Crystal Ball: The Legacy of the Current Portland Trail Blazers

This team has a small window left to make something happen. It basically all rests upon Oden’s shoulders. He is the proverbial wild card in the bunch. Roy and Aldridge are good players. But, they cannot bring it home unless they have a big man in the middle to change the dynamics of what the roster offers, or lack there of…

Dallas was a similar team to the Blazers up until one move happened…
TYSON CHANDLER

He is the #1 reason why they won this year. Put it how you want it, but Dallas has been in the playoffs for sometime now getting bounced out in the early rounds (mostly). When they did get deeper in the playoffs it was because they had the right combination of bigs to complement their star.

02-03 = bradley and lafrentz – conf. finals
05-06 = dampier and diop – finals
10-11 = chandler and haywood – champs

Now there are other factors that can be isolated, but this is the main reason that Dallas won this last year, and made it deeper during those other years listed. The guys they had to fill the middle offered a variety of options allowing Dallas more opportunity…

Here’s the deal… If Portland would have not dealt with so many injuries to Oden and to a lesser extent in Roy and the rest. We would have been Champs sometime between 07 and now. It was the right move to get Oden unless, the Blazers knew he was broken… He can literally net you a championship. Durant as great as he is becoming, is similar to Dirk. He needs a big to get it done!

If the Blazers were to remain healthy next year, factoring Roy’s decline and average injuries aside for the rest of the team. You will see this team go deep into the playoffs.

Oden may be injury prone, but any and every team out there is scared to death of the day he gets his groove back… Oden = Championship

I remember calling up my cousin shortly after reading one of the recaps circa late 80s, run up to the Drexler finals years. I was excited because I noticed a lot of similarities to now. I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head. But the gist is exciting young team, hope, still hadn’t put it together. I don’t think anyone knew in the summer of 87 that the Blazers were about to go to the finals 2 out of 3 years. Call me a homer, but for as long as we have LaMarcus, Batum, and Matthews on the upswing I feel like we’re in the playoffs. And as long as Roy is in the building, on any given night magic can happen. This season may not happen anyhow, but 2012- Oden fully healthy? K*be/L*kers declining, Dallas old, phx still cheap, Utah in disarray, min/sac/gs etc.. only teams that scare me are Denver and OKC going forward.

I really don’t think things are as dire as you paint them. No we aren’t going to be winning a championship next year barring Oden suddenly playing 82 games a bit over his head, low fouls, and on a not-so-terrible contract. That said, if Landry really wants to be here, for like MLE-type money, that gets us a step closer, and then if we can trade Camby EC for Okafor at the trade deadline (lets hope we could do this… lets hope the league wants out of that contract badly… throw in a second rounder for all I care…) I really think we would be one move away at that point from contending. Landry, LMA, Okafor, Freeland (fingers crossed) would actually be all the bigs needed to contend, and all we would need was to close the revolving door at pg with a decent player. That said, thats two (three if you count bringing Freeland over) big, not-quite-realistic moves… but possible ones. We have a young core, which Wallace may or may not fit. If we have to let him go to free agency, so be it… In a few years (it will seem to go by quickly) we will be out from under the shadow of Roy’s contract. Maybe we are just the Baby Bulls… or maybe we are the Mavs from a number of years ago with Nash. If PA will spend the same way that Cuban did for that large number of years and the players we want to keep are really in it for the long haul, there is no reason to believe a short holding pattern will not reveal other possibilities.

We’ll find out. In a way, though, they answer some of Dave’s closing questions. If Portland fans are going to keep hoping against hope (nothing wrong with that) for the miracle, they’re more likely to be angered by disappointment if things don’t work out. You can only be “grateful for recovery” if you didn’t expect much more.

I’ll admit I was in the “blame someone, heads will roll” camp for a while. Now that some time has passed from the euphoria of the #1 pick, it’s easier for me to think that while, yeah, some unlucky decisions were made, luck’s a huge part of sports. Jerry West was a soothsayer getting Kobe in LA, but he didn’t get Memphis to a title. Any idiot could have picked Tim Duncan or Shaq, and sure enough, they’ve got rings.

It’ll be interesting to see the (eventual) resolution of the labor dispute. Part of what makes fans in Portland or Sacramento cling to “what if’’s” so hard is the knowledge that small-market teams have a hugely smaller window for error than the big boys (although all the market size in the world won’t help you if you bring in Isiah Thomas for any length of time.) I’d love the NBA to achieve more parity so that every fan, of every team, has more hope than fans of struggling teams can currently have for the future. I don’t think that’s what will happen, though.

For the optimists, I might remember how the Blazers made it to the WCF the last strike-shortened year, in no small part because a young squad was in better shape to play a madly compressed schedule. The Spurs walloped them in the playoffs but it was a fun regular season!

As you’ve mentioned in the past, Championship teams are built so that more things can go wrong and not upset the ship. sometimes things fall into place perfectly and don’t go wrong (77 blazers, Mavericks this year against the heat) but more often something goes wrong and the team most able to recover is more likely to win it all.

We could get Lucky. Batuum could become aggressive. Aldridge could become a player with an edge that likes to eat people up. Oden could be healthy. Roy could play a year on his knees and/or adapt. Matthews could become more consistent. The blazers could luck out in the draft and find a gem of a point guard.

