With respect to Roy, I need to see it to believe it. He's been a ball dominant guard his entire time with the team, he's never shown that he's all that comfortable (or effective) playing off the ball and he's going to be extremely rusty. Add in the fact that he's physically limited now and I'm just not sure how much good he's going to be able to do after such a long layoff. Will he be better than Patty? Maybe, and he probably couldn't be much worse, but expecting his presence to be a benefit right away (if at all?) seems like wishcasting to me. Hopefully my reservations are unfounded.
I am in wait and see mode with Roy for more than seeing if he can coexist with the team. I am more interested if he can play at all, let alone co-exist.
I'm happy the Blazers are in sixth (truly), the OP just gave me a funny mental image that I decided to share. Nothing more, nothing less.
What worries me most about Roy returning is will LA revert into a 15 ppg player? Will Roy expect to take the last shot after a few weeks back and expect the offense to run through him again? I really think expectations for Roy needs to be explained to him before his return "BY NATE" and the organization. This teams chemistry is good now. Roy must not disrupt that because he still thinks it's his team to run. I don't know that LA is strong enough to say Roy " THIS IS MY TEAM NOW!" We'll see! The season in my eyes hinges on wether Roy can be a sixth man or feels the need to be the star!
Damn, you caught that post before I deleted it like 10 seconds later. I deleted it because I decided it wasn't a fair characterization of your post after going back and re-reading it in the context of the OP.
What's been impressive to me is that since Roy went down, we've had very few letdowns. We had that bad loss to the Kings at home, but that needs to be offset by the almost win against Miami where James had to go crazy to get the game into OT and the big wins over SA and CHI. I'm used to blowing several games to teams we should have crushed simply because we can't get motivated for them.
I think where the Blazers are at now and the records of the teams competing for the back half of the playoff list says more about the drain of talent from the Western Conference to the Eastern conference than anything else. I think if this was any of the past few years Portland doesn't get in. But this year is different, and they probably will.
I'm recording the NOLA and Utah games tonight......... can you guys NOT talk about those games on here please until after the kids are down and I've watched them.
Ummm LOL you want everyone to try and stop utilizing the internet until you've seen your DVR? Why don't you try taking a break from message boards for just a few hours? HAHAHA
Anybody see the love that Sportcenter was giving us last night? Talking about how we are one of the hottest teams in the NBA right now despite all the injuries. A breath of fresh air. Usually the major networks never give us our due no matter how well were playing. It kind of caught me off guard.
You want me to not mention Chris Paul going down for the season? We're all supposed to not talk about how the Hornets went out of contention tonight? Harsh, man, harsh. We move up a spot and we can't talk about Paul out for the season.
This is definitely a concern. I am really, really pulling for Roy and the coaching staff to look for ways integrate him effectively into the current offense rather than try to revert back to the ISO's he's accustomed to... I think this is both possible and (if done right) potentially effective. Trying to go back to the "seven seconds or Roy" days would likely be a recipe for failure.
