Bright spots

OK, so it appears we have the negative aspects of last night's game covered. Let's talk about some bright spots in yesterday's ugly thrashing by the L*kers.

1. Loss of bandwagon fans. The most anticipated season in recent memory for the Blazers led to intense media scrutiny of an extremely young but talented team before the season started. We were all riding the highs and lows of the media wave throughout training camp and the preseason. As the regular season approached, it became glaringly obvious that expectations for the season were way too high.
   
   After this first unimpressive loss, I hope that some of that intense media scrutiny will fade, but most importantly, I think it is good to quell some of the inevitable bandwagoning that goes along with it. This will ease the pressure on this young team. I think this trend will continue for the first month or two until the schedule softens and the team begins to gel.
   
   
2. Rudy Fernandez!!!! I thought Rudy played great! 16 points, 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals went a long way to showing that Rudy is going to be a force off of the bench. To be honest, the rookie label is really unfair because the kid looked to be suffering from fewer nerves than the rest of the team combined (maybe with the exception of Travis). I think, win or lose, Roy and Rudy are going to be our two most reliable players night in/night out.
   
   
3. Nowhere to go but up. The point has been touched on that the schedule may be favorable to us, in that the Blazers will play their sloppiest, ugliest basketball at the start of the season as the team gets adjusted. I don't think anyone not suffering from extreme homerism would have picked the Blazers to win against the L*kers, in LA. I liken it to building a child's immune system. Sure, you've got to suffer through Chicken Pox as a kid, and at the time it seems like the worst experience imaginable. Yet, in the long run, the building of immunities is extremely valuable. Did anyone else know that kid in school whose parents kept them extremely sheltered from any kind of situation in which they could get injured or sick? That's always the kid with the weak bones and constant sickness down the road. We don't want that.
   
   I expect Friday's game will be much prettier, even if it is a loss. Get those kinks worked out! We WILL shoot better in the long run, it's statistically impossible not to.
   
   
   Any other positives we can take from last night's game? Discuss.