Hello and welcome to the rebirth of Blazersedge.com. The first thing you're going to mutter over your morning cup of coffee is that I'm not Lance. And you're right, I'm not. My name is Dave, until recently from BlazerThoughts. Unfortunately due to developments in his life Lance Uppercut has found himself unable to continue blogging here. There's nothing tragically wrong with Lance...just the normal evolution of things, circle of life, that time of the month, yadda-yadda. If it makes you happy just envision Lance and the Oregonian's Helen Jung running off together to found the official Cult of Tyler Assmus. (Except, well, as far as I know Helen is keeping her job and not running anywhere. But wouldn't the world shake under such auspices?) If you'd like to send donations to get the organization started you can e-mail me and I'll...um...make sure the funds get to Lance. We accept $100 and $500 bills. The Great and Holy Assmus is worth nothing less.

As you're wiping that morning coffee off your monitor after the shocking spit-take, let me state one thing for the record: I am a huge Lance Uppercut fan. I commented often at this site and he did the same at mine. If I had my way he'd be blogging here forever and I'd be typing merrily away at BlazerThoughts. But when that eventuality became impossible, Lance wrote to me and more-or-less said, "I've grown this site from its infancy and I don't want it to die. If I have to pass it to someone, I'd like it to be you." The powers-that-be at SportsBlog Nation, the parent company of this site, agreed. So here we are.

Who am I? Just a fan who's been passionate about the team since I was a kid and who thinks about them nearly every day. I would give anything to see them return to championship form. If we ever win it all again I am going to be running through the streets half-screaming, half-crying, and waving whatever pieces of Blazer clothing I can find at the moment. (Probably the ones I had on...avert your eyes.) But I also believe that being a passionate fan doesn't mean checking your brain at the door. Sometimes I'm critical of the team too...mostly in love, sometimes in exasperation. I believe that if a move is stupid in Atlanta and stupid in Charlotte, it's stupid in Portland too. Wearing red and black doesn't wash all sins away. It just makes them easier to swallow sometimes.

Another well-known blogger once said that Lance Uppercut was the funniest Blazer blogger around and I am the most thought-provoking. And you know, I can live with that. I won't even try to duplicate Lance's style because nobody could. (I briefly considered changing my name to Johnny Lefthook or Boris Stiffjab in honor of him, but decided against it.) Nevertheless I will try to throw some lighter stuff in from time to time also.

In that vein, did anyone hear the rumor of the following conversation between Nate and the backcourt at halftime of one of the Phoenix games last year?

Nate: Knock Knock.
Guards: Who's there?
Nate: Defend.
Guards: Defend who?
Nate: ANYBODY, damnit!!!

Well...anyway, truth be told, I figure if you want the best media-compilation Blazer blog you'll go to OregonLive's Eric Marentette. If you're looking for the best general NBA blog (and maybe the best sports blog ever) you probably want Henry Abbott's Truehoop.com. And Mike Barrett will give you the official party line with the requisite enthusiastic optimism. There's no way I can hold a candle to any of those guys in their own fields. So rather than striving to be a second-rate "expert/professional/media" blog I have been committed to being the very best of the fan blogs. I love talking with others about the team and I hope the work reflects that. I don't get hung up on whether people agree or disagree with what I say, just that it sparks some conversation. I envision the blog being like the coffee shop (or bar) where everybody goes to talk about the day's news after they've read it all those other places. Let's face it, it's pretty hard to get a decent Blazer conversation generated in real life nowadays. Not so here. If nothing else I read every single comment and try to respond to every e-mail. And other people are quite responsive too. We fill a nice niche that way. The only thing I've ever asked is that people make it easy for others to comment by being respectful of each other. So far that's worked out pretty well.  If you want to see for yourself just visit the old site for a little bit. There's over 200 pages of material there, so knock yourself out.

I hope over time this site becomes a regular part of your Blazer world. Registration is easy if you want to comment or you can always e-mail. And if you long-time Lance fans would like to use the comment section of this post to thank him for the work he's done over the years, I think that would be wholly appropriate.

--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)