Blazer All-Stars

Here's a list of Trail Blazer all-stars through the years:

Geoff Petrie. 1971, 1974.
Sidney Wicks. 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975
Bill Walton. 1977, 1978.
Maurice Lucas. 1977, 1978, 1979.
Lionel Hollins. 1978.
Kermit Washington. 1980.
Jim Paxson. 1983, 1984.
Clyde Drexler. 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
Steve Johnson. 1988.
Kevin Duckworth. 1989, 1991. NOTE: Twice?!? Are you serious?!
Terry Porter. 1991, 1993.
Cliff Robinson. 1994.
Rasheed Wallace. 2000, 2001.
Brandon Roy. 2008.

TJH

Big Easy

You heard it here first:

Brandon Roy is an all-star.



I think this is well deserved, although I would have liked to see what his reaction would have been if he weren't selected - you know, if he would have come out on Friday and scored 50 or something.

What do you know? Some respect!

TJH

I Take It Back

OK, I was wrong.

Nate McMillan shouldn't be the coach of the year.

I take it all back. A coach who insists on playing his close friend over a more talented and efficient player deserves no coaching award.

This is what he is doing. There is no other explanation worth recognition. Jarrett Jack is Nate McMillan's friend. Jarrett Jack is ahead of Sergio Rodriguez on the depth chart. What a joke. This is obvious to casual fans and basketball junkies alike. Sergio has bad games from time to time, but Jarrett Jack plays badly every time he steps on the court. Next time you watch the Blazers, keep your eye on Jack. He's absolutely clueless and he makes stupid decisions constantly. Rodriguez is smarter, faster, and more efficient than Jack. Yet Jack plays every fourth quarter and is given the keys to the offense when the game is on the line.

What gives?

Read this.

McMillan can't give Rodriguez one honest compliment without a backhanded slap. Check it out:

"When he’s 24, 25 and gets stronger, he could be better, but you’re talking about a third point guard."

Nate McMillan isn't an idiot - he's an effing jerk. He plays favorites and he disparages his own players to the press.

Meanwhile, the trade deadline is coming up, and Sergio is being mentioned all over the place. Many teams want him.

I guess we don't.

TJH

Mid-Season Awards

Wow! The season's half over already. Three more months, and we've got playoff basketball once again. Not only that, but Portland might play into the playoff picture this year. At first this thought makes me giddy, and then I think about all the money that I will be forced to spend on tickets, and I smack my forehead and curse silently. Why me?!?

I have noticed that if you want to be taken seriously as a pundit, you must dole out "mid-season awards" as if there are such things, and as if your opinion is worthy of scholarly recognition. Ergo, my fake, meaningless awards...


MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
LeBron James



The popular choice is Kevin Garnett here, but it's wrong. Sure, Boston's got the best record in the league, and Garnett is the biggest reason why, but giving the award to Garnett would, in my estimation, diminish the efforts of Allen and Pierce. I've also heard Dwight Howard mentioned in the MVP conversation, but there's no way he's more more valuable to the Magic than Brandon Roy is to the Blazers, or Chris Paul to the Hornets, or even Carmelo to Denver.

There are only two clear MVP candidates this season - LeBron and Kobe. At first I was gonna give it to Kobe, simply because I feel so pretentious capitalizing the 'B' in LeBron. I feel so stupid even writing it. Imagine if you have a name like LeBron, or LaMarcus, or DeShawn. What a pain that would be. Or what about JamesOn, as in the Chicago Bulls' JamesOn Curry. How do you even pronounce it? Do you say "Jamison", as in my old friend Jamison Smith, or "James On", as in "Hey James - on which concoction of drugs was your mom when she named you?"

LeBron gets my vote because he plays on a terrible team, his coach is a bumbling goofball, and yet somehow it looks like things are coming together as they (or he) gets ready for another deep playoff run. Without LeBron, Cleveland's the worst team in the league. With him, they might make it back to the Finals. Go figure.



ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Kevin Durant



Yeah, he'll win the award at the end of the season, but check this out: he's shooting under 40% from the floor! 28% from 3! That's terrible. Is it because defenses collapse on him, due to the fact that there's nobody else that's decent on his team? Is it because of the pressure thrust upon him as the main offensive threat of a team whose future is in limbo? I don't know. But what I do know is that I still can't say whether or not the Blazers made the right decision in passing him up. At this point, I would have assumed that we would have known.



