By the way, at some point, I need the $33.4 million Wesley Matthews contract explained to me. Yeah, this was an especially dense summer for front offices: Channing Frye, Darko Milicic, Amir Johnson, Brendan Haywood, Al Harrington, Drew Gooden, Hakim Warrick and Travis Outlaw signed for a combined $248 million even as the owners were crying for a hard salary cap and reduced payrolls. (Savvy, fellas. Way to hold the fort.) But in every case, I got it. Either the team wanted to spend enough to get to the cap minimum; it severely overrated a non-impact player; it panicked; it screwed up; it was delusional; or, in David Kahn's case with Darko, all of the above. But Portland paid Matthews (at least) twice what he was worth to back up Brandon Roy.
Huh???
Why not trade Fernandez first? Why do it at all? What am I missing? And how fast did Matthews' agent say, "WE AGREE TO YOUR OFFER!" Two seconds? One second? Half a second? I'm so confused. Even if you did it just to collect an asset for trading down the road -- like what Houston did with Trevor Ariza last season -- how will Matthews keep his value with a bad contract if he's playing 10 minutes a game? Please explain this to me. Someone. Anyone. Actually, add him to the list of reasons Portland is No. 18: I need to see Wesley Matthews in person again. Maybe I missed the magic the first time around.
