Portland Trail Blazers GM, Kevin Pritchard, recently talked on Portland radio station 95.5 The Game about a range of Blazers-related topics (9MB download). In particular, discussion focused on the Draft, Summer League and how the roster will shape up for next season. With regard to the Summer League team, he had this to say:
“Jeff (Pendergraph) and Dante (Cunningham) will definitely be on the Summer League roster.
Patty (Mills) is a restricted free agent. We have his rights. I would like to see him play in the Summer League. Because we saw him in the minor leagues do some really good stuff. In the Olympics a couple of years ago he was the youngest player and led Australia in scoring so we know he can do some things and we’ve seen it in practice. So we want to give him the ball and let him play. (Jerryd) Bayless will not play. Not important. He’s got to develop and keep getting better but I’d rather see Patty in that role and see what he can do.”
It really does sound like Patty’s future is being weighed up by the Blazers at this point. They know that they have his rights and are willing to wait and see how he performs over the Summer before making a decision on whether he will be a Blazer in 2010-11 and beyond. Clearly they have a positive opinion of the speedy point guard, but no doubt the FIBA World Championships and Summer League will go a long way to reaching a more conclusive prognosis.
Fingers crossed that he is healthy and can show his wares, as Mills in full-flight and with another Summer of work under his belt should be enough to impress anyone.
Meanwhile, word is that Nicolas Batum will definitely play with France at the World Championships, after the Blazers confirmed that they would like to see him get out there and play — something that Nic has been passionate about.
[image: Yahoo/Getty]
