with a few folks from WellsFargo. Let me start by saying that Larry is a really nice guy; very generous with his time and seemingly genuine. For the most part it was the usual type of event you'd expect to be arranged by a bank - a lot of discussion about how the Blazers fit into the Macro-economy, the future of the team, ticket sales, Comcast, etc.

However, there were two things that he brought up that I thought would be interesting to the people here so I thought I'd share. I'm not sure if it was ever reported officially (I know there was a lot of speculation...), but the Blazers target on draft night according to Miller was Tyler H. I know that was the conventional wisdom here and probably not a surprise, but I always suspected they were trying to move to get someone else since KP usually goes against the grain in this type of situation. Larry said this very matter-of-factly as if this was already common knowledge so perhaps this has already been reported somewhere else, but I hadn't heard so I thought I would "break" this story. The second thing that he discussed, which I found more interesting was in response to a question someone had about the type of person the Blazer staff looks for when drafting. He talked about how there had been a shift to make sure that the players we bring in fit our culture as well as being good players. He used Zach as an example of how the Blazers now evaluated players differently. He said they had a psychologist (most teams probably do these days...I have no idea) to interview prospective players to make sure they "fit". The part that was interesting to me was that he said there was a certain player that started to drop during the draft that they thought wouldn't be there when they picked at 22. They said that this player was flagged by their psychologist as a poor cultural fit and that according to their "profile" of this player they should pass. He said there was some discussion as this player started to fall towards them, but in the end he said it was an easy decision to stick to their formula and pass on this player. He never mentioned the player by name, but of course the first person that came to my mind was Blair. I never heard anything bad about Blair; in fact, everything I heard going into the draft was that he was a hard-working personable guy and again I have no idea if Blair was even the guy Larry was referring to, but I couldn't really pinpoint anyone else that fell significantly.

Sorry, I don’t post much here (I'm more of a lurker), but I've been reading a lot of posts/threads lately and I found myself pondering the following...


It seems like for some fans there is an allegiance to the team – a championship-or-bust attitude - which allows for a level of interchangeability that is uncomfortable to me. I have been struggling with this lately because I am first and foremost a Blazer fan, but I have developed such a strong bond with the current team that when I read posts that talk about swapping Roy for Paul or Aldridge for Bosh (arguably upgrades in both cases – please let’s not debate whether this is true or not as that’s not the intent of this post…) I am left feeling like that is not MY team. For me, I’d prefer taking my chances with the core of the team, as constructed with some minor tweaking, to lead us forward.

So, I guess the philosophical question to all of you is whether you would rather have the POSSIBILITY of winning a championship with our current team (assuming some tweaks - new PG, better back PF's, etc.) or would you be willing to trade our entire team for a GUARANTEE of winning a championship. Would you trade Roy to get Paul, Aldridge to get Bosh, Oden to get Howard...essentially swapping our current team for upgrades if it meant winning a championship or many championships?

For me the answer is no. I am a Blazer fan, but I also have strong loyalty to this incarnation of the Blazer team. I might be in the minority here and would be interested in hearing everyone’s take on this.

Let me start by saying that I’m thrilled with the draft last night and the move to get Bayless. Thrilled! From all the rumors I read leading up to the draft that had us parting with A LOT more to land a quality PG to only have to part with JJack and McBob was a huge triumph, I think.

Having said that, I am really disappointed with a how many of our fans behaved with regards to Jarrett Jack. Like most fans, I was Ok with JJack going in the Bayless deal, but the way he was treated post-trade has left a bad taste in my mouth. From fans cheering when his name was mentioned in a trade BEFORE the other part of the deal was announced; the "hit the road Jack" crap; some of the comments I’ve read, etc.  From my perspective, despite his somewhat regular mistakes (stepping out of bounds, timely turnovers…), I thought the guy always played hard, represented himself and his team with dignity, and from all reports was a great locker room guy. He wasn’t a cancer, didn’t get into trouble and was one of the good guys as we transitioned from the Jail Blazer era. Even if he was the 15th-best player on our team a "good look JJ, here’s hoping your next stop works out better…." Something similar to what McBob got.

It’s funny, I had a draft party last night with some friends/family last night – some of them huge fans others were there to humor me – and when Danilo went with the 6th pick and the NY fans started to boo many of us commented on how classless their fans were. Of course, I chimed in with the usual "Well those are just fickle NY fans; our fans are so much better – we’d never do that to one of our players"… It's not like we booed him, but I wanted a bit more "we'll miss you"; or "thanks for everything you've done" (By the way, thanks for the

Sorry, I’ve never posted here before and don’t want my first post to be of the whiny, self-righteous variety, but I just wanted to call out some of the fans that I thought were being a bit, well, un-fanlike. Maybe I’m missing something here – wouldn’t be the first time, but I expected more from us….

By the way, I was excited to see the Jarrett Jack appreciation thread that was started and enjoyed reading everyone’s posts there! I would have posted this there, but this is less a "Jarrett Jack appreciation" thread and more of a "C'mon fans, we can do better than that" thread.

Go Blazers!