Subscribe Feed (RSS)There is no question the Trail Blazers would have loved to retain the rights to point guard Patty Mills, a second-round pick. But as a draft choice, the team was forced to tender him a contract offer.
I believe Portland thought Mills would pass on that offer, and head off overseas to play this season. Then the Blazers would have retained his rights. Problem for the Blazers, though, is that he doesn’t seem to want any part of that and forced the team’s hand.
He signed that contract and now the Blazers must keep Mills on the 15-man roster or cut him. I don’t think there’s any way the guy is going to make the final roster – one more point guard is not what this team needs. But he’s done something a lot of other players haven’t been able to do — he’s found a way to force the franchise into a personnel move.
I would expect the Blazers are looking for a team that might be willing to give up a second-round pick for him. But that’s not likely. I believe he’ll probably get released. The other long shot is that in the future, the team thinks he’s a better prospect than Jerryd Bayless, in which case this move might force Portland to part with Bayless. But I seriously doubt it.
Good luck, Patty. And you’ve probably really gotten under the skin of a front office that seriously doesn’t like parting with young talent. The shadow of Jermaine O’Neal is very long and dark even now with this franchise.
Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Patty Mills, Portland Trail Blazers
Actually, I’m relieved. I was concerned about the Blazers carrying a player on their roster named ‘Patty’.
Patty should be playing for the Phoenix Mercury
LOL!! The only thing worse is a boy named Nancy, as I’ve nees.
This guy must have supreme confidence in his game to sign that contract. He could have just as easily played in Europe for a year and came back next summer to show us what he has got. I have read that players drafted where he was have only a 4% chance of becoming a significant NBA player. If that is true those are some bad odds.
However, I can’t help but think back to international competition where Mills played Chris Paul very well. I think he had over 20+ on him and the rest of team USA.
Thus he is a true unknown. Do we keep him or do we keep a vet like Udoka or another big guy like Collins? Or does this force the Blazers to make a trade to make room for this prospect?
However you slice it, my bet is the Blazers were suprised that he signed
The last guy who forced the issue as a 2nd round pick was Jerome Kersey, and that worked out pretty well.
Personally, I think we should keep Mills instead of Pendergraph. Also, I would keep Collins over Udoka.
Didn’t Jerome Kersey beat out a former Oregon Duck named Greg Trapp, for the last roster spot, back in the 1980s?
Jerome Kersey came out of a small college, but the Blazers knew that he had a lot of drive. At times, he actually hit a lot of 17-foot jumpers. It’s amazing to think about that when you watch footage.
Dwight, I think you’re spot-on regarding the Jermaine O’Neal shadow. Thing is, he didn’t prove himself in the time he was a Blazer, so the front office at the time made the right decision to ship him out. But because he became a start player at Indiana, that fear lingers at One Center Court, effectively giving a longer-than-reasonable window of opportunity to guys like Bayless and Outlaw. At this point, Pritchard’s best hope of redemption is that Oden becomes something great.
You know the other shadow hovering over this team? One particular 4th-quarter meltdown, circa June 2000. What’ll it take to shed that cloud? Beating the Lakers (with Kobe healthy) in a playoff series. And I will savor that day when it comes.
David, reports say that O’Neal gave Rasheed and Brian Grant all they could handle on the practice court. He was very good, but Dunleavy didn’t want to play him and instead wanted a veteran.
Dave, I think you’ll be waiting a long time before you’ll be savoring a playoff win over the Lakers, nice regular season showings from the Blazers, but let’s face it, it’s going to be a long time before you’ll see the Lakers go down to the Blazers in a playoff series, and long after Kobe has gone!
An interesting situation, to be sure.
More power to Patty. Professional sports franchises are cold business. Good for him.
DavidGMac,
Sorry to say this, but you’re way off-base on Jermaine O’Neal. He didn’t prove himself, the front office made the right decision? Absolutely, unequivocally untrue.
The dude put up very solid per-minute stats while in Portland, even as a baby-faced kid out of high school. People who were paying attention knew he could play and knew he had the potential to be a star.
Also, if I remember correctly, Rasheed Wallace said that Jermaine was absolutely killing the veterans in practice every day even though he was hardly playing in the games.
I used to hate to watch Jermaine when he was with the Blazers. He was always too worried about looking cool on the court. He never hustled on or off the court when he was subbing or being subbed for. I remember his first game against Portland when Scottie and the rest shut him down. I was glad to see him go.
agreed.
