Man is this ever interesting news. The word out of Portland right now is that the Blazers are seriously considering trading Travis Outlaw to get their hands on Michael Conley. As I'm sure you probably remember, Conley and Oden played basketball together for years together in AAU, high school, and at Ohio State. And apparently, that's exactly why the Blazers want Conley, because they think he can motivate Oden like no one else can.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo Sports!:


While the trade could be done straight up, that would leave a glut of point guards on the Blazers and it wouldn't satisfy the Memphis Grizzlies' needs either. So a few more names are popping up as part of the deal. 


Trading Rodriguez would obviously open a spot for Conley, even though my guess would be that Rudy Fernandez wouldn't be too thrilled by that. But the trade also makes Jerryd Bayless more or less useless, even though some people believe he was one of the best point guards drafted in this past draft. Because frankly, this move begs the question of why would you trade for a young point guard with potential when you already have one sitting at the end of your bench? Well, it's obviously because of Conley's connection to Oden, but that move would make Bayless even more expendable. My guess would be that if this deal happens, Bayless may ultimately get moved too, unless the Blazers want to make the bold move of trying to develop both Conley and Bayless while forcing Steve Blake to sit - which I can't see happening.

The other question is can Warrick replace Outlaw? At least from a points perspective, the answer is yes. However, their games are fairly different, although that's because Warrick has been forced to play power forward in Memphis. In Portland, thanks to LaMarcus Aldridge, Warrick could move back to what would be his more natural position, small forward, which would also be vacant thanks to Outlaw leaving.

In total, this trade actually makes a fair amount of sense for both teams. Memphis gets a very good point guard in Sergio Rodriguez, who needs more minutes than what he's been getting in Portland, and they get a great player in Travis Outlaw. Either he or Rudy Gay would have to play power forward for the Grizzlies, but that's a solveable problem.

Meanwhile, the Blazers reunite Conley and Oden, who together may jump start each other, and they get a fairly decent replacement for Outlaw as well.

Personally, I think this move hurts the Blazers a bit at point guard at this point in time, as I think Rodriguez is a better player than Conley currently, but it's a gamble on the future, and not a bad gamble to make in reality.

This whole trade does admittedly raise some questions about Oden though. It's rare that you hear of a team trading for a guy specifically to help a player mentally on the current team. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard of that.

But I guess if Conley and Oden get to play together, and raise each others level of play, then the Blazers could care less about what anyone thinks. Either way, it'll be interesting to watch what happens if this deal goes through.