Here I am a mere 5 days from discovering that a close friend of mine is missing on Mt. Hood.  I'm at work trying to distract myself with some sports talk radio about my Blazer team, and coming back from some commercial on the BFT I hear a snippet about something with the words "Mt. Hood" thrown in there.

Naturally my interest is piqued even though I know at this point the most I can probably hope for is that the body of my friend and spiritual brother Anthony Vietti has been found and there can be at least some resolution to this nightmare.  Instead of anything news-related I gather that there is some sort of discussion regarding the usage of perhaps making locater bracelet a requirement for mountain climbers.  I continue to listen and am mortified to hear the impersonal venom being spewed from CiP's and several callers self-righteous mouths as they condemn one of the best people I've ever known as an "idiot", "tool" and several other implications that do not bear any repeating.

I know that Anthony was a very experienced and prepared climber who aspired to climbing "the big ones"; No I can't personally answer as to what reason they did not rent bracelets; I DO know that my friend was not a mentally handicapped person who "deserved to be institutionalized", nor was he some macho man who thought he was above everything.  God knows I wish that they had rented bracelets as my world would not now be spinning nearly as much as it is.

Shame on CiP, Shame on the callers who just because they don't know the people make assumptions and don't care about their lives or the people they have affected, and shame on Gavin Dawson for calling in and bringing up grieving mothers and the in the same breath calling their children idiots!

I apologize a bit in advance, I know that perhaps this is not the best place for it, but I needed a public forum to wash out the sickly taste in my mouth.

Ran across this little gem when purusing Sam Smith's blog on Bulls.com

Continue reading this post »

One word sums up the Blazers latest game for me…Frustration!

There I was all psyched up for this latest test for the Blazers to see if they are really making a push towards being an elite team perhaps even as early as this year.  My expectations are a good game, hopeful for at least a moral victory of the Blazers putting forth a good showing and not allowing themselves to be intimidated in a down to the wire game, perhaps even the slightest chance of getting a win.  For the first quarter it looks as if things are going as expected.  Oden throwing it down, Roy making plays, Batum hitting a corner 3, Aldridge looking pretty decent….there are those lapses in transition, and when did Rondo become such a 3-point threat that he needed a defender in his pocket at half court?  Oh well, I’m sure Nate will get these things ironed out at the quarter or at worst make some half-time adjustments.

And then…well, somehow the Blazers decided that although they had been playing tit-for-tat with the champs so far, who were they kidding?  And almost every person on the Blazers sideline proceeded to do their utmost to make the Celtics look as good as possible.

The Zebras also decided about the same time, that yes Portland was most definitely the inferior team, and the better team should get 90% of the calls.  It’s hard to say how much of an effect the officiating had on the end result of the game, but I do think it is fair to say that it certainly helped sway things Boston’s way.  Had it been called consistently it certainly would not have been the laugher it turned out to be.  Every time it seemed as the Blazers might get some momentum of some sort, there was a call or no-call that effectively squelched any such hope.  There were bad calls both ways and my Rose-city colored glasses and the fact that things were going so poorly probably colored my vision even more but, YIKES.  Rudy’s 3 wiped out on a BOGUS up and down call (which Steve Blake replicated later in the game and was apparently not a travel then).  I get that home teams get more calls (as well as the aggressive team), but how frustrating is it that the decidedly more physical can get away with uncalled hard fouls, moving picks, miscellaneous bumps, grinds, holds.  Meanwhile the Blazers get called for touch fouls, handchecks, blocks and Paul Pierce flopping as Bayless barely touches him trying to get over a pick.  It was nice to see the refs start to even things out in the early fourth quarter until they got scared that the Blazers might actually get close.  At some point in the late 3rd I recall seeing a free-throw graphic, readings something like PTB 8 attempts, Boston 26.

