Everyone has ideas on how to improve the team. Some are no-brainers, like trading Wesley Matthews and Nolan Smith for an All Star. Who would say no to that? Some aren't popular at all, like letting Batum walk, no matter what he's offered. But all of it comes down to what priorities we have in place. We often look at the moves, but we far more infrequently look at the priorities that inform those moves. Well, let's look at what some of those priorities might be. And what kind of order we might put them in. Granted, some will overlap in areas, but these are some that I've seen. I'm not going to put them in order just yet. But I am going to number them to make it easier for you to do so in the comments.

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I love our Portland Trailblazers. I love the players we have on our team. Each and every one of them. I want them to succeed. And, like every bling homer, I believe that this team has a chance to compete in the clogged West.

However, reality is that this team, as constructed, is right in the middle of that clog. Right in the middle of that second tier. And perhaps there are many who would call that optimistic. But that’s who I am. Who knows, maybe the Blazers pull it all together in the playoffs, produce a very successful team, and work to resign as many players from this squad as possible. I would not complain about that.

But when this offseason comes, how is the Blazers’ flexibility?

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I have shared my origin story before. I was even called up to interview about it on Public Radio just as Portland was heading into the playoffs against the Rockets in 2009. And while the Blazers are why we're all here, each of our stories is far more than that. And our stories are ongoing. Just as the team changes over time, so do the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Dealing with depression isn't new in my life. As I've mentioned previously, my family has dealt with it before. But like I said, sometimes things change for the worse. This summer, I've had to deal with a personal breakdown from depression. 

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In an earlier fanpost, I considered the possibility of getting under the salary cap in 2012. In which, I used the loosest possible circumstances, and still came out with the answer no. Since the answer we’re hoping for in this question is yes, we have to go the other direction, and assume the tightest possible scenario.

Of course, the NBA and the Players Union are in discussions over this issue right now. And if the Players Union breaks the owners, there will be little change over salary cap issues than we’re already used to. But that doesn’t give us a significant answer to our question. Instead, we’ll use the owners latest proposal. And I think it’s safe to assume that it wont get more restrictive in future offers. 

So what is the owners’ proposal? They have proposed a "flex" cap, which in reality is a salary cap like we’re used to with a hard cap placed where the luxury tax used to be. In this system, the salary cap is moved to a median salary level of $62 million. Since the last salary cap was at $58 million, with a luxury tax at $70 million, a $62 million salary cap should hard cap at $75 million. 

Admittedly, that’s a guess on my part. It may be more draconian than that (or it may be more lenient). But I want to work with real numbers here, not random guesses.

Also in the owners proposal, the Mid-Level Exception and Bird exceptions are kept. Useable as long as one does not exceed the hard cap. The MLE’s value will likely be locked at 5.2 million, since the $62 million number for the salary cap is based on the median salary in the NBA, as is the MLE. And since the $62 million figure becomes fixed, the MLE will also likely not change much, if at all.

One advantage that the owners’ proposal has, that the players’ proposal does not is the amnesty clause. Under a hard cap, at least one amnesty clause per team will be available. However, the players’ proposal has no maximum salary limits, changing the argument drastically. 

So lets walk through the math. 

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A question came up in one of the threads, and I spent so much time crafting a response, that I figured I'd be donkey's bottom and make a fanpost out of it. The thought came up that if we were to let Miller and Camby expire, we could have some cap savings instead of giving the savings to another team.  So I figured why not make a hypothetical situation and see what happens.

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Sure, if the Lakers win tonight, we will not have to face them in the first round. That saves our toughest matchup later, for when we get there. If the Lakers win, there's always the chance (0.1%) that Memphis or New Orleans might take them out before we play them. If the Lakers win, we can hopefully get a favorable matchup in the first round, and have a chance to win. I would not complain one bit about missing the Lakers in the first round.

