Bill Simmons And ESPN's Trade Machine: The Steve Nash Trade Speculation

My favorite website right now is Grantland.  I cannot get enough of it, and if there is an article posted on it that I remotely think I'll be interested in, I will read it.  It may be just a phase, but I really like what they have going on down there in LA.

I'm not sure, but I think that Bill Simmons may have been one of the first people I heard talk about Portland trading for Steve Nash.  And that was a couple of years ago now.  He's definitely been driving the bandwagon of the idea.  But now that Steve Nash is in the last year of his contract (a contract that is not extension-eligible), I don't think the trade rumors involving Portland and Nash are not going to quiet down any time soon.  Not with ESPN's Hollinger, Marc Stein and Simmons already bantering about it.

This morning, as Bill Simmons loves to do, he played around with the ESPN trade machine and nearly blew my mind with one of the fake trades he came up with.

Is It Time To Trade Nicolas Batum?

"I wanna play for YOU, Charlotte Bobcats."

Before we get started, a little background for you all.  If you were to go out with me to a local sports bar and sit with me while watching one of my favorite teams play, you would probably see glimpses of two distinct versions of my 'fanhood'. 

On the one hand, you would see the logical side of my fanhood, based in reason and in touch with the reality of the sports world.  This is the part of my fanhood that I call the "GM side", if you will.  On the other hand, you would see the 10 year old version of me that is not-so-based in logic and reason, and can be a bit of a poor sport too.  Because I can't think of anything better to call it, I call this side the "10 year old side".

When I was 9 years old, I cried (I'm not sure how much) after watching Magic Johnson and company come to town and beat the Blazers in game one of the 1991 Western Conference Finals.  With a simple steal and rolling of the ball down the court, Magic and the Lakers beat the Blazers and seemingly stunned "my team" so badly that they lost the series four games to two.  It crushed me.  Portland was supposed to win, in my mind.

Gerald Wallace or Nicolas Batum? Blazers Probably Can't Keep Both

Isn't It a Thing Of Beauty?

The current NBA season for your Portland Trailblazers has been quite the pleasant surprise.  I thought that losing Brandon Roy was going to hurt the team more than it has so far.  And although I think I gave up on the idea of Greg Oden ever suiting up for the Blazers again after last season's setback, it still really sucks that we're not going to be seeing him on the court yet again this year.

But the Blazers also made some moves this offseason that seem to be working out pretty well so far this season. To me, trading Andre Miller for Raymond Felton was more or less a lateral move (except that Miller was not getting any younger).  Adding Kurt Thomas as that veteran backup role player that every team needs was very smart and a couple years overdue.  And coaxing Jamal Crawford to sign here with Portland instead of Sacramento (Really, Jamal?  Sacramento was one of your final two choices??) may not have made a splash across the league, but was practically a steal at 2 years and $10 million (although he will probably opt out after this season, and the Blazers will only have to pay him $5 million for the one year).