Does Portland want Artest?

[jezmund]

This is only 'if' we know Harrington wants big money no matter where it is. This trade works on the Tradechecker.

ATL trades Al Harrington

ATL receives Jarrett Jack / Scott Pollard / POR 1st

IND trades Ron Artest / Scott Pollard

IND receives Al Harrington / Ruben Patterson

POR trades Jarrett Jack / Ruben Patterson / 1st rounder

POR receives Ron Artest

It seems like this would be a bargain for Portland, though. It all depends on the grounds of the 1st. Maybe lottery protected this year but unprotected next year? (Greg Oden?) I'd like to get a chance of picking him up and I don't think we'll be a top 3 lottery type team next year. Before you shoot me, we could probably get more talent than this trade offers for Harrington BUT Scott Pollard gives us that contract expiration and Jarrett Jack is on rookie salary for 4 more years. Financially we are flexible in the FA market while picking up a starter quality PG and a 1st. Jack could also play some minutes with Stouadmire as a SG and not kill us much defensively.

Jack / Lue / Ivey

Johnson / Stoudamire

Childress / Marvin

Smith /

Zaza / Pollard

Actually looking at that, we seriously degress this year. Maybe not do that deal? We could probably get Jack for less if we really wanted him.

[thesheedera]

I'd love to get Jack, but right now Harrington is too vital a part of our present and future to trade him.

I'd honestly rather take the risk that he'd sign elsewhere and we'd get nothing in return than trade him right when we're starting to ahve a smidgen of success.

If Al and JJ can carry this team to a decent season (anything close to 30 wins), I think our odds of resigning Al would go way up in the offseason.

[Diesel]

Aside from the asinine trade...

I think to answer the question... PTL doesn't want Artest.

PTLs new management got rid of all the bad cogs (except Randolph and Kobe Stopper)... Hell, they gave Bonzi wells away for a bag of frito lays and a pat on the back... I really doubt that they want another headline grabber unless they can get rid of Randolph or Kobe Stopper in the process.

When you bring up those two, I wouldn't want either of those two and Jack for Al. It's a bad trade. Jack is a good PG, but he's not going to ever make up what we're losing in Al. Randolph seems to be a lockerroom cancer...

[Diesel]

Keeping our momentum right now is better than trading for " another young player that needs to be trained" Aside from Frye (Simple because Frye is showing that he has developed some pro game)..

But Al is more important than a Pick or a 1st rounder (other than Frye or Paul)... because right now, we have good chemistry. Woody's 10 man rotation is rolling. At some point, this franchise will have to stop changing everything every year and buckle down with something consistent if we ever want to start winning. We missed our chance previously when we had Toni. We missed another chance with Jax/Sura. I think this time, we must stick..

[BornandDieHawks]

If Atlanta is gun shy of making any deals for crazy players after the Rider trade failed, then Portland is the last team who will go after Artest. They have a big mess up there now and to bring in Artest would have to give them the edge on the worst move in the NBA this year.

[jezmund]

You're probably right. Just looking at options.