The core of the Toronto team is

Chris Bosh If he stays the team has a chance over time to do something relatively soon if not they would need to swing a large trade or build through the draft to become good.

Toronto has some nice pieces but they are counting on Turk to get all that potential to become a quality team, I don't think that is going to happen. 

Calderon

Q. Bouby

Chris Bosh 

Turkoglu

Bargnani

Problem with this line up is they don't have enough defense, and they don't have enough depth.

What the trade for Turk did was just to increase both of those problems and with out cap space to sign a big player next summer at least if they want to resign Bosh too they need to improve and it doesn't look too promising.

Was Turk the right move for them to make?

There was a piece done by John Hollinger about All-time NBA Franchise Rankings.

Referenced already by dpnim in a fan shot.

So what Hollinger was doing was a comprehensive average of each year the team has been in existence putting emphasis on winning, winning and championships. His rating gave some credit to intangibles but of the teams I was looking at the intangibles only dropped Portland behind Utah and left the other teams I had access to 1-10 unaffected. 

Here are the current totals of championships owned by NBA teams

My rating system would put more emphasis on championships because that is all that is important

1. Celtics 2. Lakers     3.  Bulls    4. San Antonio    5. 76ers

6. Detroit 7. Golden State 8. Houston  9. Knicks    10. Bullets

11. Portland  12. Heat      13. Seattle   14. Bucks    15.  Hawks 

With everyone below that as insignificant because they didn't win a championship.

So where do the TrailBlazers end up in 2020? 

What kind of wild expectations do we have of the team we have.

I was listening on the Pod cast and they were saying they would be happy with one win in the championship.

They mentioned they thought a nice 5-7 year run might open up.

Assuming Kevin Pritchard is here for the next 11 years what are the expectations on Kevin Pritchard and management to bring in the pieces to keep us winning 

Also assuming Nate McMillan is here in 11 years will he become the next Red Auerbach, 10+ championships or the next Rick Adelman good coach no rings (coaching styles aside)

This is hard to predict, but this is more of a estimation.

Obviously some of these teams could end up winning more, the question is will we have more then them more then the actual number.

Continue reading this post »

So we have discussed the dedication of our players for the game.

What is your dedication for the game during the off season?

What have you done to support the Blazers even though its the off season

     Have you painted you face blazers red and black to a work picnic to show support

     Have you stayed up all night after a busy day following trade scenarios

     Have you traveled to Europe to do your own scouting trip to bring back to the edge.

    Have you made your own draft day scenario posting it first to another site and then                   decided that it needed more traffic so posted a link to that site on B-EDge.

     Have you gone on other team sites for the sole purpose of finding comments related               to the Blazers so you could give a blazer fan perspective

Tell me your stories

 The Trail Blazers have a group of kids that are quickly becoming men. I don't know what will happen tonight but I do know Yao is not going to go perfect from the field. I do know Portland will not be playing the same uninspired defense that allowed nearly 60% FG shooting by Houston.

The TrailBlazers are the best team after a time out in the League. I imagine this three day layoff as one giant timeout by Nate and when we come out of this time out we will be playing inspired ball.

The Trailblazers length and Height advantage will at every position except Yao will catch up to the Rockets in a long series.

Try and be classy Houston, We did send Drexler to you guys in the 1990's. 

I think that since the Trail Blazers had so many Rookies that helped contribute to the winning of our team this year that we should declare a Rookie of the Year for the TrailBlazers.  Because the rest of the league dosen't mean much anyways.

The Candidates;

Rudy Fernandez

Greg ODEN

Nicolas Batum

Jerryd Bayless

Continue reading this post »

Rudy is now back on pace to tie the 3's mark Set by Kerry Kittles of 158.

With 10 games left the Blazer Rookie only in name has 138 with a nice 2/5 made a game. 

At current pace he will tie the record.

With recent games of 3, 4 and 5 threes in a game he is hot at the right time.

 The Ariza foul was seriously putting in Jeopardy the record, with four straight games two to injury and two to soreness of zero threes.

The cold streak is over and I believe he will set his goal of setting this mark. 

Goals for individuals and teams are important to set and strive for it keeps players sharp.

Number one goal is to make the playoffs, team comes first. 

But individual goals are important too.

Rudy has mentioned that one of his goals this season is to set the NBA rookie record of 3's made in a year. He has hit a 3 in every game he has played except the Boston game.  Thanks to last nights 4/8 from 3 he is on pace.

top 2 Current record holder: 

Kerry Kittles 1996-1997  -----  158

Juan Carlos Navarro  2007-2008  ---- 156

Soon to be new record holder

Rudy Fernandez                     3 pointers                       

Goal                                          159                              

*Current Pace                         162                                 

*79 thru 40 team games On Pace for 162 

Oh yeah Fernandez is shooting better percentile then either of those shooters by a significant margin as well. 

Fernandez  39.5 %  Kittles 37.7%  Navarro  36.1%

Oden mentioned that his goal for the season was to get 10 pts and 10 rebounds per game. Iif he misses the same about of games in the second half of the season as he missed in the first numbers work out. I think the rebound goal doesn't look achievable, but I would like to think Greg could turn it on and get the points goal during the second half of the year. 

Greg ODEN                 Points                       Rebounds

        Goal                          10                                10

        Current                    7.9                               6.8

        Needs                    12.1                              13.2

What are some other goals individual blazers have set and are they on pace to achieve them? I think goals help keep players motivated in a long NBA season.