One of the dangers of following a team passionately and consistently is not being able to see the forest for the trees. As with most things in life it's easier to perceive faults and benefits in your neighbor's life than in your own. That leads me to a quick, but in some ways profound, question today.
If you were to pick one other team in the league and say, "The Blazers are pretty close to them in terms of level of talent, achievement, and/or future prospects," which team would you pick?
I'm not really looking for style of play comparisons here, although I suppose that could factor in somewhat. You can use record, roster strength, the teams' growth curves, or any other measure that you think makes them even. You could even pick different teams for each of those criteria, I suppose, e.g. "Like X in achievement, Y in talent level, Z in outlook over the next few seasons." Pretend you're explaining to someone who knows almost all of the league but hasn't seen Portland play for whatever reason. (Perhaps they live in rural Oregon and can get NBA League Pass on their dish but not Comcast?) Tell them, "The Blazers are about at the level of [insert team here]" and explain why.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)