COACH OF THE YEAR
Nate McMillan



He deserves the award for finally - finally - easing up on his team and taking the Sergeant hat off. Basketball is a fun game, and when you take the fun out of it, young players sometimes play with a chip on their shoulder that bring them down and inhibits their performance on the court. McMillan eased up, and the Blazers immediately won 13 games in a row. I still don't agree with McMillan's style, or his substitution patters, or his insistence of playing Jarrett Jack in the fourth quarter of close games, but whatever he's doing, it's working. The players are happy, and the team is winning.



MOST SURPRISING TEAM
Los Angeles Lakers



The Blazers are up there, obviously, and the Hornets are playing out of their minds. But there were signs that Portland and New Orleans would be pretty good coming into the season. The Lakers? Kobe demanded a trade, and Phil Jackson was unhappy, and they were stuck with Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm as their big men. It didn't look good. Now? They're 4 games behind first place in the West. Of course, the Lakers have already started to crash and burn, as Andrew Bynum will be out for five more weeks. And Kobe still won't officially rescind his trade demand. Some things never change.



BIGGEST JOKE
Miami Heat



Disappointment? Who's disappointed? Not me, that's for sure. The Heat got lucky in 2006, winning a championship thanks to Dwyane Wade's amazing ability to drive into the lane, jump up towards the rim and flail about in a desperate attempt to draw a foul. But now, Shaq's older and slower, Wade's shoulder is still bothering him, and Pat Riley is a senile old git. This should have been obvious before the season even started, when Miami signed Smush Parker and Penny Hardaway instead of keeping Jason Kapono, who happened to be their only legitimate outside shooter. As a result, Miami is 9-34. That's a game ahead of Minnesota for the worst record in the league. And they were champs in '06? Flame on!

TJH

Road Trip Requiem

Finally:

The road trip is over.


I told everyone before it started that I would be happy with a 4-3 record on the seven game trip.

We finished 3-4.

Our losses included a double overtime heartbreaker, a close one to the best team in the league, and two back-end back-to-back poundings to well-rested playoff teams.

We lost the division lead in the process, which doesn't really provide anything at this point other than ego stroking. Still, we've got to get back to our winning ways, because we are one game away from falling out of playoff position.

One game.

At the halfway point, Portland has 25 wins. At first glance, it seems probably we would be able to duplicate that record in the second half of the season. In fact, if you took away our horrendous 5-12 November, we'd be playing ball at a 68-win clip.

That's amazing.

We need something tangible to show for this season. Progression can only be hypothetical for so long, and a playoff spot is the first measurable step on the path to a championship. That's why we can't let this season slip away. This is not Year Zero of the Trail Blazers renaissance.

This is Year One.

TJH

Sam I Amn't

That's the first I've heard about that rumor. Let's hope it's because there's no truth to it.

We have too many point guards already, as you mentioned, Kevin. If anything we should be downsizing at the point. The easy solution would be to ship off Jarrett Jack for a future draft pick.

But I'm hoping Pritchard doesn't make any changes before the trade deadline, and I'm confident he won't do anything to mess with this good chemistry we've got going on right now. Even shipping Jack out of town would be ill-advised, because of his locker room presence and his popularity with his teammates.

And honestly, I hope we keep Przybilla for years (assuming he stays healthy). I have accepted his offensive shortcomings and have grown to really love his hard nosed play down on the low block. Where would we be without him? Weak. Soft. And further down the standings. He's the perfect backup for Oden, and I can see him filling the elder statesman role for years to come.

Unlike Sam Cassell, who is inconsistent, moody, and at this point, just desperate to cling to the coattails of a championship contender.

And he looks like an alien.



TJH

Trade Rumor

I just heard a report on ESPN2 about a rumor of trade talk between Portland and the Clippers. Joey P for Sam Cassell.

The Alien is an enticing offer but I hope they don't make it. Not that I wouldn't mind getting Joel's contract off our payroll for Cassell's expiring contract, but it's obvious we don't need another point. Unless management really thinks we have a shot at winning it all this year and Cassell is the last piece of the puzzle.

The dude is always hurt and doesn't seem like he would mesh real well with our team. All of a sudden he'd be taken Outlaw's shots and Jack would complain because he wouldn't be the primary ball handler in the second unit. It seems like a surefire way to start trouble to me.

Now, if there was an offer on the table for another BIG with an expiring contract, I would gladly ship Przybilla and free up some cap space for a better back up next year, or more room to give the players who actually contribute an extension.

I'd rather see Sergio out there for the next two years as Blake's backup then an all-out log jam at the point with Cassell and an even weaker front court.

