Now that the tickets for LaMarcus'es Rip City Challenge are officially on sale, I thought this would be a good time to take the pulse of BEdge and find out how many people will be going to the game, or also going to the live appearance of The Basketball Jones earlier in the day.

I picked up 3 tickets ASAP this morning. I and my two daughters will be at the game, sitting in the upper level of section 14. Being that the girls are 13 and are not as fanatical about BBall as myself, there is zero chance that I'll be at the TBJ live show. C'est la vie. It's dumb luck that I can be down there at all! Since I moved up to the Seattle area, it's hard to be down in PDX for anything without an excuse. My excuse? One of my girls gets her braces off the next day. Never occured to me when I paid her braces off that I'd be obligated to make road trips to get them maintained! Luckily for me her last appointment happens to line up perfectly with the charity game.

Will you be to either event? Shout out and plan to meet some of your fellow Blazermaniacs!

Losing is difficult. It's draining, dissapointing, and embarassing. I have seen it said over and over that there are "no moral victories." Fair enough! There's no point in picking fights with other team's fans about how *our* first round exit is better than *your* first round exit, or whatever. That being said, I look at this year's Western Conference Playoffs and find a number of things that I take comfort in:

• The Blazers were the only opponent the Mavs faced that took them to six games.
• I got to watch the L@kers implode in the most glorious fashion.
•  Clay Bennet learns what we've known for a long time. Nobody outside of your town cares about your Division title.
• Pretty much every Western Conference conspiracy theory ever offered was shot down, run over, and burned over the course of these three rounds.
• Long-term implications be damned, it *still* feels good everytime I think about Game 4.

So count your blessings, Blazer nation. If you must shed a tear into your beer, do it for Sactown or Seattle.

Dear Charlotte,

As was previously FanPosted by sabonis4ever, Blazers fans appreciate how big of a deal it is for you to lose Gerald Wallace. While it has been emotional for us to lose Joel and Dante, I'm sure it's hard for you to really parse why the trade would be a tough one for us. Gerald is both an All-Defense player and an All-Star with a dynamic game that is not just valuable to his team but really fun to watch. Joel is a Big White Center on an expiring deal with a post-surgical knee, and Dane Cunningham is a 3/4 tweener drafted in the 2nd round. Doesn't seem fair, does it? So, if the deal looks so good on paper, why would we have regrets? To answer that question, I've assembled a list of links to blog postings and newspaper articles that will give you a window on these two players, and why we admire them and are going to miss them so much. After the jump...

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Almost everything I've learned about basketball I've either gotten directly from BE or had it linked from here. In the time I've been reading, I've learned a lot. I've evolved from "They should shoot more 3 pointers because they're worth more points" to being able to spot a missed rotation. I'm really proud of myself for this because, well, watching baskbetball is hard.

However, on the subject of Coach McMillan or just coaching in general, I haven't been able to trust my eyes. It seems that coaching is one of the most emotional, polarizing subject of the game and it defies rational analysis. Players win games, coaches lose them. Coaches not only get dinged for losing, they get dinged for "ugly" basketball even when it wins. Don't get me started on all the bosses I wish I could have gotten fired simply by "tuning them out." I have posted comments that have been very supportive of Nate, and I have posted very critical comments as well, and I couldn't tell you even now if any of them were worth the time and electrons I burned in writing them.

So with hat in hand I come to the BE braintrust, to ask not a simple question, but a series of complex ones. I don't expect commenters to supply answers to all the questions... pick the one(s) that resonate with you. With luck, we will get some serious and thoughtful community analysis.

1.  Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich are the two winningest coaches active in the league today, AFAIK. Can you identify any traits they both share that contribute to that success? Do you think these traits can be emulated or learned?
2. If you have been a long-term Nate-hater, could you provide a detailed description of the one element that has bothered you the most about his coaching tenure and why you feel this has been an impediment to the team.
3. If you have been a long-term Nate-supporter, could you provide a detailed description of what you believe he brings to the team that has helped drive the success of this team in the last few years?
4. Coach McMillan is widely regarded around the league as both a great coach generally and a tough defensive-minded coach specifically. Kobe, Phil Jackson, Coach K, and other well-regarded and winning basketball figures have repeated this idea. Yet the PTB have never been a great defensive team during his tenure. Why not?
5. If you were a coach and could somehow get a roster of players that were naturally suited to your coaching style or philosophy, what would your approach be? Why? Can you cite examples of how this approach has led to NBA success in the past?
6. Reality notwithstanding, who is your dream coach for the Portland Trailblazers as it is currently constructed.

