Samuel

- He still lives here, loves Portland, plays well alongside Nate.

- Portland needs a vet not named Dan Dickau to give Portand a little savvy at the 1. Our guys are green.

- Portland might be looking to deal Jack for a young SF; If so, Portland would need someone to start because Sergio is still a couple years away from leading the team.

- I'm not certain about this, but I don't think the Nuggets have any more claim to him than we do. IIRC, the early bird exemption (which allowed POR to juice up their Przybilla offer last summer even though Joel was unrestricted) only applies to players who have been on a team for at least two years. Steve Blake was dealt twice this year, negating that.

- By no means is this a bash Jack or trade Jack thread. I really like the guy. I'm also of the opinion that if the right deal comes along you always take it. And apparently 4+ teams are interested in the guy. My guess is that if we were privy to all the Jack offers this summer, at least one of them would make us at BBB.net think long and hard about it.

- Do you think Steve Blake would take Portland's MLE over the MLE of another team? Do you think he'll get an offer larger than that?

- I don't think Nate was ever comfortable with Dickau helming the point. I wouldn't be surprised if he was dealt at some point this summer, as his contract expires and he might be a nice throw in for a team looking to clear salary.

- A side note on the PG tip, how many years away do you think Sergio Rodriguez is from starting (if ever)?

HispanicCausinPanic

How much is the MLE? I just know that my man wants to be on the court. He has impressed me this season. I say bring him back!

mediocre man

I'd rather trade for someone like Andre Miller or Bibby.

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cpawfan

It doesn't work that way. Bird rights are traded with a player.

Blake officially became a Blazer on 9/28/05 when the Wizards didn't match the offer sheet he signed with the Blazers. Since Blake was on the same contract for two seasons, he qualifies for early Bird rights which essentially means Denver can sign him to MLE dollars with out using their MLE.

On top of that, the Nuggets FO loves Blake and Karl has been relying on him to play big minutes.

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Sambonius

Blake will not get the MLE from any team. That said, he will sign with the Blazers in the summer.

dudleysghost

MLE is going to be around $5.5 - $6 mil per year to start. Blake does qualify for the Early Bird exception, but that still doesn't give them much of an edge in signing him, salary-wise. The most they can do is offer him bigger raises, but I'm skeptical that they or anyone would want to pay max MLE for Blake. That would be 5 years and >$30 mil. With Denver being well over the cap already with only 10 guaranteed contracts, they are going to be frugal. This is the same team that supposedly wanted to give away Nene for an expiring so they wouldn't have to pay tax.

Blake seems to be fitting in well in Denver though. I'd imagine he'd be inclined to stay. But assuming we could outbid the market at get him at full or near full MLE, should we? That is overpaying for his services IMO, but it still might make sense, on two conditions.

1) We've traded Jarrett Jack. If he's still with us, he's our starting PG. We don't need Blake, and it would create playing time conflicts if we added him.

2) Paul Allen is willing to pay lux tax in the future. This is a major question. If PA isn't willing to pay any tax, then we have to worry about staying under it, and overpaying for FA now then reduces our flexibility in the future. OTOH, if he is willing to pay, then overpaying costs us a lot less in terms of roster flexibility. We probably aren't ever going to be under the cap, so that's moot. The only thing that overpaying free agents costs us, besides Paul Allen's money, is that overpaid free agents are harder to trade, so we lose a little flexibility. Even so though, if we don't have Jack, we could really use Blake. I like him a lot as a player and as a fill in starter until Sergio is eventually hopefully ready.

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RedHot&Rolling

Re-signing Blake ONLY makes sense if we've traded Jack away. Otherwise, it creates conflict and confusion.

I like Blake. I said he was the best PG of the three amigos a season ago. But, he's pretty well peaked. He's not going to turn into Steve Nash or even Mike Bibby. IMO he's really well situated right now with Denver. It's the perfect combination having a couple of stud scorers and Blake simply has to pass the ball or hit the open shot.

I'd guess he'd accept our offer of MLE before many others, but Denver will give him at least that much to stay. Why wouldn't they?

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cpawfan

Wrong. Denver attempted to trade Nene for an expiring contract (eg Magloire) in order to send another expiring contract to Philly in the AI deal. Philly ended up agreeing to take Andre Miller after Denver had no luck moving Nene for an expiring deal. The Denver FO didn't want to trade Nene; however, they would have to obtain AI.

The urban legends about the Nuggets get more humorous by the day

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dudleysghost

Ok. You know this how? I'm very curiuos where you get your information about the inner thoughts of the Philly and/or Denver management groups.

I'm not sure what Denver was thinking exactly, but there are multiple possible explanations of why Denver would want to swap Nene's contract. I think the one where Philly actually wanted Miller's contract rather than an expiring contract, and Denver didn't mind giving up Miller and his salary with Iverson coming in, and where Denver's ownership group was concerned about lux tax like almost every other owner in the league to the point where he was willing to dump a decent but overpaid player like Nene, is actually not that humorous, especially given how well Miller seems to fit in with the 76ers and how there were reports both at the time of the trade and now that the Nuggets want to dump salary to avoid the tax.

__________________
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cpawfan

There are no serious reports about the Nuggets attempting to dumpy salary now to avoid the tax. There was some poor reporting from Sam Smith about the Nuggets looking to move Camby after the season, but that isn't for a salary dump. The Nuggets FO is considering moving Camby because his value is high and there is a very real likelihood of him missing a lot of games each of the next seasons on his contract. Asset Management, not luxury tax management.

Denver, like Portland, has a very wealthy owner that likes to win. He is willing to pay the luxury tax for a winner, which is why he signed off on bringing AI to Denver and the luxury tax that would follow.

As to where I get my information, in addition to being a Nuggets fan that follows the team closely, there is a Nuggets message board that receives occasional visits from a Nuggets front office insider. In the end you can believe what you want, but I know what is true.

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dudleysghost

Ok, well I don't claim to know for certain what Denver's owner is thinking, which is why I qualified the assertion that they wanted to dump know with the word "supposedly", because I know the various sports reporters and commentators who have said it deal just as much in speculation as they do in fact. But you'll have to excuse me when I don't consider a guy on an anonymous message board who claims to have third-hand information a definitive source.

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Jeff Van Gundy to the Houston Chronicle: "Everybody gets excited about youth except the coach, because he knows youth means mistakes, mistakes mean losses, losses means you're fired."

Minstrel

Blake is certainly not worth the full MLE. Perhaps a piece of it would be a good move, if Portland really does want to move Jack in a trade.

I think the better move, though, would be to keep Jack and Rodriguez as a nice young point guard tandem, see who we get with our draft pick and use the MLE to acquire a better player than Blake off the free agent market. The MLE is now getting large enough that it can be enough to pick up a useful complimentary player.

Anyone know of a list of upcoming unrestricted free agents?

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ThatBlazerGuy

If we trade Jack, I would not be opposed to overpaying for Blake. But giving him the MLE is grossly overpaying for him. I think 4-4.5M is alot for a player of his talent, but would offer him that much because the market for PG's this offseason is shallow.

I think a better move would be to keep Jack and Sergio while adding a hardnosed veteran such as Kevin Ollie, Jason Hart or Jacque Vaughn.

Draco