Friday, September 14, 2007
"NOW WHAT?" IS RIGHT
Nothing like an NBA Draft to convince Blazer fans that once again their team might have blown it.
We're all saying to ourselves, and to anyone else who will listen, "This can't be possible."
Is there a Blazer fan alive who is not thinking back to the 1984 NBA Draft, when the Blazers passed on somebody named Jordan to take a habitually-injured-and-broken Sam Bowie?
The two situations are different, though. Sam Bowie was, at least the way I remember it, a very soft, David Robinson-type player. I don't remember him ever doing anything that looked strong. He just happened to be tall, and that seemed to be about it. And another thing that sticks in my memory is that I knew right then, at the ripe old age of 12, that Michael Jordan was the better pick...by far. I wasn't thinking Jordan would eventually be the greatest basketball player ever, but I still knew. There was something not right about picking Bowie over Jordan.
At the time of this summer's draft, I was thinking about how powerful Greg Oden could be on the court, not about how he had had some injury problems and might be a suspect #1 pick, especially with Texas's explosive Kevin Durant looming as another possible choice. And probably most Blazer fans weren't either; they stormed the court at the Rose Garden upon David Stern's announcement that the Blazers had taken Ohio State's big man #1 in the draft.
Now that Oden will miss the 2007-08 NBA season due to cartilege damage in his knee, however, the more this case looks -- at least for the next year -- like a rerun of the Bowie-Jordan debacle. Oden missed a lot of summer ball due to injuries and some bad tonsils or something. I now recall those events a lot clearer than I did on Draft Day, and maybe, just maybe, it's shades of Sam Bowie all over again.
And to make matters worse, the #2 pick in the draft, Durant, who went to the Seattle Sonics, is starting to seem like...ahem...the next Michael Jordan.
The Blazers were on their way up. And though the Western Conference is an absolute minefield to get through on the way to the NBA playoffs, their chances still looked better. Way better than after last year's draft and subsequent transactions that brought a few talented youngsters our way. And it was all because of one man, one gigantic man. This man was actually happy to be in Portland and appeared ready to help this city get out of the basketball doldrums that players such as Rasheed Wallace and Darius Miles and Zach Randolph and Qyntel Woods had dragged it into.
After yesterday's surgery that sidelined him for the year, all that's left for Oden to do at this point is to say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over. Even though, as general manager Kevin Pritchard acknowledged in the press conference, it's not Oden's fault, Pritchard said Oden was genuinely concerned about the franchise's immediate future. Blazermania was back -- and now it's taken a big hit right to the gut.
Time will tell whether Oden will save the Blazers. At least one year's worth. All we can do as Blazer fans is hope that we don't have to suffer a new bad beat for the next 23 years.
Football Coaches Should Be Fired, Volume II: On the first drive of the Patriots-Jets game, the Jets faced 4th-and-1 at New England's 46-yard line. With just one yard to go, Coach Eric Mangini, showing faith in his team's offense, decided to go for it, and with a strong rush up the middle, they got the first down and continued their drive.
Except that that didn't happen.
The Jets punted. I know it's early in the game, but that's just it: It's early in the game. Go for it. If you fail, you have plenty of time to get back into the swing of things. Be aggressive. Show your team you have confidence in it. RESULT: Karma, baby. The Patriots got the ball back on the punt and within five minutes had themselves a touchdown. And the Jets lost 38-14.
Fantasy Football Week 1 Review: Upon completion of every fantasy week, I shall sum up my feelings about said week with a quote from the greatest TV program ever made by humans, Arrested Development. This week's quote is simple:
"I'M A MONSTER!!!"
Thank you to fantasy football for allowing me the opportunity to become a garish, profane, behaviorally-challenged Gong Show. I found myself yelling at Peyton Manning for not looking at Marvin Harrison enough. I grew a bit hoarse for a minute. Chad Pennington's injury bothered me greatly, but not because it affected the Jets. It's because I felt Jerricho Cotchery might not get as many receptions. For cryin' out loud, what is that about? I hurled my hat towards a wall. Later I vomited up some chicken-chili-looking stuff when I saw the Family Band Solution drop from 2nd place to 7th as Tony F-ing Romo and Eli F-ing Manning suddenly turned into the Harlem Globetrotters -- not the Harlem Globetrotters who are actual humans who merely play eye-catching basketball in the real world but the "Super Globetrotters" of that 1970s cartoon show who would play against evil villains and get slaughtered in the first half and then at halftime hop into their magic lockers and bounce around inside them and then turn into stretchy and muscular-y superheroes with names like Gizmo Man and Spaghetti Man who would score every time they touched the ball and always won on a last-second dunk in order to save the world. Yeah, THOSE Harlem Globetrotters. I swear I am not making this up.
