Franchise record in sight: Wolves at Blazers
Posted on November 21st, 2009 – 10:53 PMBy Jerry Zgoda
The Wolves are in the second quarter tonight — trailing by as many as 11 early, of course — at Portland, trying to avoid their 12th consecutive loss after their season-opening victory over still winless New Jersey.
Two more losses — tonight and Monday at the L.A. Clippers — will tie the Wolves for the franchise’s worst start, 1-13 in the 1994-95 season.
Entering tonight, the Wolves’ last seven losses all have been by 10 or more points, including that 41-point fiasco at Golden State 12 days ago.
The Wolves again started Ryan Hollins next to Al Jefferson and again asked him to use his length against LaMarcus Aldridge, who has proven an extremely problematic matchup for the Wolves until Hollins came along.
The last time here (13 days ago, to be precise), Hollins helped limit Aldridge to 11 points and 4 rebounds (he did get 19 and 11 in the rematch four days later).
Tonight, Aldridge has two points midway through the second quarter.
Kevin Love again is watching from behind the Wolves’ bench here in his hometown.
Also not playing is injured Portland forward Travis Outlaw, out the next three to five months while he recovers from surgery to repair a broken foot.
Outlaw, 25, will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
I know we’ve mentioned guys like Joe Johnson (a hard get) and Rudy Gay (an expensive get) as candidates when the Wolves try to spend all that saved cap money, but the more I think about it, the more a guy like Outlaw could be a target they actually could get.
He’s long, athletic and young.
Your thoughts?
11 Responses to "Franchise record in sight: Wolves at Blazers"
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I like Outlaw but I would want to see him come back healthy before a big contract and it sounds like he is done for the year.
On the game tonight, Al got destroyed by Oden in the first half.
They don’t need Outlaw if Webster keeps hitting like this, and that was a great play by Flynn, he is showing some toughness
Jefferson has looked great the last two games. Real encouraging. I like that he’s pulling the socks up halfway — he looks like the Big Dog out there. Al needs to play PF, and they need to get some help so he does not have to cover guys like Oden.
If Pryzbilla could play the Wolves every night I would pick him up in my fantasy league
I’m ready for a trade already, this is just getting boring, Al shoots 20+ times scores 20 and gets 10 rebs, no one else really plays that well, pg play is iffy and for a team that wants to run they ran a lot of half court sets and it didn’t even look like they were trying to run.
Bench little Flynn for Sessions already. Jonny should be playing in a league for 6′5″ and under.
Outlaw would be sick for the wolves, he is a machine, Webster would be just as good for us. What about packaging Sessions and Gomes and whoever else is needed for Webster and Bayless or Webster and Patty Mills (i know he’s not healthy yet)
I really like Bayless, I’m not sure they would give him up for Sessions and Gomes if they have to give up Webster or Outlaw. If we could get Bayless I would trade Sessions for him and Webster.
There’s no reason to give up assets for a guy who isn’t going to play the rest of the season, and with Outlaw and Batum out, the Blazers won’t be trading Webster or Fernandez now either.
If we want Outlaw, we should sign him in the offseason…provided he’s healthy…but if we do sign him, that probably means we didn’t land a top free agent…Outlaw’s not much of a consolation prize in comparison.
If we want to start winning a few here and there, we will have to make a trade at some point though. The problems that keep costing us games are problems no one on the current roster can solve for us.
But the chances of a major trade happening before Love is healthy is almost zero. I’m betting Kahn will wait as close to the deadline as he can to see what bargain deals come up.
Jerry, I love Outlaws game, but don’t see any trade possibilities this year. We don’t have anything Portland wants and getting Outlaw means either Gomes or Love have to go to free up minutes.
Kahn will ride out the next month before making any changes so he can show off AJ and Love to increase their trade value. I’d rather pick up Outlaw as a Free agent next summer and use the draft to get the SG or Center position taken care of.
I need to read more carefully, You were suggesting Outlaw as a free agent pickup… Good idea!
