Too Little Too Late

It's safe to say that the city of Portland has collectively given up hope on the Blazers' playoff chances. The dream is deferred yet again, as we adopt the all-inclusive, all-too-familiar maxim:

Wait 'Til Next Year.

Nevertheless, our team's still worth watching. Here's some reasons why.

1. If we were in the Eastern Conference, we not only would make the playoffs, but likely advance to the second round. The East is the NBA's Pearl Jam to the West's Stone Roses. Just shocking disparity. Actually, that comparison doesn't make sense, because Pearl Jam is extremely over-rated. Everybody knows the East sucks. Not everybody appreciates how terrible Pearl Jam is.

2. Jarrett Jack stepping out of bounds. It never gets old. I'm at the point now with Jack where I was with Rasheed, when I was actively rooting for him to get tossed from games for screaming at referees. I remember one time watching a game at my uncle's house and seeing Rasheed get tossed at the end of a close game, and my uncle yelling at me, "Why are you laughing?!? He cost us the game!!"

2A. Jarrett Jack's momentum-killing turnovers. They need to start tracking these in the box scores.

3. No tanking. Yes, yes, yes. Such a relief. I was worried that Portland would try to increase their draft position by losing games on purpose. I hate it when teams do that. In fact, I thought Danny Ainge should have been arrested for last year's Celtic tankjob, until the plan blew up so perfectly in his face. At this point, though, does it really matter what pick we get? Where will they fit in? How will they get minutes? This year's draft, contrary to popular belief, isn't that strong. Beasley is a headcase, Kevin Love is a prototypical slow white guy (or at least he will be at the NBA level), and OJ Mayo is a wildcard. The best prospect is probably Derrick Rose, but he seems destined to go to Memphis and waste his formative pro years away in obscurity in front of 800 fans a night.

4. Brandon Roy is kicking ass. Right now, there's five players who routinely take games over by themselves: Kobe, LeBron, Monta Ellis, McGrady, and Roy. That's it. Roy's in that group either because his team relies on him way too much and leaves no other option, or... he's actually that good. He gets double teamed down the stretch and gets hacked every time he drives the lane, and it doesn't seem to phase him. By the way, I'm working on a top-25 all-time Blazers list, which is why I haven't posted anything for a week, and Roy went from being off the list to halfway up in a matter of weeks. Let's hope calmer heads prevail.

5. LMA finally getting pissed off and dunking on people. Basketball's pretty simple when you break it down. You might have heard that he needs to post up more, or box out better, or develop a quicker first step to the basket. Those are all true, by the way, but his biggest problem was that he just needed to get pissed off more. This summer somebody needs to swindle him out of a bunch of money to keep him angry.

TJH