I was driving to work early this morning listening to the game and they were discussing if the Blazers make the playoffs. The little I heard they were actually guessing the Blazers don't make the playoffs or it will be very tough. They pointed to the fact that teams like Dallas, Phx and SA aren't done with their playoffs runs, LA, Houston, NO and Utah are playoff teams on the rise and Denver put themselves squarely in the playoff hunt. Anyways, interesting to hear their thoughts given our analysis on this thread. It is their poll question of the day. I say trip out the station, everyone go vote and make them wonder what is with the spike in voting today . . . maybe they will do even more Blazer talk. http://www.955thegame.com/Personalit...2/Default.aspx As they said yesterday . . . make sure you vote!
Gonna be tough w/ Denver gettin' better. We will see how they fit together. They don't have lots of depth... their bench now is mainly Kleiza w/ JR smith now in the starting lineup and Camby gone... Their starters are hot though... Billups | Smith | Anthony | Martin | Nene and i think that LA, NO, Houston, Utah (w/ Williams), Phoenix, San Antonio (w/ Ginobili), Dallas are better than us as well. Should be a dog fight. West is as strong as ever this year... better than last year, imo.
Agree. And while Dallas, SA and Phx are getting older and on the decline . . . I still think they are playoff teams. So for the Blazers to make the playoffs, who doesn't? I still go with Denver and hope Billups/Melo combo doesn't click the way I'm afraid it is going to. But it is not just those two, Nene is playing well, Kenyon Martin contributes, and JR and Kleiza have already been mentioned . . . still Denver is the only team I see the Blazers possibly leaping over.
Can I wait a week to see how Greg recovers, lol? I think we make the playoffs but I worry about Denver's trade.
If Penknife is back by Dec 1st, we still have a shot (even though Denver should benefit from their trade). If he is out until Jan 1st - kiss the season goodbye.
IMO, Denver is one injury to Martin or Nene away from missing the playoffs. They have no one to rely on once any of those two go down, and are going to get absolutely abused inside by just about every team in the league.
Yes, this team will make the playoffs with Greg or without - and I have a feeling Greg will come back with a vengeance...
Right now I'm leaning toward us not making the post-season, unless Greg comes back and shows that he can stay healthy for the remaining games, and I'd be curious to see what KP does with RLEC and other mid-season consolidation trades. Confucius say, "crystal ball very murky"
Have to agree here, Denver isn't a very deep team. Adding Billups IMO is an upgrade overall, but that team will be hard pressed to overcome any injury to a starter.
I think it's going to be tough. This schedule really fucks us. This team needs confidence early. And we might not get that with this early challenging schedule. I wish the tough schedule was at the end of the season once we have already gotten our act together. We're still trying to work 4 rookies into the mix and we have to play LA, SA, Phoenix, Utah, and Houston in our first 5 games? Then we go on some road trip too, right? Ugh. Something like 1-9 could realy kill us. I hope we win today and tomorrow. That would be so great. We'll see. Rudy will be key. He's the X-factor.
HA!! Understatement of the century. Fact: No team in the history of the NBA has played more 54+ win teams to open a season. I think there is a silver lining in all of this shit. Przybilla looks really good, and is actually picking up a few points around the basket, looking much more sure-handed collecting passes than I recall. Once we get out of this absolutely recockulous first 5 games I think the team is going to feel like the competition they face is a break comparatively speaking ... that doesn't guarantee a win, but I would guess it could help.
I saw them as a 7 or 8 seed headed into the season, tops, and while I'm not encouraged by this start I think we still have a pretty good shot to finish around there. Ed O.
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