Travis Outlaw Seeks Intergalactic Compensation
by Ben. on Aug 18, 2009 10:13 PM PDT in News 444 comments
Shortly after midnight eastern tonight, Travis Outlaw let the twitterverse
in on his inner-most feelings.
Here's the link.
Outlaw's grandiose tweet recalls one of Jason Quick's Greatest Hits, which,
amazingly, was written nearly a full year ago. In that piece, Outlaw talked
honestly about his desires to start and get more shots. He was ready for his
career to take a step up. The honesty was refreshing then and it's
refreshing, although a little bit foreboding, now.
As we know, the 2008-2009 season didn't exactly play out like Outlaw
expected. Rather than starting, Outlaw settled into a productive bench role,
establishing himself as a reliable late-game scorer with an array of stunt
jumpers that should only be attempted by trained professionals.
Entering camp this season in the last year of his contract, Outlaw figures to
continue filling that scoring-off-the-bench role, a role that is now less
valuable with the additions of a healthy Martell Webster, free agent Andre
Miller and Outlaw-clone rookie Dante Cunningham.
It's difficult to see, in the ultra-competitive environment that is the
Blazers' rotation, exactly how Outlaw will find a yellow brick road to
gettin' paid. Indeed, as we discussed this past weekend, he seems to be a
likely candidate to see less, not more, minutes this season. I wouldn't be
surprised at all if he saw less shots as well. For Outlaw, Minutes + Shots =
Dollars. This equation is heading the wrong direction for Trout. You might
say he's swimming upstream (my bad, indulge me).
Earlier this summer, Greg Oden made a similar "Contract Year" declaration,
which was particularly grating and ill-advised given his performance relative
to expectations up to this point and the absolute certainty that the Blazers
will pick up his team option for 2010-2011 even if he were to play 0 games
this season.
But with Travis's tweet, and the stark(ville) honesty that goes with it,
we're looking at a totally different dynamic: this is less about Oden's
faux-bravado and faux-self motivation and more about a player looking to make
the most of a career at the crossroads. Because if Outlaw is, in fact,
looking for big money next summer, Portland is not a likely final
destination.
But here is the relatively frightening question that Team Outlaw should be
asking: will there even be any big offers next summer? What, truly, will be
the market for Travis Outlaw? He will be entering the market along with a
loaded free agent class, sporting a resume that boasts extremely limited
starting experience and some noticeable holes in his game. And it's not like
his former Blazers benchmates who hit the free agent and trade markets this
summer -- Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye, Ike Diogu , Shavlik Randolph, etc.
-- set the world on fire.
Without question, Outlaw is a significantly better player than all of those
guys mentioned above. But GMs next summer will likely find themselves asking
the same questions of Outlaw that they asked about this year's ex-Blazers.
"How much has he benefitted from playing next to a solid core of talented
players?" "Will his succcess translate to our system?" "Can he develop
outside the defined role that he's played up to this point?"
Those have proven to be very difficult questions for Sergio, Channing, Ike
and Shav to answer. And they are tough questions for Outlaw too. As of this
writing, it's unclear to me who, exactly, will be lining up to fill Outlaw's
bathtub with 100 dollar bills.
Given both the grim economic situation and his equally grim playing time
situation, it's probably best that Outlaw keeps his hopes grounded on this
planet for now. Or, he could always request a trade. If Mars Money turns out
to be his number one priority, and I wouldn't blame him for that at all,
getting traded as soon as possible would seem to be his best bet.
-- Ben (benjamin.golliver@gmail.com)
http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/8/18/994478/travis-outlaw-seeks-intergalactic
上場時間會變少
但是他要射更多球有更多上場時間 才能賺下一張好看的約
嗯...人手過多的後遺症 快要一一暴露出來了
當然啦 我們的教練也有可能在 加入Jeff跟Cunningham跟A.米之下
依然給他滿滿的愛 讓他射爽爽賺新合約
沒有討厭或否定任何人 但這很現實
想要的時間與錢有限 而求之者無限
考驗才要開始
Nate加油！！KP加油！！ 拓仔加油！！
--
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