Magic Moment

Real quick:

I have little insight on yesterday's loss to the formidable Magic, besides the insight that comes from listening to the game on my parents' radio and angrily smashing my bag of Doritos. It seemed like we suffered from what seems to be one of our biggest problems, and that's not being able to get any defensive stop when it matters. And no, I'm not talking about defensive breakdowns necessarily - I'm talking about complete mental lapses that result in Dwight Howard being left wide open underneath the hoop time after time after time. Just complete and utter boneheaded play.

I was forced to listen to the game on the radio because my parents don't have the Comcast station that shows the games. They live about 30 miles outside of Portland and so many people out there don't get to watch Blazer games. At halftime I tried to find a pub nearby that had the game on, but I had no luck, and I had to turn back.

I had an interesting exchange with a bartender. It went like this:

I went into the lounge at the Tollgate Inn and asked the bartender, who was an older woman, if they had the Blazer game on. "I think it's on over there," she said, pointing to a television in the corner that was playing some college game.

NOTE: As it happens, I think my absolute biggest skill in life, out of all the things I've devoted myself to, and time spent on hobbies and interests, and all my endeavors and "accomplishments" (as indicated by paper certificates) is my speed in differentiating college and pro ball on television. And as it happens, ladies, I'm single.

Anyways, I suppose it's an easy mistake to make for a bartender who doesn't really care about sports. So I looked at the television, a bit longer than I needed to, of course, because I needed to make it obvious to the bartender that I did actually notice that the Blazers weren't one of the teams participating in the game, as the skill I mentioned above could be construed as superfluous, yet so effing awesome that your head would explode.

"Well, it doesn't look like that's the Blazer game," I said. "Do you know if you have the Comcast sports channel?"

She looked over at the television. "That's not the basketball game?"

"It's a college game. I'm just going around trying to find the Blazer game somewhere."

This is the part that I laughed about later - she looked at me like I was completely insane.

"Honey," she said stubbornly, "if you want basketball, we got basketball. Right over there. You're welcome to stay here and watch it."

I left. Two things:

1. I suppose your interest in a sport can be surmised by your level of attention paid to a game in which you have no vested interest in any side. Personally, I have very little interest in college ball, and I have zero interest in European ball, or D-League, or any basketball played by women. I don't think I could sit down and watch a basketball game between two teams I have no knowledge of. It'd be like watching "Friends" - a big waste of time.

2. The bartender's obvious assumption that "basketball is basketball" was so authentic, yet incredibly uninformed. To think that I would go driving around a city, stopping by every bar along the way just to get my daily basketball fix, is hilarious to me. Is this type of behavior expected, and thusly accepted, of a "sports fan" by a non-sports fan?

I guess all people, give or take, are strange.

TJH

Update

As I sit in a horribly cliche coffee shop in LA and watch everyone work on scripts that they all hope and dream will sell, the only thing I can say, Tyler, is:

THE BLAZERS ARE FOR REAL!

That's all.

KT

I Told You So, Part I

A good indication that you support a solid team is if they lose a double-overtime heartbreaker and they come out the next night and just kick ass.

Looks like we're solid.

We crushed the Nets tonight, but it's nothing to get worked up about. The Nets are terrible. The Magloire signing was a laff riot, and giving Richard Jefferson free reign on offense is like giving Jerome Kersey the vocal solo in your amateur basketball-themed music video. The Raptors, on the other hand, aren't terrible, but they're soft. We stopped playing defense against Toronto, and we blew a golden opportunity. Still, we're looking pretty good heading into Boston, losers of two straight.

NOTE: These losses, as it happens, both came at the hands of the Wizards, who I predicted could get by Boston in a seven-game series. Hmmm. But clairvoyant I am surely not, as evidenced by my prediction of the Lakers missing the playoffs entirely.


Listen:

People should be held accountable. If somebody makes an outrageous claim, we shouldn't easily forget, for it would be a shame to waste a chance to poke fun, tease, and ridicule the culprit.

Let justice be done, though the heavens lean.

Sweet and sour like a tangerine.


Subject: 2007-08 Portland Trail Blazers Regular Season Record.

What say you, Phil Partington? 31-51.

And you, Mr Bill Simmons? 24-58.

What do you think, nba.com? 30-52.

Really? Worst in the West, nba.com?? Really??


CURRENT WESTERN CONFERENCE STANDINGS:

1. LA Lakers
2. Phoenix Suns
3. San Antonio Spurs
4. Portland Trail Blazers (23-14)
5. Dallas Mavericks
6. New Orleans Hornets
7. Denver Nuggets
8. Golden State Warriors

Sweet justice.

TJH

Bust a bucket

I know I've been absent again. Just got to LA, trying to settle in and all that, but this question from a magical reader named Erin Dougherty had to be answered, and here it is:




Beautiful.

