6 game report card

A little over a week into the 2012-2013 season and it's time for a report card.

Name: Portland Trail Blazers
Teacher: Stotts
Class: NBA
Record: 2-4
Week 1 (Games 1-6) grade: C-

First, the good news. Damian Lillard. This kid can ball. We've all heard the stat lines of how he and Oscar Robinson are the only two players to start their first 3 NBA games with at least 20 points and 7 assists per game.

The opening night Halloween win over the Lakers was scary good. The OT victory in Houston was an eye brow raiser with a head nod. But then came Dallas, the Clips, Spurs. We had fight at home but just ran out of gas.

The two glaring things I see are the lack of defense (49% OPP FG) and the lack of bench depth. If a Blazer starter has an off night (Nic in OKC, Lillard in Dallas) the bench just can't pick up the slack.

Hit the books, boards, and buckets. If you don't apply yourself, you may not see a record above .500 anytime soon and the Blazer g.p.a. will dip and summer school will be mandatory.

Preseason and the eternal optimism

Fans of the Portland Trail Blazers are a different breed of cat. Despite years of heartache they still come around every October with an exuberance reserved for fans of franchises accustomed to lengthy runs of playoff success. Even going into a rebuilding season some fans are going a little crazy with their predictions. I read on a message board recently a guy predicting a 4th place finish in the west. Yikes! Now that Portland has beaten the Lakers in a preseason game we'll have to hear about how great this team is going to be. I really don't want to be the Debbie downer here, so I'm going to just say do it the first game of the year and we'll talk. There's a few pieces in place to turn this ship around, and it will be exciting to see these young guys run. But there are going to be some incredibly frustrating moments this season. Who knows where the Jay Jensen curse will strike next. Are we done with just Elliot Williams? Remember how this team folded like a tent after the controversial goaltending call against the Thunder last year? How will this team react to similar adversity? I will keep my optimism bottled up for now and stick with my team through the bad times. Basically I'm saying wait til next year before the season starts.

Signage

On October 12th, 1995 my Dad and I took a drive. I know the date because it's the day the Rose Garden opened it's doors to the public. I was 14 years old. We walked through the main entrance and into the new and improved home of the Blazers. At the time I had never been to a Blazer game and this was the next best thing. Everything about the new arena was huge. The largest building along with everyone from my hometown could fit inside, twice over. My eyes were wide and I was starstruck. My team. My Blazers. Are gonna play here.

Fast forward 17 years and it's a super hot August day. It's a Thursday morning and I'm in the first month at my new job. One of the perks of my new job is that the Blazers are one of our biggest clients. When the opportunity arose to install a sign at the Rose Garden, I jumped on it.

The Rose Garden sat calm in the hot morning sun. We backed our van into the loading docks, got our visitor badges, and we were escorted by security into the labyrinth of halls under the arena.

"You guys wanna see the locker room?" Asked the security guard.
I was trying to keep calm and cool but inside I was going berserk like an eighth grade schoolgirl seeing The Beebs.
My co-worker and I said, "Sure."

We followed through the huge glass double doors, around a corner and there it was, the locker room of the home team.

"There's a new addition to the locker room." Said the security guard.
He pointed up. It's the pinwheel logo on the ceiling. It was dark, dull, and eh, alright.
"Let me see if this light switch turns it on." Says the security guard.
*Click* The dull hum of glowing greatness lit up the room. It was Christmas in August and I couldn't contain my ear to ear smile.

Sight seeing was fun but it was time for the task at hand.

Today's job was a sign to be installed just above the door to the Blazer's locker room. I opened a box and took out the letters that spelled the team's name.

One by one, I polished the chrome letters, and we adhered them to the wall. Thirty minutes later, my first of hopefully many Trail Blazer projects was complete.

For 41 games a season, my favorite team will pass under a sign that I installed. This is the best perk of any job I've ever had. It was nice to look up at the shiny new letters and reflect upon that day in 1995. When the arena was new. When I was young. When my 14 year old mind couldn't fathom living and working in Portland.

Reflection on life can be pretty sweet. About as sweet as the reflection from those chrome letters on the locker room facade.

Hey! LaMarcus! And the rest of you Blazers. Keep your hands off! Don't smudge up my work!

