*** Official Portland Trailblazer's Team Thread ***

[kobe2odom8 14]

im gonna say they upset the celtics tonight... One can only hope

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

If you read "Can I keep my jersey," by Paul Shirley you'll have an all new appreciation for Baron Davis. Shirley dogs on him pretty hard about his (lack of) work ethic. But it's funny. It made me like Baron more.

That shit about Baron was funny. That was a long time ago though. He acknowledged a couple years ago that he didn't work hard enough and became a bum because of it. They say he works as hard as anyone now.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

im gonna say they upset the celtics tonight... One can only hope

Don't say that. I need the Celtics to get home court in the Finals, because if they play the Lakers I'm going to Game 7.

[Cappy37 0]

Don't say that. I need the Celtics to get home court in the Finals, because if they play the Lakers I'm going to Game 7.

Don't worry, Blazers lost the game, and Brandon Roy for a week or so.Our playoff chances are pretty dim at this point.Losing James Jones was huge.. The offense and defense he brought at the 3 was sorely missed during this whole "losing 7 of 8" fiasco.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Don't worry, Blazers lost the game, and Brandon Roy for a week or so.Our playoff chances are pretty dim at this point.Losing James Jones was huge.. The offense and defense he brought at the 3 was sorely missed during this whole "losing 7 of 8" fiasco.

Well you have the lottery to look forward to. Again.Did you hear Charles Barkley's Fave 5 all time Blazers? I thought it was hilarious:1. Clyde Drexler2. Maurice Lucas3. Bill Walton4. Terry Porter5. Michael Jordan

[Cappy37 0]

Well you have the lottery to look forward to. Again.Did you hear Charles Barkley's Fave 5 all time Blazers? I thought it was hilarious:1. Clyde Drexler2. Maurice Lucas3. Bill Walton4. Terry Porter5. Michael Jordan

Lottery doesn't help us.. 9th or 10th in the West doesn't net a whole lotta ping pong balls.. We don't need picks, we need some actual scoring.. We already got like 4 picks and 6 guys overseas already.. (3 coming to America next year:Fernandez, Freeland, Pettonen(sp?))... We needed to move some young guys and picks before the deadline, bad.. something like 18 guaranteed contracts. We had plenty to land a Marion/Artest/Richard Jefferson-type 3 who could actually shoot and play D...Instead we have like 18 bodies, 15 spots, and a whole slew of B-level talent.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Aldridge is ****ing good.

[Cappy37 0]

Aldridge is ****ing good.

If they only kept stats till halftime, he'd be on the next Team USA...And do you understand why I keep saying "THE BLAZERS CANNOT SCORE"?

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

If they only kept stats till halftime, he'd be on the next Team USA...And do you understand why I keep saying "THE BLAZERS CANNOT SCORE"?

I haven't seen them play much this year so it's hard to say, but it seems like they're missing a playmaker. Roy didn't play though.

[Cappy37 0]

I haven't seen them play much this year so it's hard to say, but it seems like they're missing a playmaker. Roy didn't play though.

Well, we steamrolled the Clippers 82-80 tonight, so we're breaking out of the scoring funk.. Just go through this little exercise with me: Imagine Kevin Durant in a Blazer uniform last night.. Think that would have changed the game a lil?Now try and explain to me how Greg Oden is going to a. ) get healthy and b. ) help the team score points.Welcome to my hell.A fantasy land filled with a series of "Ifs"..

[Cappy37 0]

/sigh.. Tonight just reminded me how easily we could have had Ron Artest and how much better he would have made the Blazers. A Swingman who creates possessions through defense, shuts down the opponents' best scorer, can hit a J from 20+ out, and can aggressively drive the lane and put key players in foul trouble.Seriously.. Like Sactown wouldn't have jumped at packaging Shareef's contract w/ Artest for Lafrentz's soon-to-expire deal, Martel Webster, Sergio (or Jack) and one of our first round picks?Goddamit.Oden did practice with the team today, so that's the good news. It's all over the media, like we're going to be able to tell anything from it until 6 months have passed and he starts going full speed.