/ Ref vent over

As a team the Blazers made several critical errors regardless of what the refs or Boston was doing.  Most glaring of all was of course all the ridiculously easy run-outs that went undefended.  I realize that the Blazers thrive on offensive rebounding, but they were spending way too much time trying to steal the ball in the backcourt after the Celtics had already claimed possession.  Everybody was doing this, and it was leaving the 1 or 2 players that even thought of getting back to play defense out to dry.  What was most frustrating about this was it never got solved at any time while the Celtics starters were in the game.  The Blazers continually got beaten down court (several times cherry picked) by slow-mo Ray Allen and whatever other Celt decided to join him for an easy lay-up

Live by it die by it I guess…but you would think some people would actually shoot it!  Rudy of course got some up, Boom-boom hit one, and anybody else, anybody (besides the one shot Frye didn’t air ball)?  Yeah, the 3 point threat was completely missing last night.  When Boston does not have to respect your 3 point threats they can have a defensive party in the lane, and they certainly took advantage of that.  It wasn’t that there weren’t open shooters but the Blazers tonight did an absolutely atrocious job of swinging the ball to the open man.  The number of offensive possessions where the ball was not contained to one side of the floor could probably be counted with one hand.

The pick and rolls were absolutely dreadful, credit Boston’s schemes a bit I guess.  But the guards were horrible about getting the ball to the roller when they were open, and the rollers got bad about catching it if it did get thrown their way.  Very sloppy and frustrating as were the usually money dump off dimes that Roy and Sergio usually get that went bouncing harmlessly out of bounds or into Boston’s hands.  I recall in particular one nice pass Roy made to Aldridge when he drew 3 defenders that Aldridge just fumbled off his hands out of bounds instead of throwing it down easily.

Ok, on to the wonderfulness of player breakdowns!

Steve Blake ~ Nice and steady Steve Blake was a nice and steady non-factor and non-threat on either end of the court.  I guess he got some assists early when the Blazers were playing like this year’s Blazers, but ugh!  I’m sure he will be trying to forget his performance in this one as quickly as possible.  Of the 3 PG’s that played last night he certainly had the worst game.

Brandon Roy ~ looked good early, like to see him talking smack to Pierce and backing it up. I would have liked to see him back it up for the whole game however.  For the first time I think ever when I’ve seen him, it looked like he checked out of the game about mid-way through the 3rd quarter.  The Celtics beat him up whenever he went inside, and to be honest he never really looked good after he came out in the first after KG undercut him.

Batum ~ He played like a rookie tonight…started off looking promising with that early corner 3 that he hit, but that was the only highlight that Batum would have for the evening. It was a real stinker of a game for him, unfortunately.  He had several mental errors on defense, most notably leaving Ray Allen wide open to go double someone who didn’t even have the ball.  Also very surprisingly he was as guilty about not getting back on defense as anyone was.

Aldridge ~ Following Roy’s cue Aldridge started out well; was matching KG bucket for bucket early.  Unfortunately following Roy’s cue again he kind of disappeared.  We’ve started to get used to him be aggressive and take that sweeping jump hook or fingeroll into the lane.  He did it once in the first quarter, and then from there on out relegated himself to shooting contested fade-aways.  He played pretty good one-on-one defense on KG, but he didn’t rebound and was the primary culprit at not getting back to prevent easy buckets.  No way that a guys as fast as he is should be that lackadaisical about getting back.

Greg Oden ~ Hey guess what? He started out well and then fizzled.  But I don’t think we can say there was anything necessarily that surprising out of Greg last night, he rebounded, played decent defense and didn’t seem to be any more out of sorts than he is on other nights when he is struggling.  He did manage to collect his first foul-out of the season, but I would have liked to see them be harder fouls.  Methinks a broken eye-socket for KG perhaps?

Sergio ~ He played better than Blake by my estimation, but not by much.  He got all the way to the cup and layed it in 3 times (Hint to other Blazers, Boston’s interior defense is not as good as the rest of you are making it look!).  On the negative side he was also guilty of guarding Rondo at the half court line, gambled too much in the backcourt, and at times just dribbled down the whole shot clock (which Nate benched him for).  To be fair to Sergio, it is hard to pass to the open man when nobody is working to get open (Roy standing at the wing for the entire shot clock happened more than once).

