The Asik talk is never going to die until he's trade somewhere. Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe spent several minutes of the latest podcast discussing Asik to Portland. Right now in the OKC aftermath, some national guys are tweeted nonstop about Portland's ceiling if they got Asik. I have mixed feelings about it, because I would LOVE to get Asik but my gut is Houston would ask for more than we should give up. Watching Lopez, though, does anyone else feel like his ceiling as a defensive role-playing center is ALMOST Asik-esque? I see him doing a lot of the same things and having a similar impact. Am I crazy? I'm not going as far as to say Lopez is Asik's equal, but if the price for Asik was Lopez, McCollum, and Leonard (and maybe picks and cash on top of that)? I don't know if I make that deal.
No to CJ. Lopez is a huge reason why they have such good chemistry. If we could sneak in and get him on the cheap in a three-way.... Btw, Asik hasn't played well this season and certainly doesn't warrant that package.
We won't be able to trade for Asik without giving up one of our starting five - probably Batum....just to make things work under the salary cap, etc. With the way the team (and Lopez) are playing, we don't trade for Asik.
You can't fix stupid, so don't worry about it. It's all just scrambling to make sense of how poorly they all assessed the Blazers at the start of the season. The one's who eat their crow and explain why they were dead wrong, I will still read. The rest can fall on a fence post butt first.
Say no to asik!!! He would never come off the bench and the chemistry Lopez has with our starters cannot be replaced. If you look for any player, look for a back-up. Our starters are set
He knows his role and plays it extremely well. Extremely unselfish for him to give up personal stats for team success. His contract is terrible for what he's worth to this team. I feel bad actually. My real hope is not to go around doling out FAIL stickers and plastering them on the foreheads of the lazy media idiots that put Portland out of the play-offs or barely making 8th. My hope is that the coverage of Portland moving forward will be more accurate, and that these lazy types will identify and fix whatever it was that had them talking out of their asses pre-season.
Ugh. We don't need Asik. He wants to start. Lopez is doing great and Aldridge is having a career year alongside him. Don't. Change. Anything.
I'm also going with the winning recipe which is what we have going now. Let's not Rod Strickland this up again.
Some weird non sequitur responses in this thread. I'm not saying an Asik trade is likely or that we should do it (see my OP), but any hypothetical universe with us getting Asik would obviously involve trading Lopez. So, while there are lots of reasons to not be in favor of trading for him, "he would have to come off the bench" is not one of them.
How much salary do we need in order to trade for him? He makes 5.25 this year and 15 next year. Did someone say it was around 8? If this is true then it would be tough to make a deal. If it is around 5-6 mil, then I would put Leonard, Claver and Joel in play. Not willing to gamble with anyone else other than Barton and Crabbe.
He means we shouldn't mess with chemistry, like Trader Bob did by adding Strickland mid-season all those years ago.
Why so emphatic? If it was cheap, Asik would just step in and do what Lopez is doing, except better. Lopez is a great story, and again as I said in my OP, he's doing a lot of Asik-like things and having similar impact... but Asik is considered a top 2 or 3 pure defensive C by anyone you would ask. Lopez is ascending into "above average," but he's not in that conversation yet. Strange thing is I hedged my OP with statements like "I'm not saying he's there yet" because I didn't want to be ridiculed as a homer. Seems some in here think Lopez is flat-out better than Asik, which seems crazy.
