Assuming that you believe that Oden will recover from his most recent injury to be the dominant big man that we all expected from day one (I know that a lot of you don't believe this) how is the news that he accepted the QO good for the Blazers. It sounds like he is going to be super cautious coming back with the sole goal of showcasing his talent for potential buyers. This sounds like the worst outcome possible. My reading of Wikipedia's description of restricted free agency says that if the Blazers had NOT offered Oden the QO then he would have become a restricted free agent and the Blazers would have been able to match any offer that other teams made to him. Assuming the the Blazers still believe in Oden for the future, why didn't they do that? Am I misunderstanding RFA? If the Blazers wanted to retain Oden you'd think they would have done whatever possible to make him a RFA.

It seems like the bid price would have been much lower this year, as he's coming off of injury and a much riskier long term bet by other teams, and the Blazers at least could have chosen to match. Now, maybe he'll play well for the 20-30 games at the end of the season and will choose to start his hall of fame career eleswhere. Why in the world did the Blazers go the QO route? I guess if he turns out to be a total bust, then one year of QO is preferable to a multi-year contract. Is that what the Blazer brain trust is thinking?

I've just learned that our buddies over at Comcast are going to force you to buy the premium service if you want CSN, so I'm considering NBA League Pass Broadband.

Anyone have any experience with this product? The NBA.com website has very few details.

nba.com/leaguepass mentions something about an e-mail sign-up for news on LeaguePass but then there doesn't appear to be any place to sign-up for that e-mail news.

It doesn't even appear to be available yet. They mention some games in HD. If you've had LP Broadband, were the Blazer games generally in HD or not? My experience streaming stuff at various websites like Hulu sometimes it's just fine and other times it's unwatchable.... especially in full screen on an HD TV. How good is the streaming quality for LP Broadband?

The other problem is the blackout of home games in the Portland area. Are the home games in the archives available after the live broadcast, or are they also blacked out ?

At the beginning of the season if someone were to ask you who you'd like to play in the first round of the playoffs among: San Antonio L*kers, Dallas, OKC I think you would get a variety of answers but not many would choose the L*kers.

With 7 games left we are sitting at #7 which is most likely going to get us a matchup with the L*kers.

So this is an interesting problem.  Do we scrap and fight to try and get back to #6, stay at #7, or try to drop down to #8.

Of San Antonio, Dallas and the L*kers, I would prefer either Dallas or San Antonio.  I'm not sure it makes that much difference which.  It might be easier to drop to #8 than get the #6 spot back.

What would a race to the bottom (#8) look like.  Memphis is in the driver's seat since they have one more loss.  Our second to last game of the season is against Memphis.  What would happen if both teams desperately wanted to lose that game?

Each team would try to score as many points as possible on their opponent's basket, and the opponent would try and prevent them from doing so.  It would be a weird but competitive game.  The offensive team would only have 8 seconds to score on their opponent's basket before moving into their end of the court.  At which point they would have 16 seconds to try and get another 24 seconds to stall, if they were behind on the scoreboard.

The Blazers have demonstrated a talent for taking numerous shots at their own basket without scoring so maybe they'd have an advantage.

I'm seeing the pundits saying that there is an 85% probability that the Blazers will make the playoffs.  From what I've seen the last few weeks I'm not so sure given the difficulty of their schedule.  Here is my totally unscientific prediction:

4 probable wins: Cleveland, Washington, GoldenState, @GoldenState

6 probable losses: Dallas, @L*kers, SanAntonio, @OKC, @SanAntonio, Dallas

Based on past history I'd guess they give away one of the probable wins and win one of the probable losses so of these two categories we get 4 wins.

That leaves 5 tossup games:

Philidelphia:  they are pretty hot now, so I'd say 50% chance of a win

@NewOrleans:  if Chris Paul is playing, 40%

OKC: we can't be swept can we?  I'll give us a W here.

@Utah: we almost never win in Utah, but they are not the same team without DWill.  40%

 L*kers:  we got them into overtime earlier this year.  I'd say 50% chance of a W

Memphis: If Memphis is our competition for #8, we gotta get a W here.

Of these tossup games I'm going to say we win 3 games

So that puts at 44-38

Let's look at Memphis, NewOrleans, and Phoenix after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

I am seeing Greg's face while sitting near the bench much more this year than in past years when he's been out for the season.  This seems like a good thing, but I wonder how integrated he is socially with his teammates.  It seems like chemistry is more than just playing together.   At times he has seemed kind of estranged from the team.

