I've been kind of kicking this idea around for a while. What books and movies do you consider required (or overrated) to understand basketball. This came up mostly because I hadn't heard of 'The Breaks of the Game' before a Bill Simmons' column last year. After reading it I was kind of shocked that someone hadn't forced me to sit down and read it before then. I mean I am a PTB fan, and I wasn't even aware that the book existed.

Another recent one has been Hoop Dreams, which is just awesome, and it really shows what these kids give up to try and reach the goal of coming to the NBA. If you have had experience with High School basketball as a player or as a coach these stories are familiar, but it really highlights the way basketball is used to cross or create social barriers. Two specific scenes stand out in my memory, with the white assistant coach asking one of the basketball players looking between schools for a college scholarship (I'm paraphrasing)

Have you met the person in charge of the black students?

No.

Have you talked to the other black basketball players about their life on campus?

Yea it’s alright.

Is it alright?

Yea, well they've got the best of everything.

And another scene:

Well if he played better basketball he wouldn't have had no economic problems with St. Joe's.

Just the way that basketball isn't even used as the end goal of trying to get into the NBA. Instead it is giving these kids a leg up from 14 onward. They get to go to a better high school if they're good at basketball. They have the opportunity to go to college if they are good at basketball. In the end one of the kids is playing college ball for a junior college which has 7 black students. 6 live at the house provided for kids on basketball scholarships.

Anyways I would love to hear what you guys think are other good sources, or about how my take on these two is completely wrong.

So one thing has always bothered me about Hollinger's rating system, which is that he basis schedule strength on wins and losses, while he uses point differential for other aspects of determining the strength of the team. As point differential is a stronger stat with respect to predicting future winning, I took the schedule of each team, and created a strength of schedule based on the respective opponents point differential.

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Henry Abbot of TrueHoop recently posed the question to his 'Truehoop Network of Bloggers' who is your second favorite team and why. I would definitely be interested in other people's take on this including Ben and Dave.

This site seemed like a good place to pose this question as 90% of us already know what each others' first favorite team is, and I thought it would be interesting to hear who else you root for in this league of ours. If you don't have a second favorite team I would heartily suggest finding one, and hopefully some other commentators can convince you to watch theirs. A second favorite team gives you more chances to watch other games, a commitment to seeing how a different style fares against the different match-ups. And the freedom to root for a team, and never feel the deep disappointment when you see the team fall.

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Tonight marks the end of an era in Phoenix. I will be honest, I followed and loved the Suns during the dark days of the Blazers franchise. When the season ended for us, I followed the Suns in their playoff run.

I loved everything about this team. The players, the style, the absolute unbridled love of the game. While many purists look to the Spurs as the team of the era, I will always have a special place in my heart for the Suns of 2003-2008. The Spurs were the defense and intensity and as different as points of the compass the Suns were the offense and joy. The black and gray of the East was highlighted and enhanced by the brash purple and orange to the West.

As Freedarko has said "they unleashed a running game on a league that was stagnated with half court offenses". It was like a mugging in a peaceful meadow, it would take the league a season to realize this team of unknowns were serious, and another yet to realize that not only were they serious; they were dangerous.

The league had grown boring, predictable even, and the Suns with D'Antoni at the helm, showed that there were other ways to win. There were entire other styles that were yet undiscovered... and they could work. While the Suns would have "problems" in the playoffs. While reaching the Western Conference Finals, and being right there several times, the Suns never got over the hump. They sure as heck deserved to, but that is its own thing.

The team that could have been, is a hack name for a great team. But they had the potential, they had the style, they just ran into the anti-suns every year. The black hole where style and substance is sucked into a wormhole of defense and rigid structure. Every year something would happen: a fluke injury to a key role player, a ridiculous 3, a completely ridiculous bet saving double technical foul. The Sun hardly notices the planets as they orbit, but these Suns should understand the profound effect they have had on this league.

