With the premature retirement of Brandon Roy, I was thinking about his place amongst all time Blazer greats. Here is my all time Blazer starting five: C - Bill Walton - no brainer here F - Maurice Lucas - tough choice with Buck williams, but championship makes the difference F - Jerome Kersey - heart and soul of Blazers for so many years G - Brandon Roy - have to put him in my top 5 G - Clyde Drexler - for me, all time greatest Blazer Sixth man? - Buck Williams, Bobby Gross, Lionel Hollins, Geoff Petrie, Scottie Pippin... Coach - Jack Ramsey

 

I have generally been on the bandwagon that feels we need an upgrade to Steve Blake as our point guard.  This could either be through acquiring another player (e.g. Hinrich, Conley, Miller, Kidd) or by allowing Bayless or Sergio to develop and eventually take over.  However, after watching the last Laker-Orlando  game I have started to question my position.  After getting over the anguish of the certainty of another Lakers title, I have to admire and acknowledge the greatness of Derek Fisher.  And further, I have to ask the question: do we have another Derek Fisher in Steve Blake?

I live in LA so I have been forced to watch, read and absorb more Lakers-ism than I really care to.  But with that, I have also learned a few things about what makes them tick.  And one of the unsung and underrated reasons for their success the past decade is Derek Fisher.  It's no coincidence that when Fisher returned from a few seasons away (Golden State, Utah), the Lakers have been in the finals the past 2 years and are now poised to win their 4th title this decade.  Phil Jackson has always valued his veteran players, and he seems to get the most out of solid but unspectacular guards like Ron Harper, Brian Shaw and now Derek Fisher, especially when paired with a superstars like Jordan or Kobe.  He has faith and sticks with his veterans even when they go through a rough period of play.  During these playoffs, Fisher has been in horrible shooting slump, and on defense he was lit up big time by Aaron Brooks.  However, on Thursday night Jackson's faith and perseverance with Fisher paid off big time.

So maybe we have the same kind of solid, unspectacular player in Steve Blake that we should stick with.  He doesn't light up the stat sheet, and he has limitations on both offense and defense.  However, I think our situation is very similar to the Lakers in terms of personnel, just a few years younger and less experienced.  We have a budding superstar at SG (Roy v. Kobe) that needs to be the dominant force in the backcourt.  We also have a potential all-star PF (Aldridge v. Gasol) and a young, potential beast at center (Oden v. Bynum).  We also have a lot of good, solid role players, as do the Lakers....which includes our point guards (Blake v. Fisher). 

Maybe the best course for us to take is to stay with Blake, because each year his value grows in terms of experience, consistency, continuity and leadership.  We know what he brings skill-wise and he will continue to bring it for at least the next 3-5 years.  Yes, he didn't perform as well as we needed during the playoffs.  But is that sufficient reason to pull the plug on him?  The team has grown and improved tremendously in the last 2 years with Blake starting at the point.  Trying to upgrade the PG position brings about some uncertainty, and maybe a new player at PG will not perform as or fit in as well, and thereby set us back.

The big questions in this argument are two fold: 1) Is our contingent of players (Roy, LMA, Oden, etc) equal to the Lakers cast, and 2) Is Blake the equal of Fisher??

What are others thoughts...?

This is a subject that has become increasingly troubling to me over the years.  I'll say right from the start that I believe that NBA basketball is by far the most difficult sport to officiate.  But that fact makes it even more infuriating to me that the league has really done very little to address the situation.

This post is not going to question the integrity of the referrees, although that topic could certainly be the subject of another post (Blazers-Lakers game 7 in 2000, Kings-Lakers game 6 a few years later...).  I really do believe that the officials want to be fair.  The problem is that the game has become too fast and there is just too much contact for the refs to call the games fairly and evenly.  So because it is impossible for the refs to see all the action and always make the best call, they are forced to rely on certain discretionary factors to help them out.  We all know what some of these discretionary factors are...when in doubt, give the call to the home team...when in doubt, give the call to the veteran, or to the superstar, but never to the rookie.  Refs also constantly make calls based on reputation...player X is known as a good defensive player, so he is much more likely to get the charging foul in his favor rather than blocking called against him.  Or a young Greg Oden quickly gets the reputation for hyperactive defense, so now he gets at least 1-2 fouls called for rather incidental contact.  I could go on and on...

