Tanking Commences

(via gizmology.net)

The trades of Gerald Wallace and Marcus Camby made it clear that this team was building for the future. After Nic Batum's claims that this season wasn't over and an impressive win in Kaleb Canales debut, the team fell back down to earth, getting blown out in OKC.

Things went from bad to worse when the team got blown out at home by 29 against the red-hot (no longer Redd-hot, that's the Suns now) Bucks in the garbage time debuts of Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn. Despite good games from LaMarcus Aldridge, Wesley Matthews and of all people, Raymond Felton, Portland shot just 35% to the Bucks' 58%. Despite the score, Brandon Roy (in his first time back at the Rose Garden) was all smiles.

Yesterday's news brought the tanking full circle, as Portland claimed J.J. Hickson off waivers. After notably being included in trade rumors for Amar'e Stoudemire in 2010, Hickson has since fallen off a cliff with the departure of LeBron James. He was traded to the Kings last year, and then waived this year because he just wasn't good enough. For the Kings.

Hickson is a notably terrible defender who can play the 5 if you don't want to win. He also shoots 37% from the field (no threes made this season). His advanced stats are in the same vein of Jonny Flynn's: 89 offensive rating (108 defensive), -0.1 win shares, .416% TS. The only King that has been worse this season was Travis Outlaw. Shame we couldn't have picked him up when we got the chance.

Should things go to plan, the Blazers will have two top 10 picks in this year's draft. If the Nets finish top 3 in the lottery, they keep their pick (they would have the 4th best odds if the season ended today), so a pick in the 4-8 range would be ideal from them. Portland meanwhile, at 23 wins, has some ground to make up in the tanking sweepstakes. Milwaukee will finish with a better record, but Portland will have a hard time out-losing the nine teams below them in the standings.

Fortunately, we have Jonny Flynn and J.J. Hickson.

Not Quite A Root Canal(es)

BLAZERS WIN! BLAZERS WIN! On the road against the league leading Chicago Bulls, the gutted Blazers played with heart for the first time in two months, and got the win.

Derrick Rose was injured though.

Portland managed to stay competitive in the first half against a pussyfooting Chicago Bulls team. The second half saw a pair of pivotal threes by Matthews and Crawful turn momentum around. Portland went on a massive run in the final period, limiting the Bull to 10 points, and making Thibodeau's Bulls 49-1 at home after leading through three quarters.

Wesley Matthews, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nic Batum and even Raymond Felton led the way for Portland in this one. However, the game ball went to new coach Kaleb Canales, whose creativity (playing 10 players in the first half, going small in the second half) and spirit is refreshing after six and a half years of Nate-ball.

Portland is three games out of a playoff spot with 22 games left. The top 8 is not untenable with the Nuggets coming off a trade of their long-time leader Nene and the Rockets' tendency to finish 9th every season. However, it's likely that this game was a flash in the pan (Rose wasn't even playing). When Jonny Flynn gets plugged in to the lineup, tanking will likely resume.

For now though, WOOOOOOOO!

We're Flynnished

Nearly six years ago, I officially became a Blazers fan. As a long-time Seattleite and NBA fan, I rooted for the Sonics, but with them being a perennial lottery team and a move looking imminent, I didn't have one team in particular. On June 28, 2006, this all changed.

With Mr. Sonic himself, Nate McMillan in as coach, the Blazers were looking to turn around the team's Jailblazer image. The Blazers kicked things off by trading up to acquire arguably the top prospect in the draft in LaMarcus Aldridge (the pick they traded became enigmatic role player Tyrus Thomas). Then, we witnessed the unofficial first Pritch-Slap: draft bust Sebastian Telfair (and swapping Theo Ratliff's 2 year albatross for Raef LaFrentz's 3 year albatross) for the 7th overall pick, which was ultimately traded for the 6th pick: University of Washington's Brandon Roy.

I could go and write an essay about Brandon Roy's brief career and all the great moments I had, but that's for better writers with serious blogs to do.

Three months ago, I was filled with hope. Brandon Roy's corpse was retiring and his albatross salary was coming off the books. After a season in which Roy only hurt the team (save for a certain fourth quarter in the playoffs), the Blazers were able to reload and get some guys with knee cartilage.

Unfortunately, with the off-season trade of Andre Miler, Roy's departure cost the team its heart. After a good start that saw the team get hyped by Barkley and was backed up by an awesome point differential, Crawful's chucking, Felton missing every shot, Oden's broken knees, it didn't matter.

Then came the narrow losses "If a couple bounces went the other way, we'd be first, not fourth". But then they fell to fifth, then sixth, and the stupid losses kept piling up. Until the other night's game - Nate's last, I hoped that adding a better point guard who could take final shots (Nash!) could still get this team to a Cinderella conference finals berth, but when they lost by 42 to the sub-.500 New York Knicks, it was time to take off the Rose Garden Tinted Glasses and realize: it's over.

The next day, the Blazers did what had to be done. Instead of trading for Paul Pierce (who was apparently offered), they realized a rebuild was the way to go. Camby, gone. Crash, gone. Nate, gone. Oden, gone.

What did we get in return?

But Thabust was actually the best player (besides the top 3 protected Nets pick of course) we got, as Okur and Shawne Williams are out for the year, and Jonny Flynn, well...

When I went to google "Jonny Flynn basketball reference" to show you guys how bad he is, before I finished, it auto-completed "Jonny Flynn bust". Raymond Felton has the dubious distinction of having more shot attempts than points this season. Flynn has turned that into an art form, having scored 316 points on 337 shot attempts these last two seasons. His career offensive and defensive ratings are 94 and 114 respectively, so if we want a top 3 pick of our own, I'm thinking he should be playing 40 minutes per game.