The Portland Trailblazers acquire Marcus Camby from the Clippers
The Trailblazers have acquired 35-year old PF/C Marcus Camby from the Clippers for 29-year old point guard Steve Blake, 25-year old small forward Travis Outlaw and $3 million dollars cash. Camby will immediately bump Juwan Howard back to the bench and he will help out the defense and rebounding of the Blazers. Camby played in 51 games (all starts) for the Clippers this year and he averaged 31.3 minutes, 7.7 points, 12.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.9 blocked shots per game. Camby has now played in 808 games (655 starts) in his NBA career and he has averaged 30.7 minutes, 10.5 points, 10.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.0 steal and 2.6 blocked shots per game.
Steve Blake played in 51 games (28 starts) for the Blazers this season and he was averaging 27.4 minutes, 7.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. Rudy Fernandez and Jerryd Bayless will likely see bumps in their playing time to make up for Blake moving on to L.A. Travis Outlaw played in 11 games (0 starts) for the Blazers this season and he was averaging 21.0 minutes, 9.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game. Outlaw has been a decent backup player in his career for the Blazers but Nicolas Batum and Martell Webster will likely pick up the slack with him gone.
This was a great move for the Trailblazers who are 31-24 on the season which has them in the 8th spot in the Western Conference, 3 games ahead of the Hornets and Rockets. The Blazers are probably more worried about the Grizzlies though who are 4 games behind them right now. This is not to say that Juwan Howard didn’t do a good job for the Blazers because he did, but Camby is a game changer both on the boards and defensively.
