"We just need a solid point guard, a veteran guy who makes great decisions and hits big shots,"

From the man himself, Brandon Roy:

Link

NICE read on Brandon Roy and his thoughts on the upcoming season. How did we luck out to get this guy? IMO hw will be the reason that this team will stay together, players will gravitate towards him and want to be on his team.

The Blazers first priority has to be getting this guy locked up for the full 6 years when his time comes up. Once he is a long term Blazer, LMA, Oden and the rest of the crew will follow suit, as the more you read of him the more you gain respect for the guy, that quiet confidence and underlying greatness, not just scoring or stats, but doing the little things that are necessary to win and make this team better.

So far we have come from the days of having Zach as our leader, Reuben our energy, and Darius our core.

People seem to question the validity of our team, but much as we were left for dead at the beginning of last season, we will be again underestimated IMO, even with our already lofty predictions.

I would now like to pose the question of: What if?

In looking at our seasons to come, some here think that due to our youth and inexperience, we will take a while to grow into a team that is dominant in the postseason, saying that our time will not be until 2-3 seasons from now.

Yet I would like to offer another version of that story, one that will hopefully be more truth than exaggeration.

Kevin Pritchard has done a masterful job in bringing in team oriented players whose only goal is to win. Paired with the fact they are tireless workers with their natural talent and you have a recipe for success, possibly much sooner than we imagine.

Looking back our team last year we went 41-41 in the ultra competitive western conference, as a poor rebounding, jump-shooting team, all of this coming in as the 3rd youngest team in the history of the league. Nobody in their wildest dreams even imagined that a .500 season would be possible after the loss of Oden and our leading scorer and rebounder, but we proved that working as a team will far and away outshine individual accomplishment.

With this new infusion of 3 top ten draft pick talent, we will now have Bayless to fill in for Jack, Rudy to fill in for Von Wafer, and Oden step ahead of Joel. With this massive upgrade in talent, and a good coach at the helm guiding them the possibilities are limitless. More importantly, Pritchard has added players that will relish and thrive being pushed and react to challenges rather than back away from them.

I think of Utah in 2006-07 and look to see that their 2 main players had no experience in the playoffs at all and Williams was in his second year in the league. What did they do they made it all the way to the WCF. A precedent has been set with younger teams pushing deep into the postseason.

I am also reminded of the Hornets of this year and their run to the WC semis and am struck by their makeup, namely how experienced they are at each position. If you take a close look at their roster, the most experienced guy is Stojakovic, both playoff and regular season. West is the second leg of the NO triumvirate but has had little playoff experience, only 19 games in 2 years. However the main engine that runs NO is Paul who has had no playoff experience at all. How did they manage to take the SAS to 7 games and come that close to beating them with their engine wetting his feet for the first time in the playoffs?

Now granted we do not have Chris Paul but our main creator is entering his 3rd year in the league and if you compare the rest of the roster we are far superior to them.

Their starting lineup of

Paul

Peterson

Peja

West 

Chandler

would be far outstripped with that of ours

Blake

Roy

Webster

LMA

Oden

Not to even mention our 2nd unit.

And as I said our main playmaker will be entering his 3rd year as well.

With that 3rd year player as our leader, we can only think what our new pieces will bring to us, mainly Oden who will be able to rebound and provide us with a scoring presence in the low post for the first time in a long time.  We had little to no inside presence that could score until after the all star break when LMA finally figured out how to bang down low, which isn't his strength anyways. We now have a base foundation to work off of so that if we need an easy bucket we can dump it into the post and let him go to work. Add to this the upgrade in shooting that Bayless should bring over Jack and Rudy over Wafer, we should more than make up for the loss of Jones. With Travis turning into Super Trout this year and Webster hopefully taking another step forward we should be able to create a situation where we always have a dynamic SF on the court at all times.

Which brings me to the question of what if. 

What if Brandon Roy  has learned how to truly run the team and is ready to carry it on his back

What if Greg really is the second coming of Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, or Russell and puts up comprable #s?

What is LaMarcus gets tough and can pound the ball down low as well as being able to hit the 15ft J?

What if Rudy comes in and can play like Ginobili off the bench providing us a kickstart?