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ow I have heard a lot of people make the observation that Nate McMillan’s offensive system has a lot of standing around. And at a cursory glance, it appears true. The point guard stands with the ball at the top of the key for ten seconds before throwing down low it Aldridge for an isolation play. The same thing happened when Brandon Roy played. You would think that he would either have the other guys doing something, or at least get the ball to Roy or Aldridge earlier in the shot clock. We play at the slowest pace in the league. Surely things would be more exciting if we picked up the pace.

And last week, I finally caught on to why this happens. Instead of being terrible plays from an inept coach, it’s rather a brilliant move. But that’s a rather bold statement to make in this environment. So it is up to me to describe what I am seeing in more detail. 

The standard setup when starting a play seems to be a point guard at the top of the key, the two big men on the blocks and the wings in the corners. And to watch it, we wonder why the ball stays around the perimeter. Because a wing may come up and take the ball for a second. A big guy may come up and take the ball for a second. But the ball doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Just kind of out around the top And fans get frustrated, because they know that to get easy shots, the ball has to go inside.

So why doesn’t the ball go inside? Because if a player just drives the ball, defenses are lying in wait for that exact play. To just take the ball into the teeth of the defense is something that only elite level players can do barring a defensive breakdown. Brandon Roy in ’08-’09 was this kind of player. Jerryd Bayless tried to be that kind of player, but often got his shot blocked, or fell out of bounds, or came up empty. When the defense failed to collapse correctly, Bayless did very well. But his consistency was entirely dependent on the defensive effort of our opponents.

But surely that is better than the ball hanging out on the perimeter for the whole shot clock! Perhaps. NBA defenses are very good. But even at an NBA level, it is tough to play a perfect defense for 24 seconds. One turned head. One wrong decision. One slipt second and it ends up an easy bucket for the offense. This is why when Travis Outlaw was here, his man would generally get easy shots. I love Outlaw, but he did wander off on defense too much.

What passing the ball around the perimeter does is probe the defense for weaknesses. And each play, the weakness is going to come from a different spot. If Aldridge’s player is fronting him, instead of putting a body on him, the alley-oop dunk is a very high percentage shot. If Matthews comes around a Cunningham pick under the basket, and the defender is a half step behind, an open shot is available. If Batum’s man is sagging towards Aldridge, the open corner thee is available. These are the things I can spot. Oftentimes passes are made to open shots that I didn’t see coming. 

But that’s what swinging the ball around the perimeter is doing. It is looking for easy shots. And while those opportunities may or may not present themselves, it is well worth the time it takes to check. Easy buckets are better than set plays. And the slowest pace in the league still makes for an fun and exciting game to watch.

And if the easy buckets aren’t there this trip, then run the set play. Dump it to Aldridge in the post. It’s a higher percentage look than any other Blazer can muster. Like it used to be with Roy. He would create a higher percentage shot on his own than the team could muster without him. And these plays come late in the shot clock. Because they don’t really take that long to set up. Ten seconds is plenty of time to bail out to a catch and shoot if the initiating player comes up against a wall. The Roy or Aldridge Isolation play is actually a play with a lot of options in ten seconds. But that’s another fanshot for another time. Still, easier shots are better than set plays. 

Because how many times have we seen the Blazers exploit these easy shots this season? How many alley-oops has there been? How many highlight film plays have we seen? Marcus Camby has been a boon. Andre Miller does not get enough credit in this regard. Rudy Fernandez has been dazzling at times. And it comes from defensive miscues. I don’t know if there is a better team at doing that than Portland right now. And it is super fun to watch. I have heard it said that the Blazers without Roy are more fun to watch. This is the reason why. 

And it has been against really solid defensive teams (or at least solid defensive outings) that Portland has faltered. Because how often has Portland looked brilliant one night and abysmal the next? How often has it looked like we couldn’t miss, then later we can’t hit the side of the barn with a shotgun while standing inside it? How often have we struggled at the end of games when every second of defense counts? How often have we struggled at the beginning of games when all the scouting material is still fresh in the defender’s mind? 

