Might as well jump.

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no, not Jerry West...the new Blazersedge (one word now?) graphic. look, I'm sure someone put a lot of some time and effort into this, and I really really don't mean to be rude or offend, but seriously...generic and boring. while I didn't LOVE the previous Lewis & Clark logo, I did like it, and it was at the very least unique. I'm looking up at it as I type this and it pleases me to know that it is still around in some capacity.

anyway. I have a petition of sorts to click below...leave your "signature" in the comments...if you love the new logo, or if you made it, feel free to shower me with hatred, not like you need the invitation. yes this should probably be a fanshot but...they don't have polls. delete me if you must.

good day.

UPDATE: Bottom line - I don't care that much honestly, but I do care a tiny tiny little bit, because I have to look at it, or at the very least acknowledge that it is exists, and it is absolutely laughable. I didn't freak out and punch the wall the first time I saw it, screaming for the return of L&C. I do not think I'm being unreasonable throwing this out there, maybe my need to further explain myself/dig a deeper hole proves otherwise, I don't know.

I love this site. The majority of my internet time is spent here. If I seem ungrateful for complaining, I'm just trying to make it better. I can say what I want, unless I can't, and then my post gets deleted. Whoopdedoo. 

Anyway the original post took me like 2 minutes to write, this update maybe 5, I didn't put that much effort into it, I promise. I'm just trying to stir the pot and be a dissenting opinion for dissent's sake. That's just me. Please believe that if there was something of interest actually happening other than the upcoming summer league and roster speculation that this "issue" or lack thereof would be the furthest from my mind. I am admittedly anxious waiting for something to happen with our team, like the majority of you, but personally I'm a little tired of skimming through three-way trade ideas, insert-player-here endorsements and unfounded "rumors." Complaining about the awful, awful new logo was a way for me to pass the time. Guess I just wasted everyone elses.

"that is all"...pssh

I worked all day today, so needless to say the first thing I did when I got home just now was check out who we picked/traded for...and I was shocked to learn that we had THREE opportunities to take Blair and didn't pull the trigger! I KNOW some of you must be upset or at least very suprised, there was much repping for the dude for months and months leading up to today. I have not looked at any of the fanshots or other threads, I gotta run right back out the door shortly, but when I get home later I would like to see some thoughts on this.

So much for guarantees, Mo! A devastating loss to the Magic earlier tonight puts 2009's anointed team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, up against the ropes and on the brink of elimination. Given their seemingly inevitable upcoming postseason exit, I looked at some stats, finding that the team with the best record in the regular season for the past 20 years has won the title 8 times. (4 of those teams were unstoppable-regardless-of-win-totals-MJ-led Bulls squads, and one of them was the 98-99 Spurs, who tied the Jazz with a 37-13 record after the lockout.)

This means that teams with inferior regular season records over the past two decades have won 60% of NBA Championships, the percentage moving to 62% if the Cavs lose one of the next three. This may be encouraging news considering next year we are (probably) unlikely to be in the pole position heading into the second season.

This raises the question: do we want the top spot? Rational thinking says "Of COURSE we want home-court advantage throughout the playoffs," but recently it seems more conducive to play the role of an under-the-radar David than Goliath with a giant target on his back.

This is my first Junk Drawer! Be nice to me!

This is coming from a newer member of BEdge, and a relatively newer Blazers fan, as well as someone who is completely new to actively reading and posting on message boards. This FanPost in general is probably out of place, should have been left as commentary in a different thread, and needs some gentle and helpful commentary, needs to be flagged, or will require an email to Dave regarding his earlier post concerning the sidebar. I really don't mean to make a mockery of the whole thing, but I am confused.

Blazer's Edge is one of the best things that has happened to me as a NBA fan that moved to Portland three years ago. All I have really ever cared about in my life is music and sports, specifically basketball. The fact that my first stop on the internet is this site and no longer ESPN is a testament to the quality of the forum and the dedication of it's fans. It is the ultimate and still-continuing crash course in Blazer history. I may not be old school, but thanks to BEdge, I feel like I am.

I am more of a voter, recommender, and occasional commenter than poster, but I would estimate that I read 95% of the FanPosts any given day. I have my profile set to view 50 posts when I log in. If the list has gotten so large in between viewings that I feel I have missed something, I go into the archive. I have zero trouble navigating this site and everything in it. I don't generally read the FanShots but that's just because I don't spend that much time on the internet due to my crappy connection. I don't read all or sometimes any of the comments on any given topic. Rarely when I want immediate thoughts or opinions on something I just throw it in a post and get immediate gratification.

