Praising Carmelo Anthony’s Work with the Trail Blazers

Chances are the Portland Trail Blazers season isn’t going exactly as you expected, but it’s been brightened by the excitement surrounding Carmelo Anthony, Anfernee Simons, and Portland’s other new players. What if life wasn’t going exactly as you expected? That’s the situation for hundreds of kids in the Portland-metro area who would love to see the Blazers play in person but can’t dream of swinging tickets to go. What if you could provide the moment of excitement that changes an otherwise-routine year into something special?

As we walk through this holiday season, could you take a moment to donate a ticket or two to send one of these young Blazers fans to see Portland face the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 17th? It’s a small gift; most tickets are under $20. It makes a huge difference.

Teachers and organizers are already writing in, requesting dozens or hundreds of seats. We want to be able to provide those, as we always do, with joy and completely free for them. If you’d take a moment to follow this link to the Blazers’ site and use our promo code, you can fulfill that dream and allow us to say, “Yes” to those who ask on behalf of the kids they serve.

Here’s the info. Please click through and help now, then you can come back and read the Mailbag after!

Click this link: Trail Blazers Group Ticket Portal

Type in this promo code: BLAZERSEDGE

That’s it! Just purchase the tickets as if you were buying them for yourself, and they’re AUTOMATICALLY DONATED to kids in need!

Please help out if you can, and Go Blazers!

P.S. If you like socks...

The good folks at Hoopswagg.com are once again partnering with us this year. They’ve designed the socks you see right below. You can purchase them through this link. When you buy a pair of socks, they buy a ticket for a participant to go to Blazer’s Edge Night. Want some nifty footwear for yourself while you send someone to see the Blazers play? This is the way to go!

Now to the Mailbag...

Dave,

I know there were doubts about Melo coming in but don’t you love him now? He’s changed the whole dynamic of the offense. Cheers to him, right?

“Guy”

We’re putting our name in quotes now, are we? Afraid of a scathing response to your pro-Melo position?

Cheers indeed, I say. You know how people soften when they become grandparents? Parents can be all strict with their own children, but as soon as their kids have kids, all of a sudden tyrant mom and dad are the sweetest people in the world, kootchie-cooing and spoliing the little ones shamelessly.

The Trail Blazers are getting the grandfather version of Carmelo Anthony. Even now the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets are muttering, “He wasn’t like that when WE were kids!” You can still see the former superstar in there. When he gets the ball, you should bet on “gonna shoot it”. His salivary glands start working overtime when he’s defended one-on-one. But he’s not destroying the offense. He’s passing. He’s even working on defense a bit. In that context, seeing him drain a contested turn-around jumper becomes a delightful throw-back to starrier times instead of a hair-pulling nightmare.

I don’t know about “changed the offense” though. I offered what I thought was a fairly astute observation on this via radio the other day. The past few years, the Blazers have been patterned roughly after the Golden State Warriors. They’ve traded on a shooting/scoring backcourt with defenders and outlet shooters in the frontcourt. They’ve used deep shots to open up the middle, then driven to set up more shooting. It was a smart way to go, considering Golden State’s success.

This year, Portland has morphed into a shadow of the Houston Rockets. Isolation ball is the name of the game. They’re going to come at you with scorers and dare you to stop them. Most of the time, you can’t. Carmelo doesn’t change that narrative; he cements it.

Even so, and even with the stirring offensive contributions, Anthony hasn’t contributed materially to better defense, the real game-changer. If the narrative is really going to evolve, it will start on that end.

This is the best version of Carmelo Anthony the Blazers could hope for. Full credit for that, couldn’t be happier. Even the best version of Carmelo isn’t precisely what the Blazers need. Scoring 28 points a quarter is great until you give up 30 per quarter. That’s where Portland’s issues lie, and they’re still looking for the answer.

As always, you can submit your own Mailbag question at blazersub@gmail.com or DM on Twitter @DaveDeckard!

—Dave / @davedeckard / @blazersedge / blazersub@gmail.com