NBA/Blazers 2025-26 Thread

[UOducksTK1]

They didn't pay Chauncey enough money, it's not his fault..

[greenyellow]

The Jail Blazers era has officially returned to Portland.

[Alan]

I became a Blazer fan my freshman year of college, 1977, Walton, Maurice, Bobby and the boys championships run. I was a die hard fan through the years, each of my four sons had a Clyde Wheaties box of cereal in their rooms. Blazers lost me as a die hard fan during the jail blazers days. My girlfriend has watched every Ducks football game last year and all of this years (becoming pretty knowledgeable on the sport). A few weeks ago she mentioned she was a big Blazers fan fan and watched games often, so we planned on watching the team and see if I could get back into the team and the NBA. Now we are back to the jail blazers before I even tried, lol, I will have to see how the team handles this, reports are that the coach has been suspended, good start.

[buckmarkduck]

Sounds like after these rigged poker games, the mafia would also ruff up the losers and steal more money. Did Jody just not do a background check here? Or did she just not care?

[Boom]

Can the NBA expedite the sale? You can’t make this up. Hilarious ending to the Jody Allen/Neil Olshey era.

[buckmarkduck]

https://x.com/mcbets__/status/1981454190812508328?s=46

[squintsdd]

Poker with the mafia doesn't sound bad on the face of it

In my best-possible Bill Lumbergh voice: So, yeah, uhhhh, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on that, yeah.


Back to being me.

Billups is cooked. COOKED! Wow. Did not see this coming. What an idiot. For someone with his baggage to get a golden ticket and then cash it in with mafia families and gambling schemes is just... wow.

The silver lining is the timing couldn't be any better from a basketball perspective. This clears the way for Dundon to hire a new coach of his choosing who fits his vision for the team pretty much as soon as his ownership deal is approved.

My choice of words was poorly chosen. I meant from a basketball standpoint; as in, how it impacted games. From a real world standpoint, getting into an illegal poker ring with the mafia, especially with the families that were involved, will likely land him several years in prison. His career in the NBA is done.

[bellsduck]

And maybe someone fed gamblers information about Portland tanking? Is Billups in trouble for this too?

[squintsdd]

And maybe someone fed gamblers information about Portland tanking? Is Billups in trouble for this too?

I would think at some point he'll be hit wit it, unless some sort of plea deal is in place. There are multiple articles, that clearly point to Billups passing along information about Portland tanking the remainder of the season, and Portland sitting 4 starters the very next game

[buckmarkduck]

Blazers played great without that dead weight around their necks last night. Really think we are one scorer away from really being a very good team. To bad we took Scoot

[Phalanx]

Blazers played great without that dead weight around their necks last night. Really think we are one scorer away from really being a very good team. To bad we took Scoot

Yeah, this about sums it up. Need one more guy, and that one guy is not Scoot.

Jrue played pretty well last night. I think he cannot play that many minutes every night though. It's too bad; Jrue from five years ago might be able to take this team places.

[pudgejeff]

Blazers played great without that dead weight around their necks last night. Really think we are one scorer away from really being a very good team. To bad we took Scoot

That draft has proved to be pretty bad sadly. One of the Thompson's would have been a good team piece, but isn't filling that scoring role. Coulibaly maybe? But I don't see a world he's being taken at 3. I know they attempted to move the pick for win now pieces, but I wonder if they could have traded down instead and picked up future draft considerations?

[Boom]

Blazers played great without that dead weight around their necks last night. Really think we are one scorer away from really being a very good team. To bad we took Scoot

Yang Hansen pick was so much worse.

[Greenblood]

I will fully admit that I'm pretty much a fair-weather fan and if the Trailblazers stink this year, you probably won't see me much on this thread. On the other hand, few things would make me happier sports-wise than an Oregon's only major sport professional team to be really successful.

So I'm noticing that the Blazers are currently 2-2, having played all four games v., at least arguably, among the top 10 teams in the NBA. Both losses were relatively close and both wins, including last night's win at LAL, were double-digits. So for those of you who follow the Blazers and the NBA much more closely than I (and putting the Billups thing aside for the moment), what's going on here? Are the Blazers better than expected, or is this just some early season luck? Have they accidentally found a really good coach in Splitter?

[StevensTechU]

I will fully admit that I'm pretty much a fair-weather fan and if the Trailblazers stink this year, you probably won't see me much on this thread. On the other hand, few things would make me happier sports-wise than an Oregon's only major sport professional team to be really successful.

So I'm noticing that the Blazers are currently 2-2, having played all four games v., at least arguably, among the top 10 teams in the NBA. Both losses were relatively close and both wins, including last night's win at LAL, were double-digits. So for those of you who follow the Blazers and the NBA much more closely than I (and putting the Billups thing aside for the moment), what's going on here? Are the Blazers better than expected, or is this just some early season luck? Have they accidentally found a really good coach in Splitter?

Ask five people, get five different answers.

The team will contend for a playoff spot this year, barring injuries or meltdown of chemistry. It's a defense-first team with good on-ball and off-ball defenders. The reason they aren't a shoe-in for a playoff spot is that they have a lot of guys who can score but no one you can consistently run your offense through. The top scorers are Deni Avdija and Shaedon Sharpe. So far, Deni is putting up solid numbers at 20 ppg which consists of a lot of buckets in transition and opportunistic 3s. I don't think many people would tell you he's in the top 25 in the league for guys you would want to give the ball to down 1 at the end of the game. Then the other scorer, Shaedon, is looking really sloppy to start the year rather than look like a guy who is poised to take a big step. Basketball is kind of like baseball, though, so it might be a cold streak and get better, but it would surprise if it gets so much better that he turns into the team's #1 scorer. In the absence of a true #1 on offense, you'll see guys like Jerami Grant and Jrue Holiday fill the void by forcing more shots than is optimal for their skillset. This looks like a .500 team so far, with a top 5ish defense and bottom 10 offense. The win over the Lakers last night was a gimme as both Luka and Lebron were out.

Not nearly enough sample size on Splitter. Need to at least get to the All-Star break to have any opinion on how that's working.