[JoeyJoJo 18]

/sigh.. Tonight just reminded me how easily we could have had Ron Artest and how much better he would have made the Blazers. A Swingman who creates possessions through defense, shuts down the opponents' best scorer, can hit a J from 20+ out, and can aggressively drive the lane and put key players in foul trouble.Seriously.. Like Sactown wouldn't have jumped at packaging Shareef's contract w/ Artest for Lafrentz's soon-to-expire deal, Martel Webster, Sergio (or Jack) and one of our first round picks?

After all the effort made to get rid of questionable character guys, there's no way Portland is bringing on a guy like Artest. Portland's GM has said that he would only take on a guy like that once there is a culture of good character established and they are in a position to contend. It doesn't make sense to make that deal now when they're not winning a title with or without Artest.

[runthemover 39]

After all the effort made to get rid of questionable character guys, there's no way Portland is bringing on a guy like Artest. Portland's GM has said that he would only take on a guy like that once there is a culture of good character established and they are in a position to contend. It doesn't make sense to make that deal now when they're not winning a title with or without Artest.

I'd be interested to see what teams you think Artest would likely sign with this summer.

[Cappy37 0]

After all the effort made to get rid of questionable character guys, there's no way Portland is bringing on a guy like Artest. Portland's GM has said that he would only take on a guy like that once there is a culture of good character established and they are in a position to contend. It doesn't make sense to make that deal now when they're not winning a title with or without Artest.

Believe me, I know the drill. Artest helps in all categories the Blazers lack in, and they'd be able to "rent" him for a year, losing only one of their brazillion draft picks, Sergio (who's deal runs out and is the odd man out) and Martell (who isn't our answer for the future in the.. slightest)...If Ron showed he was going to "play ball" we could resign him, or we could let him go, clearing some cap room.Remember, Portland has like 67 players under contract for next year, including 4 new draft picks to make/sign, and *6* guys we've stored overseas. Pritchard *has* to shed contracts, and he gets $8.57 on the dollar during the deadline, as opposed to $2.35 on the dollar in the offseason, when teams aren't as pressed. We loved the Jail Blazers until Game 7 of "the Laker Series", remember. Our chemistry is totally a non-issue now that we are an also-ran once again. Oden (if he ever plays a game in a Blazer uniform) will help with defensive stops, but this team is at least 2 pieces away from being able to score baskets consistantly.I just throw Artest out there because he was one of the "pennies on the dollar" options our stockpile of assets-more-valuable-to-others-than-us.I've seen this team go through 20 years of "damnwehaveawholelotofB-leveltalent". It doesn't win sh*t, pardon my french.I love Pritchard. He's done an A+ job so far. Aldridge is B talent. Roy is B Talent. Jones is B Talent. Blake is B talent. Frye is B Talent. etc. etc. etc. This team needs a push to propel it to the next level.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Is Cappy still gone?

[Cappy37 0]