It drives me crazy how these sorts of biases have become the acceptable norm.  Just take a deep breath and accept that Michael or Kobe or Lebron is going to get the call 8 out of 10 times.  Or if you are on the road you have to overcome the home team bias from the refs.  That stuff simply doesn't happen in other sports.  Does Manny Ramirez get a different strikezone than other hitters in baseball? 

To me the answer is obvious.  The NBA simply needs more eyes calling the games.  Three refs are simply not enough to adequately call an NBA game.  Look at football.  I'm not sure how many refs they use, but I'm pretty sure it is at least 10.  Even baseball, whose action occurs at a glacial pace compared to basketball, uses 4 umpires per game and that increases to 6 for playoffs and World Series.  So how can 3 NBA refs handle the speed and constant contact, both on and off the ball?  The answer is they cannot....

Putting a fourth ref on the court would be easy.  It would be a very symetric alignment in the half-court, which would flip flop from one end of the court to the other.  This would allow the refs to divide the responsibilities for calls (e.g. one ref responsible for calling 3 seconds, another for watching the contact off the ball in the low post, etc), instead of just having 3 refs trying to watch everything... and quite often contadicting each other.  Another idea would be to have a fifth official from the sideline calling such things as shot clock violations, 5 second inbounds violations, whether shots are 2 or 3 pointers, etc.  With wireless technology, he could quickly and easily alert the head ref when a violation has occurred. 

Am I way off base with this rant, or do some of you feel the same way??

Or put another way, is he among the top 4 guards in the league this season?  It's a foregone conclusion that Kobe and DWade will be 1st team All-NBA guards, and most likely Chris Paul will be one of the 2nd team guards.  So does Brandon get the nod for the other guard spot on 2nd team All-NBA?  If not, is it because he is underrated and still flying under the radar, or is another guard more deserving?

The competition for the fourth spot includes:

• Brandon Roy (22.1 ppg, 5.2 apg)
• Joe Johnson (21.6,  6.0)
• Tony Parker (21.4, 6.8)
• Devin Harris (22.6, 7.0)
• Deron Williams (18.8, 10.5) 
• Chauncey Billups (18.3, 6.3)
• Anyone else?

I live in LA, and the front page of today's LA Times Sports section has a picture of Brandon Roy in Ariza's face, angry and having to be restrained.  To me that picture about says it all regarding Brandon's growth as leader of the Blazers and his continuing emergence among the NBA elite.  IMO, whether or not he establishes himself amongst the top 3-4 players in the league, mentioned in the same breath as Kobe, Lebron or DWade, will not be determined by his game or his skills.  It will be determined by what happens in Brandon's head.  And what we see happening right now is all good!

Brandon Roy has game which is right there with the aforementioned three superstars.  I think he now realizes this.  But part of what sets these guys apart (especially Kobe) is their competitivenes, their attitude, arrogance and swagger.  To me it appears that Brandon is also starting to exhibit these qualities progessively over the course of this season.  His clutch performances at the end of games are becoming almost routine and expected.  He is also starting to become much more vocal, barking at refs, opponents and even teammates.  Three plays demonstated this in last night's game.  First, after Ariza's hard foul/cheapshot on Rudy, Roy was up in Ariza's face and had to be restained.  Don't mess with me or my team!  Second, after the Lakers came out with an 8-0 run to start the 4th and briefly threatened to make it a game, it was Brandon who came in and restored order, hitting a key three to squash the Lakers' hopes.  Third, after a steal and heading for a breakaway dunk, it looked like Farmar wanted to go up and challege Roy (ala Ariza).  It looked to me like Brandon actually slowed down a bit, almost challenging Farmar to try something.  Farmar backed down and let him go...Brandon dunked and let everyone know about it on his way back upcourt.  These plays show that he is developing the attitude, arrogance and swagger to go with his game.

All this being said, everyone including Brandon knows what really counts is what you do in the playoffs.  He will get his first opportunity this spring.  Stay tuned!