First let me say that there are plenty of people who aren’t sleeping on us at all. In fact, this post could just as easily have been titled “why people are expecting the blazers to be good when they haven’t done jack squat.” But it seems that a lot of pundits out there are predicting the blazers to squeak into the playoffs or barely miss them with only a slight increase in wins (with the number of wins required to qualify for the playoffs being predicted as <50). After skimming through some of the comments in reaction to John Hollinger’s prediction on ESPN (Hollingers an idiot, no he’s not, yes he is), it seems that this prospect is a little upsetting for those of us who are expecting greatness sooner than later.

So I’m not going to talk about the obvious reasons (Roy and Oden…c’mon) or lay out both sides of the argument here (again, keep the title of the post in mind) but I can briefly summarize the negatives: yes, we’re young and there will be “growing pains” (Jerryd Bayless’ voice will continue to get deeper and undoubtedly Greg Oden will begin growing hair in strange places).  Yes, injuries could derail our season, (but the same could be said for 29 other teams). Yes, there will be a minutes crunch that will probably leave some players unhappy (but the cream will rise to the top). And yes, a large part of our success this season will depend on the play of the almighty G-GOD (because why can’t I throw one more ridiculous greg oden nickname into the hat?), but keep in mind we hit .500 without him last year.

Now, the meat and potatoes:

L.A.:  the Lamarcus Aldridges of Anaheim. Not only does his game perfectly compliment the game of the talented Mr. Oden (what are we calling them anyway? The twin towers? The S.W.A.T. team? Thunder and Lightning? Somebody get on this with another fanpost or something), but with his new and improved 3 point shooting ability, his transformation to Rasheed Wallace minus the crazy is complete. And yes, that’s a good thing. I think a lot of people outside of Portland are not giving this guy the credit that a player like him should deserve coming off a season where he averaged 17 and 7.

Leadership and clearly defined roles: Brandon Roy is the brains. Greg is the muscle, LA is the looks, and Jerryd is the crazy. Done and done.

Our bench: by my count, we only have like 3 towel wavers, or guys who will probably be wearing street clothes underneath their team warm-ups . RLEC, the French fry, and #15 (because it doesn’t really matter who gets that last rosters spot). Which is pretty awesome when you think about it. I know that it is important to trim down your playing rotation but this is one of the few categories that I think we have an edge in compared to teams like N.O., L.A., and S.A.. We have guys that can come off the bench and provide a spark at multiple positions and the competition these guys will create in training camp and practice is only going to push our starters to become better themselves.

3 pt shooting: Q. who’s going to be open when GO time gets the ball in the paint? A. EVERYONE. Blake finished at like what, 5th in the league in 3 pt shooting percentage? Martell is going to have a career year shooting the rock and Rudy isn’t going to notice that the line is farther away when he’s shooting with his eyes closed. I think everyone is going to benefit from a serious post presence and with the progress our “vets” have made plus the addition of 2 premier perimeter players (granted, from the euroleague and NCAA), I don’t think perimeter shooting is going to be a problem like it was back when Derek  Anderson and Damon Stoudemire were regularly clanging wide open 3 pointers off the rim.

We have the dancing lady: seriously, have you seen that lady in the corner of the rose garden who starts dancing like crazy when the blazers go on a run? Never seen us lose when she gets up on the big screen. I expect her to be going absolutely NUTS this year.

Nate is a good coach and the players have bought in: all the reports from this year’s training camp seem to indicate that the players are ready to put defense first, they trust the coaching staff, they trust each other, and they want to win. Ever look around at the rest of the league and see all the distractions? Gilbert Arenas with the knee and the weirdness, Lebron denying that he wants to leave Cleveland from Jay-Z’s Brooklyn penthouse, Ben Gordon signing the qualifying offer, DUI’s, Marijuana, baby mama drama; we have a great locker room right now that’s ready to play hard and I think that can go a long way.

So these are just some of the things I have been thinking about when I read “temper your expectations” articles. Well, theres more but its like 1230 at night and this is getting ridiculous. So what are your ideas? Why do we think the blazers are going to skip ahead of established, veteran laden teams like the suns, mavs, or nuggs?

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