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Spurs Brazil
08-28-2007, 03:59 PM
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/steve_aschburner/08/28/northwest.reportcard/2.html

Top picks Oden, Durant bring hope to Northwest
Posted: Tuesday August 28, 2007 2:33PM; Updated: Tuesday August 28, 2007 3:02PM


The Northworst Division has done all right for itself this offseason, at least in terms of shift and change.

Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, the top two players in college basketball and probably the easiest 1-2 picks since Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning in 1992, got pumped through lottery luck into the Northwest. Their respective development will be easy enough to track, Oden in Portland, Durant in Seattle, barely three hours apart on I-5 (until the SuperSonics maybe go cowboy on us).

That other Kevin, Garnett, exits the division, ending his stay in Minnesota after 12 individually brilliant but collectively frustrating seasons. Allen Iverson, disappointed that he never got to play with Garnett and now effectively swapping divisions with him, soon will prepare for his first full season with Denver and Carmelo Anthony. Then there's Utah, which . . . well, who are we kidding? There never has been any way to make the Jazz "sexy." Wouldn't even dare say the word around Jerry Sloan. But his team still is best of the bunch.

Here is the second in our series of divisional report cards:

Portland Trail Blazers
What Went Right:

• They got lottery lucky.
It wasn't quite at the level of Cleveland getting LeBron James in 2003, but adding Oden -- the consensus No. 1 pick -- to an extremely talented core of young players that was showing promise already last season was a bonanza. The positional overlap of players such as Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge and Channing Frye is a problem most NBA coaches would kill to have. The only downside is that, in a perfect world, several other NBA franchises needed Oden more to goose fan interest and generate buzz.

• Keeping up with Jones.
James Jones didn't get the playing time he wanted in Phoenix, and he'll have to battle for the same thing in Portland. But he still might be the Blazers' best early-season option at small forward while Martell Webster and Travis Outlaw continue to develop.

• No more Zach Attack!
Fine, he's an automatic 20-and-10 guy, a gem to behold in the NBA. But on this team, given the me-first way he sometimes plays, and in this market, given his off-court baggage, moving Zach Randolph to keep him away from Oden and other young players was precisely the right move. The Blazers could cater to Randolph for a few years, but their goals are loftier now.

• Ditto with this guy. And this guy.
Jamaal Magloire was a bad idea from the start. Portland had just given Joel Przybilla a big deal and drafted Aldridge. Magloire was interested in numbers that could earn him a payday. Fine. He got it. He's gone. As for Steve Francis, he never figured in the Portland plan at all. Better that he was bought out.

What Went Wrong:

• They lost some glue, and some shooting.
Ime Udoka, at age 29, finally got a chance and made plenty of it in Portland. He was a tough defender, adept at doing the proverbial little things, and he hit more than 40 percent of his three-pointers. Now he's in San Antonio, on a faster track to a ring than the kiddie Blazers.

• Can Paul Allen buy a big load of minutes, please?
Steve Blake had a strong season and was glad to return to Portland with a nifty three-year contract. But with Jarrett Jack in place, Sergio Rodriguez on the rise and Brandon Roy capable enough to initiate the offense, there might not be as much opportunity as Blake, Jack or Rodriguez would like.

Grade: A.

We're not going to nitpick the Blazers over a roster that's maybe too deep (horrors!) or the loss of one valuable role player. Not with the Oden mania at full throttle and plenty of high-flying help on board. And just on sheer volume of activity, a team's fan base hardly could ask for more than what Portland gave them.

Seattle Supersonics


What Went Right:

• They lost the No. 1 draft pick.
That meant the Sonics "had" to take Texas freshman Kevin Durant with the No. 2 pick, hardly a hardship. Durant already is being talked of as a better candidate for Rookie of the Year than No. 1 man Greg Oden, because of his more advanced offensive game and freedom at a wing position. In time, Durant might outshine Oden in star power for the same reasons (though Oden's personality has him in the lead at the moment).

• They snagged a bookend for Durant.
Jeff Green's stock rose in the 48 hours prior to the draft, and there are those in Boston who still feel that the Celtics should have sat tight and taken the Georgetown product. Green should deflect a teensy bit of the spotlight scrutiny away from Durant. The fact that this move signaled Seattle's determination to rebuild takes some pressure off all of them.