While Amare will get back and the Suns will once again fight next year for the post-season, they will be one year older and will almost certainly have a different roster. I feel we should just take a moment and show some respect from onr of the great programs of the last several years, and while this style won't be marked with the lasting Monument of the Larry O'Brien Trophy, their style has changed the NBA.

Thank you Suns.

So what the heck does Rasheed do to get so darn many technical fouls? He already has 12(!) this season, which averages out to 1 every 2.33 games. Is the FreeDarko book to blame for this? He gets a one game suspension when he gets to 16 technical fouls (I believe) and then a one game suspension for every technical foul after that (All of this information comes from espn's weekend dime). But what could he be possibly doing to get all of these T's??

I mean KG is taunting, trash talking, and throwing cheap elbows and he isn't getting these technical's called. Is it because Rasheed talks to the refs instead of the other players? Is this was a technical foul is supposed to be? The defense of the refs from having to hear someone complain? Or is a technical foul supposed to protect the players on the court from an egregious breaking of the rules?

Anyways feel free to completely ignore these questions, as this is the Weekend JD, but I am kind of perplexed as to what Rasheed (12) could possibly be doing that is so much worse than KG (4)...

Here's some background on the freedarko Sheed chapter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbAxmsNzio&eurl=http://www.freedarkobook.com/stats.html

This is going to be one of those posts that will either light up, or fizzle with every one calling me an idiot.

Alright so in 2 years Kobe Bryant becomes a free agent. But this summer he also has the ability to terminate his contract and become an unrestricted free agent. Would you accept him as a Blazer? (ref: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/24/sports/sp-kobe24)

There is reason to believe that Kobe would be interested in coming to Portland. He has praised Nate by saying:

“He’s one of the best coaches I’ve seen,”

(ref: www.kgw.com/sports/olympics/localnews/stories/kgw_081908_olympics_mcmillan_coach.)

He has stated that Brandon Roy is one of his favorite players in the league and he likes his game a lot . (ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSuTpK5-j3g)

He has always been a player who has had an obsessive desire with making himself better and being a championship team.

The Freedarko book makes the case that Kobe forced the issue with Shaq, because of Shaq becoming lazy and getting old, and Bryant was looking forward to the future where Shaq would be handicapping the team. (Others make the case that Bryant is a an attention hog, as well as a ball hog)

While the Blazers have not shown they are anywhere near a championship team yet, arguably they are better than the Lakers would be without Kobe. So I pose the question to you, would you accept a free agent signing of Kobe Bryant, or is your hatred too deep?

You all have probably similar feelings as I do towards the Washington Huskies as I do, and so this was a pretty nice surprise...

I was recently going through the Sports Illustrated Ducks webpage, and was pleased to see that last season the Huskies were ranked 13th in Points allowed in the Pac-10

And yes that is 13 in the Pac-10.

f i l l i n g     u p    t  h  e s e   f a n    p  o s t s    t a k e s    s o m e   g e t t i n g   u s e d   to.

I just kind to wanted to address this issue more head on then how we have been discussing Kevin Love recently. While it seems fairly clear that not many of us want to have Kevin Love on our team, what is his future going to look like in the NBA?

To me he has always seemed like a guy who would be awesome in college play, but he doesn't seem to be the type of player who is going to excel in the NBA. John Canzano, recently has been talking about how he has the potential to be a Zach Randolph style player with his excellent footwork and generally excellent grasp of the basics of basketball.

The way I see it is that footwork and basics will get you only so far in the NBA. At a certain point the fact that the other forwards can just jump and get rebounds over him, and at the same time move a lot quicker than him seems like it will become a serious problem. In short if he is getting out hustled and out muscled, will he be able to be effective?

Also on the defensive end the players he would be guarding should have very little problem dunking over him unless Love commits a flagrant foul. The biggest thing he has going for him is his passing, but with his offense being under the basket he's going to have a hard to impossible time throwing his passes over 6' 6" perimeter defenders.

These are the issues that I see with Kevin Love, and there does not seem to be a way for him to improve upon these skills. His problems being a limited jumping ability and his slow speed, can he ever really get better at these things? His best move, the outlet pass, is completely reliant on him being able to get easy rebounds, and in the NBA I just don't see him getting very many rebounds that easily.

