Welcome to the first Gameday Open Thread of the season! The concept is simple: you get to talk about the game in any manner you wish before, during, and after.
An important point of order has been brought up which merits attention. The purpose of these threads is to simulate conversations that you'd have with your buddies if you were sitting on your couch at game time. Except in this case your couch is virtual and holds several thousand people. Since it's a community conversation some off-topic banter is not only inevitable, but desirable. After all you and your buddies talk about commercials and snacks as well as the game, right? But the emphasis here should be on SOME off-topic is OK. At their heart these threads are meant to talk about the game and that's where the topic should stay. You can spin off on tangents here and there but please don't just put random conversations in to up the comment count. This is especially true in the heat of the action. If you're sitting on the couch during the crucial fourth quarter and strike up a loud conversation about Tiddly-Winks while paying no attention to the game your buddies are going to kick you to the curb. Don't do that here. The daily Junk Drawer fanpost is the place for true off-topic conversation.
Since the traffic will be high today and even more so tonight we are splitting the Gameday Threads into multiple parts. This thread is for all of the pre-game action. A new one will be posted at 7:30 for at least the first quarter action if not the first half. If you find your comment loading slowing down because of volume I suggest turning off the display of avatars and member images. You can do this by clicking on "edit settings" in the top left sidebar, then pulling down the "Display member avatars / profile images?" menu and clicking "no", then clicking "update" at the bottom of the page. You can always turn the avatars on again after the game.
Have fun discussing. Also if you haven't heard about our monthly Jersey Contest where you can win a replica Blazer jersey by predicting correctly, click on this link here.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)
Update: As many of you have shared, Jason Quick is reporting that Coach McMillan has changed the starting lineup for tonight's game. Travis Outlaw will now start at small forward. Again, with a young, developing team you can expect the need for adjustments throughout the season. It's somewhat indicative that we've had two starting lineups already and we haven't even tipped off Game 1 yet.
--Dave