• They "stole" Kurt Thomas.
Getting a real grown-up, physically tough Thomas from Phoenix in a Suns' salary dump was smart with valued youngsters on the roster. Getting a pair of first-round picks in the deal was even smarter.

• P.J. Carlesimo gets another chance.
No matter how he does over the next 82 games, there was something sweet about the popular and hoops-savvy Carlesimo getting another head coaching job in the same summer that Latrell Sprewell's yacht got repossessed. Karma takes it time sometimes, but still can pack a punch.

What Went Wrong:

• They'll miss Ray Allen's scoring.
The Sonics really weren't headed anywhere with Allen as their best player, but it would have been nice to have him around to draw defenders away from Durant, while helping, in his classy way, to indoctrinate the young man to the league. Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak will do what they can to pick up the slack, no doubt.

• Losing Rashard Lewis hurts, no matter what.
Sure, the trade exception that Seattle got from Orlando made the Kurt Thomas deal possible. Still, Lewis was a kid in whom the Sonics had a huge investment. He required all sorts of mentoring, physically and emotionally. He came out of high school and was paid well beyond his productivity for several seasons. He never developed the inside game he's capable of, but he was supposed to be a building block. Hard to blame the Sonics, but the Lewis story wasn't supposed to end this way.

• Losing a whole team might hurt worse.
Seattle has gorgeous football and baseball facilities but soon might have a vacant basketball arena if no solution is found to keep Clay Bennet's ownership group from moving the club. Aubrey McClendon's out-of-school comments -- David Stern came late with a $250,000 fine when he should have pre-emptively gagged McClendon & Co. -- really has folks worried about the end of the NBA's 40-year history in that city.

Grade: B.

Maybe there should be a plus or minus attached to that grade, but I'm distracted right now. Like a lot of Seattle fans, I can't help thinking that Oklahoma City already is the corporate home of Sonic drive-ins. That means the nickname and the uniforms wouldn't even need to be changed.

Utah Jazz
What Went Right:

• Two backups might be better than one. Maybe.
Ronnie Price and Jason Hart give the Jazz two guys to do what Derek Fisher did by himself as a backup to point guard Deron Williams. With those three, rookie Morris Almond, Ronnie Brewer and Gordon Giricek in the backcourt, coach Jerry Sloan has more alternatives than he has minutes to offer.

• They got a defensive pest.
Price's Utah Valley State roots and the career-best 16 he scored for the Kings against Utah might have skewed the Jazz's view of Price. But if he can pester opposing perimeter scorers, management will be satisfied. He made Dee Brown expendable.

• Addition by deportation.
Center Rafael Araujo left Utah to sign a one-year deal to play in the Russian Superleague, which is good news for Spartak St. Petersburg and . . . good news for the Jazz. Araujo's three-year NBA career ends, at least temporarily, with a whimper; only 10 of his 28 appearances last season kept the No. 8 pick from 2004 on the floor for 10 minutes or longer.

• They added to their foreign flavor.
Rookie center Kyrylo Fesenko played in the summer league and stuck around Salt Lake City until he got a contract. The 7-footer should be able to pick up any slack left by Araujo's departure (who'd have guessed we ever would have typed such a sentence?).

What Went Wrong:

• The Fish that got away.
Letting Derek Fisher out of his contract was the right thing to do, at a human level (so Fisher can better attend to his daughter's eye cancer in Los Angeles). It even was a good business decision, given the money that was owed to the 33-year-old guard. But Fisher's veteran influence had a lot to do with Utah's quick return to contender status and he will be missed.

• Miles from nowhere, guess I'll take my time.
C.J. Miles was a restricted free agent, for cryin' out loud. His options were limited from the get-go, in other words, so he had no business skipping the Rocky Mountain Revue out of fear of injury or any other reason. After two years but only 575 minutes, the slender guard needed all the experience he could get. This was not the summer to dawdle on a deal, and that's why he has slipped below the Jazz's radar.

Grade: C.

