Hedo Turkoglu and the Portland Trailblazers continued their free agent courtship on Thursday, this time with Hedo making a trip to the Rose City to meet with team officials. While nothing is set in stone, it appears that a deal is all but done. The question is whether or not the Magic will get something out of the deal. Portland is expected to be anywhere from 7-9 million under the salary cap, meaning that they can sign Turkoglu to a contract for that amount and give nothing in return to Orlando. But if another team, say Toronto, offers Turkoglu more money, the only way the Blazers can match is through a sign-and-trade with the the Magic. Portland has two players, Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw, who are in the final year of their contract and could help the Magic almost immediately. I have many more thoughts on why it's a terrible decision for the Blazers to sign Turkoglu, but I'll go into those later if/when the deal goes down. In the meantime, here's what Hedo had to say when he arrived at the Portland Airport, courtesy of
The Oregonian's Web site, OregonLive.com.
