The statements came before Roy's apology on Wednesday, but Kersey said of the Blazers three-time All-Star, "You have to keep credibility. Being that this is the second time this has come up, I think Brandon is going to start to lose credibility with his teammates."

Kersey was particularly irked that Roy didn't say the names of the player (Andre Miller) he was apparently venting about. The former Blazers star said if he were Miller, he'd tell Roy: "You got a problem with me? This is coming straight. We can do this. We can do this anywhere we want to do it. If you're talking about me, say my name. You got a problem, come to me."

What happened to the humble Roy of 4 years ago?  Complaining, whining, and throwing teammates under the bus isn't what many of us saw when we embraced him as a rookie. 

ESPN.com have a feature called Ultimate Team Rankings where they measure all the major pro sport leagues in the US and rank them on various criteria.  Teams from MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL are all taken into account.  As much as we complain about PA and management...our team fared pretty well as far as relations is concerned (ranked 18th).  We took a big hit from last years ranking of 25th overall franchise to this years 38th, however that is still a pretty solid ranking.  

Weigh in on your thoughts...

click for rankings

I have to say that I have spent countless hours on BEdge when I could have been doing more productive things with my life.  However, the people, the conversations, the laughter, and the wonderful insight has always kept me coming back.  I've experienced quite a few ups and downs that seem to have some kind of correlation to how the team is performing, but after taking two mini-bedgecations, I'm not sure I feel the same love for this site that I did in years past. 

Recenty, Ilikemall said, "There was a time when this blog was for intelligent BASKETBALL fans. It has unfortunately become O-Live 2…"  I think he hit the nail right on the head.  I could go on a long rant right now, but I'll spare you from my whining.  Am I in need of a 3rd BEdgecation?  Or am I not the only one that feels this way?

I pretty much just had the most pressure ever put on me in my life.  Last night I was shooting Craps at the Aria casino in Vegas...and my first 3 rounds shooting were phenomenal...the entire table completely warmed up to me.  The table was filled with all kinds of people.  There was an african american fellow, who I nicknamed "Reggie Miller," bc he was such a solid shooter yesterday. However I was a pretty sharp shooter myself.  Without embellishing...I must have held the dice for a good half hour each of my first 3 times with the dice (there are 6 ways to roll a 7 and lose...so I typically think that if you roll the dice 7+ times you are doing ok.  I threw at a minimum of 20 times per session...and got to an estimated 50 on my final session). 

Then comes this huge high roller...the guy cashes in for the equivalent to the entire value of my house.  He is betting nearly my 6 months salary on each hand.  The guy is just owning the place with his presence and his pull with the dealers.  He was telling girls how ugly they were (despite looking like a thicker/younger version of Bill Gates), he also prevented like 3 people from joining our table when I was shooting bc the table was so hot. 

It was crazy...well I am up to shoot again for the 4th time...and I had been rolling for at least a half an hour, the entire table is just loving me and giving me energy as I have been rolling so hot.  The high roller for some reason adopts me as his own at the table, yet was looking down on the others at the table.  I roll a 6 to establish a point (fairly easy number to win on)...the high roller started betting on my behalf to hit crazy difficult combinations.  He laid a 100 dollar bet...and with each successive roll he would add another 100 to bet on my behalf, the dealers behalf, and for himself.  At one point...there was 800 dollars on the table *not including the 25k he had elsewhere on the table*, that he laid down for just myself to win (800 for the dealers and 800 for himself as well).  A successful roll would have yielded wins of 6000 or 2000.  The pressure that was being put on me was enormous. 

I was feeling confident (too much ketel one and the table had been pumping me up for nearly an hour at this point) that I was going to hit my mark as I have been nailing 6s like Rudy nails his 3s.  The table was electric and people from all over the casino had crowded around my table just to watch and try to get in the action (yet the high roller would signal to the dealers that no one was allowed join us).  With that much pressure put on me, I ended up rolling a 7 and didnt hit my point (I rolled my point 7 times previously in this same session). 

