In the wake of losing Hedo Turkoglu, the Portland Trail Blazers have become engaged in serious discussions about making an offer to New York Knicks restricted free agent David Lee, ESPN.com learned Saturday.

But like other interested teams, the Blazers are concerned that they would be placed in limbo until July 15 -- the date by which the Knicks would have to decide whether they'd match the offer -- and could lose out if other free agents take themselves off the market in the interim by rushing to get what they can of the league's dwindling amount of available dollars.

The upside of the Turkoglu turnaround for Portland was that it left them as one of the strongest remaining players in free agency, with $9 million worth of salary cap space they're clearly ready to spend.

Portland could offer all of its available cap space to Lee in the form of an offer sheet that would amount to roughly $50 million over five years. And as a disincentive to keep the Knicks from matching, they could structure the deal so that the highest salary of any of the five years would come in 2010-11 -- the season for which the Knicks will need as much salary cap space as possible to make a run at LeBron James and/or another of the marquee superstars that will be available.

But there also is the possibility that the Blazers and Knicks could agree to a sign-and-trade -- although Portland would be no shortage of competition.

Knicks  better  not  fuck  this  up  but  they  probably  will,  thinkin  Lebron  is  gonna  come  to  NY

sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=430...

Jul 5, 2009 -- 1:36AM, Hip Hop South wrote:

when this happens remember the name Brandon Roy as your 2010 nba MVP

smh

Have they forgotten how sensitive Lamarcus Aldridge is? That niggas tearing up his room right now in a fit of anger. Are they going to give Lee 10 million a year to sit on the bench? Lee's nice, but I dont see how he works on that team

Jul 5, 2009 -- 1:46AM, DatGuyJ wrote:

Jul 5, 2009 -- 1:38AM, Sisqo Portis(no homo) wrote:

the Blazer are ****g stupid if they give Lee 10 mill a year they need to try and sign Paul Millsap not bum ass David Lee

David  Lee  averages  16  and  11  and  has  field  goal   percentage  of  54

 

Paul  Milsap  only  averages  13  and  9  and  has  a  field  goal  percentage  of 53

 

David  Lee  has  a  better  percentage  from  the   line  and  gets  more  offensive  and  defensive  rebounds,  there  is  no  way  Milsap   is  better  than  Lee

lol @ those numbers being almost exactly identical

Jul 5, 2009 -- 3:51AM, The X Man wrote:

Lee ain't goin nowhere, and if he does leave if it will be a sign and trade

 

but i don't want him to leave

same for Nate Robinson

 

 

Knicks got a good thing going.....we need more draft picks

nope they need to keep him