Brandon Roy is Burning

Brandon Roy was on Jim Rome's TV show today.



I swear, watching basketball players being interviewed is like talking to your friend's grandma. So proper, polite, and inoffensive.

TJH

Dynasticism

When Greg Oden got drafted, Blazer fans kept tossing around the D-word.

Dynasty.

This, as it happens, is why I don't call myself a fan. I am a supporter. Fans only pay attention when their team is winning, and they leave games early. Supporters have one team for their whole life. It doesn't matter if you're winning or losing - you still support your team. It doesn't matter if your management is corrupt and evil and your players are terrible and the city hates you (see Portland Trail Blazers, 2002-2005). You still support your team.

If you support the Trail Blazers, you hope for a championship. That's all you want. Just one. If we get more, great. But right now, how can people possibly talk about winning multiple championships!? The fair-weather fans are the ones who are behind this dynasty talk, and this desire for ten - fifteen, even - years of dominance. They're not realistic and they expect way too much, and they're just setting themselves up for disappointment.

Expressed using mathematics:

Greg Oden + Portland Trail Blazers = At Least 10 Championships.

This was a hot topic on radio shows and the Internet, the best spot for people to get passionate about the hypothetical. There are entire websites devoted to whether or not there will be more Star Wars movies, or if Al Gore will run for the White House in 2012, or if Hendrix is overrated because he died so young. Who cares? People spend hours every day ranting and raving about essentially nothing. Our system provokes us into becoming passionate about minutiae and uncaring about things like, oh, I don't know, human rights, how the world is governed and ruled, how one man could be at a speedboat dealership at the same time another man is eating a dead goat to survive and how disgusting that sounds, how politicians in the United States piss on the Constitution every chance they get, etc etc etc.

Boneheads. The lot of 'em.

As far as the "Blazers Dynasty" myth that is still floating around, what I don't understand is the automatic assumption that we are the next dynasty. That may be true, but keep in mind that there have been only five dynasties in the history of the NBA:

1949-1954 Minneapolis Lakers. Five titles in six years.

1957-1969 Boston Celtics. Eleven titles in thirteen years.

1980-1989 Los Angeles Lakers. Five titles and eight Finals appearances in ten years.

1991-1998 Chicago Bulls. Six titles in eight years.

2000-2002 Los Angeles Lakers. Three titles in three years.

The "dynasty" tag is, again, something that people spend WAY too much time discussing. On the other hand, calling the San Antonio Spurs a dynasty just minimizes the greatness of all these truly great teams of the past, and I can't ignore that. For example, I wouldn't even count the Bird Celtics a dynasty. Why? They didn't win back-to-back, and I don't think you can have two dynasties going on at the same time, and the Lakers were the better team, as evidenced by number of championships and head-to-head results. Simple.

So how do the Blazers fit in? Well, we have one championship in our 37 years of existence, with three Finals appearances. And seeing as how we won our title over 30 years ago, and many current supporters and fans weren't even alive then, I think it might be a little early to proselytize on our dynasty-in-the-making. I think we should take it one title at a time.

Better yet, let's take it one game at a time, until we shock the world, fists clenched and raised to the sky, finally at peace with our steadfast belief that it would all be worth it one day.

TJH

Whatever

Me and my friends went to the game tonight - a glorious win over the Jazz, who John Hollinger still somehow rates higher than Portland.

Whatever.

Anyways, we tried to get cheap $10 seats like a week ago, and they were all sold out. We had to settle for the next-cheapest seats ($17), which, coupled with the $8 beer I had to buy to break my hunnert so I could pay Travis for the ticket (natch), would have kept the bill collectors away for at least a few more days. Damn those Blazers, with all their winning and fun. Damn them!

As it stands, we're technically still tied for first in the Northwest, and if the playoffs started with us atop the division, we'd be the 4th seed out of 8. Pretty incredible. Some random observations:

Brandon Roy only played half of the first quarter tonight, which made the win even better. Of course, that meant more playing time for Jarrett Jack, who is the only player in our deep rotation that's been thoroughly disappointing throughout the streak. He turns the ball over too much, he can't make quick decisions, he can't shoot very well, and he looks kind of like an alien. Something tells me that he's just keeping the seat warm for Rudy Fernandez, who is apparently really good.

Speaking of Fernandez and deep rotations, let's look at our potential 10-man lineup next season.



STARTERS
PG Steve Blake
SG Brandon Roy
SF Martell Webster
PF Lamarcus Aldridge
C Greg Oden

BENCH
PG Sergio
SG Rudy Fernandez
SF James Jones
PF Travis Outlaw
C Joel Przybilla

That's a 55-60 win team, considering how things are going this year. Thoughts?

