Tangibly speaking. Seeing is believing. And I agree. The upsdie of LMA is greater. But thats all it is right now is upside. You give LMA, Bucks work ethic on the court. Effin look out.
Before the 89 90 season? I get where you are going with this. And I could be hitting on this a lil early. They are still just babies. But I don't ever see this team hitting the level that team did when it comes to the kind of excitement on the court. Which then spread off the court.
Yeah, they probably were louder back then; I never could afford to go to a game before 1995. But Games 2 and 5 this year were the loudest sounds I'd ever experienced in person, and that building is designed not to be crowd-loud, so to speak. Even regular season games I went to were pretty loud (of course, I was lucky; they won every game I attended). I'm think I'm just going to have to agree to disagree with you outright until the end of next season. I think it's simply to early to make the judgment calls you're making. Not only that, but your posts have a "everything was better back then" tone that seems to betray nostalgia. We can revisit this after the playoffs are over in 2010, though.
Ever? That's rather pessimistic. But, you have been pessimistic the entire time here, so I'm not surprised.
The product back then was better. Significantly. And it wasn't only with this team. It was the league as a whole That's why the ratings are not as high.
Your song has many verses, but the same chorus: it was simply better back then. I don't disagree with it, but you might want to start a new tune... this one's starting to grate.
I guess it's time to blow it up then since those teams never won a championship and the current team isn't even going to reach their level.
I guess you have failed to see where I have been and where I'm going. That wasn't my point at all. This team in the end will end up being better. But the level excitement they bring may not be near as much. That's my point.
My point is that the end result (read: winning) is what brings the excitement. I was comparing the rally at the Pioneer Square to people welcoming Blazer 1 back at the airport back in the day. If you think people won't be as excited (or the level of play won't be exciting) playing for the championship, I think you are dead wrong. The excitement off the court IS there. People are excited about the Blazers again. People who haven't cared about the Blazers care. If you can't see that, then I don't know what else to say. Have you ever had a movie you absolutely loved as a kid, then watched it later on in life and realized it wasn't as great as you remember? Nostalgia can be blinding.
As of right now, the Drexler era Blazers would probably be a little better. Porter > Miller or Blake Drexler > Roy....But it's close Kersey > Batum Buck < Aldridge Duck > Oden. People forget that Duck played in a couple of all star games. He was good. Ainge, Cliffy, Petro, Cooper, Abdelnaby, Bryant, Walter Davis Blake, Travis, Webster, Joel, Rudy, Pendergraph, Cunningham The benches might be a toss up Adelman > Nate......IMO anyway. Running it on a sim website 10 times, the Drexler Blazers won 6. All of the games were really close though, so I am sure if someone else ran them it might come out differently.
I watched only one game of Clyde's Blazers, it was a win against the Bulls in the 92' finals. It made me a fan and I still am, 17 years later, but I can't say I can judge that team based on the one game I saw when I was not even 8 years old. To me, this team is more comparable to the Sheed-Pippen Blazers. Very deep, extremely talented, with a weak starting PG, a great scoring-guard rotation, one of the best team-defenders in the league at the 3, a PF who's solid on both ends of the floor. BTW, who was Sabas' backup at Center? oh, I remember, BG and Jermaine O'neal. We have a better backup center now. That team, as we all remember all too well, lost because of mental weakness. I think Nate is a better coach than Dunleavy and I think the fact that this team grows together, unlike Trader Bob's Blazers, would make them stronger in their mindset.
They play like that blazer team as well. Slower and more half court. I agree with your post. The point of my post was to post discussion. It was never meant to knock this team. This team has all the ingredients to be a pretty fun and to be a long term success. When they are finished, they will probably be the best roster of all time for the blazers. That alone is exciting.
Ok, but if Oden puts up 18/8 this year, and the team goes to the finals, I better not see you write that he should be an all-star.
So I set the proper depth charts for the 2008-09 Blazers (Batum starting, Travis as main backup SF and PF, Channing 3rd backup PF/C, Rudy main backup SG, Bayless 3rd backup SG). Nic, Trav, and Rudy each get between 20 and 28 minute now. I then plugged in the 1990-91 Blazer team as their opponent. I made no adjustments, because my memory of their rotations is a little fuzzy. I played a best-of-seven series with 1990-91 as the home team for Games 1, 2, 5, and 7 (i.e., they have home-court advantage) Here's the results: Game 1 - 2008-09 wins 109-100 (Player of the Game - B.Roy with 28pts 9reb) Game 2 - 1990-91 wins 104-98 (Player of the Game - Porter with 20pts, 5ast) Game 3 - 2008-09 wins 121-101 (Player of the Game - B.Roy with 19pts 11ast) Game 4 - 2008-09 wins 113-85 (Player of the Game - B.Roy with 16pts, 8ast) Game 5 - 2008-09 wins 111-109 (Player of the Game - B.Roy with 14pts, 10ast) Result: 2008-09 in 5. For fun, I ran a second series (again with 1990-91 with HCA): Game 1 - 2008-09 wins 112-110 (POTG - Roy with 27pts 9 ast) Game 2 - 1990-91 wins 111-106 (POTG - Drexler with 27pts 8reb) Game 3 - 2008-09 wins 112-96 (POTG - Roy with 29pts 5reb) Game 4 - 2008-09 wins 103-90 (POTG - Roy with 36pts 6reb) Game 5 - 1990-91 wins 101-87 (POTG - Drexler with 23pts 7ast) Game 6 - 1990-91 wins 126-123 (POTG - Drexler with 28pts 7ast) Game 7 - 1990-91 wins 94-84 (POTG - Drexler with 21pts 7ast) Result - 1990-91 in 7. This is a fun little tool! Let's try the 08-09 Blazers versus the 1995-96 Bulls! NOTE: I didn't attempt to harvest good games for the Blazers here... Game 1 (in CHI): POR 112 - CHI 95 Game 2 (in CHI): POR 104 - CHI 95 Game 3 (in POR): POR 107 - CHI 104 Game 4 (in POR): POR 105 - CHI 101 Result: Portland sweeps the Bulls 4-0 ROFL!
I don't think this Portland team would be able to beat Clyde's best Blazers team in a seven game series. In fact, I don't think they would win a single game right now. Buck would shut LMA down, hard. Roy and Clyde would duel with Clyde coming out on top. Porter would absolutely destroy Blake. All of our small forwards put together don't make a single Jerome Kersey. At Center, Duck and our two headed monster would battle to a stand still. Ainge, Young, and Robinson versus Bayless, Rudy and Outlaw. I would put the former ahead of the later. Give this current team a few years and the picture might be different. But right now the 1990-1991 Blazer team would bitch slap this current team. Edit: The above assumes the games would be officiated in the same way games were in 1990. If they were officiated as they are now, the current team would be in pretty good shape. Buck Williams would foul out in about 8 minutes. Though Clyde might score 70 if he can't be touched on the way to the rim. It really sucks that officiating would play any roll at all in such a discussion, but it pretty much has to. The game of 1990 doesn't resemble the game in 2009 very much at all.
