I know... I am disturbed as much as all of you that my favorite game and team is not playing soon. I actually finally have cable again and feel extremely short changed by the Lockout. I Just wanna say to the owners, I invested most of my childhood in cards that are worth hardly anything now a days. I lost money too, but I wouldn't stop them from playing because of it. Do it for the love of the Game!

Sorry for the rant, here are my three in order I thought of them.

1. Instead of a partial of the season we will have Oden for most of the season that is shorter. Think about that, we might have him take us further in the playoff seeds having our missing link. No pun intended.

2. Brandon Roy will have time to adjust his game to whatever he can produce as. He could redefine himself to a major factor since he does have amazing BBIQ.

3. The final thing I thought was Lamarcus Aldridge will not have to Tow the team for 82 games and will not feel like he runs out of gas as bad by the Playoffs. I for one feel that is a major plus. The games may be more intense but there is many less of them. Last time there was a lockout it was 50 games for the season. That 32 less games to wear a young team down.

So call it blindly optimistic but I grew up here and I have always loved this team and until recently with the Timbers we had no other great pro league. (Ok maybe the rose city rollers and the Lumberjacks)