Blazers Re-sign Outlaw To Three Year Deal
July 19, 2007 by Angelo Fernandez
Filed under NBA Basketball
After a lot of moves to change the face of the franchise under Kevin Pritchard, forward Travis Outlaw is one of the only guys left from the reign of former GM John Nash – the guy who many thought (including myself) didn’t know what the fig he was doing. Outlaw became a restricted free agent and was re-signed by the Blazers to a three year deal.
Outlaw showed a lot of potential and has slowly improved over the years. In other words it’s the typical story of high school players not named Lebron James or Amare Stoudamire – good but will take time to make an impact. Last season in particular was his best year yet averaging 9.6 points and 3.2 rebounds in 22.9 minutes.
The coming season could prove to be even bigger for Outlaw since the small forward position is one of the team’s weakest spots in my opinion. With that in mind I think Outlaw will play major minutes for the team and assuming his production per minutes played is at least the same he should have a really big year!
If Outlaw will end up as a starter for the Blazers this coming season he definitely will have to dig deeper into himself and up his production even more. His per minute production last year was pretty good for a role player but as an athletic wing player starting for a Western Conference team he will have to try a bit harder.
