Let’s stay under the radar, let everybody freak out when we beat the Rockets and Spurs.

except I’m not surprised. Portland is a small market, so why would anyone care to take notice? Until we knock their team out of the playoffs, that is

Beating the lowly Thunder doesn’t impress anyone, sure winning 4 games in a row is great, but there are a ton of more interesting stories in the NBA right now. Cavs getting blown out, the Lakers vs. Rockets game, AI shutting it down for the year are better stories than the Blazers win streak. I don’t think the Blazers are covered any less than 2-8 teams in the west.

We don’t deserve the type of coverage teams like the Cavs, Lakers, and Celtics get until we’ve established ourselves as an elite team.

They’re in the same situation as we are and I don’t mind there not being a ton of national news about them. National news is not based on merit. It’s based on what people will probably find most interesting. The Blazers are an incredible story to us but they’re not that interesting on their own as a national story.

Besides, who cares what some sports editor in Connecticut thinks? What does he know about the Blazers? Respect only matters when it comes from people who matter, which are either authorities on the subject or people who have invested time into the story. For the most part the national sites fulfill neither criterion.

—Dave

Portland is a small city. Shouldn’t we be used to this by now?

Guess how many players have averaged 20pts 10 assists 5 rebounds and 2 steals over the course of a complete season. NONE! This year CP3 will be the first guy to ever do that in the history of the league! He is arguably having the greatest year a point guard has ever had and yet isn’t even mentioned in most discussions of the MVP.

even if it is super-obvious that this team is hitting on all cylinders at just the perfect time. Of course, some will undoubtedly point to the fact that we haven’t had the toughest competition in the last 4 games. But the fact still remains is: from wire to wire the Blazers DESTROYED each of those 4 teams. Doesn’t happen often, even by the “top” teams in the league.

The POR-OKC game was indeed in the headlines of ESPN.com last night. Something like “Aldridge leads Blazers to blowout victory” or something like that.

I was disappointed we didn’t get a note on the Daily Dime, since it was the biggest win against the SEA-OKC org in history. Seems like a ready-made note.

It’s not cool to have to hunt for info regarding your team to be sure. However, it’s not a bad thing when all the opponent see of you is in film sessions. We don’t need anyone else fueling fires against us. I don’t want any sort of a target on us (any more than already exists). The fact that players from other teams aren’t being bombarded with SportsCenter highlights of stuff that we all know is deserving isn’t a bad thing. It would only serve to inspire them the very same way our players are inspired when we’re not respected.

Respect in the media doesn’t win games. It’s a bummer for us fans not to see our team all the time, but…if you play deep enough into the post-season, they will eventually have to talk about Portland, their consistent play, their superstar, their emerging 2nd superstar, their coach, their GM, their owner, and everything that we all love to hear about. Until then, I’d rather other people not even think about us until we beat them of course.

Yes you can see those stupid commericals and belive that they are going to pay respect to the WEST, Sorry their version of the west is the Lakers and KOBE and anyhting bad that happens west of OHIO.

BE RULES!

Who Needs anthing else until we sneak up on the other teams and then it will be too late :-D

Or just more polls of what the “Fan Nation” thinks state by state.

and also notice ZERO highlights on sportscenter last night.

I guess I’m okay with no body outside of PDX getting to see how awesome our team is.

No wonder Ric Bucher made those comments… he never sees highlights!

They will write a freakin’ book about it!! Book It!!!

Folks, the Blazers get plenty of national play, as much as can be expected for a small market team.

Isn’t the fact that it’s not headline news a good thing? We blew out a team we should have blown out. We’re a playoff team that is taking care of business down the stretch. I’d be more concerned if the headlines proclaimed, “BLAZERS TURNING IT AROUND, EXTEND WIN STREAK TO FOUR”. A playoff team beat a lottery team handily in a tight playoff race. If this is news, that somewhat implies it’s out of the ordinary. I would rather folks think that this is business as usual.

Please.

Welcome to the party. Like Dave said it’s not going to matter anyways. If they do cover the Blazers they just rehash doubts and impressions from the last time they even paid attention. Sports writers are goobs. They are never unbiased, in fact many are proud of their bias.

I like to listen to what opposing coaches have to say about us. They are afraid and jealous. They want what we have, and don’t know how they’re going to deal with it in a year or two. They voted Roy into the All Star game twice. They understand how hard it is to do what we do with such a young team.

Don’t worry about national coverage. That comes with titles. But be careful what you wish for. Once we’re on top, it will be constant nay-saying about how long we can stay there.

B-Edge is the king of all Blazer media. Long live Dave.

I know it’s raised eyebrows, guaranteed. A win over the Rockets today and I think we’ll see something in the monday editions.

1. It’s part market size, and part star power. I follow the Indians and it is amazing to see how much coverage the Cavs get (due to Lebron), and how little coverage the Indians received, even two years ago when they were one game away from the World Series (because 95% of the highlights on ESPN are Yankees/Red Sox).

2. The local media has historically not been much better. They have ignored the Timbers despite their large following, and more recently, they almost completely ignored the baseball Civil War which ended up drawing 15 to 20 thousand fans all three games despite terrible weather.

In fact, this is what’s wrong with the media period and why newspapers are folding left and right - it’s not they don’t get the most “important” (read: more eyeballs) story right, it’s that they don’t get the stories that matter most to the individual.

-TCL

PS – I’m trying to squeeze in a criticism of Digger Phelps somewhere up above, but I just can’t make it work. So let me just say in closing that Digger Phelps is kind of clown and if I hear one more “expert” pontificating about their bracket picks, I’m going to throw a brick through my television.

Portland got semi-thumped tonight (considering Houston led most of the game). But despite that, here’s tonight’s front page ESPN.com headline list.

- Gordon ends Cup drought in Texas | Blount
- Braves spoil Phils’ World Series party in opener
- Blazers collar playoff berth | Jazz in, too
- Kidd passes Magic | Mavs deal blow to Suns
- No-show Ocho Cinco drops ball on $250K bonus
- Source: Xavier’s Miller meets with Arizona AD
- Danica upset after wreck | Briscoe wins opener
- Casey wins Houston Open in playoff | Scores
- Sharks set franchise record with win over Ducks
- Yanks’ Joba strong in final start of spring | Blog

why the heck is that??

what does it portend for our aspirations in the playoffs now that we’re actually IN the playoffs??

after the blazers win a title, and then we can talk about lack of respect if it still exists. Respect is earned and one day (or four) is just that out of 82 other games and the playoffs.