. . . from “under the bus!” Looking up from here, I can clearly see a playoff berth right around the corner . . . and even the #2 seed in the West is just a couple of wins from our reach!!! So . . . to ALL you so-called “Blazers fans” that love to shit on this team every chance you get: Phoenix is now 7 games behind us with only 8 games to go – the playoffs are all but a lock at this point. What will the Negative Nellies have left to complain about now? Are you really going to hang on to that last little glimmer of hope that we CAN somehow lose ALL of our last 8 and Phoenix wins ALL of their remaining games? Is it getting THAT desperate??? When will you finally admit defeat and come join us other "fans" and actually root FOR the team??? How about we take a look back at the complaints we've had to endure thus far this season (with my replies in the parentheses): * We HAD to make a trade at the deadline – ANY trade at all – or we won’t even sniff the playoffs!!! We need a vet badly; give up Bayless, Batum and Raef’s contract for ANY past their prime big name player (it’s our ONLY hope to salvage this season)!!! KP threw the team, the fans and his mother under the bus by actually having faith in this team. (Umm, you wrong.) * KP is an idiot who’s blindly and retardedly ga-ga for mediocre talent. He’s a fool to want to go to war with this group of guys. He doesn’t care about winning; he just wants to collect late lottery picks and push our window out another 3 years! (Wow, shocker. It already looks like KP’s right. Again. Damn.) * All of our point guards suck ass and we’ll never get anywhere with these three guys. (Oops, last I checked we’re one loss behind the #2 seed in the West.) * LMA is soft and regressing by the day . . . we SOOOO need to do whatever we can to get Amare. Or Bosh. Or David Lee. Or anybody. LMA’s peaked and already on the decline. (Too bad LMA didn’t get the memo his best years were already behind him; what a great March he had and getting better!) * Roy is a wannabe star. He’s too selfish. (Yeah, OK.) * Oden’s a bust. He’s made of glass. He has no heart. He doesn’t want to play. He doesn't smile enough. He sits at the end of the bench by himself. He eats alone. Let’s all change our avatars and superimpose “The Big Mistake” over his mug. (He IS a rookie – you can’t argue that he’s not. Yes, he is still recovering from surgery. He's still learning the NBA. And he is playing the 5 – a position where players historically develop more slowly. Cut the (21 yr old) man some slack. If you want to call him a bust, do it 2-3 years from now . . . otherwise, zip it.) * Travis Outlaw: [insert your favorite TROUT complaint here]. (Say what you want, the guy is all but unstoppable in the 4th quarter many, many, many more times than not. I’ll take his "low-BBIQ" to go along with his clutch shooting ANY day!!!) * Channing Frye . . . (OK, I'll concede this one. Great guy - but he's probably just better off in some other system, on some other team. For all the bitching and moaning, you did get one right.) * 5 PPG out of our starting SF is unacceptable! Get us Jefferson! No, Carter! Or (again) ANYBODY other than the crap we have on our roster now!!! (Anyone want to trade Batum now???) * Rudy (apparently now known as “el bricko”) sucks! (Yeah, let’s sell him back to Phoenix at half price!) * Nate doesn’t know a damned thing about coaching. (47-27 and 20 games over .500 with 8 games still to go! Must be all smoke and mirrors. Or luck!) * But, but, but . . . this team is not perfect. It has flaws! They have scoring droughts. They have defensive lapses. They start some games too slowly. They have to come back in the 4th to win too many times. They don't win every game they play. Sometimes, when they win, it's UGLY. Last week, they even LOST a game! We need a superstar at every position - that's the only way we can be any good! (Well, I guess if you don't have anything valid to complain about, these straws are as good as any to grasp at??? A "W" is a "W" and thus far, we have 47 of them against only 27 L's and will likely end the season with well over 50 W's!!!) I'm sure there are other complaints that I missed - but it's late and we don't have all night. Plus, they're probably just as stupid as the ones referenced above so we don't need to cover them. The Blazers have not made the playoffs in more years than my oldest daughter has been alive. We were the laughing stock of the entire league and the punchline of just about every NBA joke not that long ago. And now we are one of the youngest teams in the league. We have played 4 rookies significant minutes all year long. The Western Conference is as deep (and evenly matched) as it has EVER been. Yet look at where we are right now: we have the 7th best record in the whole damned league! We keep upping our win total by about 10 wins each year! By the end of this week, we will clinch a playoff berth and could even end up with HCA in the playoffs! Even if we somehow get swept in the first round, the season is ALREADY a great success if you consider where we are coming from!!! [NEWS FLASH!!! I interrupt this post to bring you this late breaking news: Paul Allen just text me and told me that he’s NOT going to sell the team if we don’t win the championship this year. Apparently, his sources informed him that we, surprisingly, weren’t the odds on favorite this year! What? No way!!! ] Anyways, this team has AT LEAST already met ANY (realistic) fan’s expectations so anything and everything BEYOND a playoff berth is just pure friggin’ gravy!!! So how about we just enjoy the ride from here on out, bitches???
Travis, like, LMA, stepped up big in March, averaging 14.0 ppg and 4.9 rpg. As for Channing, I'm glad he's on our team. He works hard and doesn't complain at all about his role. I think that's a good energy to have around our guys.
Yeah, and that would be fine if we actually had a real backup power forward. Travis doesn't do badly at the four, but I'd still like a banger (and Ruffin is NOT it)
Oden is our banger. Man, he looked great off the bench tonight. Came in and really fed off the crowd and the big moment of it all. He's a PTPer. He will be great in the playofffs.
Oden and Joel don't play together though. We still need a solid backup four eventually. Probably someone that could be signed via free agency this summer.
But it was pretty cool when they did, no? We should try it more often if we can afford it in the flow of the game.
Great post. I can tell you spent a lot of time on it and I really liked it mainly because you are correct in just about everything in my eyes. Good job my man.
I'll confess to being one who was pessimistic and disappointed at the trade deadline. I think I said we would be lucky to limp into the playoffs. I've been pleasantly surprised by the team's progress and feel optimistic. I'm really proud of the team. I still do though look at the line scores of Gerald Wallace sometimes and wonder if there was anyway we could have got him without giving up batum (who i value much higher than Rudy or Bayless); if there was no way, I am glad KP didn't make a trade.. And I'm still not convinced that Travis is a net contributor to the team.
by the way, I don't think any poster on here ever hoped that we wouldn't make the playoffs; pessimism is sometimes inspired by the fear of disappointment.
I have to agree with almost everything in the original post. However, I'm still not convinced that Sergio belongs on this team. He continues to make stupid mistakes and throw the ball away. Last night he ruined a 4-on-2 fastbreak by committing an offensive foul. Every game it's something.
You (April)fools...You gotta get to game 6th of the first round for this season to be anything close to success link
I am assuming this is an April Fools joke. But, if it is, I guess I don't get the joke. If it isn't, your post boils down to setting up strawman arguments (sans Mixum which doesn't really count), then (mostly, but not always convincingly) "knocking" them down. Either way, call me unimpressed.
