FanPost

It's time to call our shot. Championship!



Its time. We've been patient through the record setting losses. We've been tolerant with players that were more concerned with getting stats than with winning games. We've spent an entire season crippled with injuries. Now it's time to be champions. I don't want to hear about our window opening in the next few years. We've got the tools and talent to dominate now. What we're lacking is the butt-kicking mentality to rip the hearts out of our opponents.

I want Nate to put a basketball button inside that locker room (Like Staple's Easy Button). Everyone hits the button on the way out the door and it transforms them from mild-mannered NBA professionals into NBA Gladiators whose battlefield is the court. They need to find the emotion that lets them raise their level of play together, whether that be the assassin-like poise of the Spurs, the Slytherin-like haughtiness of the L@kers, the bad-boys of Piston lore, or the zone-like execution of MJ they need to become more than they currently are. I don't want them to show up and compete. I want them to show up and dominate. I want other teams to be scared to play Portland because of how they'll feel the next day.

I hate to say it, but I want a bit of the Utah Jazz in this team. More of the Malone & Stockton kind of grit. I always hated playing them because it was never an easy win. Never. That's what I want from this crew; something a bit mean and nasty. We've got the players to play more physically, but we need to take the next step to from being seasoned professionals and become veteran butt-kickers.

You want that lay-up? Pay the price. You want to dunk that ball? You'd better be ready to take the fall. You want to guard our PG? Eat the pick. You want that rebound? You'd better be willing to fight for it.

If the Portland Trailblazers can bring that kind of dominant, physical brand of basketball to the court every night this year, I guarantee we'll be winning a championship THIS YEAR.