SB Nation User Blog: blazerbeliever97504

David Lee? Nate Robinson? general Panic, what gives?

blazerbeliever97504 — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:13:48 -0000

I have been hearing several rumors about what we may do since the "fallout" of the Shedo saga. I even heard a rumor(ESPN i think) that Lamar Odom will sign with the L@kers unless we make a play for him. Why is it that once the Hedo signing was off so many of us felt like the sky was falling? I felt nearly the same as Dave, as he stated in his recent post. However disapointed i personally feel i am optimistic that good things will happen.

Now to address what i stated in my title, Lee, Robinson? really? Lee is a VERY effective PF who plays ONLY PF.....not Center......Not small forward.......Power Forward only.......Some will say " he plays center on occasion for the Knicks." Duh he plays in the NBAs JV league, better known as the eastern conference. For the record let me say the east will be as competative is it has been for probly ten years this year, but up to this year it truely(please no celtic arguements) has been a JV league. My point is, where does Lee fit? We pay him 8-10 mill/yr to do what? play 35mins-gm.....taking from LMAs production. Or, we pay him 8-10 mill/yr to play 20-25 min-gm...he gets upset about PT and we have a distraction. Overall point: bad fit.

Nate Rob- great player, great athlete, bad fit for our squad. (IMHO)I do not and will never buy into the theory that Nate Robinson and Jerryd Bayless are the answer for us at PG long term. We need something at PG but honestly with my limited knowledge i do not know what. What i do know/ believe is that another score first PG is not what we need. Overall point: bad Fit.

Last but not least, rumor flavor of the day: Lamar Odom was one i heard that perked up my ears. This has zero chance in my opinion. Interesting thought though. I still remain firmly in the Sign Marvin Williams and trade Blake, Trout, Etc. for a good starting PG. Reading http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/6/28/928181/marvin-williams-por-favor just made to much sense. Give your thoughts Blazer Nation. Whaty would be your ideal move?

Surprisingly mixed feelings

blazerbeliever97504 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:08:16 -0000

Its funny, i have never been sold on Turkeyglue but i have mixed feelings about our situation. It seems like since the opening jump of the current FA period we went HARD after Hedo. My thought(limited as it is) was that at 30yo around 10mil per season, a 5 yr contract was "no bueno." 34+ year old players with 10+ million dollar contracts are allmost always cap killers.

But hey, i have said it before and ill say it again......"In K.P. i trust." So i check this site and that site, looking for stats tendancies and overall PER type stuff. What do i find? Allthough he has a relatively low(compared to elite players) PER his overall skill set is somewhat unique. So i start to buy into it......a 6' 10" SF/PF who can shoot, pass, and create for others and himself. I start to think "hey, we may be over paying but his skill set plus our need for a true vet, ok not a bad idea."

We "come to a verbal agreement" with him and im like "ok lets roll with this, we will trade a few role players for Hinrich,etc." My thought was

PG: Hinrich(or name your dream PG)- Bayless

SG: Roy - Rudy

SF: Hedo - Batum

PF: LMA - Hedo/ signed FA

C: Oden - Pryz

Anyone not mentioned is fodder for trades. I was truely starting to buy into this idea. However...."She-do"(not my nickname for the record, but hilarious just the same)opted to go canadian. My hope now is this. Irish3 posted http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/6/28/928181/marvin-williams-por-favor.......this post made several VERY good points about why Marvin Williams would be a good fit. Humor me for a moment......Say we sign Williams for around 6 million/yr which is(i think) well above the MLE that he is being offered (correct me of i am wrong please) then get a back up PF at around 2-3 million/yr. Trade for a more than average starting PG and roll into camp still a very young/ deep and athletic team. Again i have some seriously mixed feelings, once i bought into Hedo mania it seems tough to not have some kind of "mania" going on.

Lets hear your thoughts Bedgers.....are you on the fence?....anti Turkeyglue?.....or totally stoked? I would include a poll but im lazy and dont want to. Personally i still cant make up my mind how i feel.