Martell Webster scored 24 points in the third quarter tonight, and he could have had 30. What a performance. What I like about Webster is that he is obviously "all there" mentally this season, as opposed to his first couple years, when he was nervous and timid. What I don't like about him is that he's still so streaky. It would be nice to get some consistency out of him, but hey, he's still only 21.

Tonight's entertainment consisted of the BlazerDancers, the Junior BlazerDancers, the Blazers Stunt Team, Potential Chalupa Giveaway, Blaze the Cat Mascot, Random Guy Shooting Baskets for Cash, and Two Guys Doing Flips on Trampolines. There was also a basketball game. Of the many things that I am bitter about missing due to the obscene rape of culture and society in general committed by our parents' generation - which is a subject for another blog post, or even another entire website, for that matter - one of my biggest disappointments it is the fact that we can't go to an NBA game anymore and get just that. Basketball. No, that's not enough to keep our attention. Corporations feel like people need to be stimulated by loud noises and free T-shirts and crappy music and choreographed dancing, and for the most part, they're right. Most people want that stuff, just like most people want gutless politicians and bad music. The demand is definitely there, and fault lies with everybody who puts up with it, to be honest. Including me. But I think most people are just indoctrinated to feel like that's what encompasses "entertainment", and so they're fine with it.

Whatever.

But I was sitting next to two older people who didn't realize Brandon Roy was out of the game until the fourth quarter. He was taken out midway through the first. If, during a timeout, it was quiet enough so that you could converse with the stranger next to you, I might have asked them something pertaining to the game, something like, "Hey, why do you think Roy is out?" Because I had no idea. My friends didn't know. Seems like a relevant talking point to me. A reason to start talking to your neighbor and to get to know them a little bit better than before. But these people were so obsessed with attracting the attention of the guy with the T-shirt gun, or making sure to clap at the appropriate times, as suggested by the scoreboard, that they didn't even notice a major development in the game.

OK. Rant over.

Back to our subs. You can't help but be high on our bench, or our "white team", as Nate McMillan has dubbed them. The starters are the black team, the subs the white. There might not be any second unit more effective than ours, and all things considered, we have one of the deepest teams in the league.

My friend has an idea for a superhero. His idea is this:

A guy goes around saving people and foiling evil plots. He dresses in white, and he calls himself White Power. He is oblivious to the negative connotations that might arise after yelling "White Power!" as he saves somebody from imminent danger.

What else can be said to our valiant bench but this:

White Power!

Wait, is it okay to joke about that stuff?

Whatever.

TJH

What's His Name?

I know, I know - we have a bunch of no-names on the team. Yeah, we have a good team, but it's still hard to get all the names right. We've heard Travis Outlaw called "Bo", we've heard Sergio called "Sergio Martinez", and we've heard Jarrett Jack called a "potential All-Star".

But this one takes the cake.

Lamarcus Frye??

TJH

All Things Must Pass

This much is clear:

The streak was no fluke.

You don't win 13 games in a row in the NBA without being a serious contender. It just doesn't happen. This is the attitude that most of Rip City was embracing on Monday night, in the midst of dancing with strangers and bleaching the puke out of the beer bong. It was New Year's Eve, and although it would have been nice to keep the streak alive (for sanctity's sake, if nothing else), it bookended the amazing month with losses that - fingers crossed - probably won't matter come playoff time.

I wonder - what's the next step? Such a shock it was to see the Blazers ranked 5th - yes, FIFTH - in the entire league. And not by a biased independent reporter, mind you; this is the NBA themselves who are hailing the success of our little team, the team that disappointed so many people by securing the first pick in the draft. Let's face it - the rest of the United States doesn't like us. They don't want us to succeed. They want us to fail. Miserably. And yet here they are, forced to write about the Blazers, and failing miserably to find one single negative sliver in the whole story. Here's Bill Simmons, resident ESPN xenophobe, grouping the Blazers with the Celtics and Spurs. Here's RealGM giving Portland some serious pub. Here's Mark Stein forced to defend his decision to rank the Blazers seventh. I could go on.

So what's next? The simple answer: playoffs. Streaks don't matter. They're fun, but they're fleeting. If Portland doesn't make the playoffs, considering how much they've improved over the last month, it will be a disaster. Fans are obviously fickle - especially Portland fans, who continue to amaze me by their fair-weathered attitudes and limited appreciation for the game. But hey, everybody likes a winner, right? And consider this: the 2008 Blazers are on pace for a 49-33 record.

The record in 1977?

49-33.

TJH