I am sitting here 5 hrs later on very little sleep just reliving that moment, and wondering what if?  Either way it was possibly the most fun and the most pressure ever put on me in my life. 

Well I told my story...do you guys have any big pressure stories that you have to share?

I was thinking of the first time I actually spent time with a BEdger IRL.  I recall the moment began in a JD, and Prezofdeath was asking for recommendations on places to have dinner at.  Prez ended up choosing my recommendation (Apizza Scholls) and asked me to join him....and the rest is history.

Speaking of history...if you could have a drink or go out to dinner with any person who would it be with?  Why?  How about anybody that is alive now?  Which BEdger do you wanna get to know better that you haven't had the chance to get to know yet?  Tell us about where you would go and what you would order.  Any burning questions that you will ask them?

Deceased person you would dine with?

Alive person you would dine with?

BEdger you would dine with?

In case you all didn't know, Galactic Love and Starvin Marvin (aka Dirty Socks aka Da Roybot aka the self proclaimed best bowler of BE who was beaten by Prez, Xman, and myself ) have quite the wager going on.  In the near future the two of them will be bowling for very high stakes.  If Starvin Marvin can beat G. Love by more than 100 pins, she will buy courtside seats for Mr. Marvin.  However, if Miss G. Love can beat Marvin straight up, he will need to dress up in women's clothes, complete with full makeup (and be paraded around the RG at a game).  These are pretty high stakes for both of these bowlers, and since G. Love is spending all of her free time training to beat Marvin, I decided to take it upon myself to ask BE what outfit should Tyler wear when he loses.

First...we have the cheerleader outfit

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

2nd we have the school girl outfit (red and black obviously)

via upload.ecvv.com

3rd we class things up a little with an evening gown

via images.dawgsports.com

4th or we can take the casual approach like Tyler's favorite celeb, Audrina

via www.celebritybeautybuzz.com

Now that cell phones have improved in sound quality over the years from polyphonic ringtones to now full blown mp3 ringtones, users can express their personality through their ringtone.  I recall getting my first PDA phone right when Jackass 2 game out on DVD.  I became hooked with the music video they had at the end of that movie.  The Jackass crew lipsynced to Peaches - F the Pain Away.  I liked it so much that I had to download it as my ringtone the first second I could.  Well later that week, I ended up going to a packed sneak preview showing of 300.  Since my PDA phone was really high tech and complicated, I ended up thinking that I turned my phone on silent, but actually turned it to LOUD.   Well during a quiet part of the movie, my cell phone decides to ring, and the entire theater kept on yelling expletives at me and I frantically tried to shut off my phone.  It was a touch screen phone so I fumbled around trying to silence the sound, and then I tried just rejecting the call, but the entire song continued to play.  If you aren't aware, this song is just full of profanity...so the fact that hundreds in the theater could hear with mp3 clarity what was coming out of my phone made it a lot more embarassing than if I had one of those Nokia phones from the late 90s. 

So Bedge...what is your main ringtone?  Do you have custom ringtones for certain people?  If you had Ben, Dave, or any other Bedger in your cell phone and had to give them a custom ringtone, what would it be?

I have been terribly busy so far this summer doing stuff in relation to purchasing a home.  Now that I finally found a place, most of my time has been spent furniture shopping, and pouring over decorating books, sites, shows, and images.  Thank God this is happening during the off season and not during the season causing me to miss any games.

Well I recently came across something I was really interested in a few years ago...MAN CAVES!  Now that I have my own house, what better way to express my manhood and my love for the Blazers than with a Blazers themed man cave. 

I envision my man cave to include a grey painted concrete flooring with paint specs and a Blazers logo that will later be epoxied.  Then I can construct a shrine to house my memorabilia.  Of course the place will have a mounted flat screen with CSN so that I can hook it up to my computer and make a Blazers video vault to have all the games archived. 