Is it wierd to anyone else we kept so many draft picks?

blazerbeliever97504 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:16:04 -0000

Let me first say i am no K.P.(not even in the ball park, or same neighborhood) However it seemed a little odd to me that we kept as many draft picks as we did. Maybe im off base here and please if i am let me know, but it seems to this point the general tone of priorities hinted at by everyone from Bedgers to Oregonlive articles and anywhere in between i have read things is to "trim some fat" so to speak and add a veteran or two. To my count we have (i think) 11 players we are keeping after trading sergio. I know we arent playing our 1st round pick anytime soon but Pendergraf will be, plus Cunningham and Mills put us at 14 players.

Now i guess this works out if we sign Jason Kidd(like i have been praying) and no one else. If K.P. believes Pendergraf can play the Back up PF(is he really a PF?) and wants to plug one more vet into the starting line up......well ok that makes sense. I know some of you are saying "its so we can trade for Hinrich." I just dont buy the Hinrich scenario......Hear me out........Hinrich is young and very good point guard, long term he would rock for us. I personally believe Bayless is our future, to that end signing J-kidd to come in for 2 maybe but not likely 3 years to teach Bayless to play point is the way to go. Imagine it, Bayless with his raw skills playing and learning behind Kidd........i would bet $50 right now that in 2-3 years playing behind kidd Bayless would be an allstar.

Anyways, off of my Hinrich/Kidd rant. To me it seemed odd to actually keep all of these players. I envisioned K.P doing like he has done several times and thats to package several picks for either better or future picks. It did not seem as though we needed 3 more rookies, again atleast from my limited point of view. Let me know what you guys think, am i way off base? Does it seem wierd? Or what?

Greatest era in Blazer History?

blazerbeliever97504 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:37:56 -0000

As was pointed out by da34shadow we are in the midst of a historic three years. We have literally gone from zero to "hero" in the minds of allmost all of blazer nation. Let me just say i suported these guys at there worst.....allmost, once it became ridiculous to the point of insanity i threw in the towel. The Z-bo's(my grandma is sick so i'll be at the strip club) the Ruben pattersons("im a kobe stopper", what a joke) so on and so forth. It became a joke to even tell people "yup, im a blazer fan." Nine times out of ten you would get laughed out of the room, even to this day when i say "how bout them blazers" the non regular fan says "you mean the jailblazers?"

This is significant for two reasons for me. One: even non regular fans knew and were ashamed of the exploits of the "jail blazers." I'm not sure whats tougher accomplishing that or winning a title,non regular fans would pay attention to either it seems. Truely sad. Two: Non regular fans have not been made aware of the changes and the truely quality people we have the privilidge of watching. Truely sad also.

I point these things out because i think they directly impact this era as being the best era(though at a VERY early age) in Blazer history. You have the 70s Walton, Lucas Blazers. The late 80s early 90s Drexler Blazers. The Late 90s ealry 00s Sabas, Pippen, Wallace team.(also known as the birth of the jail blazers) Finally the current late 00s early 10s blazers. Please understand that age wise we are infants compared to every other era i spoke of. But if we are young then we are Lebron freaking James, at our young age i believe we would give any of the other era teams a run for there money.

I FULLY understand this roster (im talking to you Roy,LMA,Oden, and Rudy) have tons to prove to be up there with any of there other are teams, especially the title team of the 70s. I do think that in basically three years we have proved more than any other era in the same three year stretch. I am too lazy to post a poll so just give your opinion and reasoning and we can debate the issue. My vote is the current are team, but thats my homerism.

Borderline Blasphemy, Bad idea, or good idea?

blazerbeliever97504 — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:03:05 -0000

I'v been reading all the side bar posts talking about who we should be picking up and they are all pretty good ideas. Then i was reading The small line-up and as11osu wrote a post with a list of free agents he personally would look at and as i read the list i saw Lamar Odom's name on there and i got to thinking...... Imagine this if you will, (totally hypothetical) we sign Odom as a FA then trade away Trout, Martell, and Blake for Hinrich + 1st rd in '09 or '10.(doesnt matter) Now i know some will say Martell, Trout and Blake is too much to give up but hear me out.