What if Bayless' weaknesses as a PG are completely masked playing alongside Roy allowing him to do what he does best, score the ball?

What if Travis has learned how to be a professional and to work all year round to make that next step in his development?

What if Webster learns to defend and can raise his 3pt % that much more?

What if all those last year who scoffed at the notion of us being anywhere other than the bottom of the league once again tell us that there is no way that we can get to the WCF let alone the finals?

Now naysayers will come and pick apart every what if to the highest degree, "That's a LOT of 'What ifs' they all can possibly come true." But with Nate, Dean, Monty and MoLuc at the helm, Brandon providing leadership on the court and the surprising success of last year, I can't help but be optimistic and think that we have something so precious here that everything else will fade away under its intense glow, perhaps not everything this year, but much more and quicker than expected.

And at the heart of it all we have the next great Blazer player, Brandon Roy, whose leadership and play will guide us to that next level, perhaps one only reached by a select few teams.

So ask yourself: What if?

Take a read on this:

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-33-89/Diabolical-Scheme-for-a-Deep-Pocketed-Owner.html

When I read this I quickly remember some talk in another forum about the possibility of PA buying a team in Europe to stash players so we could use it as a farm team, much like the article liste above.

With the current scenarios with Jennings and Childress,  we could create a dynasty. Take for example, the top ranked HS senior 2 years from now. Due to NBA restrictions, he will have to go to college for a year even though he has the skills to be the next LeBron, Garnett etc. Lets say that Team Euro as we will call it, comes in and offers a $5mill/yr contract for 4 years making almost $20mill playing in the south of France, say Monaco or Nice. We wait until he is 23 and then we sign him as a FA when he will not be elgible for the draft where he would of gone #1. He will have pocketed $25mill for playing in the south of France and we will be able to sign him to a large contract if we need to replace one of our current players. It would be a win/win situation as the player would be able to make a lot of $$ right out of HS, and still have the option to come over and play in the NBA. Instead of playing in college for 4 years he would play in Europe and be making $$ at the same time, negating the need to jump to the NBA early as he would be a millionaire, living in the south of France.

The title of the article above would seem to indicate a "deep pocketed" owner and who has deeper pockets than our own PA? Nobody. Say it woud cost him another $200mill a year to field a euro team that would net lets say $100mill in revenue in a year for a total cost of $100mill and for a billionare that is not much.

A second thought is that with Childress leaving for Europe, due to the financial stinginess of the ATL owners group, that could bode well for us if Euro teams pick off midlevel US players, gutting some teams of being competitive. That will not be the case with us as PA has shown in the past that he can be liberal with his $$ and if a player is worthy, he will sign him to a big contract, sometimes signing a player who is not worth a big contract (I'm looking at you Mr Miles.) If the NBA is dep[leted of those roleplayer types and we still have them, we can kill other teams with out 2nd unit. Unfortunately, this will also strengthen big market teams in L*, NY and Chi.

All of this is a few steps ahead but this is a very real possibility for a man with as much wealth as PA. Imagine drafting LeBron type player to a Euro team as a HS'er, and bringing him over in a few years.

We would be able to rule the NBA if we could do that.

http://www.misexta.tv/home/5_2/22/12

Check out the Olympic tuneup game vs team Russia on line at the above link, live on the internet. You can check out hte rest of the games as they come later this week as well.

Team Espana is in white in this game and it is looking that Spain is dominating as of now.

Need 75 words so you should watch the promo for Team Spain with the gong and the Chinese guy, if you click on the other games that are not on you will see it.

Quick was on Olive talking about the summer league practice and here are some quick tidbits:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/2008/07/podcast_post_rookies_pre_vegas.html

-Batum WILL be on the roster this year. He does not have a contract in Europe so we will sign him.

-Compared to Rudy Gay but some think he may be like TO

-Bayless looked like a stud with a nice dunk and a pretty teardrop, but playing against SL scrubs he should dominate

-Needs to work on his jumper as he gets good elevation but needs to get it off quicker

-Some compare Bayless to Roy in the way he can control the way his defender plays him, moving him one way or another

-Bad with Media so far, just is not his "cup of tea" as per Quick. Not a bad thing just "firey."

