I was thinking the other day that it would be cool to have a bunch of links to recent blazer articles on the trail mix posts. Similar to Truehoop's (insert day) Bullets. Im sure that there will be days that there wont be much but the season is almost here and things should pick up. Anyways, let me know what you think about making this the norm.

LinK DumP

First off, Rip City Blog discusses an article involving an old friend of ours, Jarrett Jack. I agree that the article might exaggerate Jacks abilities.

Sports illustrated has an article about the Top Ten Training Camp Battles and guess who made the top 5.

Good old Mikey B has an article on Rudy's move to Portland,

Speaking of Rudy's move to Portland, does anyone else think its weird that everyone... and their mom have decided to report on this. It seems like a local story but let me assure you that it is not local. Well here we go... USA Today, ESPN, and The Oregonian. This story had 38 articles on google news.

First FanPost...  This is kinda aimed at a less informed fan so don't mind the obvious info at the beginning.

Jerryd Bayless is one of the four Blazer rookies this coming season. Although he is generally thought of as a quality player, he has his critics. The majority of his criticism has come from his lack of a typical role to fill on the team. He has the size of a point guard but is known as a scorer instead of a distributor. He is a shoot first point guard and that tends to scare some basketball experts.

Today I was reading an article on Dimemag.com about the Blazers coming season. The article mentioned that Jerryd looked very "Wade-ish" during his summer league debut. Jerryd has always reminded me of Dwyane Wade so I thought it might be interesting to compare their stats in college.

Wade played college ball for Marquette University. His freshman year he did not play because he was not academically eligible. It wasn't 'till his sophomore year that he started playing (2001-2002) and that year he averaged 17.8 ppg, 2.47 spg, 6.6 rpg, and 3.4 apg. His second season he averaged 21.5 ppg, 2.15 spg, 6.3 rpg, and 4.4 apg. Jerryd on the other hand only played one year of college ball and in that year he averaged 19.7 ppg, 1 spg, 2.7 rpg, and 4 apg. Lets concentrate on their assist numbers so we can investigate Jerryd's shoot first mentality.

I think it is important to mention that Dwyane Wade is a superstar. He is so skilled that he has the ability to do what he wants on the court. He has mastered the majority of the different NBA skill sets that exist. Although he is known most for his scoring, he is also an exceptional passer, dribbler, and defender(when he wants to be).

Both Dwyane and Jerryd were the primary scorers on their respective teams in college and as the assist numbers show they did about the same job of distributing the ball. In fact, Jerryd was probably did a better job at throwing dimes because his numbers are from his freshman year where Dwyane's are from his sophomore and junior seasons. Stats don't always predict what an athlete will do throughout his career; however, in many cases they can be used to show an athletes possible potential. Just like Dwyane Wade, Jerryd Bayless could be an above average passer but in college the role he played on his team did not allow him to demonstrate that skill.

Only time will tell.