Lastly, maybe a homemade custom poker table...also Blazer themed of course.

Anyone else love mancaves?

I was kind of hoping to save this for a midweek JD, but since there isn't a JD posted I just thought I'd go ahead and post it.  OK Bedgers...what's the most embarrassing story you are willing to admit to BE Nation?  Did you pass gas in front of someone you really wanted to impress?  Did you drunk dial/text/confess your feelings to someone?  Did you get caught with your pants down (a la Paul Pierce and Sam Adams)?

I've had numerous embarrassing moments over the years...but the most embarrassing came during the final week of my senior year in HS.  I had recently pranked a friend of mine...and he had vowed to return the favor.  Only he returned it in a very big way.  At the time I had a HS crush that was only known to my close friends.  I never really worked up the courage to express my interest in her.  So to get back at me...my friends constructed a 15 foot animated poster that confessed my love to her.  They made it in a way that seemed like I had a hand in this (however I was completely surprised).  So during a school assembly...when the entire school was present, they walked along the stage with the sign, and hung it up on the banister.  My face turned bright red as I shook my head in disbelief.  What was even more embarrassing was that the object of my affection thought it was sweet of me to do this and took a picture with me with the entire school watching.  That last week of school was rough, bc every hour someone had to bring up that story again.  I'm sure it'll be talked about during my reunion as well.

Well everyone...what is your most embarrassing moment?

A common topic that has been coming up a lot here lately is the officiating in the series.  In 5 games so far the referees have called 107 fouls against Houston and 113 against Portland.  Only a -6 foul differential!  We've seen comments and posts for the first 4 games about how biased the officiating has been.  Some have speculated that there is a conspiracy by Stern to draw in more Chinese fans by advancing Houston to the next round.  Looking at the margin of fouls called makes me wonder, are we just homers that are blinded by love of our hometown team?  If the officiating was really that poor in the first 4 games, you would expect there to be a larger margin of fouls called. 

While strolling over to The Dream Shake, they are complaining about the same thing many BEdgers are...poor officating.  So we are complaining about poor officiating, they are complaining about poor officiating.  So is one team being favored here?  Or is the officating equally poor for both teams?

As a team, our Blazers have been challenged numerous times.  Each time we have learned from our past/mistakes and have overcome those challenges.  Every question we have had about this team, has been answered.  We have shown resiliancy, ability to beat championship contending teams, able to win without Brandon/Lma, ability to end losing streaks, ability to shut out bottom feeder teams, ability to come from behind, etc.  We've had 54 regular season wins...some were blowouts, others were heart attacks waiting to happen.  Each player has had their moment to shine this year from Brandon all the way down to Shavlick in the preseason.

One of our goals this season was just to get a taste of the playoffs to gain experience for next year.  However...3 games into the series, have we learned anything as a team?  Have we seen any growth?  What have we learned about how our players are responding to the intensity of the playoffs?  Was the game 3 loss a moral victory that we can be pleased with?  How do you currently feel about our personel and what areas of concern do you have?

I'm pissed...your pissed...our team is pissed.  Lets vent here, so that others don't clog up the board with knee jerk reaction posts.  I've already seen some posts that crossed well over the line, and BE is much better than that.  Venting is fine, but please control yourself as this is a family place. 

Whatever happened tonight, rest assured that Nate and the boys will probably be losing more sleep than any of us tonight and will be hard at work tomorrow watching tape and going over schemes.  They will be ready to bring it Sunday.

For 2009 I've made a conscious effort to not dine at national corporate chain restaurants like Red Robin...and to dine at smaller local mom and pop hole in the wallish type places.  So far this year I've found some really good gems.  According to Food Network, and some of the celeb chefs on FN, Portland is among the top 5 cities for dining.  Just recently Guy from Diners Drive Ins and Dives came to town and dinned at our best hole in the walls. 

