Today's Poll

but only because there was no neutral choice. I think that losing Martell is bad in the sense that the Rudy to Martell connection was looking intriguing …in that Sacto game they had it going!! I will miss that. But I agree that anything that gets Rudy more playing time is good…the guy can ball and good things happen when he is on the floor.

Additionally I have been really suprised and pleased with Sergio this preseason ….I totally didn’t expect it and this was a positive from Blake’s injury (a similar effect to the Rudy dialog)

for him and the team……that is all you can say…..we may never get a chance to re-equate him back on the team, because we have to move on with what we have.
   I would not be counting on him much for this season…partly because he may get left behind..He looked like he had worked hard on getting his game on track (its a tough break for him [no pun]) He will now have to start over in Jan. and this could be an emotional set back as well…..
   The positive is Batum and Rudy and the obvious (now wide open) playing minutes at the 3….It is a challenge and may the best man (or two) win…..All bets are on……

I refuse to vote for an injury as a good thing.

There could be positive benifits in another player getting time but that’s always the case when their is a young up and coming stud waiting isn’t it? Or in our case many studs like Rudy, Batman ect…

While Martell’s injury certainly shakes things up and allows us fans to get some new and early looks at players that we didn’t expect, I think there is little doubt that this is an overall bad thing for the team for a few reasons.

1) From everything I have heard, Martell had the best off-season of his career. It sounded like he got into shape, got motivated, and found a mentality that he liked and that oozed dependability (his major flaw). I’m afraid that this injury will set him back, not only physically, but that it might hurt his psyche as well.

2) Our schedule in the time Martell is gone is TOUGH. If he was going to be able to play the role as even a shadow of the player he was in the preseason game which he dominated, his defensive intensity and outside shooting will be greatly missed during this stretch. And while we wouldn’t go undefeated even with him in there, I think we all know how important it is that we maintain confidence and come out of these first two months with a manageable record.

3) Batum. I love the Batman. I think he has incredible potential, and that even now, he is showing the ability to be a force as a valuable role player. Yet I fear that it is too early. Batum should be inserted into the Blazers’ line-up slowly. The kid is only 19 and I’m afraid that too much pressure too early could have negative effects down the road for him (and, ultimately, the team).

That said, it happened, and the team needs to make the most of it. I think the best starting line-up at this point: Blake, Rudy, Roy, Aldridge, Oden. However, I think that Nate will pull out some very interesting line-ups to mix things up early and often. Outlaw is a sixth man. Let him do his thing.

Let’s hope all of that athleticism comes back & soon. Get well Martell. I would like to get you back in the rotation. Rudy & Webster compliment each other in many lineup scenarios.

I’m all for making the best of a bad situation.

So if Marty needs to miss a couple early games, no biggy. We’ll try out the new kid.
Martell is a STUD (so far this year) and will be for the rest of the season, I’m sure.

Love him or hate him, he fits perfectly with that first unit as a sweet shooter who doesn’t need a lot of touches. He’s not an overwhelming strength or liability, which truly allows Roy, Aldridge, and Oden to do what is expected of them. This might potentially thwart the progress/development we’ve been hearing so much about as well.

Overall, who knows how this pans out. We get to see the true depth that we have now and might be able to pin down what we can ultimately expect from Outlaw.

In the end, it’s just going to slow your team’s progression to dominance. Oden going out slowed us down, Blake going down, Channing, Martell….all slow things down. Some more than others, but in the end our progress is hindered, if ever so slightly. Yes, there are silver linings, but injuries slow us down in the short term and make players less valuable later on. Who wants an injury-prone Baron Davis, even if he can put up 25 and 10? No one likes guys who are “injury prone” and every little injury contributes to that notion.

Batum would not see much playing time if Martell didn’t go down. Coaching staff and the front office can now make a better evaluation on Batum.

if only because we’ll have to wait and see for months if the chemistry marty and rudy displayed in the first game was a fluke or the real deal

.
The Good

• The Blazers might not be able to keep Martell anyway due to cap considerations, as Dave explained two or three months ago. If he ends up leaving, then this injury period won’t matter much in the long run.
• More playing time for Rudy and Nic is a good thing, no matter how you slice it. They get valuable experience, Nate gets a lot more info about their games and how to use them, KP learns more about these valuable assets, and the extra PT makes Rudy and Nic happier.
• If Nic blows up, we’ll have a logjam at SF. Bad, right? Wrong. KP and Nate would love to have that problem. It gives them options, and if one of them or Travis has to be moved, we’ll be keeping the best of the lot.
• The Blazers won’t challenge for the title this season no matter what is likely to happen, so Martell’s injury isn’t going to cost us anything significant. Who knows, we could end up winning more games than we would if Martell were not injured. There’s no way of knowing, as LaughingJon said.

The Bad

• Experience out, inexperience in.
• Hate to see this happen to a good kid who has worked hard.
• Limits Nate’s options in games.
• Might result in more losses, though no way to know.

Bottom line: Good wins.

We’ll never know the answer because we’ll never see the alternative under the same circumstances.

