yeah, and the Texans already had a RB. Don’t be stupid. Oden is a once in a decade talent. Portland would be stupid not to take him.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
A sign and trade by Portland for Rashard Lewis for Zach Randolph makes so much sense for both teams. Portland Gets Oden Lamarcus and Lewis as its frontcourt and Seattle gets Randolph and Durant. Seems like a win - win for both teams.
Also maybe the first pick and Zach Randolph for KG and 7th pick and minnesota #1 next year.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Crappy weak to be a Suns fan, give me a break, try being a Celtics fan who’s too young to remember them in the Bird days, atleast your team is really good. Right now the C’s president is incompetent enough to give Doc an extension and Danny full latitude to make another horrendous deal. And you end up with the worst possible pick you could get, the one you were least likely to wind up in and now you can sit back and watch Danny make another horrendous trade. Woo. Gotta love the NBA.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Drafting Durant will mean Seattle can let Lewis go.
Oden will be #1 by Portland. You don’t know about Aldridge and Randolph needs to be shipped out.
MN will not trade KG for Randolph. If KG gets traded, it’ll be to Phoenix for Marion and some other people.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Randolph at SF?
LaMarcus Aldridge the next Tim Duncan?
Sorry, I think I’m in the wrong place. I’m looking for The Big Lead but seem to have found the Not in Your Wildest Dreams message board.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Hibbert going to the Celtics ain’t going to happen; already reports that he’s holding a presser today to say he’s staying in school another year.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Quit trying to be contrarians. The Blazers will take Oden. Period.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
If the Blazers take Durant over Oden, it won’t be as monumental a mistake as taking Bowie over Jordan. So I’ll give the TBL that much.
Still an absurd notion though.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I’m a portland guy, been here my whole life. Been through the ‘BlazerMania’ days with Clyde, Porter and so on… I just don’t see Portland passing up on Oden. We lost the frickin’ NBA finals twice because we didn’t have a legit center. Now, don’t get me wrong, we were playing against Jordan. Everyone lost that came up against that freak of nature. Although, Blazers have Aldridge who looks like he has the potential to be another Tim Duncan mixed with Rasheed Wallace. The dude has freak talent. The word around here in Portland is that Pritchard may end up keeping Randolph and seeing how the three can play together.
Then after next year make the decision to move Randolph. Pritchard has mentioned on a few occasions that he’s worried he would give up a power forward like Randolph and never know if the three could exist and eventually turn into a front line that could literally make any team crap their pants where they stand.
I see Portland taking Oden. As much as Durant looks good… They come around more often than ‘True Center’s’. Also, we could easily find another small forward that can put up numbers. They keep Oden and then trade away for a decent small forward. Not only do we get our Center but we get a small forward.
We keep Durant and there isn’t a quality center to trade for anywhere… Wouldn’t make sense to me. We get more of a complete team with Oden.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Here’s a link to YouTube that shows a mix of Oden. Within this mix of highlights… You’ll also noticed that he goes up against Durant several times and Oden schools him a few. Portland would be nuts not to draft him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xEtSZof7zk
June 11th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
WAAAAAHHHHH! I’m a Suns fan… WAAAAAAHHH!