I'm back.And yeah.. i was right about Oden all along.. Surprise!In all seriousness.. This team still lacks any real ability to score consistently. Aldrige is still too much of a Face-to-the-Basket guy for a PF and doesnt fill up the stat column or play D like he might one day..Our PG trio all does 1 (and only one) of the 3 things PGs needs to do well (Blake/Run Offense, Segio/FastBreak, Bayless/Create).Roy can't do it alone.I said all along Fernandez is the guy thats going to save this franchise, not Oden. I shudder to imagine having Durant and Fernandez and Roy as our PG/SG/SF... sigh... Fernandez will make this team worth watching.. Will he make them win? Time will tell.Oden.. bleh... Let's wait a couple weeks to build up some false hope again.. We'll revisit, i promise.Outlaw: Isn't good. Never was good, and never will be better than the 8th man on a roster. Our problem is: Martell Webster isn't better. Martell has a quarter here and there where he looks like the second coming of Reggie Miller. Then he disappears for, like, a month. That's not good. As for the new kid that snuck on the roster (Batum), he may be a player someday. Today is not that day. Expect to see a lotta Roy/Fenandez filling in at the 3 during crunch time.James Jones. Oh, he's not a Blazer anymore.. Too bad.. He was an excellent 3 point shooter, solid defender/rebounder. He could produce without having the offense run through him. A poor man's James Posey. Too bad we couldn't move Outlaw/Webster to mke room for a legitimate player/vet presence.Channing Frye. Love the guy, he's awesome. He's not a great basketball player, and not much of an Nba "Big". Can help the second unit put points on the board.Przybilla. Solid and unspectacular. But he's all you generally need a center to be. Unless you waste the 1st pick in the draft on him. See Oden, Greg.This team can truly come together and be something special. Our future is now. No more excuses. Expect to see some contracts jettisoned and us to land a James Posey/James Jones type of player to provide some leadership and presence to shore up the wing position.Outlaw can win me over by hitchiking to Boston and going Jeff Gilooly on Darius Miles's knee to save our cap space.BTW -- Miles would be a perfect fit for this club if his head was on straight. At peak, he's 10x the player Outlaw is. Too bad he's a head case with health/attitude problems. Of course, if we wanted to gamble on protential cancers with upside, someone like Ron Artest or Lamar Odom is more worth the gamble. Sadly, both those guys now play for conference rivals, so trading for them would be difficult if Pritchard even decided to go that route.This team will defend. It will play half-court to a fault. We were at the bottom of the league in steals. We don't gamble much. We were built around the Spur's dynamic. Roy does a good Ginobli impression. but we don't have a Tony Parker, we don't have a Bruce Bowen, and we sure as hell don't have a Tim Duncan. Hell, we don't even have the Brent Barry. Actually, with Fernandez, we probably have *two* Ginobli-types. LOL @ the last thing i posted before my hiatus in response to JJJ: WehaveawholelottaBtypetalent.That's still our problem. We have a roster full of B and C+ players, and the picks and prospects to land a couple B+/A-s... It's what we need to do. You can laugh at how Orlando overpaid for Rashard Lewis, but *we* need someone to put up 20/4/3 who can hit an open J from 18 feet+. We don't need to pay Orlando money, but we are going to have to do something soon. I know Pritchard is still scared to death to give up any cap space, but outside of Scottie Pippen, name a single significant free agent who even took a glance at Portland as a viable destination. We'll see what the future holds. Ask Memphis and Atlanta what freeing up cap space can do for ya in the short term. Philly may have shot themselves in the foot with Brand and Maggette, but at least they did something and landed a couple players who can fill the statsheet. Maggette may be a loose canon, but someone like maggette (or Baron Davis, oddly enough) actually being a bit reckless on offense and getting to the charity stripe is exactly what Portland needs. And it's something Travis Outlaw/ Webster / Blake / Aldridge / Frye don't bring to the table. Fernandez will. Roy will (to an extent). This team needs to score to win some games. Right now there isn't a single player on this roster that even commands a consistent double team.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Roy/Fernandez/Durant would be unbelievable. That would drive me nuts if I was a Blazer fan. You think they're going to make the playoffs? We might be looking at a Lakers Blazers 1st round series.I gotta tell you, I'm in love with Rudy Fernandez. Smitten, infatuated, ga-ga. All of the above.

[Cappy37 0]

Roy/Fernandez/Durant would be unbelievable. That would drive me nuts if I was a Blazer fan. You think they're going to make the playoffs? We might be looking at a Lakers Blazers 1st round series.I gotta tell you, I'm in love with Rudy Fernandez. Smitten, infatuated, ga-ga. All of the above.

