Sunday, October 5, 2008

I'm Excited to See

I'm excited to see...
-how well Lamarcus does this season!
-if B-roy can make the All Star game again
-if Greg can stay healthy
-how Nate is gonna handle the minuets
-how effective t-rex (Jerryd) is gonna be
-who's gonna break out (Channing, Webster, Serge...)
-the playoffs??
-if Rudy's positives will outweigh his negatives

Monday, September 22, 2008

Jerryds Problem

Jerryd Bayless is one of the four Blazer rookies this coming season. Although he is generally thought of as a quality player, he has his critics. The majority of his criticism has come from his lack of a typical role to fill on the team. He has the size of a point guard but is known as a scorer instead of a distributor. He is a shoot first point guard and that tends to scare some basketball experts.
Today I was reading an article on Dimemag.com about the Blazers coming season. The article mentioned that Jerryd looked very “Wade-ish” during his summer league debut. Jerryd has always reminded me of Dwyane Wade so I thought it might be interesting to compare their stats in college.
Wade played college ball for Marquette University. His freshman year he did not play because he was not academically eligible. It wasn't 'till his sophomore year that he started playing (2001-2002) and that year he averaged 17.8 ppg, 2.47 spg, 6.6 rpg, and 3.4 apg. His second season he averaged 21.5 ppg, 2.15 spg, 6.3 rpg, and 4.4 apg. Jerryd on the other hand only played one year of college ball and in that year he averaged 19.7 ppg, 1 spg, 2.7 rpg, and 4 apg. Lets concentrate on their assist numbers so we can investigate Jerryd's shoot first mentality.
Before I make a conclusion based on there stats, I need to digress. Dwyane Wade is a superstar. He is so skilled that he has the ability to do what he wants on the court. He has mastered the majority of the different NBA skill sets that exist. Although he is known most for his scoring, he is also an exceptional passer, dribbler, and defender(when he wants to be).
Both Dwyane and Jerryd were the primary scorers on their respective teams and as the assist numbers show they did about the same job of distributing the ball. In fact, Jerryd was probably better at throwing dimes because his numbers are from his freshman year where Dwyane's are from his sophomore and junior seasons. Stats don't always predict what an athlete will do throughout his career; however, in many cases they can be used to show an athletes possible potential. Just like Dwyane Wade, Jerryd Bayless could be an above average passer but in college his role on the team did not allow him to demonstrate that skill. 
Only time will tell.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Should Be Sleeping

Here are some daily Blazers links that should keep a Blazers fan entertained. 
Today was a good day for Blazers news so enjoy
-First off NBA.com has 10 questions for Greg Oden. 
-The Blazers TV play-by-play voice, Mike Barrett, has some interesting information on the informal pick up games that are happening at the Blazers practice facility. 
-Casey Holdahl from Blazers.com has audio of the "Blazers.com Official Podcast" which is a weekly discussion of all things Blazer. 
-Jason Quick from the Oregonian has some great audio of his opinions of different Blazers topics. Quick touches on the arrival of Rudy Fernandez, Jerryd Bayless, LaMarcus Aldridge and Travis Outlaw

Introducing Me

Who am I?
My name is Andrew Johnson. I have always considered myself a Blazer fan but in the last couple years I have become obsessed and this is my attempt to develop something useful out of my Blazer obsession. This is only meant to be a practice facility for writing, nothing more and nothing less(so don't hate). Writing has never been one of my favorite subjects but because of Blazers blogs and articles the subject is growing on me. Thanks for reading (i doubt anyone will ever read this)