Rudy ~ Rudy got taken out of the game tonight, he has probably never played against a team as physical as the Celtics ever.  There were a couple times it looked as if he would get things going but both got reversed by whistles.  His defense on Ray was not horrible, but then again I’ve always thought Allen to be a bit overrated.  The only reason he gets by guys is because he is such a good shooter.  I’m also not sure about him barking at Channing, on one hand I like it because it seems like on nights like last night the Blazers need a more vocal leader than Roy.  On the other hand calling out teammates like that while on the court in the middle of the game usually doesn’t help matters.

Outlaw ~ well, he didn’t give up.  Granted he got a lot of his buckets in garbage minutes, but aside for some typical Outlaw mistakes he just played his game.  Pretty decent defense and was aggressive on the offensive end.  One of exactly 3 Blazers that would get a passing grade from me on the night.

Channing Frye ~ should have been whisked off the floor immediately after giving Leon P-O-W the and-1 play.  When Channing is confident and aggressive he can be a decent offensive weapon for spreading the floor.  When he is not there is no reason to have him out there.  He consumes too much Nyquil while playing “defense” and managed to make me think about voting for POW as an All-star.  Turnovers, air balls, horrific defense, missed opportunities from nice setups from Spaniards.  Frye was never mentally in this game and it was by far his worst of the season, but he still managed to log some serious minutes (even before garbage time) more on that later.

Joel ~ managed to get a passing grade last night.  He made his shots, played good defense, tried to be vocal and get the rest of the Blazers together.  Obviously Roy is the quiet leader of the Blazers, but it seems to me that on some nights the Blazers need a more vocal guy as I already mentioned.  Joel seemed to try to fill that roll last night, but I just don’t know if that works for the Blazers.  Yeah he’s great at what he does well, and I’m sure his teammates love and respect him for it but he just doesn’t strike me as the leader type to be really able to carry out that roll.

Bayless ~ Well lookie here who made an appearance.  In reality Bayless was the only real bright spot the Blazers can take from the game.  I’m sure nobody thought he would be intimidated and he surely wasn’t.  He was aggressive on offense, knocked down some shots, got to the line, played decent defense (still needs to work on his set-ups and passing a bit, see Rudy lob), but overall a very encouraging game for him.  Against physical teams the Blazers do need another guy besides Roy to aggressively attack the rim, and maybe Jerryd will start to work his way into that roll sooner rather than later.

Diogu ~ didn’t do anything memorable either good or bad and therefore should have been getting all of Frye’s minutes as far as I can tell.

I kind of hate to go here but I feel that I must…

Coaching ~ well it looked like Nate had his troops ready for about the first 10 minutes of the game, but playing arm-chair coach after that is too easy.  I realize you can’t actually make the players get back on defense, and I’m sure he mentioned it to them on more than one occasion but the message never got through.  And for some reason he was more than ok with leaving the guilty parties out there to continue loafing back.

The Frye situation…need I say more?

The gameplan…I’m not really sure what the gameplan from Nate actually was, but it seemed to me that the Celtics were doing exactly what the Blazers should have been doing offensively (running out and trying to get fast-break or early offense), and the Blazers were doing exactly what the Celtics wanted them to do instead (playing a plodding half court style with one-on-one and little ball movement).

Substituting ~ To his credit Nate did do some reaching and it paid off a little bit with Jerryd , but for the most part he stuck to his usual rotations regardless of what the players were doing out on the floor.  Getting beat by 20 in the 3rd throw some weird combination out there just to see if something good happens please!

All of these things are minor quibbles however, and can be overlooked.  The one thing that was extremely disappointing to this fan was the fact that Nate gave up.  He more or less threw the “scrubs” out for garbage time for the entire 4th quarter and I guess started thinking about the Toronto game.  That’s fine, they were down by 25 after all and you want to get guys like Bayless some minutes.  Hey wait a second, Outlaw is going off, Bayless is doing some stuff, Celtic’s lead is down to 13, Doc wants a timeout, KG is upset, Celtics starters are going back in, still a full 7 minutes left, maybe the Blazers against all odds can make a game of it.  Nate is going to get Roy back out there to be and maybe Aldridge for Frye before Frye screws up again, and, and….oh, never mind, despite the fact that KG and Doc were worried about the outcome of the game Nate just conceded defeat. What kind of message does that send to the team?