Dear Bedgers,

I don't mean to raise a painful and controversial issue, but I need your advice. 30 days from now, I will be moved out of the PDX area to live and work in King County up in WA. As much as I hate to leave Portland, it's necessary for the foreseeable future. So I need some advice from the fans who maintain vigil out in the broadcast wastelands, and find out what the best way is to gain access to as many televised blazer games as possible. I guess this question is mostly about satellite and it's limitations in the Seattle-area market. I've never used satellite before so I don't even know what to expect. My understanding is you can't get CSNW up there, right? Does anyone know if there are sports bars or other venues up in that area that have access to sports that home viewers would not, and actually play Blazers games? How much is this going to suck?

Hello all,

Look, I really don't know anything about your school. I'm not even sure what state you're in, but I know it's east of the Rockies. Here's what I do know:

I likes me some Dante Cunningham!

Seriously. He's not like a budding mega-star, but hands down he's my favorite rookie on our team this year, more so than Jeff Pendergraph (fun and hard nosed from Arizona) and Patty Mills (Aussie Olympic standout but otherwise a waterbug type PG). He's got great hustle, great defense, scraps for rebounds, hits that mid-range turnaround J, does whatever his coach tells him and has that awesome "gap-tooth" mouth guard that makes him look like he's going to club you when you turn your back on him.

So with March Madness coming up, no Oregon teams made it into the tourney and the only other NW team is the Huskies, who I am contractually obligated to hate. Yes, our star Brandon Roy is an ex-Husky, but we forgive him for that. So I needed somebody to root for going into the tournament, and I have settled for your team, in honor of Dante Cunningham.

If you could please, tell me what I'm supposed to yell at the TV screen when your team is on the floor.

Of there is a lot of excitement over Jerryd's performance last night, but most of what I've read centers around the things we already expected from him. Yes, he can be a scoring monster, driving the lane and getting the and1 almost seemingly at will when things are going well. But last night I saw four things from Jerryd that speak greatly to his development as an all around player in general:

1. In the first quarter, Channing Frye had posession of the ball with Dante Cunningham covering him very closely. Channing punished Dante for that by flailing his arms and getting a foul. Right after this, the cameras honed in on Dante, who was exchanging comments and sidelong glances with Jerryd. Less than a minute later, Jerryd was dribbling up at the top of the arc and Channing was near by. Jerryd moved to dribble past Channing, but instead cut the corner sharply and got "bumped" by Channing. Jerryd not only used his skills to foul somebody in a situation other than driving to the basket, he was clearly looking out for his teammate on the floor.

2. Early in the 2nd quarter, Bayless brought the ball down the court as the whole team was running back in transition. LaMarcus led the charge and Bayless threw an alley-oop pass on the run that was one of the most perfect throws I've seen from him yet. He's not supposed to be able to do that, right? [:31 second mark on the nba.com recap]

3. In the fourth quarter, we got to see Bayless work the corner spot like we've expected Blake to be able to do, but we got to see that in the King's game as well. It's awesome to see, but it's not a total surprise. His stepping around is defender and taking the long two in the fourth is something I don't think I've ever seen Blake do. But one of my very favorite moments in the 4th was Bayless's drive and kick out to Blake for HIS three. The reason is, that baseline run under the basket is, how can I say it, Sergio-esqe! Except that I don't remember ever seeing Sergio complete that move as well as Jerryd did last night.

Don't these things seem, oh I dunno... point-guardy?

I know Eddie Jordan's Johnson's Hoopshype blog entry has generated both backlash and some wicked sarcasm in the fanposts, and I do think it might just just a bit excessive to throw one more log onto the fire, but Eddie said something way down in the comments in a reply to something I said that I think bears examination:

Listen, the box score will not prove what i am saying. Roy does not take a ton of shots i agree. What i am saying is that his style of game is to score first and pass second. Compared to Lebron who is a pass first score second player. Now understand this is not a bad thing concerning Roy. It just creates a problem when the scorer has the ball to start the offense. Although Roy would prefer his teammates not stand and watch, they can’t help but do it because all his teammates understand that he is their scorer. so they freeze.

