In a different thread I kind of played around with the idea of trading Jarrett Jack and Travis Outlaw for Shane Battier. As I was reading the RealGM forums, I came across this post. Turns out that trade might work after all.
Quote:
Joe Freeman and Jason Quick were both in studio on Primetime today, doing a post-season wrap-up of sorts. They talked about the season the was, the current offseason and the upcoming summer.
The first interesting comment by Quick was a story he told that happened last summer. He said that him and a fellow beat writer from the Seattle area were out to dinner at a "Bennihana's" type of restaurant, and unbeknownst to them, the Rockets management team was at the same restaurant, sitting not to far away from them. Apparently the Rockets new GM is one of those loud arrogant types and they were all talking about what moves they needed to make to get past a team like San Antonio. All of them were completely ripping apart Shane Battier. They really just didn't like him and thought he would be an awful fit in Adelman's system, so they were all brainstorming potential trade scenarios. Portland eventually came up and the first name thrown out was Jarrett Jack. They pretty much all turned him down as they didn't think he had enough potential to be any better than Rafer Alston. The next name was Travis Outlaw and apparently a lot of them were pretty interested in him, but were concerned about his consistency and if he'd every be able to put it all together. Anyway, long story short is that the Rockets management isn't really in love with Battier and if Portland was willing to trade a guy like Outlaw for him, a deal could probably be had. That of course leaves the question... Would Portland want to move Outlaw for Battier?
Now though, here's the really interesting comment by Quick. The topic moved onto next seasons starting 5 and who they all thought it would be. Joe Freeman said he expects a lot of the same. He said that unless a move is made to get a better PG, it's gonna be Blake/Roy/Webster/Aldridge/Oden. Now, when they asked Quick the same question, the first words out of his mouth were, "Starting PG will be Jose Calderon." Obviously that garnered some follow-up questions after he finished his projected starting 5. Quick said that Pritchard absolutely loves Calderon and wants to get him here. Then when the Primetime guys asked 'Is he attainable?', Quick flat out said "Yes." He wouldn't go any deeper than that, but he basically admitted that he had heard some rumblings to suggest that he might not be completely out of the question.
As for other little news and notes from the discussion, Kirk Hinrich was brought up by a caller, Quick said that Pritchard does like Hinrich and that the Bulls are supposed to be pretty active this summer since they took on so much salary in the Wallace deal.
And finally, Big Suke is awful. He can be funny at times, but listening to him trying to talk about basketball is like having a sharp object forcibly shoved into my ear drum.
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Is anyone open to the idea of trading for Battier?
The piece about Calderon is also very interesting. This could be a very good offseason.