Also does it concern anyone else the way the Blazers so far are getting bullied by more physical teams this year?  Utah loss, both Phoenix games, Boston….it really seams that the Blazers allow physical teams to take their will to fight and attack away from them.  They get the Blazers to revert to an all jump shooting team, and they obviously suffer heavily when that happens.  Bayless might be a big help towards combating this in the long run, but he is not ready on a nightly basis to provide that.  Hopefully it’s just a case of youth and will go away as the team matures.

And….WHOOOSAH!  

I feel a bit better now; it was after all only one game.  The Blazers will get things together and come out and play much better against the Raptors I’m sure.  For anybody that bothered to read all of this I applaud you.  I feel kind of bad for as heavy as I laid into the Blazers heavy on this one, but it is frustrating when it’s a national spotlight game and the Blazers laid a major egg instead of showing people what they can do.  Let’s get that maturity speeded up, go Blazers!

Cheers fellow Blazersedgers!

Well the first half of this game showed promise, but let’s face it.  The second half was pretty painful to watch.  Player breakdown looks like this for me:

LMA started out shooting the ball well, but it appeared that he started to get intimidated a bit by Amare in the second half.  Caught up in all that and the officiating he let himself get rattled and was largely ineffective in the second half.

Outlaw was a very mixed bag as usual, that nice lefty finish on the drive was nice to see.  The turnovers and defense were not.  He still looks a bit out of shape, and still logged 36 minutes.

Joel was Joel, enough said

Stevey Blake had his best game so far, but defense was suspect again (granted parker and Nash back-to-back)

Roy seemed to be getting calls last year but that certainly wasn't the case tonight.  He as well let the physicality of the game get to him similar but not badly as LMA, but he didn't get the other numbers he usually gets only grabbing 1 rebound, 4 dimes, and a very uncharacteristic 3 TO's

Rudy Fernandez had a very good shooting game but his normal hustle stats weren't there either.  On games like tonight though the Blazers need to realize and take advantage of his offense earlier than they finally figured out to feed him more.  It still doesn't seem that he quite has the green light from Nate yet which makes absolutely no sense...

Boom-boom had a very nice flush and overall contributed well I thought.  Didn't really make any bonehead plays but the Blazers weren't able to utilize him well in the second half by getting him the ball in the open court.

Frye was decent, but clearly can't defend either Shaq or Amare

Sergio played well, particularly in the first half and did wind up with almost 14 minutes for the game.   I feel that he still deserved more PT in this one.  He made absolutely no mistakes on the offensive end and certainly did not play any worse defense than Blake.

Bayless got in because it was at phoenix I would guess....I would have much rather had that happen in the first half.  He will probably be a nice player but did nothing for us in 6 minutes.

General thoughts on the game

Nate is still searching for lineups and rotations that will work...one thing that he does that drives me nuts, and he did a good bit last year as well is that he makes substitutions and takes players/groups out that are in a groove and playing well and goes back to lineups that aren't.

I understand that Roy needs to be in the game, but if people are doing well and there isn't going to be a huge match up problem then you need to run with people who put you in the game to begin with.

Defense, is rearing its head as an issue...Blazers can't expect to have good shots of winning games when they are allowing opponents over 55% shooting.  A lot of this has to do with the help d and defensive rotations are just horrible at this point.  Granted playing against teams with talented bigs makes this worse than it will be against some other teams.  Dropping off Shaq to help on a driving Amare is going to not end well for most teams.  That being said, something needs to be done because guys are not where they are supposed to be.