  If I ran the zoo, I'd have him attending every single practice at least observing what is being taught and walking through plays with assistant coaches.  He should learn all of the Blazers plays and defenses so that when he starts playing next year he won't be starting from square one.  When he's sitting by the bench I'd have Camby sitting next to him pointing out all of the defensive calls that Camby would be making on the floor, and pointing out opposing players tendencies and strategies for defending them.  After sitting out two full seasons I think Greg should have increased his BBIQ considerably if these measures had been taken.  How many more minutes per game next year could he play if he had been learning how to avoid rookie mistakes costing him senseless fouls.  I understand that watching film is no replacement for playing, but you'd think his mental understanding of the game could have been improved considerably.  One thing I've thought of is a more interactive way of watching file from the perspective of a player playing his position.  He could be watching a play unfold in real time, and then choosing how to respond.  Help out, or stay with his man.  If the game was done well I could see it being a pretty valuable training aid.  He could learn how to spot double teams, finding the open man, making the correct play

I doubt whether any of this is being done, but of course I have no idea what Greg does other than rehab exercises.


Of course I have no idea if the Blazers do any of this, but I am doubtful.

Do you think the Blazers have specific counterplays that they run to deal with LaMarcus being double teamed?

There have been a few times where I've seen LaMarcus make a nifty pass to a cutter but I would say the majority of the time he makes a move into the double team and then passes it out to the perimeter with little or no advantage.  I'm wondering if you've seen plays that look to be specially designed to take advantage of the player who leaves their man to double team LMA.  It seems like if you run a play that anticipates the double team then the player who is left unguarded ought to be able to get free for a high percentage shot.  Especially if the double teamer is a guard, or better yet a guard switched onto a bigger player.

I'm not a basketball X's and O's kinda guy, but to me it looks like any the occasional counter to the double team is mostly ad-libbed by LMA or Andre, and not necessarily a scripted play.  I guess the occasional alley oop to a cutting Batum looks like a scripted play but why don't we see a steady diet of that?

This time of year is rife with trade rumors on BE involving Andre, mostly at the ludicrous end of the spectrum.   His name is generally mentioned as one of the top 2 players most likely to be traded by the beat writers and bloggers.  The more I see of Andre Miller's game the more impressed I am.  His major shortcoming that is pointed out ad nauseum is his lack of a 3-point shot.  On the other hand he has a lot of strengths to his game:

1.  Durability

2. Good passer.  Best lob passer in the league

3. High BBIQ

4. Good driver/penetrator

5. Good post up game

6. Willing and frequently good mid-range shooter

7.  Good veteran leader

I remember in the Black/Outlaw days we loved the 3-point shot, but when it wasn't going so well I wished we had someone other than Roy who could get to the rim.  With the likely demise in  effectiveness of Roy's game we are probably going to move away from the 1-4 ISO offense that was so dependent on 3-point sharpshooters.  Even so, how many 3-point shooters do we need in the game at one time?  Isn't Wesley and Nick enough?  Rondo is an all-star and his shooting is probably worse than Andre's.

His defense, to my untrained eye, seems to be at least average.  No worse than any other PGs we've had over the last decade.  I'm sure he gets a lot more steals than we ever saw with Blake, or really any other PG we've ever had.  He has this unique steal technique that I've not seen from other players where he intercepts the ball close to the floor right after the rebound.  When it works the offensive player doesn't realize that their pocket has been picked until Andre is out in the open court.  My recollection of the pre-Andre years is that the team very rarely got steals.  Now it seems like we get more than most teams.  Maybe one of you stat geeks can set me straight.  My only criticism of Andre is the turnovers, some of them seem to be of the bonehead variety, but I guess that is part of the risk/reward equation for a creative passer.  Who knows, maybe it was just a miscommunication.

PGOTF?  Why not?  I think I saw an article earlier this year quoting Andre as wanting to play until he's 40.  His game is predicated on sheer craftiness, and almost zero athleticism.  It seems like we wouldn't see much drop in his game in the next few years.  IMHO he's been one of the steadiest performers on the team this year, and we would be nowhere without him.

Trade scenarios?  It would seem that we have to get a top tier point guard in exchange for Andre if we have any hope of being competitive in the future.  Off the top of my head the point guards that are better than Andre are:

Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Steve Nash.  Of those, Nash is the only one that we might get without giving up one of our top three players.  There has been a lot of talk about Devon Harris but I doubt whether he would to be that much of an improvement.  Other that those players which other PGs would be a reasonable replacement for Andre?  Darren Collison, Kirk Hinrich, or Ramon Sessions maybe, but any of those would be a downgrade from Andre. 

I think we would be better off re-signing Andre and  trying our luck in the draft.  We probably could have drafted Collison or Sessions.  If it turns out Roy is unable to return to his all-star form, then maybe he can re-invent himself as an Andre-like point guard.

The latest round of commercials from Comcast are absolutely galling.

They show some great moment in Oregon sports and then at just the key moment they pull the plug on the signal.  Then they follow this up by there plea/demand that you sign up for Comcast NOW!

Does this sound like blackmail or what?  Sign up for Comcast or we're going to take away your game.  What next, bulk mailing of  cut-out letter ransom notes?  Body parts?