If by some stroke of fortune this actually happened we would have a rotaion of:(by depth)

PG 1.Hinrich 2.Bayless 3. Random Filler

SG 1.Roy 2.Rudy 3. Random filler

SF 1.Batum 2.Odom(he plays the 3 for L.A. at times) 3. Random Filler

PF 1. LMA 2. Odom 3. Random Filler

C 1. Oden 2. Pryz 3. Random filler

Random Filler= Draft pick, FA, Etc.

I see a few issues with this, first to come to mind is he is a L*ker (yuck) and is not likely to leave L.A. for portland, second i honestly have no idea if this is financially possable even if he did want to play here. Im not sure how much he would be asking per year and we dont have alot to spend in Free Agency from my understanding. Third i would think Chicago would pull the trigger on the Hinrich deal but one could never truely know.

The pluses as i see it are that Nic gets more playing time and stays a starter. Bayless steps firmly into the #2 PG spot. Rudy and Odom become our sixth men. Pryz keeps on keepin on. On paper i would love to see this happen in reality i am not sure if it is even possable but that would be my dream scenario. Let me know what you guys think, is this possable? Is this Blasphemy to say we should sign a L*ker? Is it a bad idea? Or a good idea? Poll located below

Poll

Blaspemy? Good Idea? or Bad Idea?

Blaspemy

38 votes

Bad Idea

49 votes

Good Idea

36 votes

123 votes | Poll has closed

Whats our best draft year Re-dux

blazerbeliever97504 — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:27:53 -0000

I posted this over 6 months ago, but since the draft is just around the corner i wanted to re-post it and ask the question again. SINCE 1977 what has been our best draft? Prior to '77 we had some stellar Draft classes but i want to focus on 1977 and after. . . . .

So ill start at 1977 our only glory year. We have had a terrible track record for draft picks through out our history, others are probly worse than us but i dont care nor pay attention to them. I got on a few websites and started looking through our draft history sonce 1977 and it isnt pretty. Please bare in mind i am omitting any trades up till recent times. (I.E. K.P.'s riegn)

1977: Rich Laurel #19, who is he again?

1978: Mychael Thompson #1, Stud, maybe our best overall #1 from '77 till now. G.O. may have something to say about that but thats yet to be seen.

1979: Jim Paxson #12, gotta love the Pax. Solid player his whole career.

1980: No draft picks that year.

1981: Jeff Lamp #15 Darnell Valentine #16, both very solid players but far from stars.

1982: Fat Lever #11, Outstanding scorer but played very little for us over his carrer(2-3 year from my memory)

1983: Clyde Drexler #14, Clyde the Glyde baby!!! woot!!! Nuf' said.

1984: The year that shall not be mentioned (Jerome Kersey was drafted Rd.2 pick.22, thats all that shall be said)

1985: Terry Porter #24, "T.P. for three!!!" Remeber the schonze saying that? Best PG we have ever had, period.

1986: Walter Berry #14, Arvydas Sabonis #24, Drazen Petrovic Rd.3 # 13, All three GREAT players but none of them played long for us. Sabas was awsome still at 34+ and two blown knees, loved his passing and three pointers. Petro rest in peice.

1987:Ronnie Murphy #17, Ronnie who?

1988: Mark Bryant #21, Great role player on those early 90's Drexler teams.

1989: Byron Irvin #22, Cliff Robinson Rd2 #9, Irvin never went anywhere, Uncle Cliffy was a stellar 6th man for us for quite a long time.

1990: Alaa Abdelnaby #25, (special note here) Kevin Pritchard Rd.2 #9 by GSW, Alaa has the best name of any draft pick ever in my humble opinion, and yes thats OUR K.P.

1991: No 1st rounder, we did draft the last spot of the whole draft.

1992: Dave Johnson #26 Reggie Smith Rd 2 #4, Both never got anywhere in the league.

1993: James Robinson# 21, had a good year or two for us but never anything to write home about. I personally liked him alot as a player for us.

1994: Aaron McKie #17, Very solid player his whole career be it with us, philly, who ever. Good player.

1995: Shawn Respert #8, this one hurt personally, i thought Respert would be a star. Wow was i wrong.