To me his liabilities seem almost impossible to improve upon, and his strengths seem to have reached their pinnacle. So I will put the question to you does Kevin Love have any upside potential? And in a alightly unrelated topic, does that really matter?

I was listening to the game (95.5) last night during Courtside and they had Martell on for a very interesting interview. Mike Barrett links to it in his blog: http://mikebarrettsblog.blogspot.com/ . In the interview Martell talks about the work he is going to put in during the off-season, and is surprisingly candid about what he thinks the Blazers need in order to become a championship team. He starts off talking about how they don't really need anybody and that with LMA, Greg, Brandon, himself, and SERGIO as point guard, that is all that they need (edit: he talks about the team at around 6:20).

While we all know that Sergio is a popular teammate, do you think the front office has talked to Martell about what they see as Portland's direction in the future? Martell is not an idiot; he was clearly saying something about who he included and who he left off of that list.

Oh and there is also a funny little bit where they talk to Martell about what he thinks about Rudy and he asks them what position Rudy plays, I can't tell if he is messing with them a little bit, and Mike and Mike say well he is would probably be most comfortable in the 2, without saying that well he pretty much  will be directly competing with Martell for playing time. Anyways absolutely excellent interview, and was Martell signaling the fact (from inside the organization) that Steve, JJ33, Travis (sorry ann), and Jack are on the chopping block?

Okay while I feel like there has been healthy discusison about Mark Cuban and Steve Kerr's decisions to get rid of their coaches, but we have not discussed who will they bring in to replace these coaches. Obviously the current coaches' styles were not what the management was looking for, and so do they go in with new young coaches, or do they try and bring Pat Riley out of the retirement? And even if certain coaches would not move to PHX or DAS, who in the current NBA would be able to improve upon these teams post-season records. Will these coaches even just simply switch teams? Please comment with any first impressions or ramblings you might have: (We are assuming that both D'Antoni and Avery are being pushed off the bench)

This was pretty amazing, I was trolling through 82games.com and came across this statistic. While it is not shocking that we have had trouble getting the ball down low, I did not realize that we were in LAST place in putting up inside shots. Now I know we did not have Greg this year which will help out, Travis (a PF) is sitting at 8th worst in terms of inside shtos, and Martell is not doing much better. While I understand part of this reason is because we are not a fast break team, we desperately need to teach our PF and SF's to attack the basket with more consistency. http://www.82games.com/FGTEAM11.HTM 

If only Greg Oden had been in the game last night then the teams would have looked amazingly similiar, except one at the beginning of their careers and the other at the end. As the starting lines matched up against each other I could not believe the similarities.
Steve Blake and Steve Nash, while Blake doesn't have the confidence or experience of Nash, they were running almost identical plays on the other side of the court, the quick run between defender and shooter on the perimeter and then the dish to the shooter. The quick flip behind and alley-oop plays to amare/Lamarcus.
Lamarcus and Amare, while Lamarcus was trying to work on his inside game, both he and amare's shots were unbelieveably similar, no shooting over each other or muscling, instead mountains of 18 footers and baby hooks, wow. A slightly thicker aldridge and amare is playing his double.
Brandon and Bell, here is the one position that we actually have the better now version of player. While Bell is famed for his defense, when he entered the league he was a strong shooting guard who would take it to the hole. Brandon is exactly who Bell wants to be, and tried so hard to be in the beginning of his career.
Martell and Hill, we have seen flashes of martell trying to be grant hill. The most vivid memory of this was the tomahawk put back in the spurs game, sweet crackers that was awesome. Martell needs to learn this part of Hill's game, the ability to just take it inside, get higher than everybody else and throw down a jam on top of other players. Martell can do this, and he shouldn't be so concerned about getting a blocked shot every now and again, its not the end of the world.
Oden and Shaq, monster centers, effective domination on the inside, this is what we are hoping out of oden. Well that plus a better shot, while in the years to come they will draw comparisons, I can't wait for next year to just see the two battle it out.
If only the Suns were all 8 years younger, this would be the rivalry for the next decade. From how the Blazers reacted and what the suns showed them I wish we could play the Suns every night, if for nothing else than just preparation for next year. Despite the fact we lost last night, this was one of the most fun games to watch especially the first 3 quarters. I loved this game, and can't wait for Oden to return and I hope the players on our team (Blake, martell, and Aldridge) all learned a little bit what it means to be that good, and carry some of that over into next season.