Kobe and Michael went through the same thing and Roy will have to change and play more off the ball with movement. This will make him a great offensive player instead of just a good offensive player. the one thing i know about this game is offense. No player in the history of this league scored more points than me off the bench. i have played with superstars who held the ball and froze teammates and i have played with superstars who played without the ball.

That is why Andre Miller will make them better because when he has the ball those players will not freeze. they will understand when they get open the ball will get to them, but most importantly Roy will find out he will not face a defense leaning to shut him down. Why? because they will not have him in their sights consistently. Why? because defenses target the ball and the ball will not be stuck in his hands all the time.

 In reading this, I got to thinking about what Eddie had to say. While I still think it's incorrect for him to describe Roy as "selfish" per se, aren't Eddie's comments quite similar to things we have read about in the past? Here's a bit from a Jquick article on July 27th, 2008, including a quote from B-Roy himself:

And the knock on Roy? He can only make plays when he has the ball in his hands.

"I felt there were times last year ... not that I hurt the team, but I could have been better if I was better off the ball,'' Roy said. "If I was better coming off screens, better at running downcourt ... instead I was looking to get the ball instead of running to the wing.''

And yet, as the season progressed, it seemed like all the people around Brandon were looking for him to increase his scoring volume. Check this article from December 19th, 2008:

Now, he has embraced the role of scorer, yet he worries about the manner in which he is going about it. On Thursday, Roy entered the halftime locker room and asked Shavlik Randolph whether he was being too aggressive, when in essence he was asking whether he was being too selfish. Randolph told him that he should shoot even more.

So here we are more than a year later and we find that some folks at least are still hitting Brandon with a ding that is over a year old. What I'd like to know is, where does this perceived problem come from?

I have this issue that's been nagging me in the back of my mind ever since the end of the trade deadline, and today's discussion about lopsided trades has brought this nagging to the forefront, like a migrane headache chipping away at my sanity. Here are the building blocks of my condundrum...

1. At the trade deadline, we acquired a $3M trade exception which is only good until the end of the next season.

2. At the trade deadline, we did not divest ourselves of RLEC, which goes a long way towards putting us under the cap in about six weeks or so.

3. As has been repeatedly stated, you cannot combine an exception with cap space. You get one or the other.

Taken at face value, the exception appears to be a total waste of our time. However, I have a hard time believing that all is as it appears because:

4. KP/Penn have a proven track record of being very efficient horse traders. Even trades that aren't necessarily bringing us talent are putting us in a more advantageous position in one way or another.

In other words, I believe that there was some purpose in generating the trade exception that we are not perceiving right now. This is where our in house gurus come into play. What I would like to know is if there is a realistic scenario where we artificially and temporarily keep ourselves above the cap threshold in order to do deal A with the trade exception, and then perform some type of black magic to get ourselves back under the cap in order to execute lopsided deal B. I have read comments that we could fabricate some type of 1 year sweetheart contract with Raef that would exist solely to trade off to someone else. I'm seeing speculation that we could tender a QO to Frye that we could effectively go back on later. There may be other strategies as well. I understand that there are questions of timing as to when league rules allow certain things to be done. If someone can answer this question, preferably including the timeframes such deals would need to be executed in order to work under league rules, that would be awesome. Alternatively, if such an 'A, then B' scenario is implausible, are there any other reasons why KP/Penn would have manufactured an apparently worthless trade exception?

Before you say, "Nobody!!!" take a look at the following comment from last Sunday's game against the Raptors:

Everytime says:

I was at the game yesterday and thought that there was a push off.
What is interesting and I don’t know if this is common place or not was that there were two guys sittings two rows behind me who were taking notes and grading the officials. They had NBA pass around their necks and were taking lots of notes during the game.
What caught my attention was a drive during the first half where a Rap was called for a charge on Oden and they noted the time and would review to see “if Oden was in the restricted area or not”.

Now this observation doesn't make it necessarily so that these guys are NBA referee "auditors" or some such. They might be scouts, or some type of video coordinator. My question to the BEdge crowd is this: Have you ever seen guys like this in the seats at the Rose Garden? Is this a hopeful sign for (eventual) improvement in NBA officiating?

The original page can be found here:

http://dimemag.com/2008/12/did-steve-blake-push-off/