In response to emails from friends stating the Blazers should swing for the fences in free agency or trade:

I’m completely on the other side of the fence. With the way this team has evolved and the player Brandon Roy has become, I’m up for giving Bayless another year to step into that co-PG/SG role, let him spell Blake or Roy, and allow him and Rudy to go nuts with the second squad.

This team doesn’t need more offense. Remember, if Martell comes back at close to 100%, these are the offensive guys we can throw at teams: Roy, Bayless, Fernandez, Martell, Outlaw, Aldridge, and Blake gets mentioned here because of his 3 point shooting. We have a murderer’s row in the backcourt/SF areas.

We need to get a little tougher defensively. Maybe this draft addressed that, maybe not, maybe we’ll address it through trade/free agency. We just need higher defensive intensity. Turkoglou will be overpaid and isn’t a good defender, and his younger and more athletic clone Linas Kleiza can be had for much less. Miller is a slightly sub-par defender who will likely get paid too much. Nash and Kidd are defensive liabilities. And we’re not getting Chris Paul, it just ain’t gonna happen.

Batum will take the next step defensively, maybe offensively. That gives us a first or second unit defensive presence at the 3. Aldridge needs to get better defensively this year. If he can improve a little bit and learn how to best help Pryz/Oden, we’ve got interior defense like mad.

The player I most want to add from a cost/benefit analysis? Can play the wing, throws himself around like crazy on defense, gets a ton of steals for the minutes played, and is young enough to continue to grow with this team? Decent character, good size, good athleticism, good court IQ?

Trevor Ariza.

And if we could pry him away from the Lakers and drive a dagger in their hearts, so much the better.