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Just in time for the holidays Tara and Cassidy have ideas for gifts to give the Portland Trail Blazers this season. What gift might help channel Mario Hezonja’s intensity or help Whiteside’s focus? What could we possibly give to Damian Lillard, the man who has it all, that would adequately express our appreciation for everything he does? What experience would Anfernee Simons remember forever?
Along the way we talk about losing Rodney Hood for the season, how Kent Bazemore fits with the starting lineup, what we hope for from Carmelo Anthony over the rest of the season and what our expectations will be when Jusuf Nurkic returns to the court.
Highlights
2:45 Rodney Hood goes down.
5:30 What do the Blazers do next? They will still fight. You never know. What we love about sports is that you never know what is going to happen, you still have to play the games.
10:15 Holiday gifts: For Lillard we picked out a gift for his son that we think someone should actually sell in the store, a game of Trail Blazers Guess Who! This way we can learn the names of all of the players, not just Daddy Dame and his bff Jusuf Nurkic.
14:00 How do we make sure we don’t take Lillard for granted? We need a holiday called Damian Lillard Day where we all go out and do something good for each other.
16:00 It has taken a while for Kent Bazemore to find his groove. Hope he can score more and get a couple more shots per game. We would give him a mountain bike because we think he’d like shredding downhill. But only in the offseason. We think he needs more time in the starting lineup to have any opinion on how that is going.
18:15 Carmelo and Portland were both looking for missing pieces. Carmelo found a team and Portland found some much needed offense and excitement. We give him a City of Portland Skyline Puzzle. It feels like he just got here but he’s played almost a dozen games. Tara would like to see Anthony play alongside Nassir Little similarly to when Ed Davis played along side rookie Zach Collins.
24:30 Cassidy would give Whiteside some LEGOs to play with. The attention to detail and focus it takes to build a massive LEGO set could just be what he needs. Also, she thinks she set unrealistic expectations for him so as a bonus gift she’s just going to enjoy the double doubles. Hassan, your team needs you, not just with stats but with stops.
28:15 For Jusuf Nurkic as he continues his recovery we think he could use a companion so we would give him a tiny dog with outfits that match his. What are our expectations when he comes back? We have none, we just want him back on the court. Just his presence will boost the team.
32:00 Tolliver might just need a better night sleep. So far this season he has the lowest effective field goal percentage on the team. He’s getting some good looks but things just don’t seem to be dropping. So this holiday season we would get Anthony a weighted blanket, like a giant hug while you sleep.
34:45 For Mario Hezonja we suggest a weekend at Brightenbush Hotsprings so he can get some fresh air and relax and let the game come to him instead of forcing things.
38:45 Nassir Little gets a warm hat because after cutting off all his hair he’s going to need it in Minnesota and Toronto in January.
40:15 Skal can have whatever he wants. Has the best +/- of the bench players, still negative but better than anyone else.
42:00 Gary Trent Jr: we want more pictures of him. A gift for him would be a 80’S sweatsuit collection.
43:00 CJ McCollum world’s best teammate t-shirt. While Lillard leads the team so well, McCollum is the teammate that will do the dirty work like trash talk, foul hard, and get mad.
44:45 Collins disco ball and dance floor at his house.
46:00 Anfernee needs to hear his name chanted at the Moda center, so we need to come up with an “Ant chant” for him.
49:00 The next WHAT meetup is January 5, come watch the Blazers take on Meyers Leonard and the Miami Heat with other women and supporters who love basketball.
Follow Blazer’s Edge on Twitter @blazersedge, WHAT Pod @HoopsAndTalks, Tara @tcbbiggs, and Cassidy @CassidyGemmet.
Join the Women’s Hoops And Talks Facebook group to talk about Trail Blazers with others who identify as women who love basketball.
Music used in the episode: “Happy Alley” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The WHAT podcast is taking a break until the New Year, in the meantime, subscribe to the Blazer’s Edge podcast so you don’t miss an episode and mark your calendar for the next WHAT Meetup on January 5.