the PAC AWESOME is born

From the start this whole thing seemed preposterous. Pry Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12? NO WAY!!!

I think this video explains it best

Knowing that Nebraska (played by La Parka in the video) went heel on the big 12 (as played by the fan in the video) it makes A LOT more sense. This whole Big 10 Pac 10 merge into super conference thing needs to be played out by the presidents of the universities in the ring. Here's my vision...

Scene 1: Texas and Ohio State in the ring. It's going all Texas in the beginning and Nebraska is in his corner cheering loudly. Then at some point in the match Michigan gives Nebraska the high sign (am I using that right?) and Nebraska comes into the ring and hits Texas in the head with a chair. Texas is down OH NO!!!

Scene 2: Texas is in the middle of the ring on the ground in pain. The crowd is booing like crazy as Nebraska walks does laps around the ring repeatedly doing the hulk hogan arm swing to ear cup let me hear ya move. Nebraska does a couple elbow drops to back as Texas cries out in pain. It looks like it's all over for Texas. Then suddenly out of the tunnel comes Oklahoma and he's got Arizona and USC with him. THE HELL YOU SAY?!?! What are Arizona and USC doing at a big 10/big 12 match? Bedlam ensues as USC and Oklahoma wail on Nebraska. Texas has a miraculous recovery and he's pounding away at Ohio State while Arizona has Michigan in a full nelson. Things look bad for the Big 10.

Scene 3: You hear the music blast while two more men are coming down the tunnel. It's Penn State and he's got a masked man with him. The Big 12 is out matched and out manned. They've got no chance. They just don't have the numbers. The masked man has USC in a figure four head lock while Ohio State prepares for an elbow drop off the top ropes. Michigan and Nebraska throw Texas out of the ring and he hits the metal guard rail face first. Chairs are flying around like crazy. The audience is shocked and appalled.

Scene 4: Texas A&M comes down the tunnel with Oregon and Cal. Stanford is sitting in the stands with a spread sheet tallying up a cost estimate of the damage the wrestlers are doing the stadium. Ohio State jumps off the top ropes for a final blow on USC, but Cal catches him mid air and executes a perfect knee back breaker (that's a thing right?) Texas A&M kicks the masked man right in the face and USC is free again. Oregon grabs the masked man and the Pac AWESOME has the match firmly in hand. USC gets up off the mat and looks the masked man in the eye as he rips the mask off his face. OH MY GOD IT"S NOTRE DAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oregon kicks Notre Dame square in the nuts and is crowned national champion.

holy crap

Noted Kevin Pritchard Hater Adrian Wojnarowski is at it again. This time he's saying that the Blazers have hired a headhunting firm to go find them a new GM. If this is true I may very well throw up. The last time the Blazers did this we ended up with the PatterNash era. *shiver*

If the reports of Paul Allen still having a close relationship with Mark Warkentien and wanting him to be GM are true, I'm cool with that. Looking back on things I wish the Blazers would have just made him GM back in 2003 when they cut ties with Bob Whitsitt. But if they're going to a headhunting firm that's probably gonna come up with another retread from the old boys network of the NBA it makes me feel dirty.

Click hear if you want to read some of awoj's dribble.

hilariousity ensues

Yesterday the radio airwaves were ablaze with rumors that Kevin Pritchard was selling his house. Here's an amusing link to the house that Kevin Pritchard supposedly is moving out of...

Click me for joy and amusement

According to everyone's friends at Blazers Edge this is a non-story.

It's a bit of a shame. Not that I want Kevin Pritchard to be fired. But it would be nice to get out of this limbo where it seems like a matter of time before the Blazers fire him and hire Mark Warkentien.

Youth = Crappy on the road

So I've got a theory as to why our young players are so "inconsistent" and much to my surprise it's got nothing to do with actual inconsistency in play. It's all about crowd reaction. When you're young you need a lot of positive affirmation. This is why when they do the psuedo olympics in grade school everybody gets a ribbon.

When our players are at home there's thousands of people cheering for them. When they're on the road they don't get that same sort of positive affirmation. So they don't do so well.