Yes, I have changed. I'm a monster. A fantasy football monster.
And I kind of like it.
We're all saying to ourselves, and to anyone else who will listen, "This can't be possible."
Is there a Blazer fan alive who is not thinking back to the 1984 NBA Draft, when the Blazers passed on somebody named Jordan to take a habitually-injured-and-broken Sam Bowie?
The two situations are different, though. Sam Bowie was, at least the way I remember it, a very soft, David Robinson-type player. I don't remember him ever doing anything that looked strong. He just happened to be tall, and that seemed to be about it. And another thing that sticks in my memory is that I knew right then, at the ripe old age of 12, that Michael Jordan was the better pick...by far. I wasn't thinking Jordan would eventually be the greatest basketball player ever, but I still knew. There was something not right about picking Bowie over Jordan.
At the time of this summer's draft, I was thinking about how powerful Greg Oden could be on the court, not about how he had had some injury problems and might be a suspect #1 pick, especially with Texas's explosive Kevin Durant looming as another possible choice. And probably most Blazer fans weren't either; they stormed the court at the Rose Garden upon David Stern's announcement that the Blazers had taken Ohio State's big man #1 in the draft.
Now that Oden will miss the 2007-08 NBA season due to cartilege damage in his knee, however, the more this case looks -- at least for the next year -- like a rerun of the Bowie-Jordan debacle. Oden missed a lot of summer ball due to injuries and some bad tonsils or something. I now recall those events a lot clearer than I did on Draft Day, and maybe, just maybe, it's shades of Sam Bowie all over again.
And to make matters worse, the #2 pick in the draft, Durant, who went to the Seattle Sonics, is starting to seem like...ahem...the next Michael Jordan.
The Blazers were on their way up. And though the Western Conference is an absolute minefield to get through on the way to the NBA playoffs, their chances still looked better. Way better than after last year's draft and subsequent transactions that brought a few talented youngsters our way. And it was all because of one man, one gigantic man. This man was actually happy to be in Portland and appeared ready to help this city get out of the basketball doldrums that players such as Rasheed Wallace and Darius Miles and Zach Randolph and Qyntel Woods had dragged it into.
After yesterday's surgery that sidelined him for the year, all that's left for Oden to do at this point is to say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over. Even though, as general manager Kevin Pritchard acknowledged in the press conference, it's not Oden's fault, Pritchard said Oden was genuinely concerned about the franchise's immediate future. Blazermania was back -- and now it's taken a big hit right to the gut.
Time will tell whether Oden will save the Blazers. At least one year's worth. All we can do as Blazer fans is hope that we don't have to suffer a new bad beat for the next 23 years.
Football Coaches Should Be Fired, Volume II: On the first drive of the Patriots-Jets game, the Jets faced 4th-and-1 at New England's 46-yard line. With just one yard to go, Coach Eric Mangini, showing faith in his team's offense, decided to go for it, and with a strong rush up the middle, they got the first down and continued their drive.
Except that that didn't happen.
The Jets punted. I know it's early in the game, but that's just it: It's early in the game. Go for it. If you fail, you have plenty of time to get back into the swing of things. Be aggressive. Show your team you have confidence in it. RESULT: Karma, baby. The Patriots got the ball back on the punt and within five minutes had themselves a touchdown. And the Jets lost 38-14.
Fantasy Football Week 1 Review: Upon completion of every fantasy week, I shall sum up my feelings about said week with a quote from the greatest TV program ever made by humans, Arrested Development. This week's quote is simple:
"I'M A MONSTER!!!"
Thank you to fantasy football for allowing me the opportunity to become a garish, profane, behaviorally-challenged Gong Show. I found myself yelling at Peyton Manning for not looking at Marvin Harrison enough. I grew a bit hoarse for a minute. Chad Pennington's injury bothered me greatly, but not because it affected the Jets. It's because I felt Jerricho Cotchery might not get as many receptions. For cryin' out loud, what is that about? I hurled my hat towards a wall. Later I vomited up some chicken-chili-looking stuff when I saw the Family Band Solution drop from 2nd place to 7th as Tony F-ing Romo and Eli F-ing Manning suddenly turned into the Harlem Globetrotters -- not the Harlem Globetrotters who are actual humans who merely play eye-catching basketball in the real world but the "Super Globetrotters" of that 1970s cartoon show who would play against evil villains and get slaughtered in the first half and then at halftime hop into their magic lockers and bounce around inside them and then turn into stretchy and muscular-y superheroes with names like Gizmo Man and Spaghetti Man who would score every time they touched the ball and always won on a last-second dunk in order to save the world. Yeah, THOSE Harlem Globetrotters. I swear I am not making this up.
Yes, I have changed. I'm a monster. A fantasy football monster.
And I kind of like it.