I confess, that from 1998-2000, I used to laugh at Jermaine O’Neal and say, “Ha Ha!! DNP-CNP: Does not play, because he cannot play!!” I called him a “rookie bust, just like rookie bust Randolph Childress.” Let’s say that I’ve eaten a ton of crow on that one. Ironically, the day he was DRAFTED, I thought that the Blazers got a steal, with a potential Kevin Garnett or Shawn Kemp clone. Four straight seasons of 4 ppg made me write him off. Foolish.
He’s the 55th pick or something, hardly Jermaine territory. If the Blazers have another move planned, they should make it. Otherwise they should ship him or trade him or cut him. An injured 4th string rookie second round pick point guard is not going to help this team this year, and the team shouldn’t allow itself to be weaseled into giving him a spot.
I know that the 32nd pick is different from the 55th, 2009 different from 1998, and a PG different from a SF, all duly noted, I preface by saying. But, every now and then, you can get a Rashard Lewis gem in the second round. I’m not saying Mills is going to be Manu Ginobili, but wasn’t Manu a late second round pick? Sure, he can fail, but he could be a nice pickup like Clifford Robinson. We’ll see.
55th pick, but he was projected by many to go late in the first round. He was hurt heavily by his injury during the Gonzaga game (he became out of sight, out of mind), and was also hurt by the sheer number of point guards in the draft, a number of whom Patty proved he could dominate, yet were drafted higher than him.
Patty is a steal, and it’s a shame that more people don’t realize his quality, because it will come back to haunt us if he’s released.
Im with you John. Patty risked it by putting his name into the draft for this year with soo many point guards, I expected him to get a first round pick, and its disapointing he didnt.
I really hope portland dont get rid of him, I mean he is a great talent, and anyone who watched Australia V USA in the olympics would agree with me, he was quick, agile scored well.
People say “he’s a sg in a pg body” and they base that on his time at St Marys, but lets face it in collage he took it on himself to score, but come NBA with a tallent team like Portland I can see him taking a back seat and developing into a more natual pg
He may be great, John, I don’t know – but a lot of people were projected to go in the first round. You mention he was injured in college, but it just so happens he is injured now, too.
John, I’m not challenging you regarding his ability as a player, I’m just discussing the *situation* with you.
I disagree. I think when he signed the contract, he sealed the fate of Udoka and Collins. They are obviously high on him. If they weren’t they wouldn’t have tendered him the contract offer. Now that he has signed it, I think he has made this an easy decision on Nate.
I had a classmate named Jason Collins, who was a choir boy, literally. He was a good singer. I think about him, when I hear the name Jason Collins. I know that we have JARON Collins, but you can argue that he did almost as much as Jason.
If Miller or Blake get seriously injured in the next few days, Mills could be retained as insurance for later on in the season. That aside, he and Udoka will be cut and Collins will be retained so that Oden and Pryz can pound on someone in practice besides each other all season long.
Of course, if the Blazers already have a trade up their sleeves, all bets are off on the 15th spot.
Dwight’s right about this franchise being paralyzed with fear in letting their young guys go for fear they will hand someone another Jermaine O’Neal.
To be fair though, aside from two or three great years in Indiana, O’Neal really hasn’t been an elite level player in the NBA. The last few years that should have been his prime, he’s barely been average.
and he’s an idiot.
(couldn’t help myself)
I think Patty would be a better bet than Bayless.
As far as Jermaine O is concerned, the thing to remember is we were in a championship “win now” window at the time. Granted, Dale Davis was a bust for us, but at the time of the trade, Davis was an all-star and Jermaine O was a 22 year old bench player.
If the Blazers keep Mills, it is Steve Blake that is the most likely to eventually be moved.
You know, I just don’t see KP moving him. Steve has been moved before by the blazers, granted back in the Steve Patterson days. But he has been moved, and you have to wonder if there were some kind of assurances made to Steve from KP back when he signed the last contract.
I’m a much newer Portland resident than most of you guys, so I don’t know the ins-and-outs of the Jermaine deal, but I got a pretty good history lesson from the comments.
I think when all is said-and-done, Patty will be a legit starting PG for another NBA team within two years. The Olympics proved he was not a flash in the pan. He torched plenty of respectable college PGs during his two years at St. Mary’s (I watched a couple of those games in person) and one that was drafted #7 overall in this year’s NIT.
He may be fragile but I think the Blazers would be wiser to trade Bayless, or even Travis, for a pick.
Let’s not get carried away by judging players based on their performances in international tournaments. FIBA and NBA basketball are totally different games. Remember that players like Spanoulis of Greece ABSOLUTELY TORCHED the American players in these games (WC’s in 2006). When Spanoulis came over to the NBA the following season, it was pretty apparent that the guy was nowhere near good enough to play in the NBA.
