No argument here that the Blazers made a mistake signing Andre. Leaving this aside for a moment, though, I’m still wondering why Turkoglu opted for Toronto rather than Portland. If I remember right, Portland offered $50 million to Toronto’s $53… OK, so $3 million’s not chicken feed, but really he would have been a great fit on a hot Blazers team, whereas now he’s stuck in the northern plains on a second tier team that’s likely to lose Bosh next year. I don’t understand the life decision he made. At a certain point in a career, when you’ve already made a fortune, shouldn’t other things matter more than a few salary percentage points?

I’m going to defend him a bit here as he has been the PG on a number of playoff teams.

I do think Miller was a poor fit, he’s getting older and this move hurt the Blazers because they are at their best when Roy has the ball in his hands. They needed a defensive stopper and lights out shooter at the PG spot but Miller is neither. It was more of a panic room after Hedo ran off on them (who would have been a good fit).

Clipper fans, many of whom kind of like the Blazers and Brandon Roy as a default team, will be watching this situation carefully. I got into it a little bit at Blazers Edge after the Clips preseason game. That’s a great SB Nation site, if anybody hasn’t been there and wants to follow these events. I haven’t been back there in a while though.

Andre Miller was just a horrendous, horrible addition to a promising and exciting, happy and fun Clipper squad. He took the life right out of the team, and it was one of the last really insane DTS-Baylor moves. The Clips had a rising young squad but they needed a PG and leader. When they traded for Miller, the intense effect of the fact that he had an expiring deal wasn’t properly considered, especially given how Olowokandi had turned down a generous offer and was going to be a UFA, and Odom, FElton and Maggette were going to be RFAs. And in the background, of course, DTS had never spent any extra money on any players at that point. Bringing in the anti-social Miller on an expiring deal to that team was the match that was thrown on the fire, which already had gasoline flowing onto it. It had completely the opposite result of its intended effect, as Miller gave a year-long clinic in uninspired “professional” play that was aimed at securing his next deal.

When it comes to Andre Miller, Clipper fans are abundantly entitled to take a jaundiced view.

But the situation in Portland this year has some significant differences. They won a whole lot of games last year, 50+. They have a legitimate star and leader in Brandon Roy. They hope that Greg Oden can make a big step forward in realizing his potential, but they have a strong roster from top to bottom, and a solid, determined coach. The expectations for what Miller needs to provide and how he is supposed to fit into the team are very different from when he joined the Clippers, but the expectations are still significant.

And they’re fascinating, because they go against everything that Miller has done in his career. Our own Clipper view is that Miller has never been a winner. He has been highly productive in non-winning situations. We feel that the Clippers were duped by the gaudy numbers that he put up on a losing team in Cleveland, and he wasn’t able to be nearly so effective on a more talented Clipper squad. And in his career he has been a major beneficiary of lesser Eastern Conference competition. After a stint in Denver where he played well and produced on a talented team that could never even show the first signs of playoff success, he was sent to Philly for AI. In Philly he did what he’s so good at, making a second-rate team better than the lottery-bound competition, but never getting beyond the quick playoff exit. He has been more successful in the East, where there has been a bigger drop-off from the elites (Boston, Cleveland, Orlando) to the second tier.

The thing is, making the playoffs and then failing to succeed in battling it out in the semis or conference finals isn’t what Portland is looking for. They want a player who is going to take them over the top, to help them succeed in the intense final matchups.

Miller has never done it before. He is intensely anti-social.

This is an awesome thing to look forward to.

Too early to tell, they still have some weapons with Roy, LA and Outlaw(not as consistent) so they just need time to jell and work the kinks out first before they declare it a disaster and call the Miller signing a bust.