I don't know if Nate has realized it yet, but Rudy should be the #3 option on most nights for the Blazers.  I don't know if Rudy is still just trying to work his way in or what but during a lot of possessions it appears that he has a shot or a lane and he winds up passing it up.  Certainly at the end of the game they started to feed him the ball and he looked to score, and he was very effective doing that.  I'd much rather Rudy be looking for his shot than Outlaw as he has much better IQ, vision and passing skills.

The PG situation was once again interesting...That's exactly the type of game you can expect to get from Blake on a decent night.  He shot 3/5 from 3 which is nice to have, but once again I'm not sure why he gets a rap as a defender.  On any decent PG he tends to get abused just as much as Sergio does.  Sergio looked great in the first half, 4 dimes, made both of his shots, no mistakes or turnovers and at least as good defensively Blake.  In the second half Sergio didn't really do anything but once again no mistakes.  It's nice to see him not make the mistakes but he looked a bit too cautious in the second half....perhaps the fear of being yanked?  Bayless I suppose played better defense but really didn't do annoying either way in 6 minutes.  I really don't understand why he got into the game when he did. 

Would have been a nice win to get, but it's tough to go to a playoff team's place on the second game of a back-to-back.  Hopefully the Blazers can get a road win earlier than they did last year.  Looking forward to next game!

Seriously, the guys is always getting injured...A look at the hard facts reveals he is injury prone!  He has missed 33 games in just his first two season and recently even had to have SURGERY in the off-season!  The guy is clearly made of glass, I cringe every time he moves when he is out on the court.  Knee, ankle, tailbone...you name it and he's injured it!

We, as fans need to realize that he may never be anything besides a decent role player and I implore the front office to take whatever steps necessary to bring in some other talent so that we can move on and start to make deep playoff runs, with more reliable true star talents.

If he happens to play OK and contribute a little bit on this team that is great, but it has become obvious with his constant injuries that we need to start focusing on a future in Portland that may not have Roy involved.

P.S.  Please read comments before using the "Jump to Conclusions" mat

1.  On Greg:

He looked absolutely exhausted.  Maybe seeing the game in person was a bit different or something, but the guy looked totally beat out there from the start of the game.  Hopefully he will be ready to go 100% come the start of the regular season, but as of right now it doesn’t look like his conditioning is anywhere near ready considering the start of the season is a mere 2 weeks away.

Dicky B certainly wasn’t looking to do him any favors out there, and the Jazz were more than willing to rough him up.  Had there been more scorers out there perhaps he would not have had such a difficult time out there.

No cause for alarm from this game, but he certainly looked like a rookie for the first time really this pre-season.

2. On Batman:

Batum was certainly the brightest spot of the night.  He got lost a couple times on some switches and defensive assignments early but after that the kid played great.  Excellent perimeter defense including a couple blocked jump shots, and he did everything the Blazers would ever want him to do on the offensive end.  Hit open 3’s? Check.  Finish on fast break opportunities? Check again.

If he can be consistent at playing anywhere near the level he played, and get better at communication on defense and more used to the NBA game than he will certainly be a rotation guy this year and depending how things go could really be “the guy” as early as next year.  Both KP and Nate talk about wanting a guy to step up as a lockdown perimeter defender that’s able to hit open shots, and looks like Batman has the potential to fit that bill.

3. On Outlaw:

Really the 3’s were the only true bright spot to this game for Portland.  Travis has been coming under a lot of flack and needed to have a good game.  He went out and did just that (on both ends of the floor though his stats might not suggest it). 

On offense I counted only two real forced shots, the rest were pretty in rhythm and his jumper certainly looked wet tonight.  It was nice to see him catch and shoot a couple of them for a change as well.  What was even nicer to see was him driving UNDER CONTROL and taking what the defense gave him.  Lots of times it seems he drives because he thinks he should drive and kind of tries to bull his way to the basket…he’s not LeBron, he can’t do that.  He also had a couple of nice dump-offs underneath but Greg bobbled away one and Joel the other (no surprise there).  No assists, but hey he didn’t have any turnovers either.

