KP thinks Bayless will be the stopper for guys like D-Williams and CP3 right off the bat.
KP/Nate's overriding goal when starting the "rebuild" in 2005 was to make the community proud of the team again. KP said he wanted to get to the point where businesses were shutting down on game day, Blazers signs were in the windows and billboards all over the place, like it was in the "Glory Days".
Raef's definitely out until March, which only makes his contract more valuable. If someone trades for him, and if (When) he doesn't play in his 41st straight game, the team gets 80% of his salary (up until he starts playing again) in a check from the insurance company. So for a lux-tax or penny-pinching team, they can ship out around 16M in salary for an outlay of around 2M or so (less if he's traded for early in the year).
KP would really like a local D-League team in the northwest, but just because he's a fan of small-town ball. He said they're with Sioux Falls right now (did Idaho move without me hearing about it?) and they don't have any plans that he knows of to buy their own team. He says it's not fiscally viable right now. He also waxed poetic for a bit about where he came from in the minor leagues, and how great they are as a learning ground.
He said Oden vs. Bynum is Must-See TV, but he would trade Greg for anyone in the league. "He's a special, special player".
To run, or not to run? It'll be easier this year b/c they're going to have much more on-the-ball pressure and more interior rebounding. He said that once Greg "gets into trouble", they'll dial that back.
For extensions of Webs, Frye, Diogu...he said that the only reason that teams would do a deal in October was if the team got a really good deal. He said that they didn't have plans to do that, b/c the players (he wouldn't be specific) thought they would have a "blow-up" year, and would take their chances in Free Agency next year. KP said something like "no problem for me...I can negotiate (with a smile on his face)".
He says that Rudy won't be the immediate Messiah, but he is already the best teammate on the team. He says sorry if he misses an open shot, picks up other guys when they're not feeling it, encourages when he's not on the floor, etc.
Rudy made it very clear to KP and the management team that his decision was completely independent of Sergio's status. Speaking of Sergio (I think it's been said) KP loves his ability to run the P&R, but when teams started going under and daring him to shoot, he missed a couple and completely lost confidence in his shot. This summer he's been working hard on that.
He then said that his thought about the 3 was that they needed a wing defender. He then said Batum's not as far behind Webs and Outlaw as people might think, and gives him options going forward. He said Batum's skillset was going to be upgraded by playing here against great players, since French League is "just ok", and they don't play a ton of high-quality D. But for Kopo, who "really, really wanted to be here", KP thought that he'd get an offer to be the starting PG on a high-quality Euro team (which he did with Bologna), and that his skills would improve with lots of time running a team, which he wouldn't get here. When asked about the buyout situation with Kopo, KP said he wasn't worried b/c Kopo really wanted to be here.
He said "Ike Diogu can't guard this table, and I've told him that".
He's tight with Sam Presti still. The computer/sim modeling that they do is "the Spurs' model on steroids". Jeff Ma is in town this week to work more on it. More teams are starting to pick up on it, much to his chagrin, but they're still at the forefront.
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