Many peopl here are talking crazy and are wanting to trade everyone "Trade Blake for a sack of peanuts!!!" Crazy stuff from crazy people.

Now I am here to explain the reason we have been losing, and it is two fold, 1. Rudy has been sucking it up the last few games and only in Toronto, did he have a meaningful role. Everyone, including myself, loves Rudy but he has been getting a free pass over the past few games and it needs to be brought to attention, if he hist even at a little better rate, we would of won those games. in the last 5 games he is 13/41or 31% I do not know why, but he is off. Too many times we have seen him pass up wide open 3pters and then tonight it seemed that was trying to force the issue, with bad results. The season may be catching up with him but he needs to be on to replace that long distance shooting we lost in Jones. Without him opening up the lane Roy and LMA are having a hard time going to work.

2. Batum has been a no show so far this December he is 3/18 an atrocious 16.7% and has gone from 6 pts to 1pt/gm. His D has seemed to drift a little as well, namely his off the ball D, losing his man for a backdoor cut or an open 3. It seems that he may not be reading the scouting reports as well as he should be and sometimes is not identifying the shooter on the court and sagging off him to help on a player that did not warrant a 2x. The unfortunate thing is that early in the season they were the catalyst for much of the success of the team, now they have fallen off a bit, the team is struggling and Roy and LMA are being asked to put this team on its backs, but they cannot do it alone, they are not at that point in their careers yet. It is difficult sometimes to remember that this is the 2nd youngest team in the league and we expect so much out of them at such a young age. We forget that Rudy is a rookie and only 23 and Batum is still a teenager.

Too much has been expected and neededd from these rookies and it has finally caught up. Perhaps it is because of the fact that the season would almost be done in France and Spain 24 games into the season and they have played all of those games in little over a month and a half. In closing let us just hope that this is simply the closing to the roughest stretch of the season for our young Trail Blazers and the rest of the season we can return to that high level and even increase that even more. I would imagine that most of the guys will sleep long into the morning and possibly into the early afternoon today as much of it will be well deserved. Congratulations, young Blazers, the toughest part of the season is done and it is all downhill from here.