-Might be 6'1 per Quick but DX has him listed in predraft measurements @ 6'1.75 w/out shoes, 6'3 w/ shoes. Exactly the same height as Devin Harris minus the wingspan and the same height as Deron w/out shoes but Derons shoes are a .25 in shorter than "Pay Up"s

-Jones will be missed but this is a chance for Marty and TO to step up

-The team will belong to Roy, but Portland will belong to Oden, insofar as Roy will command the respect of the team, but may not have the personality to win over all of Portland. Oden will have the personality to win over all Portlanders, not just us hardcore Blazer fans.

-Channing should have "marked improvement" as per Quick, and should have the biggest leap among returning players. Epitomizes the "Perfect Blazer" in losing his starting spot, working hard and being ready at any time if called upon. "Ultimate team guy"

-Starting lineup as per Quick per Nate,

Blake

Roy

Webster

LMA

Oden

"Set in stone"

I figured rather than have 10 fanposts on who is and is not opting out, this is the main opt out thread.

From ESPN Brand, Maggette and Baron Davis have opted out:

Brand and Maggette:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3468389

Davis:

http://www.ibabuzz.com/warriors/

post who else is opting out or resigning.

Also Jameson signs a 4yr$50mill extension:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3467806

Congratulations to Team Espana and alamart, who will probably be checking in in a few days after his hangover wears off, for winning Euro 2008 soccer/futbol championships.

 I would imagine that Sergio and Rudy are gonna be partying as well.

Spain won 1-0 over Germany and looked pretty good doing it in the process.

Now we get to look forward to the Olympics and the Spanish basketball team. Remember:

---August 16th Team USA vs Team Espana---

                        -----Nate vs Rudy-----

-----BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE(big) CHINA!!!!--------

http://955thegame.com/Portals/0/media/Jerryd Bayless_MSP_6-27-08.mp3

-Was down at first because he went 11th but more so because he was going to Indy once he found out he was going to PDX he was much happier.

-Gym rat, did not party at UA much.

Sounds good with Roy, Rudy and Bayless running an uptempo style from Nate.

Also on Canzano's show Kp came on and said that he would shave his head if the team made the playoffs.

"20.  DENVER   Ty Lawson 6-0   PG UNC

GM Notes:  Needing a PG, the Denver Nuggets sleect Ty Lawson from the University of North Carolina. With the backcourt of Lawson and Iverson our goal will be to simply outscore everyone to make up for the lack of D and size in the backcourt. With a lineup of Lawson, Iverson, Anthony, Klieza and Camby we have a fast, mobile group who can fly up and down the floor, add to that the elevation in Denver and a lot of teams will leave gassed and with a loss."

I guess my selection will have to be redone as well as the NJ/LAC trade as both Lawson and Budinger are supposedly pulling out.

Also those who were high on grabbing Hudson with the 33rd (yea) he pulled out as well (boo.) Also it is kinda funny the guy we had in twice is not staying in, Beaubois.

Gallinari is in but whether or not he will come over is drafted by a team he does not want is up for debate as he has a pretty good deal lined up in Italia and may just want to stay there and play. He has also made some comments that he would only want to play in NY or NJ, bigger market teams with high Italian populations as well.

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Early-Entry-Withdrawal-Deadline-Who-s-In-or-Out--537-EST--2929/

Interesting stuff.

(Precursor: if the l*kers come back and win(yeah a long shot) please disregard this post)

Much has been made of the choke job that the l*kers had in game 4 and some have compared it to our collapse in 2000.

My question to you is how will this affect the l*kers in future years?

Looking back that loss in game 7, that was the genesis of the J*ilBaazers, after that game our will was so crushed that it has taken us up until 2006 to recover from it. Will K*be go warpath on the l*kers again, as he did not win it all? Or will this push them harder to win it all next year.

This is the worst comeback loss in the history of the finals and it happened on their homecourt, what happens it Bos wins again tomorrow and beats them in front of their own homecrowd?

I would think that they will come back stronger next year but it seems that with K*obe things are either going really well or they are crap, there is little middle ground, it seems with him. It K*obe aint happy aint nobody on the l*kers happy.

What are your thoughts on the matter?