So BE...let me ask you, what are your 3 favorite local restaurants, and what is the standout dish that each restaurant serves?

Ok..I know thats not much of a prize, but I figure this would be a fun thing to do.  What's the catch?  Nothing really, I just had an extra ticket for the game and I want a good laugh.  So the rules of the contest are, you just have to post a link or embed a funny picture.  The one that makes me laugh the most will win.  Contest will wend at 6pm Presidents Day.  I'll include a baseline picture so you all know where to set the bar.

*NOTE* if you want to make your own motivational poster...you can use this site. Motivational Poster Generator

While a lot of us criticise many of Nate's decisions, we have to remind ourselves that he has an incredibly tough job.  Dealing with all the adversity that he has had over the years, this year is incredibly tough.  KP has Pritchslapped his way into building a team with too much depth.  I'm sure that's a problem that Nate is willing to work with however.  Nate is faced with a lot of conflicting challenges: making the playoffs, winning now, building for the future, and being as fair as possible to foster good competition in practice. 

With all of these conflicts however, is it a good idea to give out spot minutes to players (especially shooters/finesse players not necessarily bangers/hustle guys)?  We all saw Sergio pressing a lot last year and now we are seeing Bayless presing as well.  Frye is having a hard time finding a shooting rhythm when he plays spot minutes as well.  I'm wondering if you all feel its beneficial to give spot minutes to a player or not?  On one hand our inexperienced guys need a shot, so that we can evaluate them and for them to improve.  On the other hand giving spot minutes can cause them to press, make mistakes they otherwise wouldn't have, lose self-confidence, and make it tough for them to get in a rhythm.

I found this from the Wages of Wins Journal site

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/monta-ellis-this-time-and-not-lemarcus-aldridge/

The media’s vote indicated that LaMarcus Aldridge was the third most improved player.  But if we look at the 25 most improved, Aldridge’s name is nowhere to be found.

We do find Aldridge’s name, though, in Table Two.

Table Two: The Unchanged in 2007-08

Table Two reports the players who changed the least from 2006-07 to 2007-08.  The 20th player on this list is Aldridge.  Yes, a player who members of the media think is the most improved really hasn’t changed much at all.

At least, not in the aggregate.  There were some changes in Aldridge’s performance if we look at the individual stats. 

Table Three: Evaluating LaMarcus Aldridge

As Table Three indicates, Aldridge did manage to take more shots this season.  And despite a lower level of shooting efficiency, he was able to score more points. Of course, if you score less efficiently, you are not helping as much as you could.

In addition to scoring, Aldridge also posted an increase in assists and personal fouls.  But he rebounded slightly less and committed a few more turnovers. The net effect was a very small change in Win Score per minute, and as noted, WP48.

Of course the media doesn’t look at Win Score or Wins Produced. In fact, they don’t appear to look at shooting efficiency or per-minute stats.  What they did see is that Aldridge increased his per-game scoring from 9.0 to 17.8.  And apparently, that was enough to get Aldridge some votes.

The Least Improved

At least, Aldridge did improve a bit.  A few players didn’t quite fare this well.  Table Four reports the least improved players - or the players who posted the biggest declines - in 2007-08.

 *EDIT* Sorry guys...after checking out the website, I've realized that it is a website for designers to upload their concepts hoping to get work.  I doubt that this will be used next year.  He has other concept pictures for other teams that have been dated years ago that have never came to fruition.

Hi there Blazer Fans.  I googled up "trail blazer uniforms" just right now and googled up some pictures of the city of Portland to get some photos to make some avatars/signatures and stuff.  I came across this picture that might interest you all.  I don't know if any of it is official or if this is just a concept picture.  It also looks like they have a new logo redesigned too.  The link can be found here...

http://www.coroflot.com/Wayne_Russell

via i30.tinypic.com

The design seems a like it would most likely be used for an alternate uniform, as I can't picture us wearing these on a regular basis.  What are everyones thoughts and opinions?