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.

HIBACHI!

Happy Kwanzaa and New Years from Lamar Blogom, which has finished its holiday hiatus (finally) and will be back on a semi-regular posting schedule. Among my resolutions is at least 3 quality posts a week, with an option for a fourth depending on homework load.

Anyways.

We've discussed AgentZero 6 times, this one the most in depth of them all. He is quite simply far and away the most singular and awesome player in the NBA. His game could be easily pigeonholed into that of a shoot-first, pass- (and ask questions-)later PG that Mamba of all people accused of being sans conscious.
Gilbert's game could be described as a more perfect extension of the steez originated by the Answer. He has that same sort of funky-freshness and feel-good little man aura about him, along with an insatiable urge to get the fuck to the bucket, but he also cops some serious juevos AI lacks when it comes to shots outside the 3-point line.

Here's something else important: GILBERT'S IN HIS 5TH YEAR!

As Peter, my spiritual cowriter, points out--he's only beginning to flash some serious scoring ability. Last season could be described as the one where he exploded onto our oily stage, and 06-07 is just a confirmation of his gunnerly goodness. Dude got snubbed twice last year: once at the ASG, and once by the Olympic team. He basically vowed revenge on the entire league (and specifically the Suns and Blazers, against whom he pledged to average 50 ppg) and backed his shit up--averaging over 30 since he was left off the All-Star team, and scored 54 against the Suns in his only outing opposite McMillan or D'Antoni.

Gilbert's dagger against the Bucks is only an extension of what all of us here at Lamar hope will become the type of legend we tell to our grand kids while we bounce their asses on our knees and try to ignore the arthritis. If you watch the ESPNews feed, you are not only treated to the announcer yelling "HIBACHI" like it's the only word he knows in the damn language, but also a brutal scowl Gil flashes for approx. 1 second after dropping the Bucks to their knees. Then the man is nothing but smiles as he walks towards his bench and the signature jersey toss.

His game is the purest form of gunnership. By that I mean that he has that sort of star quality where the defense matters only as an incidental. Gil has to work harder than maybe Kobe or TMac does, but he's different than they are in that he plays the game of basketball as if it's totally incidental to whatever else he's doing that night.

Perhaps another reason we find Gilbert so appealing is that he has a little bit of child left in him. Sure he has his occasional bouts of petulance involving a lot of assists and not too much scoring, followed by the opposite, but he also has the sort of sublime quality of figuring out the game as he goes along. This in direct opposition to his Division-mate Dwyane Wade, who seemingly has the game on lock every time he steps onto the floor. Not to say that Gilbert doesn't have more than his share of swagger (and outright cockiness), but his confidence comes and goes. When it is there, he heats up like the Hibachi Grill that he so espouses. When it's not, dude could be a Frigidaire for how he trots around the court.

AgentZero is also childish in his actions outside the court.

(I should clarify that when I say childish I don't mean immature and shits himself. What I do mean is that he has some serious child-savior vibes happening around him, including his innocence w/r/t traditional means of playing basketball.)

Rather than spend time with teammates out on the town, Gilbert chooses to stay in his hotel room and order things from infomercials. Now tell me that there isn't some part of every one of us that wants to just sit around and buy supersharp knives and other errata. In fact, that same proclivity for infomercial ordering has probably manifested itself in what was for a long time his trademark shout of Hibachi.