Because Portland is facing so many injuries to talented players, our offense relies even more heavily of defensive miscues. And those are a lot of fun to see. But when they’re not there, Portland stalls hardcore. Pounding it in to Aldridge only works so many times before his man knows to stay awake every possession, and his defensive neighbor knows where to stand to best help out. It’s also why I’m expecting Boston to blow us out Thursday night. I’d love a win, but a solid defense will expose our lack of talent.

But lets take a step back and look at the bigger picture again. That slow, plodding, non-exciting non-ball-movement is the very thing that’s responsible for some of the most exciting plays of the season. (Other exciting plays coming off of opponent turnovers, which we’ve been getting better at!) McMillan has already been doing what we fans are begging for: More easy shots. It just happens to look real ugly when they’re not there to be had. 

The more I watch this game, the more tiny variables, the more split-second decisions, the more order I see in this chaos that is called basketball. I know there are some of you who see this better than I. And maybe some see it differently. Cool. Share what you see.  I want to know more.

But the more I watch, the more I’m convinced that these guys who coach in the NBA know far more an I ever will as a fan. Because it’s easy to sit back and say this or that. It’s our right as fans after all. But it’s a whole’nother thing to impose one’s own order on a chaotic sea of variables. And the best coaches in the NBA are doing just that, McMillan included. Consider me impressed.

Tom in Hawaii's hatred of Andre Miller is well documented. Some have thought he was silly. Some have thought he was crazy. Some have thought he was a troll. Well, I call him a genius in social commentary.  And since I understand that some users prefer having a jump in here, even though it does nothing for me, this seems like a good place to use it.

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I am not a psychologist. I am not trained to treat depression. But I do have two angles that I believe makes me qualified to talk about this subject on a sports blog. First, part of my job is to identify possible depression and refer to those qualified to treat it. Second, depression continues to be a big part of my life personally. 

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Well, I expect to see a million of these soon, so might as well make one now.

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When Henry Chadwick invented the boxscore for baseball, it was a way in which the story of the game could be told without taking up as much valuable newspaper space. It was a brilliant idea. By following the numbers, one could quickly get an idea about who played well and who did not. One could generally see who the heroes and goats were at a glance. While it wasn’t a replacement for actually watching the game, it did give enough information to carry a conversation around the water cooler, or whatever they would gather around before its invention in 1911.

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An Open Letter to Mr. Rich Cho and Mr. Paul Allen Regarding Rudy Fernandez

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Being a forum moderator is a tough thing. There are the rules, and then there are shades of grey. Sometimes, when something big happens, like Chris Paul reportedly wanting a trade, the sidebar explodes. Greyness ensues. It was just easier to let the speculation explode, than trying to keep it all contained.

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When Kevin Prichard was fired, everybody was asking, "What happened?" It was a legitimate question to ask, because we, as fans, didn’t know everything. Yet, maybe we did, we just were too emotionally involved to put the pieces together. So, based on memory, and reports, and a little Dwight Jaynes style conspiracy hypothesizing, I’ve tried to reconstruct the events that led to the firing of Kevin Pritchard. Let’s start with the information that we know. 

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Okay this is for bragging rights. Think you've got the draft figured out? Think you know how the Blazers are going to move? Then let's see if you're right.

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In Britain during the 1960s there was a band that completely changed the world. Sure, many tried, but none could possibly been as successful as the Mastersingers.

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Why do we have to win? Sure winning is fun and all, but at what cost? In this league, the only way to win is to hurt the ones you love. We have been asked to throw away our Blazer love for Jarrett Jack, Ime Udoka, Fred Jones, Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye, Luke Schenscher, Shavlik Randolph, James Jones, Josh McRoberts, Steven Hill, Jarron Collins, Michael Ruffin, Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw. And that is just in the last three seasons. 

This can only mean one thing. If you want to be a fan of a team that wants to win, then love must die. For winning means getting better at the cost of trampling those closest to you under your feet. Or worse, making them Clippers. 

And while all you fans out there are enjoying your team improving and winning, I will be here, drinking a toast to all those you have discarded as empty husks in tribute to the unmerciful god of progress. 

Here’s to the good men who gave their all for you. May the Queen of Angels have mercy on your souls.