20 Years goes by quick

Just over twenty years ago the Blazers won game 4 of the 1992 Finals 93-88 over DA BULLS! That was the last time that the Blazers were victorious in the NBA Finals, let alone be in the Finals period.


Think about this. That '92 team was closer (15 year span) to the 1977 Bill Walton championship team than we are today to the '92 team. It's been quite a Finals drought. Will it be another twenty years before we're in the Finals again? Time will only tell.

This will be a re-tooling time for the Blazers. We've got cap space, draft picks and a GM. I am feeling pretty good about this off season. I just hope this off season isn't a string of twenty more off seasons before we reach the finals. Geez, if it is, I'll be the old codger wearing a super faded '92 Western Conference Champions shirt (which I still have btw) ranting "Back in my day!"

~J.K.

Plenty of fish in the sea

With the long awaited results of the nba draft lottery the options for the Portland Trailblazers this offseason just became more clear. The future gm has many options as to where he wants to go with the future of this franchise. First on his to do list should be hiring a coach with a proven track record of coaching young players and a set game plan. The hodgepodge that was last season ended in a dumpster fire of despair. The problem with youth is the risk of inconsistency. Something blazers fans have unfortunately become accustomed to. As much as I like the players in this supposed "deep" draft, I wouldn't be against trading one or more of our picks in exchange for a serviceable veteran. Point guards are hard to come by, and there really doesn't seem to be a game changer in this draft. If there doesn't seem to be any options in free agency, perhaps a trade on draft day will be in the works.

What's going on?

Oregonian sports writer John Canzano has been writing columns about Paul Allen and his ownership of the Portland Trailblazers for years now. Some have been positive but most are overwhelmingly negative. I must admit that things have been frustrating these past few years. The firing of Richard Cho, Tom Penn, and Kevin Pritchard, the lack of a GM for almost a year, and the lack of contact with the general public have been questionable decisions and Canzano hasn't let the opportunity slip to write up his opinion. Allen is a shrewd businessman. The days of treating the Portland Trailblazers as his toy seem to be over. It's about dollars and cents now. Canzano keeps implying that Allen should sell the team to an owner who is a bit more hands on. I say be careful what you wish for. I was on the fence for a while on whether I wanted Allen out or not. On the one hand he is, in my opinion, the sole reason why Portland doesn't have an National Hockey League franchise. He's toyed with the idea in the past, but if he wanted to bring a team here he'd of done it by now. I've never had anything against Allen in the past. He has been more than generous with his money in order to put a good product on the court in the past. I believe he'll do it again. The franchise is at a crossroads, and it is because of this that Canzano wants Allen to sell the team so he has something to write about. He wanted a statement from Allen regarding his stance on the Trailblazers. What he got was this. Thank you Mr. Allen.You do what you gotta do. I trust you. Just one thing though, bring back the beard. Zing!

Disillusion

Some of my fellow Blazer fans crack me up. Whenever a disgruntled player is rumored to be on the trading block, the crazies come out in force to throw out a trade to have said player come to Portland. Just go to the blazer forum at oregonlive. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back. It won't take long to find out what I'm talking about.
"Let's trade Kurt Thomas, Luke Babbitt, and a second round pick for Dwight Howard".

"I hear Tom Thibodeau's contract is up with Chicago, next Blazers coach?"

I suppose we've been spoiled with a free spending owner. But the reality is we don't have a gm, free agents don't like our small market (Turkoglu?), and our players aren't worth as much as the fans think. I keep hearing how valuable Batum is as a tradeable piece. Really? He's inconsistent. Maybe we're used to the consistency of laMarcus, but he's about the only consistent thing on this team. I remember people saying we shouldn't trade Rudy because of his upside. But how many more seasons do we have to wait for Batum's upside to reach its potential. I think we've seen it. He's not going to magically turn into Kevin Durant. You don't think the other gms around the league don't see that? He's not worth that much. It's his contract year and he still can't step up night in night out. My point is that I don't want to see us avoid drafting a great young small forward because we have Nic. I don't want to see us draft one and not play him because of Nic either. I say trade him and get what we can for him. And when the cry goes out because we couldn't get Kobe or Wade for him I'm going to laugh.