Mar 11, 2011; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Oregon Ducks guard Teondre Williams (22) and Washington Huskies forward Justin Holiday (22) scramble for a loose ball during the second half of semifinal game at the 2011 NCAA Pac-10 men

It’s not major news, but the Portland Trail Blazers have added Justin Holiday, a 6-6 guard/forward out of Washington, to complete their 20-man training camp roster.

And yes, he’s related to Jrue; his older brother to be exact.

The Trail #Blazers have claimed G/F Justin Holiday off waivers. Holiday is expected to join the team on Sunday. He will wear #10.

— Trail Blazers PR (@TrailBlazersPR) October 13, 2012

Holiday made a living with the Huskies as a defensive stopper and somewhat of a stat sheet stuffer. He averaged 10.5 points and 5.2 rebounds, and played 12 games where he posted at least one block and one steal. Holiday was also named the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year as a senior before going overseas to play in Belgium.

If there’s one reason why the Blazers would want to hang onto Holiday, it’s because of his defense. His teammates at Washington used to call him “the Fireman” because of his ability to extinguish even the hottest player on the court. A solid man defender would fit beautifully into coach Stotts’ defensive game plan, which relies heavily on isolation defense and not getting beat.

Still, the journey will be tough for Holiday to earn a spot on the roster. He was undrafted out of Washington and has already been cut from the Cleveland Cavaliers training camp squad. Even with Aalstar, one of the more premier teams in Belgium, Holiday could only muster up a mere 7.2 points and 2.9 rebounds in 33 games.

Portland’s clearly got their eyes on stocking their team with defensive talent, but Holiday may not make the final cut. If he doesn’t, all he can do is continue to work on his game and hope to make a team somewhere else.

The big(ger) news was the following from Freeman:

Point guard Patty Mills, who played for the Blazers as a rookie last season and on their summer league team in July, is not expected to be a part of camp. The Blazers issued Mills a qualifying contract offer over the summer, but he has not signed it.

It’s newsworthy, but it should not be surprising. Going into summer league there was a some sort of unspoken battle between Mills and Armon Johnson. I figured Mills’ days were numbered considering the Blazers had made an effort to move up in the second round to grab Johnson. That investment, plus them signing Johnson to a contract put the nail in the coffin of Mills’ tenure in Portland. It’s unfortunate to see such a talented kid go, but there was no room for Mills. Management is clearly high on Johnson and believe his overall ceiling to be higher than Patty. Mills needed to show a better ability to ‘run the show’ as a PG, and obviously didn’t do enough of that.

Back to the invites to training camp, considering the fact that Portland’s roster is already over-loaded, it seems like a classic situation where extra bodies are brought in for the first few two-a-days. Nearly ever team does it and all of these guys seem like supreme longshots to make the roster. An interesting point was brought up by Ben Golliver over at Blazersedge who passed along a quote from D-League guru Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside.

The Development League’s new allocation system allows for each D-League team to acquire the rights to 3 players cut from their affiliate’s training camp. With the Blazers bringing these guys into camp, assuming that they are cut and interested in playing in the D-League, they will be automatically be assigned to the Idaho Stampede instead of going through the draft/waiver process and potentially ending up on another D-League team.

This could be a scenario where Portland is looking at using the D-League better and getting guys more ingrained into their system. It’s interesting that three of the four players Portland is looking to bring in are perimeter players, considering the fact that Portland is stacked on the wing. An extremely speculative mind would wander towards thinking Portland could be preparing for a major move…I wouldn’t go that far, but certainly something to think about.

“And that’s where we get to the other big story from the Blazers’ media day: Greg Oden. He’s likely to stay a big story for much of the season, for the simple reason that he’s the one wild card who could take this season in a radically different direction.

Most of the other Blazers are “knowns.” Yes, they’re young and improving, but Portland basically knows what to expect from nine of the 10 players in this year’s rotation. That’s what makes Oden so interesting — nobody’s totally sure what he’ll do. Plus, the area he can impact the most is the defense, the area the Blazers are trying hardest to improve.”

True that Mr. Hollinger. I could probably stretch these thoughts out to a different post, but when you think about X-Factors on this team, Greg Oden has to be on the top of that list. It’s scary to think how good this team could be solely based on if Oden improves from last year. And we’re not even talking about a drastic, 20 points, 10 rebounds type improvement. Just simple things like improving his timing on defense, finding ways to stay on the court and out of foul trouble. Yeah, scary right.

(UPDATE: While I was typing this, Coup tweeted the following: “I’ve heard what I need to hear. Oden. Left hand. Hook shot. That’s a 75% improvement on his offense already.” He’s not even lying. If you read Ben or Joe Freeman’s tweets you will trip over yourself thinking about Oden, I promise.)

Hollinger’s ‘five camp observations’ are Insider-only, and to be honest is nothing groundbreaking. Northwest division title…heard it. Position battles…getting as stale as the Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Blake being a better fit with the starters…makes me feel like Dr. Dre, been there, done that. One interesting tidbit is this whole LaMarcus Aldridge contract situation. Hollinger touches on it and how LMA could affected negatively. It’s touchy. On one hand, like Kelly Dwyer tweeted earlier today an unsigned LMA with a chip on his shoulder could be good for the Blazers. On the other hand, as Hollinger points out, he could take this personally and it could affect his play. He does still have his emo-moments after all. I’d prefer we get the deal done to avoid any potential headaches and just to get it out of the way. There’s no guarantee LaMarcus uses this in the correct way (let me go work my butt off and give them no choice but to pay me) and not the incorrect way (a slight to him from the organization).

This team has all the talent in the world but all it takes is one key piece to not buy in to make it fall apart. Everyone is talking about how many headaches Nate is going to have. He’s going to have some tough decisions, but ultimately it is on the players to earn their time. He’s made it clear that no one is entitled to anything. One thing I don’t think a lot of people are point out is that our depth actually in a sense makes his job easier. He has more options. If Andre Miller doesn’t buy in (just an example) we still have Steve Blake. If Outlaw or Webster wants to pout, the other can step in his spot. Guys are going to earn their minutes by how the produce on the court, and let’s be honest isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?