Play with what ifs and have not and everything else . . . reality is we are 5 games behind OKC, they lead the division by 2 games and really are the only team in the Blazers division that can be considered a contender to the Lakers (or this year spurs). Currently they have home court advantage in the playofffs . . . and they are a young and improving team. Leading your division and fighting for home court advantage in the playoffs . . . from a team that just made their way back into the playoff scene last year. If this team is underachieving, I'm gald we don't have to witness them overachieve.
my point was there is no obvious dichotomy between OKC and portland as you suggested. OKC is not currently "reaching a potential we never reached". i would wait until they show the ability to start winning playoff series before feeling bad about that. if camby comes back 100% we aren't necessarily that far behind them even without roy.
The biggest difference with OKC this year is the emergence of Westbrook. He's incredible. What's hurting them, however, is the step back Jeff Green has taken. If he gets his act together, they'll be scary come playoff time.
Yet another B2B game here in the Mile High. I think the schedule makers do that just to fuck with us. I go to every Blazer/Thugget game at the Pepsi Center I can when I'm in town and you can just see how blown our guys are when we play a back-to-back here. The altitude issue is a real one.
Although, Green did have a pretty sound game in a loss to the Heat on Sunday. Did you happen to catch that one? Great game! Definitely playoff atmosphere.
No obvious dichotomy? I dunno, it seems pretty obvious to me. They've got two young superstar caliber players with their health, we've got ... well, we've got a lot of question marks.
what's scary with them IMO is if they acquire a solid C and they have the assets to get one if they want
Lamarcus has one great month on his resume'. Calling him a "superstar" is incredibly premature at this point.
My guess is only Blazer fans see no obvious dichotomy btwn Ptd and OKC . . . and even then, only some Blazer fans.
How did they accomplish that feat with employing a former Asst. GM who everyone tells me has no plan?* *comment not directed at Blazinaway but rather to all those impatient with Cho.
Read your original post. You said "superstar caliber"--ie, good enough to be a superstar (even if not yet). Aldridge is as much "superstar caliber" as Westbrook is.
the only dichotomy is health. we still have a decent team that is almost as competetive, and with the right moves should remain so in the future.
Not to quibble too much, but Westbrook has been playing at a near MVP level since last year's playoff series against the Lakers. His season long run of play at this level is a little more impressive than LMA's one great month. Statistically you could also argue that Westbrook's PER of 24 versus LMA's 20 is a fairly sizeable gap in performance too. If LMA can keep up his 24/10 pace for the rest of the season then I have no problem calling him "super star caliber." My only point is that we still have question marks, whereas the Thunder don't really have any about Durant or Westbrook.
You keep wanting to point to that one game as being competitive with them, but being 5 game back . . . we really aren't competitive with them (I understand we played them tough) But even if that was true, that is a huge "only." IMO, OKC has one player who is so far ahead of all the other players on the Ptd roster. Clearly OKC is going to build around and fall and rise with Durant . . . as would 90% of the other teams if they had Durant. I don't think you look at Aldrdige as the one player you are going to build the franchise around. I think you used to be able to look at Roy that way, but not anymore. If Oden turns out to be what he was suppose to be, then the Blazers are back in the picture. But Oden aside and accepting Roy isn't who he was before, OKC has the better roster. Not many would debate that.
i wasn't pointing to our games against them to illustrate that we played them tough heads up. i was pointing out that big swings in the standings can hinge on very small margins, and often teams aren't as far apart competetively as the standings make it seem. also teams go through ups and downs throughout the season obviously. since LMA started his streak on Dec 17 we actually have a better record than OKC. of course SOS could have something to do with that. but still it illustrates that at worst, even if they are a little better, we are still reasonably close and there is no dichotomy you should be feeling bad about. it's not like the thunder are considered serious contenders to win a championship or injuries made us into the T-wolves or anything. assuming the last 6 weeks have not been a fluke, and there's no reason to think it was, i totally disagree. LMA has been a top 10 player in the league over that stretch. there are quite a few teams that would love to have him to build around right now. i'm not disagreeing with that. i'm disagreeing that anyone should feel as bad as you apparently do about where we are in relation to the thunder.
