FanPost

Would you swap Rubio for...

Full disclosure: I'm a Portland fan. But I'm also a Rubio fan. Assuming your new GM decides that Rubio must indeed be moved, and realising that NY really has nothing you'd want, what would you think of the following offer:

Any three players from Portland out of:

Rudy Fernandez (SG)

Travis Outlaw (F)

Jerryd Bayless (G)

Nicolas Batum (SF)

I don't know how much you Wolves fans will have seen of these players, so I should tell you that Travis Outlaw is probably the most immediately useful to you but valued the least by Blazers fans. He is the second best player on the Blazers at getting his own shot (and unblockable, because of his ridiculous hoops), but kind of a black hole, and not a great BBall IQ. Batum, on the other hand, though his stats don't leap out at you, is almost the opposite, in that he's a very smart player and a great defender. We like him more than Ariza because he actually has more all-round skills. The common view is that he'll become Tayshaun Prince, whom he resembles physically (without the freckles). Bayless you'll know if you watched last year's Summer League, which he absolutely tore up. The reason he got little burn during the season, though, is that Blazer Brass keeps insisting that he's a PG, when he's clearly a SG, which is what he played in Summer League. Rudy, I'm sure you know.