Dismissing Haywood for Miller: One of the hot rumors as of late yesterday afternoon was the possibility of the Portland Trail Blazers swapping Andre Miller for the Washington Wizards' Brendan Haywood to help them with their ailing center position. The Blazers have already lost Greg Oden and Joel Pryzbilla for the season and have buyer's remorse to a certain extent over their offseason signing of Miller.
However, according to Chris Tomasson's twitter account sources close to the situation expect Haywood to remain a Wizard throughout the rest of the season. Haywood, whose $6 million deal expires at the end of the year, is having one of the best seasons of his career with averages of 9 points and 10 rebounds. He'd be a nice short-term solution for the Blazers that could help them significantly in their playoff run while providing them with a mulligan of sorts for the Miller signing.
Miller's struggles as a Blazer are well documented but his track record makes him hard to give up on this early. Last night was one of his best games as a Blazer as he went off for 28 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists in a slight overtime loss to the Boston Celtics. He spent a lot of time playing alongside Jerryd Bayless and Steve Blake though, something that won't happen anywhere near as much once team leader Brandon Roy comes back from his hamstring injury. Their gluttony of guards in the backcourt makes the probability of them pulling off a deal very likely, but for now the Wizards don't have any interest in letting go of one of their few bright spots............