Portland Trail Blazers team preview

the greg oden saga could turn out to make portland into a superpower if he recovers fully. picture this: if they finish with the worst record in the western conference (which is very possible since they lost their best player from last year for channing frye, who is almost exactly the same player as lamarcus aldrige, minus about 15% effectiveness)--and barring the timberwolves nobody can claim to challenge them for potential to absolutely suck for the entire season--then they could end up with a top-5 pick to pair with oden, aldrige, brandon roy, and whomever else. yes, you heard me right.

o.j. mayo or derrick rose or some other sickeningly good player could be playing with that group. and that, my friends, equals multiple western conference championships down the road so long as they're not coached by a total monkey (or del harris who might make the monkey look pretty damn good.)

(random del harris side note: his kid used to play in the same rec league i was in except a few years younger than me. and the kids mom used to coach the team and del would always be sitting on the parents side of the gym watching the team. this was when he was unemployed by the lakers or any other organization, and about two years after winning coach of the year. and i always wondered: why not take over your kid's team? the other kids would get to say they got coached by the fucking coach of the year at about 8 years of age and you could prove that you weren't such a chode after all. but then that might have led to some seriously damaged self-confidence should your team ever lose a game. but then again, the five minute substitution rules might have suited del because, hey, that's what he did in the NBA anyways. also, mitch kupchak is pretty much always watching his kid play basketball too at the same rec center.)

but as for this year, the blazers are almost completely boned in the behind. where is the offense going to come from on this team? last year they relied on tossing the ball into crazy zach randolph on the low block. and while his sanity has been questioned (my favorite example of this is when in a glowing espn the magazine article, his high school coach said something to the effect of: "any day that i open the paper and i don't read that zach is in jail i thank god" really a ringing endorsement if you axe me) his ability to score in the low block never has. pretty much they could be guarandamnteed that he would at the very least draw a double team and toss it out to roy who would knock down a jumper or whatever. now, they have no legit post threat and no real perimiter scoring outside of roy. don't give me any guff about aldrige or frye as one or the other will have to be matched up on a center who will absolutely manhandle them on both ends of the floor and neither had much of a back to the basket game either.

as it is, maybe maybe maybe martell webster or travis outlaw will step up to give some scoring punch but given their past, we can consider that highly unlikely. also: they were among the hardest team to watch last season and this season they're also devoid of any compelling reason to turn in save to watch nate mcmillan cry into his hands as they lose 18-straight.

they literally personify "wait till next year." and oh, what a next year it will be.