Lol ya.. i was screaming that Portland was nuts BEFORE the draft. I mean.. granted.. I'm a pretty nitty poker player.. But Durant is pocket Queens. Oden is a pair and a flush draw, at best. There's simply no way Durant isn't good pre-flop. Oden has barely ever even played basketball competitively, and has been hurt much of that time. The whole Jordan/Bowie thing is eerie, and you would THINK that would make PORTLAND, of ALL teams, hesitant to seriously consider Durant. It's much easier to envision Durant becoming a Baron Davis or Tracy McGrady type than it is to envision Oden being.. even Healthy Oden, much less a Shaq or Duncan or Rasheed Wallace (yeah, check the old stat sheets and game film.. Sheed might have been the sickest scoring big man in ACC history in terms of scoring efficiency and getting his shot off)All i've seen is Oden laid out on the floor minutes into the first regular season game,. I feel like Jim Mora now.. PLAYOFFS? You wanna talk about PLAYOFFS? I just wanna win a game! /sigh.In all seriousness, Rudy is our shining beacon of hope.. And man.. in two years.. Ricky Rubio is going to take the NBA by storm. Can't wait. I feel sorry for anyone who didnt watch the Olympics. They missed out on some great, great basketball.I'm too lazy to jump into the Heat thread, but Dwayne Wade has a fire lit under him and he's going to just wtfpwn fools this year. Gonna be fun to watch him and Lebron duke it out for MVP honors. I'd like to throw Kobe in there, but his finger situation scares me. He's gonna be a solid 27/7/6, but he's gonna (and Phil will let him) coast a bit with all that supporting cast as the Lake show slides into first round home-court status. Phil's too smart to watch a team so potentially brittle (Kobe/Gasol/Bynum/Odom) kill themselves nightly (like the Celts did last year) when the season doesn't even start till June. And lets face it, the Lakers of all teams aren't fully in need of Home Court advantage to be dangerous.. Ask Utah if the Lakers rolled over and died on the road last year in the playoffs. By the second quarter of game 3, Utah suddenly woke up and realized their home games were not going to be "gimmes".

[slt1der 0]

So Cappy, has your opinions on Travis Outlaw and LeMarcus changed? Drafted them both on my fantasy team because I felt that those two were due for a breakout year (based on the Blazer vs Laker games and not much else).

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Lol ya.. i was screaming that Portland was nuts BEFORE the draft. I mean.. granted.. I'm a pretty nitty poker player.. But Durant is pocket Queens. Oden is a pair and a flush draw, at best. There's simply no way Durant isn't good pre-flop. Oden has barely ever even played basketball competitively, and has been hurt much of that time. The whole Jordan/Bowie thing is eerie, and you would THINK that would make PORTLAND, of ALL teams, hesitant to seriously consider Durant. It's much easier to envision Durant becoming a Baron Davis or Tracy McGrady type than it is to envision Oden being.. even Healthy Oden, much less a Shaq or Duncan or Rasheed Wallace (yeah, check the old stat sheets and game film.. Sheed might have been the sickest scoring big man in ACC history in terms of scoring efficiency and getting his shot off)All i've seen is Oden laid out on the floor minutes into the first regular season game,. I feel like Jim Mora now.. PLAYOFFS? You wanna talk about PLAYOFFS? I just wanna win a game! /sigh.In all seriousness, Rudy is our shining beacon of hope.. And man.. in two years.. Ricky Rubio is going to take the NBA by storm. Can't wait. I feel sorry for anyone who didnt watch the Olympics. They missed out on some great, great basketball.I'm too lazy to jump into the Heat thread, but Dwayne Wade has a fire lit under him and he's going to just wtfpwn fools this year. Gonna be fun to watch him and Lebron duke it out for MVP honors. I'd like to throw Kobe in there, but his finger situation scares me. He's gonna be a solid 27/7/6, but he's gonna (and Phil will let him) coast a bit with all that supporting cast as the Lake show slides into first round home-court status. Phil's too smart to watch a team so potentially brittle (Kobe/Gasol/Bynum/Odom) kill themselves nightly (like the Celts did last year) when the season doesn't even start till June. And lets face it, the Lakers of all teams aren't fully in need of Home Court advantage to be dangerous.. Ask Utah if the Lakers rolled over and died on the road last year in the playoffs. By the second quarter of game 3, Utah suddenly woke up and realized their home games were not going to be "gimmes".