1996: Jermaine O'neal #17, Allstar player that we traded just as he came of age. Awsome job trader Bob. Jerk!

1997: Chris Antsey #18, Alvin Wlliams Rd2 #47, Antsey never panned out the way we hoped, Alvin Williams was a very good PG for a few years though. Too bad it wasnt for us.

1998: No Picks that year.

1999:No 1st rounder. Nothing to mention in the second round.

2000:Erik Barkley #28, like Respert i thought Barkley would end up a solid PG nothing great but solid for us. Again, wrong!

2001: Zach Randolph #19, Great player, bad person. Period.

2002: Quintell Woods #21, this would be in the midst of our "high school players are awsome!" Phase. Ugh

2003: Travis Outlaw #23, The jury is still out but so far he has tons of talent but a low BBIQ. (nutshelled) I like Trout personally, alot.

2004: Sebastian Telfair #13, Barkley, Respert, and now Telfair. Ugh. Ohh well he gave us B-roy. Thank you Telfair!

2005: Martell webster #6, Linas Klieza#27, Web is a very good, improving player. I forsee him being a very solid player in the league. Klieza may prove to be better from what i have seen. The only problem? Klieza is a Nugget. :(

2006: Tyrus Thomas #4, Best trade since the Buck Wliiams trade. This draft year saw the arrival of Roy, LMA, and Sergio all via trades.

2007: Greg Oden #1, G.O. is going to be a beast, it WILL happen! This year saw a few trades also which brought us Rudymania. Rudy!

2008: Brandon Rush #11, More trades, i remember Bob Witsitt also known as "trader bob" and he and K.P. both love to make a splash via trades. The difference? K.P. makes good trades,not trades for over the hill 280lb former supersonics. '08 gave us Bayless, and Batum.

I personally see a patern, our GMs of the past are no where near as skilled as K.P. Our quality picks since he has taken over clearly illestrate that. I also see a pattern of bad luck, Sabas, Petrovic, that one guy who was drafted before that other guy. That sort of stuff. I notice our luck improving the last few years, be it our GM or just luck itself im thankfull. What do you guys think is the best draft year we ever had? My vote is '06 with Roy, LMA, and Sergio coming in.The 1986 draft was sick also, Sabas, Petro, and Walter Berry. They didnt play for us much but were all three great players and there is something to be said for that. What do you think is our best draft year Blazer nation?

Again this was posted sometime ago but i wanted to re-visit the topic. Let the nation know your take on this. I would post a poll but there are too many draft classes to put into a poll.

A random thought about Yao Ming and G.O.

blazerbeliever97504 — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:43:09 -0000

Im sure everyone has heard, Yao is out for the playoffs with a broken foot. Man i feel bad for the Rockets. Just a few days ago they had a 1-1 tie heading back to houston, now they are down 2-1, gave home court right back to the l*kers, and lost Yao and possably the series. Losing Yao would not be such a big deal if T-mac was still healthy but with him out they simply have no one to run there offense through consistently. It just sucks for them and i feel very bad, i wanted to see them beat the stupid l*kers so badly (im sure all rocket fans did/do too) but now its not looking so good. Dont get me wrong they still have a chance but not a good chance.

Moving on to my thought on Yao and G.O. If this had been us......we would have fans chanting the name i dare not speak. Rhymes with Phooey, DUI, screwey, and Lewey. Yao has pretty much been saddled with injuries his whole career, look at the numbers. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/yao_ming/career_stats.html. His first three years he played 82-82 and 80 games respectively. Then the following three years 57-48 and 55 respectively. Now the toughest thing for me to swallow if i was a rocket fan would be that the three injury plagued years were his best production years when he was actually on the court. This year he did play 77 games which is very good but again is now down for the playoffs.

