UPDATE: I am hearing that Toronto has rejected that proposed deal for Rudy. Man, is it possible his value plunged that far?

You just have to think that by the time the smoke clears today, Rudy Fernandez will be but a memory to the Portland Trail Blazers. Too bad — a lot of potential that was never realized.

The big question around the league, though, is who do the Trail Blazers want in the draft? It’s obvious they’re trying hard to move up in the draft — but to get who? They don’t just move up to move up. They always have a target, we know that.

It’s also Kevin Pritchard’s last stand, most likely. And I’d expect him to go out in a blaze of glory. No, not to try to save his job here — but to audition for his next job. That’s what’s going on here.

So it should be one busy day. And for me, one of the most fun. We’ve got some great new rumors on the future Blazer general manager today on the MSP, on 95.5 The Game from 6-9 a.m. and on Talkin’ Ball tonight on Comcast Sportsnet from 7-8 o’clock. You’ll want to pay attention.

Happy Draft Day everyone. And set up your RSS, pay attention to twitter, whatever you do because when we hear something fresh, we’ll post it.

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This whole saga is pretty amazing.

Larry Miller comes out with some form of support for Pritchard while a search firm is looking for his replacement and nobody in the NBA or Rose Quarter that I can find believes there’s a chance he will return next season. Meanwhile, he’s preparing to run this team’s draft day?

Really, Paul Allen? It’s getting about time, I’m afraid, to go ahead and pull the trigger on this whole thing. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t let make full plans for letting the guy go and at the same time get 100 percent out of him on draft day. I just don’t think people are made that way.

You think Pritchard doesn’t know he’s history? You think his agent isn’t already working to find him his next job? You think he’s also not already trying to figure out which of his staff he’ll take with him?

Now you can try to hold him here, try to sign his aides to contracts — whatever — but the fact is, there is something kind of slimy about this whole thing.

I mean, if you have good reasons for firing Pritchard, hey — it’s your toy. Do what you have to do — I’ve never had a problem with that. You’ve lost a lot of money at this. I think you want to win. But it’s time to move on this. I don’t think it’s really workable to think you’re going to be able to pull this off.

You want to operate without Pritchard? You better do it. Starting now. Find someone to oversee the draft room and take charge of things yourself. You can do it. To keep Pritchard here any longer is bad karma — for both sides. It’s just not the right thing to do, in my opinion.

Time to move on. Pay the man his money and send him on his way — and let him take who he wants to take. You want a new front office? Go get one. There are qualified people out there, even if you might have to wait a couple of months to convince them to come here.

The draft? Seriously, what are you planning to do with that, anyway? Add yet another untried and unproven youngster to a team screaming for veterans? Package up a bunch of reserves with your pick and get a solid veteran? You can do that without Pritchard.

And if you can’t do it without him, you’re sort of getting what you deserve, I guess. It’s time to move forward and be honest with your fans, your staff and everyone else. There is something very distasteful about this whole mess.

And it will continue to get worse until the inevitable resolution.

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It seems like a constant battle between very talented teams with a lot of freshmen (the one-and-dones) and the not-so-talented teams with veteran players.

Any player these days with NBA-lottery talent, will escape as soon as the rules allow to the pros. The guys who aren’t going high in the draft, or even in the first round, stick around hoping to improve their stock. And it leads to experienced teams that play well together to often knocking off those talented younger teams.

It has also led to some teams with fewer NBA-caliber players getting into the Elite Eight than I’ve seen in a long time. Is that a good thing?

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And if anyone ever tells you there was a lot of sentiment in Portland to take anybody in that 2007 draft but Greg Oden, well, show them this. It was an incredible sight.

No wonder this year’s draft didn’t seem all that exciting.

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That’s the next meaningful date for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Yes, they can speak to free agents on July 1, but they can’t sign any. And until July 8 they can’t do an unbalanced trade — a deal that allows them to spend cap space rather than players to balance out salaries. They will find out the cap number sometime on July 7 and be able to move at midnight. This same situation seems to be affecting all the various Amare Stoudemire trade scenarios.

Everyone is talking about free agency for the Blazers but Kevin Pritchard admitted Thursday night that it’s just as likely the cap room the Blazers have — still uncertain because the cap figure could drop from last season — could be used in a trade as be used in a free-agent signing.

