With recent news of Roy and Camby returning before the ASG, the blazers are actually sitting in decent position for a good playoff spot With NO, Utah, and Denver all losing tonight, the Blazers are only two games behind (in the loss column) from 5th place. It will be interesting to see how CHO will proceed in the next couple weeks. Will he add talent? Will he blow this team up? Will he sit on his hands? If the chips fall the right way, the Blazers could actually win a playoff series this year. Go Zers!
I agree. We'll probably make a run next week and he'll sit on his hands, preferring to go to war with what we have now. As I said in another thread, I wouldn't put it past this team to go 22-8 the rest of the way and finish with 50 wins. And with that kind of confidence and a PF who is emerging as one of the three best big men in the league. And we have a Wesley Matthews who has won a playoff series before to lead the way. I'm feel in good about these guys nowadays.
I agree that things are looking up. The way I look at it is for the Blazers to make the playoffs (barring a blow up trade or another key injury), is that Roy must play better then Mills since he will be taking his minutes from him, and Camby needs to play better than Marks has. I am very confident that these 2 situations will occur making it very difficult for a team to bump us out of the 8th seed.
The Grizzlies and the Blazers say, thank you Jazz for firing your coach!! As of the firing today, CoolStandings says we're 1.3 expected wins behind Utah. Memphis is 1.2 behind. Out of their 28 remaining games, is Sloan 1.3 wins better than Tyrone Corbin? We just made the playoffs!! Although we'll see what happens at the trade deadline. Maybe the strategy is to give up this season.
As I've said before, if Roy comes back and delivers 20-25 minutes of solid bench production with the 2nd unit, Camby comes back and plays to his abilities, and LaMarcus and Andre aren't cowed back into letting Roy take over games, then this team is primed for a playoff run THIS YEAR.
Sorry, but I'm not so optimistic! We're a bit over .500. Our best player has injury/condition that will make him a fraction of his worth and yet his contract is hanging around our salary cap neck! Our second best player, has played only 82 games out of 4 seasons. Yes, GO is our second best player, but I know some of you have forgotten about him or how good he is when on the court. Our third best player IS playing really, really well and he is our bright spot. We have aging veteran players who are playing at a high level now, but are old enough that they may slip any time and when they do, their value in trade will plummet. Expiring deals aren't worth as much as we expected. Our Euro-picks are progressing, but aren't the best in Europe, nor pining to come to the NBA to help us. I would prefer pin-point trading to make us much better in a couple of years, than .525 ball and out in the first round for the remainder of the decade. Trades should be made now! Playoffs are meaningless if you have no chance at winning a series.
I would not be surprised to see Utah go on a tear . . . their best player is now free to do what he does and probably feels pressure to make sure the team wins. I expect to see the best Deron has to offer in the coming months. Does that equal wins will be interesting to see.
How does the home crowd react to Williams when he is introduced? The forums suggest that many fans were ready for a change with some calling for Sloan's firing as early as last year. But as we know the forum is where the vocal fans hang out but does not often represent what the majority thought is out there. Does Williams get any boos at home?
