Archive for February, 2010

There’s little you can say to make someone think that Saturday night’s win against the Minnesota Timberwolves was not Nic Batum’s best game as a Portland Trail Blazer. It may not have been his greatest seasonal impact, given the quality of opponent, but statistically it was his best line and will probably be the game we point back to at the end of the season when arguing his grip on the starting small forward position for the foreseeable future. Random fan: “Why didn’t you guys trade for Gerald Wallace? You need a small forward.” Blazer fan: “31 points, 7 rebounds, [...]

Can you say, ‘I’ll take it’? That’s about the best way to summarize Saturday night’s thwomping of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers didn’t have to do anything particularly special, they didn’t have to do anything particularly well, they just did anything. Throw is some reasonable defense and nice performances from LaMarcus Aldridge and Nic Batum, and you have yourself the recipe for beating the 2009-10 T-Wolves. The final product tastes a little like seafood gumbo. To say that this game was ever truly competitive is probably an overstatement. Aldridge came out and hit four consecutive jumpers because apparently Minnesota’s scouting [...]

Things have been a little slow lately the last day or so on the site, and I thought you should know that it’s because Fansided is going through going through some site updates. Pardon our silence, in writing, but we’ll still be on Twitter @ripcityproject while the changes are made. Hopefully things will be better in the next day or so and we’ll be back to a full writing schedule. Thanks for your patience.

Keeping things short on this (very late) post, for various reasons of certain natures. It was sort of startling how dull the game felt through Toronto’s broadcast, or how different it didn’t feel from the night before in a sparsely populated New Jersey arena. Used to seeing much better gametime atmosphere from Raptors fans (surely the Olympics had some impact on this) and it led to the methodical feeling the win had. Of course, it probably would have felt somewhat methodical regardless. Without Chris Bosh, the Raptors are the inferior team, and the Blazers played like they knew it. While [...]

I was going to write a post about Rudy Fernandez and some comments he made recently to Marca.com (a Realgm.com translation) but Ben Golliver pretty much nailed it with his perspective. I highly recommend you read his entire piece, but here is the section that stuck out to me: Perhaps, also, reality is starting to set in.  Rudy is a fine player but will never be an NBA All Star. Like Sergio Rodriguez before him, he does certain things very well and he does other things not at all. His lack of progress is due as much to a lack [...]

What better way to celebrate beating the Nets than having to play another game the next day? Game 2 of this road trip takes the Blazers up north of the border to Canada to square off with the Raptors. A few things surprise me about this game. For one, I’m pretty certain the Blazers have tended to end up playing Toronto on Sundays which has lead to those weird 10 AM Pacific time starts which sometimes meant waking up to the game already in the third quarter. So in some ways this is a blessing. Also surprising, this is the [...]

Marcus Camby injuring his ankle last night in New Jersey — by the way, he’s played less than 60 games five times in his career, and never the full 82 — has everyone thinking about Portland centers again. On the national level there’s some curse talk, which you can safely say “Bah, humbug” to without worrying about visits from various ghouls tonight. But it does get Greg Oden’s name popping up all around, and there’s something to start thinking about with him. Next Fall, when he is hopefully full healthy and ready to stomp all over the Japanese countryside, Oden [...]

I’m not sure I’ve stared at a blank screen for longer after any game this season than after the Blazers beat the Nets in Jersey. It’s not because it was so bad I couldn’t do anything but react. It was because it was so good I was left speechless. Because normally when a writer is speechless, we write that we are speechless and thus, we have speech. No, the reason this one took so long to write about was because it was so very dull. Depressing, even, with every wide shot of an arena less full than that of a [...]

How many thoughts do I really have to have on this one? Let’s just be honest with each other. A team who really thinks they are about to make a run towards the playoffs and make noise in said playoffs, does not lose to the New Jersey Nets near the end of February. They just don’t. It does not get any realer than that right? I know road trips can be wacky and all of that nonsense, but there is no excuse for this team to go out and lose to the Nets. None. We’re talking about one of the [...]

The appropriate way to start things off after the Blazers blow a 25-point lead to the Utah Jazz: with the fans. So, what hurt the most? @DigitalDaggers: #1 Jumpshot after Jumpshot after Jumpshot #2 Nate not coaching the team out of #1. @mitchwinn: only 10 points in the 4th quarter. they had 10 points in the ot. @SKSevenSwans: watching the lead slowly but surely decrease. Like Chinese water torture. @Ell_21: dre being absolutely horrific down the stretch. @_BlazerNation_: The fact that we only scored 24 pts in the 3rd, 4th AND OT hurts me the most. Smh. @Seth_Johnston: FESEEEEEEENNNNKOOOOOOOO! (you [...]