Okay, a friend and I recently had a long discussion of the differences between the US and the rest of the world, and the topic of sports came up. Now, as I am sure you all know, the very best athletes in other countries play soccer, while in the US it is kind of an afterthought (men's i mean).
Now I have spent a lot of time watching the World Cup and the Copa de Oro (The Gold Cup)and I am wondering if the US was as into soccer as the rest of the world which athletes that are currently in the NBA or NFL, would be stars in the US Soccer League.
I am not really thinking of Nash or Sergio who both have a lot of experience playing soccer, I am thinking more of players who are just excellent athletes and their skills would transfer over well. Anyone else have any thoughts?
My contribution: Allen Iverson

Could it be because they are printing the playbook in color this year? Every time I see that commercial during the Blazers game I thank god that Nate decided to go with color, think of where the season would be without it:
It increases comprehension and reduces mistakes, and apparently the plays look great!

What does jack have to do to find some love on blazersedge?

I mean I Know that he has a problem in pressure situations, I Know that he sometimes has a problem holding onto the ball, but he plays his heart out, and he creates shots in most of the games that he is in, his problems are ones that all young players have. He is the perfect counter to steve blake... I really don't know what else to say.

He was 1 rebound and 1 assist away from a triple double against denver...

One more year and he will have all of this on lock, I honestly believe we need to keep him, and he just needs to loosen up, every time he goes into the game I think he feels like he is playing for his life, he obviously loves this team and wants to stay a part of it. I honestly can't think of any other realistic point guards I would be happier to have leading this team than Jack and Blake.

Blake sets up and runs the offense going through plays, while Jack is the complete opposite as a slash and kick point guard.

Jack is willing to pass the ball around (a problem we have had with sooo many other point guards), and the only problem I see is that he passes up open shots when he should take them. I don't know, I think that a big part of this Jack situation is that every other player this year has hit the hero three, while Jack has still yet to do that (this year, last year he definitely hit a couple).

Constantly people want a better second unit guard, we know this isn't sergio, and what other point guard could we even go for? Any thoughts?

The court reporters today decided to single out Portland, and figure out what the heck has been happening in Rip City. They break down a lot of the stats through offensice posessions and provide a formula to figure out if Roy has been the big over-acheiver. Interesting read, but rehashes a lot of things we already knew about the Blazers: http://my.nba.com/forum.jspa?forumID=300012410&start=0

Alright, so while I am not unhappy about the power rankings that showed up in today's Oregonian (we were 8th), and I know that I just posted that power rankings are not necessary and that we shouldn't be griping about them, the Oregonian today had this little gem for an explanation of their power rankings: "Sorry Blazermaniacs, Brandon Roy shouldn't be on the All-Star team this year". Any thoughts about why Geoffrey Arnold would just throw that out there without any explanation or article?

The new power rankings are out, along with a comment from one of our own disgruntled fans:

http://www.nba.com/powerrankings/

Yes we are playing with a chip on our shoulder, but I don't think that we need to be petitioning the media for a higher spot, or a re-evaluation of out team. This isn't college football where opinions matter, this is the NBA and power-rankings aren't worth the paper they are written on.

I was reading the Blog-a-Bull, for an alternate look at the game recap (usually these things are pretty entertaining), and wow, I have never seen fans who absolutely hate almost everything about their team. While I can understand being frustrated... jesus: http://www.blogabull.com/story/2008/1/4/01821/18001#commenttop

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-28-410/Breaking-Down-Brandon-Roy.html

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