I Can't Be Satisfied

First of all, Kevin, kudos on the Joe Wolf reference, although I don't think he ever started for us. Maybe he started a game or two, at the end of a season when we were resting our black players for the playoffs, which leads to the obvious question: Was Joe Wolf the most recent NBA player to sport a mullet?

My basic point with Greg Oden is that I don't think he was risking anything playing pickup ball with friends at the gym. Keep in mind that over a month ago he was seen jumping around and dunking in the background of a Blazers pre-game telecast. They replayed it like a million times, and it was pretty incredible because at one point it showed one of those dunks he does when he just tried to rip the rim off with both hands. There's wasn't any concern expressed at that point - the general sentiment was, "gee, I guess Greg's coming right along!"

I understand that the pick-up game was unauthorized by the club, and technically it's within the club's jurisdiction to penalize a player for this type of thing, and signing your name on the contract binds you to the agreements of said contract, etc etc etc. But when I think of players putting themselves at physical risk, I think of Jay Williams crashing on a motorcycle and ruining his career, or Shawn Kemp having sex with four women a night, or Zach Randolph eating Crisco right out of the can, laying on his couch watching Scarface.

I figure Oden is playing basketball every day in his rehab, and I like to assume that he isn't stupid enough to put his rehabilitation at risk by overdoing it in a pick-up game. But here's the thing: we don't know what exactly happened, and so, in all honesty, the Blazers probably were right in freaking out. I guess I'm supposed to have faith in current management, but you have to understand it's still hard for me to trust any management after the disastrous Whitsitt era and the damage it reaped. It's just an automatic response that I've developed, to be immediately pissed off at any move management makes. I can't help it. And it's gonna take alot more for management to keep making average moves to get into my good graces again. We finally have people running the show that aren't unequivocal failures at their job. Woohoo...

I love how I originally complained about how much publicity this was getting, and now I'm the only one still bringing it up.

TJH