I don’t doubt that Mills will eventually find a spot on an NBA roster, but international performances aren’t a great gauge of NBA readiness.
Marco,
Agreed that you can’t judge a guy based on one Olympic performance. My point was that he’d also beaten enough top college players (including the Ducks backcourt in his coming-out party!) that the Olympics served as validation.
That’s like saying that you can’t judge players on their NCAA performances, because they’re totally different games?! After all plenty of college players have torn it up in college then have been complete busts in the NBA. That’s the type of logic you are using.
Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja, Arvydas Sabonis, Yao Ming, Andrew Bogut all showed their skills in the Olympics. Add Patty Mills to that list because if you saw him outplay Chris Paul in their matchup, you saw a future NBA star in the making. I hope you come back to your post in a few years Marco, because you’ll be eating your words.
Dude get a grip, Mills is no star in the making. Which doesn’t mean he won’t pan out into a rotation player in the NBA — my point was that international performances aren’t the best gauge of NBA potential.
And you’re right that the NCAA isn’t an ideal gauge either. Dominating college doesn’t mean much if your game doesn’t translate. That’s EXACTLY why you see all those busts, which just proves my point about not getting carried away by a few good int’l games or a few good seasons playing in a second rate NCAA conference. Guys like Kukoc, Sabonis, Radja, etc were all brought over because their games translated, not because they played great at the Olympics.
Because if that were the case, Dejan Bodiroga would have been an NBA all-star by now. The man dominated Euro ball and killed the US in international play. But if you’d put him on an NBA roster, dude would have never got off the bench.
Again — I’m not saying Mills won’t pan out. I think he could make an NBA roster. But he first needs to play against NBA competition in an NBA environment before we start proclaiming him a stud.
You also forget that Pat was JUST 19 years old when he took it at Paul at the Olympics.
Pretty damn good!
I say keep Mills for the 15th spot. Why? Because both Udoka and Collins are known quantities that are on the downhill side of their careers, and neither will likely see any significant playing time for us at all. I’ll take the future potential over that, thank you.
Are you going to play Udoka over any of Roy, Rudy, Batum, Bayless, Webster, or Outlaw? I don’t think so, which means that unless THREE of those guys are out hurt simultaneously, no meaningful minutes will go to Udoka.
Similarly, if either Greg or Joel is out hurt, we will fill the backup center minutes with a combination of Howard and Aldridge. BOTH Joel and Greg would have to be out hurt at the same time before Collins ever sniffs the court – and even then he will be getting 10-15 minutes per game at best. And after January, Pendergraph would be available to fill that ultra-emergency backup to the backup to the backup at the 5.
If either of these severe injury situation besets us enough to mean Udoka or Collins has to play any meaningful minutes for more than a game or two, the Blazers have much bigger problems this year.
For me, I’d be willing to gamble on the upside of Mills in 2010-11 and beyond over carrying either Udoka or Collins as a disaster-insurance policy this year.
I don’t see what down side there is to Mills here and why he needs supreme confidence.
Scenario 1: He signs a guaranteed contract and gets cut and goes and plays in Europe except now he gets his European pay check and the guaranteed contract. Plus he now gets to pick what team he plays for and can earn more than the rookie salary coming back to the NBA.
Scenario 2: He gets cut and signs on with another squad needing PG cover making his contract plus the guaranteed contract.
Scenario 3: Portland keeps him, or trades him, and he gets to play in the NBA.
He is actually worse off (financially) the more confidence he has. This is a no brainer from his perspective so long as he is happy with sitting on the bench for the rookie salary and training with an NBA team.
I think he has a lot of upside and had they not signed Andre, I think he would have had a better chance of making the team, rather than being redundant, which he is now.
Let me tell you about what I did with my ex-girlfriend. We were at a Blazers game, against the Houston Rockets. Scottie Pippen took a charge from Charles Barkley. Everybody knew how painful that was. After everybody stopped oohing, aahing, laughing, and gasping, I turned to my girlfriend and said, “Honey, being crashed into by you, is like being crashed into by Charles Barkley.” She shoved her ice cream cone on my forehead, and everybody was laughing at me as I went to the restroom to wash it off. We were watching an NBA game on TV later, and when I saw Barkley, I asked her, “Honey, what’s the difference between taking a charge from a freight train, a steam roller, a Mack Truck, an 18-wheeler, a middle linebacker, Charles Barkley, or you?” She didn’t answer, but I could see her getting upset. I said, “Honey, the answer is…NONE!!” She dumped a bowl of potato chips over my head.