Archive for September, 2010

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, hate video games…or have a life, you would know that NBA Jam will make it’s return to gamers this October. Over the past two weeks, over at ESPN.com, Marc Stein has been revealing the official rosters for the game. Today, the Western Conference rosters were revealed. It’s set to release on October 5th as a stand-alone for the Wii, and for you PS3 and XBox 360 owners…you have to buy ‘NBA Elite 11′ to experience the updated version of the classic game many of knew and loved. I’m a 2K guy so I’ll [...]

Yesterday, over on Blazers.com Mike Barrett did a video interview with Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen. Over at Blazersedge, Ben Golliver delivers a killer full transcript of the interview for those who prefer those or don’t have 10 minutes, so thanks to him. Very interesting to see Mr. Allen speaking, and very interesting to see some of the things he said. A lot of people are buzzing that he didn’t talk about Kevin Pritchard or even Rudy Fernandez, which is fine…but as I talk about later I like the focus on the actual on-court product..especially after the front office decided [...]

Picking up on an idea that Mike Tokito dropped over at OregonLive.com this week, is the idea of position battles. It’s something that is probably more relevant in football, where goes duke it out day in and day out attempting to move up on the depth chart. In the NBA, more or less, the starting unit is set. In the off-season there are acquisitions who could threaten a starter’s spot (i.e. a guy like Andre Miller) or a need for depth sees a battle (Chicago signing Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver). For the first time in three years, the Blazers [...]

Most of the focus surrounding the 2010 FIBA World Championships is geared towards tomorrow’s semi-final match-ups and deservedly so. Thought I should pass this along, as other teams were in action today. After a tough–and somewhat shocking–loss to Serbia in the Quarterfinals, Spain managed to re-group and beat up on Slovenia to the tune of 97-80. Disgruntled and oft-discussed Blazer guard Rudy Fernandez had himself quite a game, dropping 16 points on a perfect 7-for-7 from the field. If you don’t believe me check the box scores, I had to check a couple before my jaw stopped dropping. Despite all [...]

Just passing this along on this Tuesday evening. FanHouse.com‘s NBA Senior Writer Chris Tomasson caught up with Blazers coach Nate McMillan and asked some questions about….you guessed it, disgruntled guard Rudy Fernandez’ future with the team. Here’s what Coach McMillan had to say: “That’s my player,” McMillan said. “He’s my player. That’s how I’m approaching it. When I see him, I’ll talk to him. I’ll wish him luck. And if we get the opportunity to meet each other, then we’re going to looking to beat each other. But that’s my player.” “He is in my notes for training camp. All right.” [...]

As the hourglass continues to slowly trickle and we limp our way to the start of training camp, more focus needs to be put into what could happen this season for the Portland Trail Blazers. Generally speaking, during the off-season, what you hear in stories is guys looking to ‘prove’ something. For different guys, it’s different things: it could be proving they deserve money, proving they deserve a starting spot, proving they deserve hype or proving they deserve a spot in the league. I think basketball is one of the ultimate sports where you have the ability to prove your [...]

Take this for whatever you believe it to be worth. This coming from Alan Hahn of Newsday, who adds to the Rudy saga with this report on the situation: Here’s a curious bit of information to consider among the Rudy Fernandez rumors that have been on-going all summer: new Trail Blazers general manager Rich Cho has yet to make a call to Donnie Walsh to pick up trade discussions where they left off with former GM Kevin Pritchard. There has been talk about a three-way deal that Walsh reportedly turned down recently that would have sent Anthony Randolph to the [...]

Yet another interesting development in the Rudy Fernandez saga comes today. I swear if this was a reality tv show it would get pretty nice numbers on Bravo. Anywho, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports that Knicks president Donnie Walsh recently rejected a deal that would have taken Fernandez from the Blazers to the Knicks. Here’s what Isola reported: According to a team source, Knicks president Donnie Walsh recently rejected a three-team deal that would have sent Anthony Randolph to Indiana, a first-round pick to Portland and Fernandez to New York. Because the Trail Blazers are insisting on [...]