SB Nation User Blog: pualo

Hinrich thinks he's coming to Portland

pualo — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:19:29 -0000

Hinrich thinks he's coming to Portland

Apparently Hinrich is telling his friends that he expects to be traded to Portland.

"Chicago Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich is telling friends that he thinks he’ll be dealt to the Portland Trail Blazers, who have interest in pairing him with Brandon Roy in the backcourt."

Via BEdger NoRespert in the poll thread.

Update: Ben has some comments on that thread comfirming this.

"hinrich chatter is all over the board today. heard from 2 ppl off the record who say its serious confirming stein/ford/awoj."

"'serious and ongoing'"

This Video is too Hot to Embed

pualo — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:56:42 -0000

This Video is too Hot to Embed

This was an article earlier by Ben. I guess it was censored. Can someone post a link to the video?

OT: Election Day Poll

pualo — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:29:01 -0000

Basketball is a great sport, it's true, but my favorite sport of all is politics. And tomorrow is the once-every-four-years, Olympic Gold Medal game.

Unlike other sports where people might be playing for a trophy or some rings, in this case the winning team gets to run the country and literally dominate the world. For several years. Big stakes make for big excitement. Sure, there's a lot of boring speeches and annoying advertisements, but that stuff's over now, and we can just watch the final contest and see who wins and by how many points.

And just in case you think this has no connection to baskeball, consider these choice nuggets:

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama both played on their high school baskeball teams. It's been reported that Obama plays some hoops every time he has a major debate or election day, to calm his nerves and bring good luck. He could be dunking on someone's head as you read this.
This is a great basketball blog, and there are a lot of great political blogs. The premier polling analyst got started crunching stats for baseball. And the godfather of liberal political blogs is also one of the founders of SB Nation, host of BlazersEdge.
Obama's brother-in-law is the new basketball coach of our very own Oregon State Beavers (boo, go Ducks).

I'm sure there are lots of other interesting connections, but there's a few.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I thought it would be fun to see how the opinions of BEdgers compare to those of the general population, so take the poll. I'm pretty sure I have enough options to cover everybody.

Please keep any discussion civil and positive, unless it is directed toward me.

UPDATE: Poll Analysis

Wow, looks like Blazer fans love them some Obama. He's currently ahead 64-17. If you throw out the other choices, Obama is up 79-21. That compares to the national vote which will probably be something like 53-45, with 2% to third parties. I'll take a stab at some reasons why Obama would outperform here.

Oregon, and especially Portland, trends liberal. Oregon will probably vote something like 57-41 Obama. But that's nothing like the 79% from BlazersEdge.
Basketball fans are more likely to be black. I have no idea if that's true, but it's a thought. African Americans are voting Obama at something like 95%.
Blog readers tend to be young. I don't know the demographics here, but I would guess they trend younger than the general population by a bit. Young people support Obama by a wide margin.
"Get this politics junk out of my basketball site" voters trend Republican. Just a guess, but it makes sense. Since the people on this site trend liberal, the conservatives may be more hostile to political discussion here.
Enthusiasm gap. McCain supporters are feeling demoralized right now, and thus are less likely to click on this FanPost or vote in the poll. Obama voters are excited, and want to vote everywhere they can.

Poll

Who did/will/would you vote for?

McCain / Palin

47 votes

Obama / Biden

160 votes

Someone else

7 votes

No one

14 votes

It's a secret

2 votes

Get this politics junk out of my basketball site!

21 votes

251 votes | Poll has closed

Blazers dissapointed in Bayless's skills?

pualo — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:09:46 -0000

From Isaac Ropp's blog on 1080thefan.com:

After getting a look at him over the last few days, the word is the Blazers are a bit stunned by how less far along Bayless is than they thought. Remember, they didn't work him out prior to the draft. This is why he fell from a potential top-5 pick to #11. He will play almost exclusively at the point guard spot so be patient. That isn't an easy transition and it will take time. This is not an immediate impact player, folks. I would expect him to play no more than 15 minutes per game early on. However, it appears he's got a mean streak a mile wide which this team definitely needs.

(emphasis added)

If it's true, I think it means we might not see as much of Bayless this year as we thought. However, I don't think it takes anything away from his potential. It just sounds like he might need to spend a longer time training.

A new form of Pritchslap: Bayless

pualo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:59:26 -0000

Kevin Pritchard has done it again. For weeks he has been leaking that the Blazers are in love with Westbrook, Augustin, and Alexander. Consequently, those guys shoot up the draft chart, as all the other GMs try to outsmart KP. Meanwhile, KP is secretly in love with Bayless but says NOTHING about it to anyone. Other GMs don't hear any talk about Bayless out of genious Pritchard....so they let him drop lower and lower in the draft. They KP swoops in and picks him up.

Remember, this guy was a consenus #4 just a week ago. And now we get him (apparently) for just 13 and Jack. Who would have imagined? Pritchard has done it again, and he did it by manipulating everyone, playing off of his reputation to change the order of draft and get who he wanted all along. Simply amazing.

Update: Ike Diogu too? Even better.

Is there a complement to Roy out there?

pualo — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:56:10 -0000

A lot of people seem to think that Roy would be (or is) a great point guard on offense, but cannot handle the role of point guard on defense. At the same time, or team seems to missing one key player, that being a starter alongside Roy at guard.

So, my general NBA knowledge being a bit limited, is there a player out there that is the opposite of Roy? That is, a player who is a great point guard defender, but not a good shooting guard defender, and at the the same time has the offensive skills of a shooting guard, but not the skills of a point guard?

I would guess that such a player might have a hard time fitting in most places, since you usually want a player who is good at the same position on offense or defense, so the perfect player for Portland might even come cheap. But I have no idea who it would be. Any ideas?

Ime out for sure

pualo — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:30:27 -0000

Quoting KP in Casey's ongoing chat with him, in regards to Ime:

"We will miss him."

He talked about why they preferred Outlaw, and that Ime was asking too much money for them (significantly MORE than they payed Travis). Together with a full roster, that sounds final.

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