My question: What's the problem? I very VERY occasionally get an elitist vibe from the more seasoned members of this community, not naming names or calling anyone out, because regardless of attitudes everyone seems to know what they're talking about, and I get that it's easy for someone's intentions to be misconstrued in text format. By and large I get the feeling that the majority of the dissenting opinions are put forth politely and without malice, with the notable exception of the guy earlier who suggested we trade Oden. I'm not one to agree, but who says that that voice shouldn't be heard?

Looking around at some of these other NBA teams' SB Nation pages, ours seems to overwhelmingly contain the most volume and the most constant updates. I would have expected other small market teams with diehard fanbases like San Antonio to be heavily populated, but they aren't. Maybe they have other sites they go to, but I digress - shouldn't we be happy and feel blessed to have this wealth of information, bad and good? When I browse through these random thoughts I feel like I am taking the pulse of the city of Portland regarding their lone beloved major sports team, and it is deadly accurate. You don't always get that reading the Oregonian or listening to 95.5.

I understand Dave doesn't view numbers as the reason why this site is awesome, but would it be as good without them? Is censorship the answer? Do we take the risk of diluting our product? Can moderators decide for the masses what is and what isn't relevant? Are the massive amounts of FanPosts really that big of an issue that we can't just ignore the ones we don't like or agree with? Can we really expect perfection from humans?

Have I missed the point completely? Am I representing the problem? Maybe Dave's post wasn't "for me" per se, but I got the gist of it. I make it a point to leave comments on people that I think are being jerks, and I know I'm not the only one who does this. This is not to say that I have not realistically crossed the line myself: I have, and I was promptly and rightly admonished for it. I'm all for quality control and "making it better" but I think we do an excellent job of policing ourselves, which is more than I can say for any other message board I've ever visited, ever. There's a reason this is the only one I frequent.

I reiterate - confused.

Anyway. Go Blazers. Win Game 6. Win Game 7.

I'm aware that it was a foregone conclusion for most, but with the Suns facing a 30+ point deficit against Dallas today it's all but official; PORTLAND IS IN THE PLAYOFFS!

I view making the second season alone as a huge victory for a team that faced certain expectations, but very few people outside of the Northwest could have predicted a run like the one the Blazers have made.  We are coming in hot. I guarantee no one wants to play us at home or on the road. If we can win in the first round, there's no telling how far we can go, let alone how far we will go next year with some post-seasoning under our belts.

Let the celebration (and speculation) commence. Again. You all saw this coming.

...or something/someone else? I imagine this topic has been beaten into the ground in other threads...but at least it's not another Oden vs. Durant debate.

Watching the Big Dance for me is more conducive for taking notes on future NBA prospects than watching the actual games, as thrilling as the big games are. I thought I'd get some opinions from everyone. I don't really keep up well with college ball until this time of year, so the majority of the names outside of the Griffins, Currys and Thabeets of the world are basically unfamiliar to me. The general consensus from what I've seen amongst BEdge commentary is that we need a 1 or a 3 via the draft or a trade. Or at least that was the consensus amongst the "Madness" of this year's trade deadline. I know. I was freaking out. Here's what I'm freaking out about now.

Who do we take? Assuming Portland gets a pick in the 20-25 range, we've got several options. ESPN's "draft guru" Chad Ford likes Louisville's SF Earl Clark (all links from NBADraft.net) to go near the beginning of the 20's, one of only two 3's in his top 30. (along with Wake's Al-Farouq Aminu, projected 6th.) In the beginning of the second round, though, we could use any number of our 4 (right? we do have four, don't we?) picks on any of these guys if they declare and are available: Texas's Damion James, Pitt's Sam Young, Duke's Kyle Singler, Gonzaga's Austin Daye and Zona's Chase Budinger. (ranked 36-39 and 45th respectively.)

NBADraft.net has a higher opinion of most of the aforementioned players in their mock draft, with Clark going #7, Budinger going #8(!), James going #21 and Young going #22, incidentally to the Blazers. Singler and Daye are unlisted on their site, probably assuming either they won't come out early or that they aren't ready for the Association. Other 3's listed on this website are Israel's Omri Casspi (#19), Wake's James Johnson (#20), Tennessee's Tyler Smith (#24), Louisville's Terrence Williams (#30) and a slew of other guys I've never heard of, who might be awesome. I just don't know who they are.