Simple as that.

Also, DQ has a pretty awesome new value menu. You should check it out http://blog.dairyqueen.com/2009/02/25/dq-sweet-deals/ I'd gladly make a deal with them to never eat at a competing fast food restaurant if they agreed to keep these sweet deals around.

Petteri gets a nickname

It's been far too long since I last blogged. Not a lot of exciting stuff has come and gone. But there's been some tidbits.

Greg's rehab has us all atwitter to see what he can do next season.
Bill Bayno getting a much deserved head coaching job at Loyola Marymount.
The draft day excitement of dumping Jarret Jack for Jerryd Bayless.

All rather pedestrian compared to what I think is the most exciting news of the year. Due to his late game heroics against the Washington Wizards in last night's Summer league game he has had the nickname "the Finnisher" bestowed upon him.

I added it to the NBA section of his Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petteri_Koponen#NBA

Let's see how long it is before someone labels it as patent nonsense.

Also Jerryd Bayless didn't have a bad game either. But it wasn't nickname worthy like the Finnisher's game was.

Frye trade rumors, Greg Oden's rehab and more

One of the more interesting things in the rumor mill lately is the rumor that the Blazers are trying to trade Channing Frye LINK. According to this article we at least offered him to Chicago for Tyrus Thomas. That seems a little ridiculous to me as there's no way in hell that Chicago would consider such a deal. You also have to consider the source. The New York post is widely regarded as a rumor spewing rag.

On top of that there's this article LINK, in which they talk about Pritchard sitting down with Channing Frye and swearing it's not true.

A slightly less interesting (at least short term) subject is Greg Oden's rehab. Here's a video of Greg rehabbing in the pool. LINK Looks like he's workin' hard to make sure he'll be in top shape for next season. From what I've heard of Greg's rehab he pretty much gets up in the morning, goes to the practice facility to do some rehabbing in the pool, goes out to lunch somewhere and then spends the rest of his day in a machine that moves his leg for him while he watches movies. Word is, he loves the Comcast on-demand.

Another interesting development, if you wanna call it that, is the free agent crop for 2009. As you may or may not know the major asset we received in the Zach Randolph trade (Other than getting Zach out of town) is cap space in 2009. With Steve Francis (forgot he was part of that trade already?) and Raef LaFrentz expiring in 2009 the Blazers will have a lot of cap space.

It's actually a little more complicated than that, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is who's really going to be available in 2009. The only really good player that will be an unrestricted free agent thus far in 2009 in Joe Johnson, who doesn't really knock my socks off. The rest of the possible free agents that year are from the 2005 draft and they'll all be restricted free agents. So sure, we could offer Chris Paul a max contract, but the Hornets would likely match. It's almost like those guys aren't free agents at all.

But word is there are some players from the 2004 draft that aren't happy with the extension offers they're receiving. If those players don't get offers they want they have the ability to take their one year qualifying offer. That would make them unrestricted free agents in 2009. The most notable players in that group are Ben Gordan and Luol Deng. There's been a lot of articles about how the two of them aren't exactly thrilled with the offers that Chicago has given them thus far. Here's the latest one LINK It's one of the notes near the bottom of the article.

So there's a little ray of sunshine for people like me that are generally skeptical about the idea of our 2009 capspace being useful.

Words of Wisdom from Bob Ristau: "If you haven't ever lived somewhere and you claim to be a fan of a team from that place, it brings into question the validity of your fandom. Sports fandom is similar to religion in that if you weren't brought up in it, I question your motivations."

Seriously, don't panic

Ok, so Greg's out for the season. Still no reason to panic. Keep your chin up and look forward to an entertaining season.

Up front we still have (ranked by importance by me) Aldridge, Frye, Przybilla, Outlaw, Josh McRoberts and (lest we forget him) Raef LaFrentz.

We've got a good young group of point guards that are gonna keep this team on the move in Blake, Jack, Sergio, Taureen Green and Petteri Koponen.

We've got a nice collection of swingmen in Roy, James Jones and Martell Webster.

We won't make the playoffs, but it'll still be a lot of fun to watch.