I might be one of the only Portland TrailBlazer fans in Elko. Heck, I might be the only NBA fan in Elko! This town is more of a football town. Baseball is popular too, but if you start talking to people it’s mostly college and NFL football.
I’m fine with that (I love me my fantasy football) but my heart is with the Portland TrailBlazers. I grew up in Portland, and was a wee teenager during the “glory years” of the late 80s/early 90s teams with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, Kevin Duckworth, and Buck Williams. I even loved the later teams with Rod Strickland, Scotty Pippin, Rasheed Wallace, and all those guys. I stuck with them through the “JailBlazers” era and it’s great to see them coming around now. I have a Blazers calendar in my office, and while it usually gives me weird non-blazer trivia like “Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace let the NBA in steals in 2005-06″, it finally gave me a good one today: “The Blazers went 15 consecutive seasons without a losing record, from 1989-90 through 2003-04″ Being a Blazer fan has always been exciting, albeit a little frustrating sometimes.
But the team we have now is HOT! Greg Oden is playing for the first time after micro-fracture surgery that kept him out last year and just looks like a monster, like a young Shaq. The rest of the team has matured over the last couple years, and Spanish rookie Rudy Fernandez is a baller. I watched the first preseason game last night and he had 5-6 completely SICK passes and alley-oops/dunks. That guy is going to be a star, mark my words.
Here are a few Blazer-related Blogs that I check on a regular basis to get my fix:
http://www.blazersedge.com/
http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/
http://trailblazerscentercourt.blogspot.com/
I’m predicting a record of 48-34. Too optimistic? Perhaps, but I think they will really surprise people this year.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Mary Sue // Oct 9, 2008 at 10:15 am
Rudy Fernandez is awesome. I think calling him a rookie is not totally fair, though, the man has been playing in Europe for years and I TiVoed all the Olympic Men’s Basketball games just to watch himself go to the hoop.
Although I could do without too many closeups of Greg Oden. His game is beautiful. His face? Not so much. Please to be having more camera time of Brandon Roy? Yes, I know he wasn’t playing last night, but he’s much prettier.
(P.s. blame your brother for pointing me over here.)
2 Steve // Oct 21, 2008 at 3:08 pm
We don’t need Greg to be pretty, we need him to be a beast! so it works out just fine
Rudy had another good game against Sacramento last night, I think he’s definitely great coming off the bench, I hope MacMillan can keep it that way.
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