I guess my point in this whole thing is to illustrate that we do not have it as bad with G.O. He is a very young, talented, legit center. He is having his issues and i myself have probly been to impatient and critical but to my mind it seems that Oden will only get better and hopefully put the injury thing behind him. Unfortunatly for Yao he will probly never stop getting hurt for two huge reasons. The first huge reason is himself, he is huge and he plays a game that is very impactful to joints, bones, muscles, etc. when your 7'6" 340lbs that impact goes up exponetially. The second Huge reason is China, he in essence is owned by the chinese government which is truely sad. When the year is over if china has some basketball thing.....the olymics, etc. Yao literally gets forced to play in these events. I cant remeber if it was the last olympics or the last world basketball tourny but the rockets wanted to rest him fo the summer due to the fact he was coming off injury if i remember right and the Chinese over ruled them and he played.

Greg will never have to deal with either of those issues, he wants rest during the summer? Go for it big guy. He does need to cut down on some bulk IMO but not much 15 maybe 20 lbs max. He is certainly not weighing 340lbs. G.O. will become a stud in the middle for us, just have faith and patience as difficult as it maybe for alot of us, myself included.

Anyways, like i said......this was a somewhat random thought i had thanks for hearing it.

Rest In Peace Chuck Daly

blazerbeliever97504 — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:59:34 -0000

I am sure everyone has read that Chuck Daly pasted away. Truely a sad day and we as blazer fans have a somewhat unique perspective on this than say the Milwaukee Bucks fans for example. What i mean by that is we are one of only two teams to have lost to a Chuck Daly coached team in the finals. Man i remeber that series against the Pistons(i still freaking hate Bill Laimbeer) they were TOUGH bordering on dirty but it allways seemed that they never really crossed that line. The "bad boys" nickname was less about them being dirty and more about them being just a tough bunch of S.O.B.s. I hated the Pistons and to this day they are in my top 5 most hated teams.

Chuck Daly however was allways a class act no matter what was going on, i hated it at the time but looking back on the finals loss to them......we could have lost to a much worse opponent. Reading over the ESPN article about him it is startling to realize all he has done in his basketball career and his life in general. My heart goes out to his family.

RIP Chuck Daly, thanks for the memories.

Oden an example?

blazerbeliever97504 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:58:04 -0000

I have never been party to "conspiracy" theories but the officiating calls against G.O. are getting to the rediculous point. I totally agree with those who say Oden plays out of position alot and is learning how to position himself and not commit the offensive or defensive foul. His positioning causes him to foul i agree but not to the extent that he is being called for.

I truely don't get some of the calls i see going against G.O. Yes, its his rookie year...yes, he is learning how to play the NBA game..........But he was and is good enough to play well and change games. I swear it seems like some of the calls are just simply "hey, we want to mess with ya and call the foul" type ref fouls. This is not to say that G.O. doesnt make mistakes but i just truely feel he is being called for fouls by officals unfairly. I am no expert but i have watched basketball my whole life and i consider myself(semi) competent and some of the calls i have seen made against Oden have been nothing short of god awful.

I do not prescribe to "conspiracy" theories but i truely think G.O. is being made an example of this year......the reason i have no idea but i absolutely believe that its true. The Blazers played the rockets tough tonight, next game we WILL pull off the W. Go blazers, get the W on sunday!!!!

Roy is simply "amazing"

blazerbeliever97504 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:51:23 -0000

This is by no means a "we got this series" post. I have serious doubts we can win this series. That said, Roy came up HUGE for us tonight......42pts 7rebs in game two. Huge, huge night for Roy, we ar enow at a 1-1 tie. Roy was just huge all game long and this is what we'll need if we pull this series out.

Houston is a TOUGH match-up, the one team i(personal opinion) hoped to avoid this year. Make no mistake everyone......Roy just put up 42pts on two of the premier defenders in the N.B.A. Battier and Artest are as tough a match-up as it gets. Artest is a bulldog and Battier is as smart as a defender comes. Roy, tonight, destroyed these guys. Way to go Brandon!! I hope it keeps going next game!

I am attaching a poll that asks what everyone thinks Roys' next performance will be, please vote for your favorite.

Poll

Roy's next game box score?

10pts 3rebs 3ast

1 votes

20pts 6rebs 6ast

101 votes

30pts 9reb 9ast

72 votes

30+pts 9+rebs 9+ast- in any combo resulting in a win.

54 votes

228 votes | Poll has closed