i was inspired... of all of you in the district, where do you go to watch blazers games?

'twould be awesome to find out.

and also, who will be at tomorrow night's wizards game? i'm going and am pretty much planning on ripping down the roof of that place with cheers for the REAL team.

who's with me?

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf?/base/sports/119008233182630.xml&a mp;coll=7&thispage=1

this piece is appalling. can canzano not find something to complain about once?! i swear to god. the blazers could go 73-9 and canzano would have some awful thing to write about a player or the franchise.

the blazers are not the nixon administration and he is not bob woodward. not every story needs to blow the top off another insignificant mis-step by the franchise or the league.

not only is he eroding the momentum even more than oden's knee already has, he's second-guessing decisions and actions which he had absolutely no problem with before.

i think he is a weak journalist who is swayed by the whims of public opinion. two months ago: miracle. one microfracture surgery later: blazers = satan.

i'm sure many of you have seen this post http://ballhype.com/story/mapping_the_nba_4/ on ballhype that was discussed on Truehoop.

not to be a downer, but we're near last in every single category. i know we've made some improvements... well, maybe. i haven't been able to read holinger's review of our post season (stupid insider), but i think we've improved. regardless, i don't think we made enough improvements to suddenly jump to the middle of this pack where we all predict us to be--40-45 wins. granted, some teams are sliding while we're definitely on the rise but rebuilding is a long process and we're not yet half way there.

we have the pieces now, but developing them is the hard part. let's not expect too much from these young guys and crush their confidence.

our friend over at draftkevindurant.blogspot.com has come through with one of the best arguments for durant i've read. you can find it here. it is, no joke, an 11 page pdf. i read it, you should too.

http://draftkevindurant.blogspot.com/2007/06/case-for-kevin-part-1.html

please discuss the arguments merits and pitfalls. do you agree?

pritchard has said he is going down to orlando to evaluate prospects for our 4 2nd round picks. this got me thinking.

originally i had thought that every player who could make a difference would be picked in the first 10 spots or so. you know, all the physical only players. but one name on the participating list jumped out at me: aaron brooks.

it suddenly occurred to me that no one outside of the NW knows about this guy. we could package 2 second round picks for a late first round or hope he hangs around for the second. he's a legit guard with a great jumper and leadership ability. he really is one of the most impressive college players i've seen in a while. reminiscent of brandon roy in my opinion. think of those two in the back court with lamarcus, oden and rashard lewis up front. sure, those 5 guys would be pulling in about 65 million between them but... there's no harm in dreaming, right?

i know a lot of you hate thinking about this, but a You be the GM comment got me thinking again:  is paul allen planning on moving the blazers to seattle? he bought the rose garden which we all take as the final sign in the blazers staying in portland. but what if, as some argument i read months ago said, he only bought it because it makes it easier to move a team when you own the arena (not sure how this works, but perhaps someone could chime in). also, maybe he was instrumental in picking up roy. the seattle-born hero. imagine his homecoming. imagine mcmillan's homecoming.

this only scares me because the potential loss could be so great. can you imagine going through the years we've gone through just to have the blazers move up to seattle?

does anyone think there is any weight to this paranoia?

i think this is a fact: aldridge is a more effective power forward than randolph. after just half a season he has established himself as a dominant offensive player and solid defensive presence.

what do you guys think?

in other news... how about them ducks. porter shot a 3-pointer percentage that few players can match, but the team still came close to blowing it down the stretch. do the ducks have any chance of topping the defending champs and noah? can they drop 3s faster than florida can draw fouls and get points in the paint?