Did you ever hear why they went with Oden over Durant? Or at least why they said they did. I'm thinking it was because Oden was supposed to make an immediate impact, where Durant might take a few years to be the man on a good team. And you don't have to remind me how good Rasheed Wallace is/was. He was almost partly responsible for ending the Lakers run before it ever got started.The Olympics were unbelievable. I don't even know what to say about the Gold Medal game. It might be the most competitive game I've ever seen, maybe the best game I've ever seen, maybe not, but probably the most memorable game I've ever seen.Kobe won't win the MVP this year. This team is going to have a lot of blowouts, he's going to basically cruise through this season. I see Lebron as the front runner. From seeing the first two games, he looks like he's a lot more focused, like he learned what being a winner is all about. It seems to me like all the Olympic guys are kind of in that mode now. I like the way Cleveland is attempting to play too, it should open up the game a lot more for him. I'm expecting Stoudemire to have a monster year too. My prediction for MVP will be Lebron, Amare, Paul.I was at Games 3 and 4 in Utah in that series and I was blown away at how competitive Game 4 became. Every possession it seemed to increase a notch. I didn't want that game to end, I could have stayed there forever with those Utah freaks.No matter what happens this should be a great season. There's great games every night, most of the really good teams play exciting basketball. It's going to be fun.

[Cappy37 0]

So Cappy, has your opinions on Travis Outlaw and LeMarcus changed? Drafted them both on my fantasy team because I felt that those two were due for a breakout year (based on the Blazer vs Laker games and not much else).

Fantasy is a different animal..Alridge has great value since he'll be logging 40 minutes regardless, with Oden a question mark, Pryzbilla not a model of health either, and Fry is a backup at best. Any situation where they play Travis at the 4 (Shudder), they are going small and will almost have to put Lemarcus at the 5 anyways. You can pencil Alridge in for 40 minutes a night, in which he'll do 17-8 no problem, with some upside to do much more.Travis, however, plays a position shared by Webster, Batum, Fernandez, and occasionally Roy. Travis isn't guaranteed the 40 minutes a night, and with the presence of Fernandez and (hopefully) Oden, the need for Travis to jack up his hand-in-the-face jumpers won't be as great this season. Kid's got talent, but of the two, it's Aldridge who is gonna get a guaranteed boatload of minutes. You can envision scenarios where Outlaw is playing 20 minutes a night by mid-season.. There is no sequence of events that would lead to Aldridge playing 20 minutes a night.. There's simply no one on the roster to steal his minutes.Fantasy is a whole different ball of wax.

[slt1der 0]

Did you ever hear why they went with Oden over Durant? Or at least why they said they did. I'm thinking it was because Oden was supposed to make an immediate impact, where Durant might take a few years to be the man on a good team. And you don't have to remind me how good Rasheed Wallace is/was. He was almost partly responsible for ending the Lakers run before it ever got started.

Wasn't it because Oden was an old school center prototype a la Shaq and those just don't grow on trees no more? I remember reading the blogosphere and how everyone was discussing Oden or Durant and that Portland had to pick Oden because you can't pass up franchise centers.

[Poppy_Hillis 11]

Great, so Batum's a stud too.

[Cappy37 0]

Great, so Batum's a stud too.

