The Vig

Imagine for a moment you’re Blazer GM Kevin Pritchard.  The phone rings.  It’s Spurs GM RC Buford and has he got a deal for you.  He’ll send you the retiring Tim Duncan (remember…we’re imagining) in exchange for Batum, Fernandez, and Bayless.  AND, because he’s in such a good mood, Buford will even swap first round picks with you, giving the Blazers a chance to get into the next draft’s lottery.

The downside of this scenario is you’re only renting Duncan for a half a season and you’re giving up a couple of “future” prospects to get the deal done.  On the plus-side, you’re getting a future hall-of-famer who can still play and who might be able to lead this team to a championship this season.  If you’re Kevin Pritchard, what do you do?

I know what the real Kevin Pritchard would do.  He’d crap his pants.  And then say no.  He loves his guys and he (along with his owner) doesn’t want to make another mistake along the lines of the Jermaine O’Neal deal.  So he stands pat.

Winterhawks (one word) GM Mike Johnston has a lot of the same problems Pritchard has.  He’s got some serious young talent that a lot of folks would no doubt like to have.  After years of neglect under previous ownership, the Hawks are revitalized and once again a force in the Western Hockey League.  It seems strange to say it, but I think it’s true.  The Hawks are on the move.  And they’ll only be better next season.

So after declaring last week that he’d likely stand-pat at this weekends trade deadline, Johnston went out and made a move that even got Dylan B. excited.   The Winterhawks traded 17-year-old defenseman Daniel Johnston, 18-year-old forward Jacob Berglund and their first round pick in the 2010 Import Draft to Lethbridge for 19-year-old defenseman Luca Sbisa, Lethbridge’s first round pick in the 2010 CHL Import Draft and a fifth round pick in the 2011 WHL Bantam Draft.  Ummm….wow.

Why wow?  Try this on for size.  In the WHL, youth is king.  A team’s roster is made-up of mainly 17-to-19-year-olds, with a few 16s thrown in.  A team may have no more than three 20-year-olds.  So in general, you don’t give up younger players for older ones, unless you’re making a playoff run.  So there’s that.

What makes this even more daring is the fact that Sbisa will only be available to play in six regular season games for the Hawks.  That’s it.  Why?  Because he’s on the Swiss Olympic team and he’ll be playing with them in Vancouver next month.  There’s a chance he could be back as a 20 next season, but given the fact hes a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, he’ll likely be playing there next season and not here.

So the Hawks get six games and the playoffs in exchange for some of its youth.  Ballsy.  This is the sort of stuff we were promised under the previous regime but never came to pass.  It’s also the sort of move we keep waiting for Pritchard to make, but he hasn’t yet.

I’ve been away from the Hawks for far too long this season.  As you’ve read, I’ve had some other stuff going on.  This ends when they return home on the 20th.  You might want to wander down to the Rose Quarter and check them out yourself.  I’m telling you.  Something big is coming.