Rudy Fernandez isn’t talking about his future, but everyone else is.
Fernandez is in Las Palmas training with the Spanish national team for the upcoming FIBA World Championships (nice location, by the way). He said on his personal blog that is his focus right now.
That gossip includes the Trail Blazers new general manager Rich Cho asking for a first round pick for Fernandez, according to Alan Hahn of Newsday. If so, the Knicks are out because they don’t have one they can move until 2014 (you can’t trade first round picks in consecutive years, thank you very much Ted Stepien).
That would leave Boston and Chicago as the front runners, at least of the teams we know.
Boston is negotiating with Portland, as reported at CelticsBlog. Some Celtics fans live in a dream world where they can turn Rasheed Wallace’s deal into Fernandez, but that’s not happening. First, the salaries don’t match, so Portland would have to move another player as part of the deal and they don’t want to. Also, Sheed’s contract is not a pick -- we mentioned they want a first-round pick, right?
Portland is listening to offers, but they are really under no pressure to make a deal. They can wait until training camp to see if a team gets desperate and ups the ante, or they could wait even longer. So sit back and get comfortable, this could take a while.