Utah's chances of matching or building on their division-title performance from last season hinges on none of the summer's coming or goings. It's the core -- Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirkilenko, in need of a resurgence -- that matters.

Minnesota Timberwolves


What Went Right:

• Goodbye Big Ticket, hello lottery ticket!
The Wolves got maximum quantity and even some quality in their mega-trade of Kevin Garnett. This team, surely headed back to the lottery next spring, won't be adding a lot of season ticket holders. But with so many new faces and jersey numbers, it does figure to sell plenty of programs.

• Kevin McHale gets a real low-post pupil.
Al Jefferson is nine years younger than Garnett and, based on last season's stats, only four points and two rebounds shy of the numbers Garnett likely will average in Boston. Big Al should be able to get those just in all of Minnesota's garbage times.

• Is it possible? Three solid first-rounders in a row?
Drafting Corey Brewer with the No. 7 pick feels right. Brewer has the sort of full-court athletic ability this team frequently has lacked, and can make an instant impact on defense. He joins last year's No. 7 pick, Randy Foye, who made the all-rookie team, and the No. 14 pick from 2005, Rashad McCants, whose season could be make-or-break in a full comeback from knee surgery.

What Went Wrong:

• The Garnett era ends sadly.
Say what you want about moving on; the Wolves and their fans likely will never get 12 seasons of Hall of Fame-worthy play from any other player, ever, like it got from Garnett.

• No Fab Five on this floor.
Pity Juwan Howard, acquired from Houston for Mike James. The veteran power forward celebrates his trade to Minnesota for the chance finally to play alongside Garnett, then almost immediately watches Garnett ship off to Boston.

• They lead the league in buyers' remorse.
Giving up on James after one season was almost as bad as signing him to that four-year, free-agent contract last summer in the first place. Minnesota spent more time trying to groom Marcus Banks for its point guard job late in 2005-06 than it did finding a solution to James' ineffectiveness last season.

• Still more liabilities than assets.
This team got out from under its obligation to James, but it had to buy out Troy Hudson's bloated contract and still is stuck with burdensome deals to Marko Jaric, Mark Blount and Trenton Hassell.

Grade: C-.

The Wolves painted themselves into a corner, to the point that trading Garnett was their only way out. But keeping the Kevin McHale regime intact to begin a rebuilding plan, rather than holding him responsible for squandering Garnett's years in Minnesota, is a mistake.

Denver Nuggets
What Went Right:

• Looking forward to Atkins diet.
Guard Chucky Atkins is a nice pickup with a good shooting touch, even if he isn't the perfect choice to log heavy minutes running an up-tempo Nuggets attack. He might never top the 13.2 ppg and 4.6 apg he averaged last season, but he has hit 37 percent of his 3-pointers over his career.

• Now they hope to get Martinized.
You can feel the spin already: "Getting Kenyon Martin back healthy would be like adding an All-Star caliber player." Except that Martin has had the worst two seasons of his career since arriving in Denver, hobbled by injuries two seasons ago and shut down completely after just two games last season. The microfracture surgery he had this time was his second such procedure, so don't be counting on 19.1 ppg, 11.0 rpg and 53.3 FG percentage like K-Mart gave the Nets in 2003-04.

What Went Wrong:

• Still searching for a playmaker.
As much as the Nuggets missed Earl Boykins, the guy who came back in the deal, Steve Blake, did a nice job. Nice enough to earn a three-year offer from the Trail Blazers, with Blake all too happy to return to Portland. Coach George Karl keeps losing point guards he likes, even if he seems to like them more after they're gone.

• End of the roster offers little.
DerMarr Johnson, an unrestricted free agent, wasn't expected back, though center Jamal Sampson, also unrestricted, might return. Balance of power in the division hinges on neither.

Grade: D-.

It's hard to understand the stand-pat approach. If Atkins' three-year, $10 million is all Nuggets management is willing to do now that its payroll is well into luxury-tax liability, these guys aren't only not closing the gap in the West with San Antonio, Phoenix and Dallas, they're losing ground to Portland and Seattle.

Steve Aschburner covered the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA for 13 seasons for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He served as president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association from 2005-2007.

Strike
08-28-2007, 06:04 PM
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