big men success

Also, after the telfair and webster picks, I'll have to see Oden play for a while before I put him in the class of centers you listed. I don't consume much of the hype surrounding draft picks.

Portland simply has too many unknowns and holes in their roster to talk championship yet in anything more then theoretical terms. How will all the youth develop together? Just how good are Frye and Jones? Is Webster a bust? Will Outlaw continue to improve? Are any of Oden, Aldridge, and Roy injury prone? Will either Jack or Sergio turn into a good PG? Will Portland actually have substantial cap space in 2009 and will it be used effectively?

As Dave pointed out in his most recent column, right now it's enough that the team/franchise is moving in a positive direction....my unreasonable expectations won't kick in till the fall of 2009 at the earliest.

But ya, I want to see a title within 10 years, so waiting till the whole 10 years is up, would be hard to swallow, especially if we had some heart breaking seasons on the way.  But hey, that is life as a fan, nothing is for sure, no future, no matter how bright, is set in stone.

I only became aware of you guys when Nate landed there from my town up north, and prior to that, I kinda liked Walton and much appreciated Clyde and Luke. But in a distant, uninvested sort of way.

Then you got my home town fav, a guy I'd watched in high school and college, and enjoyed rooting for immensely, in Mr. Roy.

I liked the little bit I knew about that kid from Texas too, but I didn't really know much about him.

Somewhere around the middle of last season the name of some ex Kansas guard was being tossed around. He had both Larry Brown and San Antonio bloodlines as well. Intriguing. I started to pay a small bit of attention.

When you guys hit the lottery, I began watching to see if you'd go flash or substance with the pick. That was a fun telenovela. I thought you guys did it right.

So here I am now. An unrepentant jailblazer hater and still somewhat casual fan, watching from a bit of emotional distance. I'm thinking this all makes me GOOFy. I prefer to think of myself as Pritchafied.

In any case, I think that there are several more Pritch steps still to be taken before words like dynasty and champion are anything more than fun machinations. And I still think that it's PA, Kevin and Nate that make the Blazers promising, and that Oden simply accelerated a predestined timeline.

With one more fairly big trade and continuity in the core group, on and off the court, the next two seasons will make the Blazers an elite team.

I define that as a team still full of promise at the end of the regular season and being among the three or four favorites to reach the championships.

Candidly, for Nate's and Brandon's sakes. that's good enough for me. I value smart, classy highly competitive team first play and great role models off the court more than rings.

Rings would simply be desert. I'll happily take Dallas/Phoenix/San Antonio type consistent excellence and live with the lucky/unlucky breaks  that determine who gets it all in any particular year especially if my son wore a Roy jersey with both of us being proud in a way Iverson and Kobe will never work for his Dad, and Nate and Ime jerseys lack the necessary cachet for him.

But you know what?  I'll take a slew of game 7 losses in the conference finals over a decade of irrelevance.

Of course, I'm not a fan of the team, so no surprises there.

But I do live in Portland and I love watching NBA hoops. Last year, I wound up making several trips to the Rose Garden, more than I'd made in any of the other five seasons I've lived here (I usually just show up for the Knick game) At first, it was because I bought one of those crazy-cheap ticket deals they were offering. But by season's end, I was buying tickets to individual contests. Although they didn't win many games, I found myself drawn in by the many compelling storylines: the continued development of Roy and Aldridge; Ime Udoka's against-all-odds roster spot and subsequent emergence as an every game starter; Sergio's dazzling, barely-under-control play off the bench; and Randolph's resurgent offensive game and watching the rest of the team struggling to figure out how to coexist with the "Zach Hole."

In short, I found the team highly entertaining, albeit in a soap opera-ish kind of way. The outcomes of the contests never mattered to me as much as seeing how those different narrative threads would develop. In a way, I was saddened when the Blazers selected GO because now the Blazers will likely become "The Greg Oden Show"; the focus of the team's strategy - in both its marketing and on-court style of play - will come to be largely dominated by Oden. And while that may ultimately result in a championship, it seems just a little less interesting; more conventional, somehow. (Conversely, I think selecting Durant would have generated some much more compelling storylines, at least from this spectator's standpoint)

And, also: I suspect all of those cheap ticket packages from last year are now gone out the window.

I'll cringe at ill-advised quick shots and shout every time a cutter slips into the lane, unguarded and unnoticed.

I'll shout when B-Roy's man slips backdoor for a dunk.  I'll roll my eyes back when Oden jumps onto a guard for a head fake.  I'll slam my beer down when Nate calls a play for Aldridge when clearly it's Outlaw who's on fire.

I'll curse their lack of spirit in blowouts.  Every stupid foul, every botched fast break, every ball dribbled off a foot will earn my scorn.  

I'll hate what they do to me.  When I kick my cat, shout at my wife and yell at the paperboy, it'll all be because of last night's game.  They'll tie my gut into knots and dice it into pieces.  

But I'll keep watching.  Because, you know, they might get better?  You never know - Outlaw almost reminded me of Billy Ray the way he soared on the dunk last night.  LMA gave a spin move that looked like Hakeem was reincarnated early.  The way B-Roy's chest puffed up and he slowed it down coming up court?  Pure Terry Porter.

I don't know.  They're starting to grow on me.  I mean, I know they just disappoint me year after year after year, but...  it seems like things are getting better.  Maybe we'll move up in the standings.

Maybe we'll beat Seattle or even LA...  Maybe we'll finish ahead of Utah?

Of course they disappoint me.  Over and over again.  They're MY team.  

Disappointment is just a funny way of saying "I have no patience, but I care".  It's kind of like love.

I love my disappointing team.

-t

But I've been hoping for the Blazers for 35+ years now and there have been lots of disappointments and lots of unfulfilled potentials along the way.

I am just happy that they now have a group of young players who seem willing to play their best every night.  They may lose a lot this year, but those losses will hopefully be due to inexperience instead of the lack of effort or desire that seemed to plague the Blazer teams of a few years back.