Who on the Blazers Roster is Irreplaceable?

By this point, every Blazer fan has realized that this summer is going to be a summer full of change for this organization. Players will change and move on to other teams, there will be coaching changes and front office changes. Opening night of the 2012-2013 season will be a whole new cast of characters from the team we have seen on the court all year.

My big question right now is who is irreplaceable? And my gut feeling is that my answer to that question will not make many people happy.

One of the big questions for this off-season is if the team is going to be able to resign restricted free-agent Nicolas Batum. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of Batum. I am a fan of him as a person. I am a fan of his upside. I am a fan of his youth. But is he worth $9-$11 million a year? Plain and simple, no.

If you look at the upcoming draft, the majority of the talented prospects are shooting guards and small forwards. Not a ton of talented big guys or points. This team should be able to utilize their draft picks to pick up a talented small forward that will be ready to step in as a rookie. This year Clay Thompson, Kenneth Faried and Kawhi Leonard showed that rookies can make huge impacts at the wing.

I’m not saying that the Blazers should forget about Batum but I am saying they have a history of overpaying players. Unfortunately they also have a history of letting players go before their primes, i.e. Jermaine O’Neal and Zach Randolph. So there may be no winning for the Blazers in the eyes of the fans when it comes to the Batum decision.

The Batum signing is far from the only decision this team has to make this summer, but it will be one of the most publicized. Some other player moves to keep an eye on are the J.J. Hickson resigning and the Jamal Crawford player option.

Hickson has proved to be more than adequate at the backup power forward. Some would say he has even made a case to fit in somewhere as a starter. He has been quoted saying he would love to come back to Portland next year and compliment the game of LaMarcus Aldridge. But what will the price be to retain him?

Crawford has had an off year. No question about that. But he is a guy that can create his own shot and can make a shot in big moments. Being a Northwest guy, you would think he would love to opt-in and be a Blazer for a second year, but at times this year he has seemed more disinterested than anyone else on the court. If he feels he can get more money in free agency, he will opt out and the Blazers shouldn’t put up a huge fight to retain him.

Whichever way this off-season goes, it will be an interesting one. The team is going to go through a complete transformation as they build for the future. The youth movement the last couple weeks has looked good and shown some potential from guys we didn’t know had it in them. The team says they want a GM before June 1^st, and that is when the summer will start getting exciting as a Blazer fan.

-Garrett Thornton (@GTPort74)