The Blazers have 5 guys capable of running the point: Blake, Rodriguez, Bayless, Fernandez and Roy. Not all of those guys will play point but most of them will get playing time at one of the guard positions. The Blazers should be among the league leaders in assists per game. They also have depth at every position: Blake/Rodriguez/Bayless/Fernandez/Roy Roy/Rodriguez/Bayless Webster/Outlaw Aldridge/Diogu Oden/Pryzbilla The Blazers are gonna be good and the West looks like it will be even deeper than last season. That's crazy to think considering that last season was possibly the deepest conference in NBA history.
rudy looks even more ready than manu when he first came into the league...Rudy is a very interesting player...he is in the mold of a manu and he also has that nack for being around the basket like a shawn marion... Real good player...Spain is producing some real talent.
Yes.. yes it was. Portland's always had great fan support but I haven't seen it like this since the late 80's early 90's with Drexler, Porter and crew. Rip City is back.
while i am not defending the crowd at TC you are comparing cities like sacramento and portland where there are no other professional sports teams (mlb, nfl, nba, nhl--dont follow hockey enough but i dont think there is a portland hockey team) so the kings and blazers are the only sports team in town...of course they are going to draw more because there are less distractions around in general. Houston is also a much bigger city so there will always be things to do other than go to the "basketball game" heck in LA last saturday (bad example i know) there was the usc football game, the ucla football game and the dogders playoff game besides all the other stuff there is to do. i am sure if we played in a smaller city where there arent as many other attractions attendance will be higher. actually the hornets are a good example...they sold out a lot of their games in oklahoma city because there was nothing else going on there...when they moved back to NO they had a hard time selling out games until towards the end of the season where it was clear there were going to end up as one of the top teams in the west and all the bandwagoners joined on. I am sure the rockets would have been the same way last year if Yao wasnt injured. the TC against the lakers and boston (for the first half) was as rocking as any arena can be.
That's all we have though.... The Blazers is Portland's baby. There's always been great fan support here win or lose. Much of it has to do with the fact that the Blazers are the only pro-sports team in Portland but still.... I never understood why TC can't get more fan support. I was watching highlights of yesterday's preseason game and I thought there would be a bigger turnout. So many empty seats. Good empty seats which my ass would occupy if I lived in H-town. Are you guys too cool to attend a pre-season game? Is it cause there's the Texans and the Astros? Texans suck... Astros are done... What's the deal ?
The sad part is that it took a 22 game win streak to achieve that. You can use the notion that Houston is a big city but that should be all the more reason to have sell-outs. And the Rockets should be the main attraction in Houston BY FAR especially with the addition of Ron Artest and considerations of how close we are to a ring. Football is played on Sunday, Astros season is done.
What really impressed me was Greg Oden's drop step. Seems like it will be his unstoppable go to move. This team has a huge future.
Oden, I think, can be even better than Dwight, especially since he's already relatively "better" at this stage of their respective career. I based this on the fact that he's a legit 7 footer (might actually be taller), has a very similar frame and similar skills at this stage. So basically, he has a slight size edge on Howard. However, the player OUTSIDE of Houston that I'm most looking forward to seeing is Jerryd Bayless. People hyped and talk about OJ Mayo, Rose, Love, and Beasley, but in my opinion, he has the most NBA-ready game, along with great athleticism and quickness. The only thing holding him back from becoming a superstar is his lack of height and relatively short arms for a combo guard. Watch out for this kid people. I'm also a big fan of Joe "Vanilla Sky" Alexander (who I noticed way before all the tourney hype), so I'm also looking forward to his development along with the Bucks team itself too. They are looking to be an up and coming force in the East after the RJ trade.
yeah i will be rooting for this team this year. i hope they can beat up on the jazz and lakers. they cant handle the rox though
damn people are soo underestimating the talent portland has...can you image where they will be in 5-10 years...after the tmac..kobes..and ginoblis..I am telling you this team will be a beast in the west in the future!!