On defense he needed to rebound better, but let’s not kid ourselves the whole team was extremely lackluster on the boards tonight.  Utah is physical and the Blazers got pushed around a ton.  On the plus side, he didn’t get lost on D much, and was providing some help defense.  And he took a charge, got a couple steals, a block etc.  He was not Batum out there but the effort was there tonight at least.  Too often even the effort is lacking.

4.  SERGIO

Sergio had a solid game that would have been really good except for his abysmal free-throw shooting.  Considering who he had to distribute the ball to an 8 assist performance is not at all shabby.  He had a couple bad turnovers but wasn’t completely out of control with the ball.

5 rebounds and 5 steals though is really nice to have from the PG.  Additionally for the most part he played really solid D on Derron Williams (I think he’s decent right?)  At one point in the early first quarter D-will had that little post up on him with the shot clock winding down and Sergio stayed right in front of him and was up in his grill contesting the shot.

Overall so far this pre-season Sergio has been pretty consistent.  Both his defense and his outside shot look far better than they did last year and if he continues to play as he is I don’t see how he can’t be at least #2 on the PG depth chart.  20+ mpg would seem to be in order. 

5. Jerryd Bayless

Looked bad…period.

Was nice to see something from him against Atlanta, but he did not look good at all versus the Jazz.  His stats don’t look THAT horrible, but trust me on this.  He did absolutely nothing to impress or indicate that he should be getting anything but mop-up minutes.

He’ll be good eventually consistently and will probably have a few good games this season, but he needs to let the game come to him.  He’s just trying too hard right now it seems to me.

6. The Battle for 15

All the white guys looked horrible…Randolph had a couple little nifty moves but couldn’t finish tonight.  Hill only played a minute, and Jackson wouldn’t even take his open shots for some reason.  I guess he decided to use his blinding foot speed and athleticism to take it to the rack.  It never worked out to well for him.

Well that’s it for that game.  Now we just have to wait a week for another game.  Hopefully it will be televised this time…

Oh NO!

Travis Outlaw is turning into Terrell Owens, and is going to tear apart the Blazer franchise from the inside out with his selfishness and me-first attitude!  Get this bum traded while other teams are still clueless and we can pick up a veteran so we can win a championship this year!

Yes, I’m making up an extreme example but this is the sort of thing that is cropping up about Travis Outlaw based solely on his performances over the past two games pre-season games.  No I’m not going to excuse his bad performance, he truly has struggled the past couple games and he certainly hasn’t looked like a bright spot for Portland so far.

I am however going to say…this is not unusual for Outlaw he goes through stretches where he can’t find his comfort zone and sometimes this just makes him a liability on the court.  Don’t forget though that he did not have a horrible performance against the Kings and in the Fanfest he was quite good actually.  And in his bad games his other stats are up compared to some of his bad games last year, so it does appear that even without his shot falling he is at least trying to be good on the defensive end.

Consistency or lack thereof is something that has often been talked about as plaguing our other SF but really it’s just as true of Outlaw.  The only difference is that one of them will keep shooting even when he is off whereas Webby would just check out of games.  Like several “stars” in the league, Outlaw is a guy that can really get in a rhythm and go unconscious for a while and when he does that it is nothing but bad news for the other team.  It shouldn’t surprise us that he is in a shooting slump as he certainly had a few of those last year as well.  Shot selection is certainly questionable at times with Outlaw, but in reality it gets worse when he is not shooting the ball well.  In my estimation it is good he is having this slump in pre-season and I am not prepared to say that he should be shipped out already.

We really do not need to concern ourselves in the least as fans in Outlaw’s performance thus far.  Extrapolating two preseason games as to what to expect from him for the remainder of his career is just shortsighted and silly.  He will have his good days and his bad days.  After hitting his two 3’s in the most recent game who honestly didn’t think he might go off for 20 or more?  It’s preseason, he will play minutes whether he is doing well or not. When it gets to the regular season it’s a whole different ball game and I’m confident that Nate, Roy and probably Rudy as well will manage Travis to get the best out of him.  When he is on his game it will be taken advantage of, and when he is off his minutes will be more limited.  Keep in mind that Outlaw tends to shine more in big games and big moments.