Odds are though… you’re right.

I think it’s easy to take that stance. I understand it. It’s 95%+ chance that will be the case. That we’ll look back on this era as a “too bad, if only” roster. I don’t think that’s going out on a limb at all.

However, I do not think that we are incapable of such heights as the WCF. Heatlh, breakout players, and draft gems can take a team hovering in the friend zone and vault them to more than that. I think we played Dallas pretty tough with an imbalanced roster, no Oden, and a newly integrated Gerald Wallace. We may not have Oden the next time around either but at least we’ll have a fully integrated Wallace and some semblance of front court depth.

I don’t want to come off as the blind homer but I like the pieces we have, and no matter how low our ceiling may appear to some of you I prefer to not put imaginary restrictions on what we can achieve. They play the games for a reason. A legitimate frontcourt compliment to Aldridge is a must and I think it will have residual benefits on just about every aspect of our team’s play.

“Gerald Wallace will either be a short-timer or an aging player.”

Or, he’s the lynchpin the team was hoping for, once they got a center who could play 37 high quality mpg.

   …I think critical evaluation of a team important and valid as a fan. I’m not a “Polly Anna” only show me the positives type. But as a fan? If there is reason for optimism I’m going to embrace as much as realistically possible.

  And I’m optimistic about this team. First of all, in the playoffs we played the eventual Champions about as well as anyone. In retrospect, we’ve heard nothing but positives from Dallas about Portlands perfomance. Is that worth something. Not in results…but I do take it as a positive. I think unfortunately for Portland, in the playoffs The Blazers were the fire that tempered Dallas’s Championship metal. But it is indicative that The Blazers are a talented team.

  Secondly? I do like our talent. I’m anxcious to see what Raymond Felton exists for The Blazers….as I’ve said in other posts…it’s a “show me” situation, BUT if the best of our hopes for Felton are realized, we could be very pleasently suprised. Felton has the potential to be one of the best PG’s in his prime…that we’ve had in a long time.

  To be honest? Aldridge suprised me last season. I did not expect him to raise his game consistently to the level he did raise it to…and with respect for this accomplishment, I’m now not putting a ceiling on his potential. I think he’s poised to become an All-Star. It’s “show me” and it’s up to him…but why should I sad sack, and put any type of ceiling on what he may accomplish. He suprised me last season…here’s hoping he suprises the entire N.B.A. next season…

  This is not a perfect roster. Our depth is suspect, especially on the frontline. Our scoring talent is suspect. But again? I’ve followed the N.B.A. and the Blazers long enough to know that you often have unexpected negatives arise…but also unexpected postives.

  Nolan Smith, Elliot Williams….Armon Johnson…who knows? Who knows who might emerge as a real viable talent? Seems to me Elliot Williams is nothing less than a delayed 1st round pick, and I’m curious to see what the investment into Williams might yield.

  Oddly, the person I’m most worried about, is someone most Blazer fans are very high on. That’s Gerald Wallace. I was/am happy about the trade. I like Gerald Wallace. But IMO what is worriesome is he showed a lack of consistency. This may be attributable to his struggle to integrate in a late season trade to a new team…but maybe not. I do wonder how much is left in the tank with this athletic but aging player, and I wonder on a night to night basis what Gerald Wallace is likely to show up….The Beast…or The Invisible Wallace…? Because I saw both in the shortened time he was here last season and post season.

  Anyway…I think there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about what this team could accomplish, and plenty of reasons to be pessimistic….

  Once the season is launched? I’m taking a show me attitude. With a hopeful bent that I’ll see the best we could expect..which IMO could be pretty damn good.

As it looks now, the teams who have dominated the western conference for the past decade and change (spurs, lakers, mavs) are on the way out. the field is opening up, and I don’t think the thunder are going to manage to dominate over the west, though they will be contending.that leaves the doors open for teams like the blazers, nuggets, grizzlies, rockets, or even the clippers to establish themselves as contenders in the west. of these teams, i think we have a solid advantage over the field.

We have a solid number one option in LaMarcus Aldridge, who has a strong work ethic and who i think will start to look more like the beast we saw in february as he regains confidence and learns to work with wallace and felton. our biggest need is at center, where there are many free agents this year. if we manage to sign a quality defensive center, our team has a good chance at becoming contenders.

The Nuggets are in a tricky position right now, with a few of their main players becoming free agents and a good chance that some of them could leave. If they lose Nene or Afflalo, they could have a good chance of ending up in the lottery.

The Grizzlies and Clippers both have solid teams built up, but I’m suspicious of the owners on both of those teams, who both have reputations of being cheap and messing with players (almost not paying rookies, insulting players, firing coaches and refusing to pay them). the Grizz have a better established team and Heisley is definitely not as bad as sterling, but if his team wants to contend, it’ll have to be in the next few years as Randolph is 29 and only has a few years before his career starts to go downhill. the Clippers have a longer time frame, with two promising young players, but i wonder whether Gordon and Griffin will look towards better managed teams once free agency comes up.

In short we have about as good of a chance to contend in the west over the next few years of any team outside the thunder and maybe the grizz. just hope the lockout ends and david stern gets impeached so we can get back to basketball.