First of all, I'd like to distract everyone from Jesse's and my conversation about the Blazers to play you this
rap song by Dee Dee Ramone (or Dee Dee King as he called himself on his rap record). Isn't that funny and weird?
Now with that out the way, I'd like to get back to the Blazers. I think we simply have a problem of deuling delusions, Mr. Baldwin. You are so blinded by your anger and disappointment at the destruction and mismanagment of your beloved franchise that you can bring yourself to be excited by the obvious potential that is apparent in this current lineup. Listen to yourself, man. You're pimping the Golden State Warriors. Get a grip, my man. Meanwhile, I am blinded by the hot hot heat of a new sports team passion that I overlook the obvious suckiness of this particular team and the front-office that created. Can you blame me for wanting to overlook the sight of millions of dollars worth of pouty bitch sitting on the bench every night?
The way I see it this is as bad as they get (and we're still not
that bad. i.e. not as bad as the Lakers or the Jazz). If they don't win more games next year then they do this year I'll be confused and disturbed and I'll be more than happy to adopt a scolding and disapproving voice when I talk about the team. But let me tell you why they will be better:
1. A real coach - Pritchard's making shit up as he goes along. Bring in someone, anyone, with a reasonable game plan and some legit coaching skills and boom, we're instantly better. When I say anyone, I mean anyone. Bring Mo Cheeks back for a do-over and we'd still be better. Bring in someone with a fair ammount of experience coaching and winning in the NBA and we're a lot better. Paul Allen digs deep and we snag a Larry Brown or (god forbid, but whatever...) a Phil Jackson and we kick ass. There is admittedly a chance that we'll pick a real shit loser coach that will just suck worse than Pritchard. I hope that doesn't happen.
2. Sebastian Telfair, Travis Outlaw, and Viktor Kryhapa - These guys are fucking dope. Rookie-dope, to be sure, but dope nonetheless. Viktor was just 5-5 with 11pts in 8 minutes. And he's not even 100 percent healthy supposedly. Sebastian is definitely raw and needs to grow a lot and I admit, looks a lot like a high school kid occassionally. But having watched him intensely this past week live and in person I can tell you with out the slightest hesitation that this kid will fucking rule this league in the next few years. His shooting needs a lot of work, granted, but from what I've seen it's all head stuff. Decision making, confidence, things that can only come with time. And Outlaw has been the most fun to watch develop this year. His jump shot went from ugly to butter. I've seen him totally come off the bench and reverse the momentum of the game with steals and dunks. With summer league and training camps and a fresh start next year these three are all capable of having breakout years next year.
3. Sergei Monia - Word on the street is he's better than Kryhapa. What the Blazers need right now is to solve the Damon Stoudamire problem. Damon takes too many shots, plays shitty defense and seems to distract Telfair by being a sort of co-Point Guard. But right now he's our biggest scorer we have to give him 30 minutes a night. With Monia we get a legit SG who supposedly plays dope defence and passes the ball and we can either get rid of Damon or bring him off the bench to shoot threes.
4. Zach Randolph - Surgery could go bad but if it goes well (and Docs say it's in a part of the bone than Chris Webber or Jason Kidd's surgeries) and he comes back healthy, boom, we're back on track. No? Right now, at number four, if all these go according to plan, I feel like we're already a much much improved team. Maybe not playoff worthy or write home to mom about, but not a basement joke. Our playoff chances would die anti-climactically at the end of the season as opposed to right after the all star game. I haven't even dealt with all the dead wood like Derek Anderson, Nick Van Exel and Theo Ratliff. Keep 'em, trade 'em, dump 'em, I don't really think it matters that much. I feel like the core group I know is staying next year is dope and will get doper.
5. the Draft Pick - Losing has its privileges. It's looking pretty good for a top 5er. Did you watch the NCAA tournament? We could theoretically have almost anyone of those kids we wanted. It's always a gamble. We could pick a fuck-up or the kid could get hurt, who knows. But for some perspective let's look at recent #5 picks:
2004 | Shaun Livingston (Clippers) |
| 2003 | Dwayne Wade (Miami) |
| 2002 | Nikoloz Tskitishvili (Golden State) |
| 2001 | Jason Richardson (Golden State) |
Not bad. 3 dope players and shitty Russian. We don't pick shitty Russians. If there's one thing we're good at in the front office (and there might only be one thing) it's picking dope Russians.
Now, personally, in my admittedly optimistic view, I think all those things will go fairly well and none of them will be handled disastrously. I think in the end, the chance that they're doomed for several more years of shit-seasons is not as likely as the chance that they're in for several years of steady progress and development. So get your Blazer bashing in now while it's still sort of accurate.
PS Another costume idea...