I know, I know, not the answer you’re looking for… but it’s true.

I chose this for a number of reasons. Increased playing time for Rudy/Outlaw/Batum was one of them, and has been covered sufficiently.

I think it will help make Webster more of a force come the end of the season because he will have played in less minutes than other SFs out there, and we’ll have the confidence in our back-ups to play them more minutes, helping to keep everyone fresh for a hopeful playoff push

….Lossing Any player to injury is never a good thing…that goes for blake, that goes for Martell, and yes that even goes for raef.

sure we don’t have a clue if they’d have impacted in a good or bad way, but in my experience it’s ALWAYS better to have it, and not need it, than to need it, and not have it.

No matter what it was.

lossing players to injury is NEVER a good thing.

sometimes there are silver linings as some have pointed out, but we’d be better off having martell able to play no matter what the position,….starting, comming off the bench,…what ever. but it’s never a good thing.

If it takes game time to get the best out of rudy,travis,sergio,bayless….and they ain’t showing their best in practice….do they really deserve to start?

I had a coach tell me once that our best game will never over shadow our best practice.

I had a music instructer tell me the exact same thing. our best preformance will never be better than our best practice…..

it’s a bad thing any way you slice it.

peace.

I can’t think of a single other time when this was even a discussion, not just the Blazers either. No one was asking if Oden going down last year was a net positive. Sure, he’s our franchise center, but it’s not like Martell is a bench warmer.

It’s a bad occurrence that we are lucky enough to have a silver lining with. If our 2nd unit didn’t ooze talent out of every pore we’d be in trouble.

Also, I don’t know if you can say it’ll be a positive considering we have to make some serious adjustments to the way the starting unit is going to play. Martell was a good fit in that position for all sorts of reasons which I’m sure most of you are aware. Now we have to make compromises. Do we want Outlaw, who matches up against other 3’s better than Rudy or Roy, but who wants 15 shots a game? Do we want Rudy who doesn’t need tons of shots, is a great passer, but will leave us mismatched on defense? Batum could be everything we need at the 3 but c’mon, as much as a lot of us want to believe (me included), he won’t be there for a while.

I voted ‘bad thing’ but it’s a mixed bag as many have alluded to. The biggest concern is whether or not this injury will be a significant setback for Martell. By all accounts he came to training camp with a bit of a swagger in his step, a new physique and a new outlook on his game and his role. If Marty comes back from his injury with the same mindset and more-or-less the same conditioning, then the injury will be good from the perspective of giving Nic more playing time (and good for Sophia in that she’ll see more Nic). On the other hand, if this injury presents a major stumbling block for Marty, then it is definitely a bad thing.

Luckily, it is early in the season…unluckily, we’re going to be getting ‘new guy hazing’ in the first 6 weeks of the season from all the tough W.C. teams.

We needed those 4 more weeks of on-court evidence from him
to weigh whether or not to extend him before the Halloween deadline,
how much is the upper limit of what we should commit to him at this point in time.

Without that now, I don’t think an extension is possible at ALL, and as Dave pointed out,
that can put him on the fast track to being traded during the season, just to avoid the cap hold.

That’d be sad, if he ends up traded only because we didn’t get
the last bits of judgement on his game circa Autumn 2008.

I couldn’t agree more. I was looking forward to a season where basically our starting unit from last year, (minus Oden of course) was going to be comprised of players starting at least their third season in the NBA. This was the year we would see our players gel as a real unit. That is basically gone now. Neither Batum, or Rudy bring what Martell brings to the table though both could turn out to be good. Regardless, they are going to have to get used to playing with the first unit because we may well see them do so at times.

Truth is, I dont envy our coaches right now because up til recently their whole game plan was a starting unit that included Martell. All the practices and drills before the pre-season probably didnt utilize playing Batum or Rudy as much on the starting unit. Now it seems we are seeing it through this brief glimpse into a Blazer practice. It is a brief glimpse mind you so I would take it with a grain of salt.

What about Outlaw? Well I, and seemingly most everyone else, sees Travis’s best position as the go to scorer off the bench.

i am a big martell fan though i think rudy deserves the spot if he wants it though. watching the olympics i dont think rudy was quite as exciting at sf but he is like batum, just throw em outthere somewhere and their going to make plays. (yeah batum) i say he keeps the starting spot when he gets healthy and im overly confident in rudy and batum filling in untill then. i just dont want them to rush in a martell that is not 100 percent and i hope he doesnt lose any of his quickness or his jump. i like the allyoops and the slams and the constant movement and steals. when i look at how the big toe affected lt’s #’s it concerns me. same with dennis dixon in the bowl game. i would have rather seen the 3rd string, at least we would have had a chance.

Ain’t nothin’ but a thang man. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.

I’m not going to make this argument again but considering that Martell is like the third best player SF on our team, him getting hurt is fine.

on Blazers Edge last season?

My guess is he picks “Bad Thing”. Martell was his starter. It hurts the Blazers depth. What happens if Outlaw or Batum goes down with an injury in the first month of the season. All of a sudden we’re not as deep.