Oct 18 2009
NBA Blog Preview: Portland Trail Blazers
This year, due to some diligent work from Jeff from Celtics Blog, Trail Post is joining in with quite a few other blogs from around the internet to preview the NBA season. The links I’ve been posting are part of that, and this post is this Blazers blog contribution. If the preview isn’t enough, check out the seven other Blazer blogs out there, you’ll love ‘em.
1. What significant moves were made during the offseason?
The most significant moves of the offseason for this team were the ones that didn’t happen. GM Kevin Pritchard made a huge splash early with his dogged pursuit of Hedo Turkoglu after an incredible performance in a losing effort against the Lakers. We were prepared to offer every Portland firstborn for a three point specialist who 35% last year. Luckily, Hedo’s wife intervened and determined that Portland wasn’t multicultural enough for their needs, so they departed to the Great White North. Mrs. Turkoglu is the franchise MVP until Brandon Roy’s next buzzer-beater. After Hedo fell through, the next option was to simply mess with the Utah Jazz because, honestly, why not? We had the money, and Jerry Sloan is always so unpleasant. So, we made an offer to Paul Millsap with the knowledge that the Jazz would match it. That was a success in that we screwed over the Jazz, but unsuccessful in that it revealed Kevin Pritchard to be a bit of a backstabber (read: douche) to the NBA. After these two successful failures, we signed Andre Miller, who, according to the front office, was the guy we wanted all along. Whatever. Andre Miller upgrades our point guard situation, as, in essence, we switch out Sergio Rodriguez for him. That’s unreal. Right now the local media is trying to paint him as the bad guy of the team because he isn’t as polite as Brandon Roy (But who is, honestly? I can imagine him handing out puppies on Halloween.). Beyond the free agency misadventures, we signed Juwan Howard to be our sage old man in the locker room, and drafted Dante Cunningham and Jeff Pendergraph, who got injured early. We lost fan favorite Channing Frye to the Suns (thank goodness for him and for us), traded Sergio to the Kings, got rid of lizard enthusiast Michael Ruffin, and jettisoned online hero Shavlik Randolph.
2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?
One word: depth. Our second unit, whatever it’s going to be, is better than quite a few starting lineups around the NBA. There’s Roy and Rudy Fernandez at the 2, Oden and Przybilla at the 5, and Blake and Miller at the 1 as the truly deep positions. Small forward with Nicolas Batum and Martell Webster and power forward with borderline all-star LaMarcus Aldridge and Travis Outlaw aren’t anything to sneeze at either. The NBA season is long and it wears you down, but the Blazers are as well-equipped to deal with that as anybody in the league.
Honorable mention: The homecourt advantage at the Rose Garden
3. What are the team’s biggest weaknesses?
Youth and inexperience. This has been the main weakness for the last half of the decade (aside from that 20-win team, whose weakness was probably just sucking really, really bad), and it continues going forward. Our season depends on the development of guys like Aldridge and Greg Oden. Sure, Oden’s been tearing it up in the preseason, but we still have to see if he’ll do it when it counts. We just don’t know what we’re going to get. If Oden doesn’t play like we hope he can, we’ll be a continual good-but-not-great team, much like the Utah Jazz.
Honorable mention: Travis Outlaw’s continued playing time
4. What are the goals for this team?
The stated goal for the team (and we heard it about a hundred times at Media Day) is to win the division outright. I hate to say that this will be easy, but it seems like an easily accomplished goal. Simply weight the improvement made by the Nuggets to that made by the Blazers. They lost Dahntay Jones and Linas Kleiza and picked up Ty Lawson. We traded Sergio for Andre Miller. That is stratospheric. With added wisdom, maturity, and experience (not to mention the return of Martell Webster), we should improve on the last season’s mark for the fourth year running. My goal for this team is the Western Conference Finals. This is going to sound incredibly homerish, but I see 62-20 optimistically being the mark for this year’s Blazers. Brief defense: our schedule is light in back to backs with above .500 teams and according to most systems, our record last year was worse than our statistics would suggest. With a few good bounces and not giving up the highest free throw percentage in the NBA (one of the flukiest things I’ve ever seen) we should be able to hit that mark. The low end of the spectrum? Same as last year: 54 wins and the division crown.
5. What’s your favorite acronym?
A storyline that’s emerged from this preseason has been the fans and radio show hosts calling for the Blazers to start the RAMBO lineup, which is Roy, Aldridge, Miller, Batum, and Oden. I think the logic in this is that is simply the most awesome acronym of all time, and leads to images of the Blazers winning by finding creative ways to use a hunting knife and explosive arrows. (It also leads to piecing together other lineups in hopes of a silly acronym. There’s BATCH [Blake, Aldridge, Travis, Cunningham, Howard] and BITCH [sub in Ime for Aldridge], along with my favorites FARTS [Fernandez, Aldridge, Roy, Travis, Steve] and BOOBS [Bayless, Oden, Outlaw, Batum, Steve]. What about the MILFS [Miller, Ime, LaMarcus, Fernandez, Steve] lineup? Basically, this whole exercise is the blogging equivalent to giggling while turning a calculator upside down and trying to make swears.) Will RAMBO play well together? Probably not. Miller’s skillset is better fit for guys such as Martell Webster and Rudy Fernandez, who wear out their defenders running around screens. The only guy getting better with this lineup is Greg Oden, as Miller is the only Blazer who wants to get him the ball. My acronym of choice? Uh, RABBO (sub Blake for Miller). Like the acronym, Steve Blake isn’t catchy, but he fits in better with Roy’s drive-and-kick style with his impressive three-point shooting ability.
Let’s just get this season going already. Anyway, thanks for reading, and check out the other Blazer blogs today - you’ll love ‘em.
