Blazers

[karlhungis]

Blazers are in full on rebuild mode now

Hopefully this means a top pick in next years draft.

Come on now. You know we will be good enough to miss out on any picks but bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.

[RanDux]

Batum's intentional foul punch to Navarro's crotch: http://www.twitpic.com/ah00y2. Ouch!

[greenyellow]

Batum's responses after the game regarding the matter are somewhat funny

"I wanted to give him a good reason to flop," Batum said.

Told Batum some won't think groin shot is in Olympic spirit. Batum: "Do you think if you lost a game on purpose, that's the Olympic spirit?"

Batum said he believes that Spain tanked final preliminary game against Brazil to face France in quarterfinals.

Finally, I asked Batum if he felt like his punch ultimately gave Navarro a 'good reason' to flop. "I hope so," Batum said.

[buckmarkduck]

Blazers are in full on rebuild mode now

Hopefully this means a top pick in next years draft.

Come on now. You know we will be good enough to miss out on any picks but bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.

Hope we get lucky once, and "win" the #2 pick instead of getting the chance to f up the #1.

[Boom]

Blazers are in full on rebuild mode now

Hopefully this means a top pick in next years draft.

Come on now. You know we will be good enough to miss out on any picks but bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.

Not with 5 rookies in the rotation and Nolan Smith as our backup PG.

[UOducksTK1]

Batum's intentional foul punch to Navarro's crotch: http://www.twitpic.com/ah00y2. Ouch!

Too bad he can't be that aggressive for Portland.

[buckmarkduck]

Batum's intentional foul punch to Navarro's crotch: http://www.twitpic.com/ah00y2. Ouch!

Too bad he can't be that aggressive for Portland.

He's not LBJ or Kobe, so he would be tossed and fined for a move like that. Now if he was a super star he would, and not the other guy, be shooting free throws after that play.

[oregontrack]

Blazers are in full on rebuild mode now

Hopefully this means a top pick in next years draft.

Come on now. You know we will be good enough to miss out on any picks but bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.

Not with 5 rookies in the rotation and Nolan Smith as our backup PG.

wishful thinking. i'd love to go in full-blown tank mode, but karl is spot-on. we're in the awkward position of being too good for a top 5 pick, but not good enough to slip into the postseason. we're in that blah #7-12 land.

[oregontrack]

it wasn't *really* all that random, he was on olshey/allen's shortlist from the get-go and kept making the cuts.

good offensive mind. hard/pointless to go into his previous head coaching gigs, neither milwaukee or atlanta had any talent.

hopefully the hire plays to the strengths of what we have out on the court.

Considering I haven't heard much about him until the hire, that is random by my account. Not to mention, he is close to a no name in the coaching world with poor and short previous head coaching jobs.

ah. well, he was on olshey/allen's short list that surfaced 3-4 weeks ago, and he kept making the cuts as the list was trimmed. insomuch that assistant coaches can be 'commodities' he's actually fairly well known.

[oregontrack]

Batum's intentional foul punch to Navarro's crotch: http://www.twitpic.com/ah00y2. Ouch!

this was one of those things you wished would happen based on all the irritating flopping, then bam! it happened. seriously, that was a soccer game. i mean, he still shouldn't have hit the dude in the crotch, but the asshole in me can halfway justify it. loved batum's comment after-the-fact.

[Boom]

Blazers are in full on rebuild mode now

Hopefully this means a top pick in next years draft.

Come on now. You know we will be good enough to miss out on any picks but bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.

Not with 5 rookies in the rotation and Nolan Smith as our backup PG.

wishful thinking. i'd love to go in full-blown tank mode, but karl is spot-on. we're in the awkward position of being too good for a top 5 pick, but not good enough to slip into the postseason. we're in that blah #7-12 land.

How do you figure?

This team will struggle to score over 80 points most nights.

Bobcats, Cleveland, and the Suns are the only teams that look noticeably worse.

[oregontrack]

hey, i hope you're right.

but this team isn't much different from the one who finished with the #11 overall pick last year. rookie or not, there's no conceivable way lillard can be any worse than ray felton. that was a failed experiment for the ages. we'd need a major injury to lamarcus to get us a decent draft pick. i can think of 5 teams in the east who will position themselves better for the lottery than we will, to say nothing of phoenix and houston and new orleans (for now, not a bad rebuild job by the hornets). and that's giving sac-town and golden state a tremendous amount of undeserved respect. we could easily finish above them.

and, technically, you've got it backwards; we won't have much trouble breaking 80 points a game. what we'll struggle to do is keep other teams under 100.

[Boom]

hey, i hope you're right.

but this team isn't much different from the one who finished with the #11 overall pick last year. rookie or not, there's no conceivable way lillard can be any worse than ray felton. that was a failed experiment for the ages. we'd need a major injury to lamarcus to get us a decent draft pick. i can think of 5 teams in the east who will position themselves better for the lottery than we will, to say nothing of phoenix and houston and new orleans (for now, not a bad rebuild job by the hornets). and that's giving sac-town and golden state a tremendous amount of undeserved respect. we could easily finish above them.

and, technically, you've got it backwards; we won't have much trouble breaking 80 points a game. what we'll struggle to do is keep other teams under 100.

Last years team had Gerald Wallace & Marcus Camby for about half the shortened season.

I think another big drop off will be whoever that 3rd guard is for this team. Jamal Crawford was a streaky player, but I think he's still significantly better than Nolan Smith. I'm still not convinced that Smith is nothing more than a D league player. I would rather have Jeryd Bayless at this point.

Your right this team should struggle mightily defensively.... especially when we have guys like Babbit, Claver, & Freeland on the court... but I still think this team will struggle to score. Lamarcus is the only consistant scorer on the team. Mathews & Batum are both non assertive jump shooters and Mathews was awful last year. I'm pretty high on Lillard though... I think he could average 15-18 points this season.

[thomas time]

I love how Nic's reasoning was basically to Rudy flopping over and over, I'm sure he's seen it over and over when they were teammates here.

[oregontrack]

stotts should do wonders for guys like batum and wes. both can/should be mid-to-high teens scorers in a system that actually emphasizes offense.

hard to really put a value on crawford. he had one of the worst seasons of his career last year, and had more 3/16 shooting nights than not. now, i'm not expecting brilliance from nolan smith, but i also wouldn't write him off based on last year. i'm interested to see what elliot williams can do with an injury-free season, myself.