Outside of the irrational 20% of Blazer fans who blindly love Outlaw, everyone else loves him some nights and hates him others.

the fans who blindly support him can only see the ball go in the hole. They may not care about anything else or may not be experienced enough in the game to see how horrendous he is at almost all other aspects of the game— and how most of his buckets cost the Blazers 2 or more.

Outlaw has saved our bacon plenty of times lately. It’s painful sometimes, but it’s so effective others.

Also, last I checked, he was the 2nd leading rebounder in the game for our squad tonight.

He’s a major contributor to a team that finds ways to win.

I’m not really a fan of his, but he’s effective at what he does. Also, he’s consistently better in the later part of the season.

Could we find better? Yes. Do we have better? No.

This will be hard for many people to hear and accept, but right now Outlaw > Rudy. That’s a fact.

has won games for us this year. By himself. Go find a court and learn the game.

oh wait he shot 7/10 w 6 rebs oh wait. You can either get over travis of you cannot he is what he is a great offensive weapon but right now Nic is not good enough defensively to make up for his O shortcomings and playing Rudy or Roy @ Sf is not as good either.

Right now he is the best we have and you can deal with it or you cannot.

I think Nic’s D makes up for his O when he plays with Roy and LMA on the court. Also, next time he bams on someone something nasty, I dare you to stay in your seat. Dare you.

you are blaming this game on Outlaw? really?

He was 7-10 from the field and got more rebounds than LMA. If you are going to blame him for his bad D (which is legit), you should also blame Roy for playing some dreadful D (he drew a couple charges but also got owned by Kleiza and Smith on several occasions). Rudy’s D was also laughably bad in this one, and the PGs all left plenty to be desired.

Everyone sees Outlaw’s faults and I would have no problem with trading him, but I’m tired of people scapegoating him for our D when our stars (Roy, LMA) and our fan favorites (Rudy, Bayless, etc.) were just as bad.

Could there be anything new in the Outlaw discussion that hasn’t already been said one hundred times before?

Then when Outlaw saves the team from a loss he gets no credit.

Why must people have a scapegoat instead of holding these guys accountable as a team. They all played bad tonight, Outlaw was one of the few in the game that played ok.

Watch the game every minute he is in on D. You will notice almost EVERY single score is done on Travis or because of him.

Watch the tape! It doesn’t lie and this is a perfect one to show.

He doesnt run through screens and is schooled almost every possession.

I can almost garantee Karl had directives to go right at Travis. For something liek that to happen, someone has to see it and coach has to put it out as a directive. He is clearly the weakest link here and they exploited that all night, play after play.

Watch the TAPE!!!!

The defending champion the Boston Celtics, for one. They have Pierce, an awesome small forward. And then… nothing. The next best thing they can play on that position is Bill Walker, who saw quite some time in the d-league this year. Occasionally Brian Scalabrine plays there. Awful.

To that end, look at the depth charts which team has a better guy coming off the bench for them to play on 3? Someone who won’t disappear when it matters in the final minutes and can create his own shot. Who hits a ton from outside.

Here are teams that don’t: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte (give me Travis over Vlad Rad any day), Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit (unless they put Hamilton there), Houston (their top guys are starters), Indiana, Clippers, Lakers (Walton? Morrison? Please), Memphis (go Darius), Miami, Milwaukee (Alexander isn’t there yet), Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, OKC (as long as Green starts PF), Orlando, Philly, Sacramento, Toronto, Utah (likely, since Korver ≠ defense), Washington (would think about it, especially with Butler playing a lot of SG).

Here are teams who might say no to Travis off the bench: Chicago arguably with Deng and Salmons, albeit Travis is very close to Deng (in a bad year) this season. Look up their percentages, I recently posted about it. Denver is debatable, but I would take Travis over Kleiza. Golden State depending on how they rotate. New Orleans might not want Travis over Posey, but who knows, at least he scores more. Phoenix maybe. The Spurs could use a young guy, but might not want to.

That doesn’t look bad, huh? Travis is not the ideal solution for what the Blazers need mid-term, we all know a great perimeter defender next to Brandon would really help to get things going and not dig us into deep holes. But he does a very solid job for what we need from him. Find a versatile starter who plays solid on both ends of the floor, and Travis would be a great backup. He likely could also be a starter on more than one team listed above.

Carmelo wishes every defender he played against tripped over his own feet constantly.

There’s like 6 posts that tell everyone to go watch every single play.

and one thing was painfully obvious……….

the nuggets were more experienced and had more intensity. simple as that.

back to travis outlaw, yes the guy makes some mistakes, but mark my words, travis outlaw could win 6th man and average 20ppg off the bench for the blazers. and it could happen as soon as 2010.

hes there to bring some instant offense and he does a great job of that most nights. occasionally he has the odd 1-6 or 2-7 shockers, but all shooters have that.

i dont understand why he gets critisized so heavily, 3/4 of the NBA would grab him if they could.

I’m sure they’re the ones who also think that Clinton caused the subprime mortgage crisis too.

we will send flowers, nice cards and condolences.

to “watch the game” by the so called loyal_blazer. It’s reminiscent of a broken record stuck on the most tuneless part of a bad song. I believe a number of us did watch the game.