So I took my 5 year old daughter, 7 year old daughter, & wife to their first NBA game. Clipps vs Blazers.

I drove up from San Diego, so it was about a 2.5 hour journey. Luckily I brought a DVD player & snacks for my girls.  The silence was golden.  I was wearing my Blazer warm-up jacket & my daughter was wearing a Jersey.  We were flying our Blazer colors.  I hit traffic & missed all but about 3 minutes of warm-ups.  I had hoped to go grab an autograph or photo before the game, but the ushers at Staples center are total Nazis.  The Nazi’s needed to protect the fortress of lower level seats at all costs.  Can a cute blonde 5 year old girl in blazer jersey run down for a quick pic, 50 minutes before the game?   …NO picture for you!   They are seriously hard core.  I did not let that temper my enthusiasm & excitement to see my boys go to work.  I was  SO excited to see RAMBO  (my preferred lineup), but the little ladies needed some food.   There were lots of Blazer Fans in the house & I got a lot of “Go Blazers” comments, which was great. After getting McDonalds happy meals & CPK salad & pizza it was RAMBO time.  John J. RAMBO looked a bit rusty, like RAMBO had not shot anybody with a flame tipped arrow or killed anyone with their survival knife in quite a long time.  They were not “on”at all out of the gates.

Impressions:

The GOOD:

GREG:  Confident. Quick.  Strong.  I was loving the new & improved Greg.  I yelled SUPER LOUD after one of Greg’s plays. I scared both my daughters & my wife got a little mad & said, “That was WAY TOO LOUD.”  (You can take the kid out of Portland, but you CAN’T TAKE PORTLAND OUT OF THE KID!!)  His mind & body both seemed solid. He just seems like he exudes so much confidence out there this year.  He looks good.  Boom, Boom, Pow would be his theme song.  Last year I worried a bit about what big Greg was going to do.    He did miss a couple offensive shots. Who cares!?!  Loved the put back dunk. Loved the strong baseline move to the basket that drew the foul on Cave-man Kaman.  I like his aggressiveness, mind, & body. This is GREAT news for T-Blazer fans.  

JUWAN HOWARD: Looks great. He looked smooth out there.  He had a sweet move & shot over one of the Clipps.  He was looking the guy in the eye like, “Yeah SON.  I’ve been dropping deuces on fool’s heads like that since before you were in your father’s daddy bag.  That shot was silky smooth like a eating French silk ice cream while wearing silk pajamas.  I’m gonna be here all day, SON.”  (Ok, maybe he did not say that…but that I what I THOUGHT he was saying from my seat.)  :0)  Looked: Confident.  Seasoned. Solid.  Glad to have him on our team.  He will not hurt us and can definitely contribute. 

ANDRE: Love his strong takes to the hoop.  I like Andre a lot. He is going to be great for this team.

The BAD:

ROY: I hate to say it, but ROY looked just Terrible.  Ordinary.  Incredibly frustrated.  (You know those games where he is complaining for calls, while a fast break is going on at the other end).  He just did not look good.

RAMBO:  Just looked like they did not know what they wanted to do. 

The CLIPPERS:

I must say, they looked pretty dang good.  They could sneak up & bite some teams this year.  Again, this is pre-season, but they have some talent.  They moved the ball pretty well, got some good looks, seemed fairly fluid out there.  They have some players. Blake Griffin looks like a strong kid. Baron Davis looked like he was playground balling-having fun, loose, looked good. Eric Gordon looked pretty good. Cave Man Kaman looked decent as well.  

Staples Center Notes. Already noted Nazi ushers. There was only 1 cotton candy sales guy walking the arena. Just ONE.  My 5 year old REALLY wanted some cotton candy. Really, really, really badly.  Most of the first half for her was tracking the pink fluffy cotton candy guy doing a snail slow circle around the arena.  She missed most of the game because she was keeping a keen eye on Cotton Candy Man.  Unfortunately he started near us & worked around the arena away from us.  I had to walk half way around the arena to track down that large plank of pink fluffy ccotton candy.  As other have noted, there was barely anyone in the arena. Place was dead. No energy. It was like the energy of one section of the rose garden.  One very small section.  Or possibly the energy of one of the bathrooms at the rose garden.  I would have loved to move down to some better seats, but the Nazi ushers made sure that did not happen. 

Cotton Candy: 4 dollars. Carmel corn: 5 dollars.  Wetzel Pretzel: 5 dollars.  The memories: Priceless. Family had a great time. I brought sleeping bags and pillows. Everyone slept on the drive home. Good times. Go Blazers!!