Bottom line; take everything with a grain of salt before passing judgment.  Outlaw is apt to go out and have a 30 point game this preseason and there will be people talking about him as being a possible All Star.  The reality is he’s somewhere between All Star and 1 for 10 shooting guy, but unfortunately he tends to be only one or the other on any given night.

Rudy (El Mago)

Rudy Fernandez has demonstrated a lot of intangible qualities so far in the pre-season.  Despite the language barrier (although you can already see a ton of progress in his English) in only 2 games thus far we have seen him calling together team huddles, calling out defensive assignments, going out of his way to exhort his teammates, and giving out defensive advice to Diogu among others along with plenty of atta boys and pats on the butt.

There is no question that Brandon Roy is the quiet leader of this team, but from where I’m sitting I can see Rudy being a co-captain for this team before the year is up.  The guy is not a typical rookie in any sense of the word.  Certainly he will have his good games and his bad games this year but he seems to always to be able to find a way to positively affect a game when he is on the court.  He did not come into this league with an attitude of someone trying to see if he can play in the best league in the world.  Rudy came into this league for the improved competition and to prove that he is a world class basketball player.

Statistically Rudy fills out a stat sheet very similarly to Roy, but in very different ways.  Whereas Roy is quiet, reserved and always makes the right play in the simplest way possible; Rudy is emotional, full of swagger and usually makes the right play in the loudest way possible. Roy plays slow and methodical, Rudy plays at 100 miles per hour 100% of the time and I think it goes without saying is extremely creative. Rather than making these 2 rivals on this team however, I think this makes them perfect compliments for each other.   This is due to the fact that despite their differences their similarities are some of the most important qualities in a player.  They are team first guys who aren’t afraid to do the dirty work and would rather take a team win then a 50+ point game and a loss.  They both are guys that make their teammates better with their play.  This is a very rare quality and having two such guys on the same team is a luxury we should be very thankful for.

Although I’m sure it sounded crazy from the Bald One that Rudy would be the #2 or #3 guy on this team, I can really see it coming to fruition. 

As a side note, I seem to recall hearing something from KP stating that they might look at sticking both Roy and Rudy in the backcourt.  Yes, they are both technically 2’s but come on…does anyone really worry about the distributing ability of them as a duo?  They could easily average 14 assists or more between the two of them.  Rudy has certainly shown the footwork and energy to defend PG’s in my opinion if he gambles a little less (which I’m sure Nate is working on).

Also, ROY award will go to a Blazer this year.  Whether it is Oden or Rudy remains to be seen, but seriously…what other rookie this year is going to put up numbers or have the immediate impact that these two will?

First of all this game was pure fun to watch from mid-way through the 2nd half all the way through the end.

Everyone has already commented on Oden and Rudy (and to a lesser extent Sergio), and they certainly stole the show and grabbed the headlines.

I wanted to go ahead and take a look at Travis Outlaws game as after Sergio he is probably the most polarizing guy on the roster.

There were a few ill-advised and/or off balance and out of control shots from him as usual, but I wanted to go ahead and point out the things that he did well that people who aren't his biggest fans always point out as his biggest weaknesses.

It was mentioned in the Quick piece on Outlaw earlier that he wanted to up his rebounding total, and it certainly looks like he made a commitment to do that.  He had 7 rebounds in only 17 minutes with 3 of them being offensive (equaling GO).  Certainly appears that he took advantage of his natural gifts and was really looking to tear those boards down.

Perhaps what has most people down on Outlaw is the belief that he is a black hole...and while he certainly wasn't a Spaniard out there he did dish out 2 assist with one of them being a very good look through traffic in the lane to Pryz no less.  Best of all he did not have any turnovers accompanying those assists.

Please do comment on this I would like to see the fan's discussion on my perceived growth (for one part of a pre-season game anyway)

PS.  Even if you aren't Trout's biggest fan...who else is looking forward to him being on the receiving end of some those Rudiculous passes this season?