Point guards - Chad Ford likes VCU's Eric Maynor (#22), UNC's Ty Lawson (#24), Syracuse's Jonny Flynn (#25), and the Bruins' Darren Collison (#26)...as well as St. Marys' Patrick Mills and Florida's Nick Calethes in the second round. NBADraft.net doesn't really care for Maynor (whose team was favored to beat UCLA) and Flynn (they must've missed the 6OT game) but generally feels the same about Lawson and Collison. However, they do predict Stephen Curry (#17) and the Sooners' Willie Warren (#16) might be around at the end of the lottery. I watched Davidson make their run last year and Curry can flat-out ball. I'm confident he could play the 1 in the NBA.

So maybe if we get an 8 seed? (knock on wood)  the point to all of this is I am clueless, I just wanted to throw some names out there, and you fill me in. Tell me who I should be psyched about. What should we do? Do we draft a 1, wait for free agency, try to make a trade in the offseason, or trust in Sergio and Bayless? Do we draft a 3, pick someone up or believe that we have the necessary pieces when Martell gets back, and the future in Batum? Do we try to get (more) depth at other positions? Do we trade up for Rubio, Brandon Jennings or Teague? Do we take the coveted Paul Millsap/Jason Maxiell type? Do we take the overlooked foreign guy? Do we rest on our sizable laurels?!

THOUGHTS!

I was at the game yesterday and had the distinct displeasure of sitting in section 330 where the wave started. Granted, the game was essentially over by halftime, if not earlier, so we apparently needed something to do, but shouldn't the wave be reserved for baseball stadiums in the 1980's? I have never seen this ridiculous phenomenon at an NBA game. The dude at the bottom of the section "conducting" the wave was so disgustingly pleased with himself. The only good part about it was it nearly lasted long enough to drown out the Chalupa celebration. I would enjoy some input on this. Am I hating unnecessarily? I'm anticipating that I probably am.

...or at the very least tell me why I should be excited about this? I think we can get better than VC and his monster ego for RLEC, Trout and Serg.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3913836

(UPDATE: In regards to above article - does TMac's injury make us the front-runner in the Vinsanity sweepstakes? AIEEEE! Say it ain't so!)

here's how it looks in the Trade Machine...

I don't care what Hollinger says. We're not going to win the championship this year, I don't see what this does in the long-term scheme of things.

Who is down with this? And why?!

Greg's averages for the year: 8.8 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 1.1 bpg, 55% FG.

Greg's numbers so far with 25+ minutes (19 games): 13.6 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 1.4 bpg, 56% FG.

30+ minutes (10 games): 14.8 ppg, 11.5 rpg, 1.3 bpg, 60% FG.

35+ (5 games): 16 ppg, 11.8 rpg (17.5 ppg and 13.8 rpg over 4 games if you throw out his 10 and 4 against the Lakers), 0.6 bpg (?), 58% FG.

Not to mention his 15 and 15 in 42 minutes (including OT) against the Clips. Granted, we lost that game, but MAN...next year, hopefully with a little playoff experience under his belt (knock on wood), once he's figured out how to stay out of foul trouble and/or the refs start to cut him some slack, and he really gets that shot-blocking game on track (how about SIX blocks against NY...!), dude is going to be a consistently legitimate beast! I'm amped. Which is not to say I am not pleased with his performance so far. The big guy undoubtedly alters the game, regardless of the numbers, which have been pretty good anyway. Although it seems like he has been around forever, let's not forget he's still just 21 years old, in his first year coming off a serious injury. Whoever has deemed Greg a disappointment at this stage in the game either has a public forum to motivate him, or is not looking at the long-term. I think he's coming along nicely.

Also, check this out - here's the remaining schedule:

OKC - W
@ GSW - W
MEM - W
ATL - L
LAC - W
@ HOU - L
@ SAS - L
@ MIN - W
SAS - L
IND - W
@ DEN - L
MIN - W
LAL - L
DAL - L
NJN - W
@ ATL - L
@ MEM - W
@ IND - W
@ CLE - L
@ MIL - W
PHI - L
PHO - L
MEM - W
UTA - L
@ OKC - W
@ HOU - L
@ MEM - W
@ SAS - L
LAL - L
@ LAC - W
OKC - W
DEN - L

This isn't QUITE worst-case scenario, but it's close - playing strictly .500 ball to end the season. This is just beating every team with a losing record and losing to every team with a winning one (including Philly, who just won three in a row to get 2 above .500). If this plays out, we'll end the season 47-35 - which just might be enough for that 8 seed...maybe. The point is we can and will do better than that. Chances are we won't win EVERY game against bad teams - but I like the odds of that better than losing to every winner. With Steve Kerr seemingly looking to blow up the Suns before the trade deadline, and the Jazz facing a similarly tough schedule, not to mention their lingering injury issues - here's hoping we can take care of business.

Ooh wee! Wish I had a time machine!