Yup, hehe.. If you scroll up a couple post you'll notice I was pointing out there was a lot of scenarios in which Outlaw would struggle to get the quality minutes Alrdige would be handed on a silver platter.. I knew Fernandez would cut into Outlaw's time, but i had no idea Batum would break out, on TV no less, so quickly. We'll see if he can keep it up, but his energy and tenacity were amazing.I really would like to compliment the Spurs, too.. They almost stole the game last night essentially playing 3 on 5 basketball. for the first 20+ minutres, Dunan, Parker, and Finley had scored 40 of their 42 points. You could really tell they were missing Oberto, Portland was cleaning the offensive and defensive glass almost at will for most of the night.I was mostly impressed by watching Portland get after it defensively.. They struggled to contain Duncan, but they were flying all over the place blocking shots, getting in passing lanes, and fighting for boards and position. I still maintain we're going to struggle to score, but our defense looks quite solid even without Senor Odom.

[Cappy37 0]

Wasn't it because Oden was an old school center prototype a la Shaq and those just don't grow on trees no more? I remember reading the blogosphere and how everyone was discussing Oden or Durant and that Portland had to pick Oden because you can't pass up franchise centers.

Actually, Poppy's crew is the reason NBA GM's are f*cked in the head over big men prospects.. During the Bulls era, nba bigs were valued, but not in a cult sense of fanaticism.Shaq altered the game for a decade. You couldn't make anything happen in the NBA playoffs unless you could make a serious effort to guard Shaq. It was hopeless. Part of the reason Portland thrived is their "Shaq Stopping Crew (sic)" was Brian Grant, Sabonis, and Sheed.. Who did an adequete job of making Shaq work for his points... But when Portland was not playing Shaq and the lakers, Wallace, Grant, and Sabonis still made great contributions to different styles of play, so it didn't hamstring Portland at all to have so many bigs. Heck Walace even played the 3 occasionally, and they had insurance against Grant and Sabonis's occasional health issues.But for that decade of Laker Glory/Shaq Greatness... ANY kid in college 7 feet tall with some good meals in him went about 20 slots too high.. Because competeing *with Shaq* was such a priority to any team looking to compete for a title. Hell, we ditched Jermaine O'Neal specifically because he couldnt get minutes because our roster was glutted up with "ShaqStoppers". It altered many. many franchises and the choices they made, not just Portland.The NBA these days is different, now that Shaq is a shadow of his former self. You don't need someone 7'1 305 to guard Tim Duncan.. Your Jermaine O'Neals and Rasheed Wallaces are par to the task. Look at the teams who thrived once Shaq declined.. The Suns... The Mavs.. The Celtics.. The Magic (pray Howard doesnt' become the next Shaq and f*ck this all up again).. The Jazz.. Pistons.. Hell even the Warriors saw some postseason success.. The point is : not all of these teams "run", but none are bogged down by dinosaurs clogging the middle of the court. It's a brand spanking new NBA. This is what the Blazers (And lets not forget 26 other teams would have taken Oden.. Even the SPURS would have taken Oden.. The Suns too, and they have Amare and Shaq) failed to realize. Oddly enough, with the roster including Roy, Sergio, Outlaw, Batum, Fernandez, and Webster, the Blazers aren't hurt as badly by not taking Durant as some of the other teams who had a shot at #1 would have been. It's just immensely frustrating to get nothing in return for the greatest thing to happen to portland since 1977...If you want a realistic application of how this blunder hurt Portland in the meta game.. The Suns would have definitely had to listen to a Blazers offer combining, say, Outlaw, Sergio, LAfrentz's contract, picks, and Frye for Amare Stoudamire and a bad contract or two..Blake.. Roy... Durant.. Aldridge.. Amare... Your Blazer starting 5. Silly things like that could have happened.. Pritchard had (and still has) some incredible pieces and prospects to use as trade bait. We'll see what the future holds.But the short answer to your question: A decade long obsession with guarding and containing Shaq still resonates in the minds of NBA brass.. That is why big men are disgustingly overvalued and can't-miss blue chippers spent more time in the green room on draft day than logic would dictate. Don't forget how long Rashard Lewis stayed in that green room on his draft day.. Look up the riff raff that went ahead of him.. You'll notice an awful lot of big men that didnt pan out (and Euros, but hey.. that's another post waiting to happen entirely).