Pritchard also said the team already has a list of players in mind it will target and will not necessarily limit itself to signing or obtaining just one player. There’s no doubt that point guards are high on the list.

All in all, a pretty dull night for Blazer fans, who obviously are accustomed to a lot more drama. But whatever. We’re going to have to wait a couple more weeks for that.

One small farewell: I’m going to miss Sergio Rodriguez. He was a real fun player to watch operate when he had the freedom to wheel and deal. I hope he has a great career in Sacramento.

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The NBA ought to change its free agency date so that it could have a major extravaganza on draft night. It would be cool to have open season on free agents the same day as the draft — it would lead to a real three-ring circus of activity and a lot more publicity for the league.

Plus, teams could wheel and deal draft picks more using cap space, if it is available. A lot of times, the free agent stuff doesn’t get the publicity in July it should get — but having it part of a big night like this would help a lot. Plus, it would help the thing from becoming a four-hour snoozefest, which it was last night.

Everyone is confounded by Minnesota taking the two point guards. But I’m sure Jonny Flynn was the guy the Wolves wanted and Rubio falling in their laps was too much to resist.

I would assume that they’d like to hold Rubio up for auction to the highest bidder. He’s certainly the most marketable player in the entire draft and maybe the only legitimate ticket seller of the bunch. The guy’s magnetic, on and off the court.

But I’d be concerned that Rubio is magnetic enough that the Twin Cities are already geeked up about seeing him and it’s already resulting in the phones ringing to buy tickets. You better trade him quickly before everyone is too in love with him.

This draft was a real sleeper. For all the blockbuster trades made prior to it, the draft itself provided very little drama. I did like David Kahn’s interview with Stu Scott, though. Funny stuff — and yes, he used to play all the time in those noon games at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center. I know because they used to happen right after the Trail Blazers’ morning practices there. He wasn’t much of a point guard, though — at least according to the guys who played with and against him.

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Feel free to post your dream for today as a Blazer fan — just try to keep it somewhat realistic. I don’t really want to hear about any LeBron James-for-Steve Blake trades.

My wish:

No more hotshot rookies.  Draft one and trade him — that would be great.  But if this team is really going to compete next season, it won’t be with a rookie in the regular rotation, will it? Besides, I’m kind of tired of the whole developmental thing.

Didn’t Paul Allen say “Go for it”?

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I will be at the Blazer practice facility today with the rest of the media, but I’ll also be taking part in some way in the Comcast-95.5 The Game coverage of the draft.

I’ll be jumping in once in a while with Brian Wheeler live from the PF, with updates, speculation or just goofing around. If you want the local, Trail Blazer spin on the draft, I’d advise you go tune to 95.5 in your cars or Comcast Sportsnet on your TVs for complete coverage from start to (well past) the finish.

If something big happens, I’ll get a blog post up, too, and will try to get a few Tweets up on the Twitter page just to stay in touch.

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Perhaps this is true, that the Chicago Bulls point guard is telling friends he believes he’s being traded to the Trail Blazers. But all I can tell you is that Portland could have had him back at the trading deadline — and very cheap, too. The Bulls were ready to practically give him away at that point of the season.

Maybe the Blazers were convinced by the solid playoff series Hinrich had against the Boston Celtics. Or perhaps Kevin Pritchard — who has always liked Hinrich — finally won his argument with someone else in the organization who has been adamantly against the move.

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I hate to keep pounding away at this, but the Shaq trade on the heels of the Richard Jefferson deal reflects the reality in the NBA: There are plenty of very good players available out there if you’re merely willing to pay their salaries.

There are teams trying to win and then there are teams trying just to stay afloat. There are teams trying to win championships and teams just trying to “clear cap space” — which in the case of many of those teams, means just saving money.

There has never been a better time to pluck a great player off someone’s roster just because you’re willing to pay his salary. I’m saying this because I’m assuming the Trail Blazers have that willingness.

It may not show up in today’s draft because the Blazers’ cap situation won’t be clear until about a week into July. But at some point in the next few weeks, they should be able to pluck a very nice player off some poor team’s roster — possibly even the final piece of a championship puzzle.

As Blazer fans, I believe you have a right to expect a very good player.

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