Are The Blazers Looking To Get Younger Through Trades?

One of these guys might have to go...

Well it looks like the discussion of whether or not to start looking to get younger, has at least taken place.  Who knows how many times or to what degree those discussions have been, but the topic has come up.  According to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com explains:

"...two people with knowledge of the team's strategy told CBSSports.com that Portland management is contemplating trading older players and going young. The obvious targets for such a purge would be Marcus Camby (36), Andre Miller (34), and Joel Przybilla (31). Roy isn’t old, but his knees are -- though one of the sources said Portland would find no takers for the five years and $82.3 million remaining on Roy's contract, given the state of his meniscus-less knees. Przybilla ($7.4 million expiring contract) and Miller (whose $7.8 million salary in 2011-12 is fully non-guaranteed) are eminently moveable."

He also mentions Rudy Fernandez as a player that the Blazers would be willing to trade, but that still goes without saying, I think.  The fact that Andre Miller and Joel Przybilla may be put on the trading block at some point this season is no mystery.  Maybe the thing that raises more eyebrows is that we're only 20 games into the season and there's "serious" talk of the Blazers pulling the trigger and making some major moves.

I tweeted 5 days ago that I thought that the Blazers should start looking to make some major changes.  Now I'm not saying that this was a completely original thought.  But personally, I'm done with the wait-and-see mode that we've been told to be in, and I'm ready to get back into the top of the Western Conference.  And as a lifelong Blazer fan, I am not really picky as to how we get there.

John Canzano wrote in his recent column:

The time for patience and process has passed, and we're now at a place in which the organization needs a valiant gunslinger who can make the four or five moves necessary to clean up this mess. Because being stagnant now means being left behind, and this is an organization that needs to seize its future or risk being left out.


Remember when former general manager Bob Whitsitt traded Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter? People shrieked. But he followed that move by trading an aging Rod Strickland for Rasheed Wallace. And five seasons later, the Blazers found themselves playing in back-to-back Western Conference Finals.

Sure it's going to be hard to say goodbye to some of the current Blazers.  But the current mix just isn't working out.  I think that something has to be done, right?