Wednesday, November 17, 2010

And the news keeps derailing my night...

JA Adande tells it like he needs to:

Portland is Screwed

Oden. Roy. Przybilla. Miles. Randolph. And don't forget Brian Grant, who was a key young player with a promising career ahead of him in the late '90s before he left the Blazers, only to experience serious and lingering knee problems for the remainder of his career. Plus a number of bit players with small contracts whose careers were or are in the process of being ruined by the Blazers atrocious medical/training staff or an outright curse.

I don't know if it's their fault or just a curse, but I think it's time to clean house. Immediately.

Why loving the Portland Trail Blazers is a curse

Nobody likes a loser. The Blazers, of course, are not perennial losers. They're one of the most successful franchises in the NBA year-to-year based on a number of metrics - fan support/attendance, wins, playoff appearances, etc. But the Blazers don't win titles and they don't benefit from a little thing I like to call good luck.

I despise the Blazer doctors and training staff. I don't even know their names, other than the guy I think is the head trainer, Jay Jensen. I don't know where else to turn. Either I must believe that the Blazer organization is eternally cursed, as evidenced by the Halberstam classic Breaks of the Game. That book, and a number of other sources/books/magazines, address not only the infamous Bill Walton injuries before and after the Blazers lone NBA championship but also the incompetence of the Blazer training staff (alienating Walton) and the front office (jettisoning Moses Malone before his MVP career for the Sixers). Since then, the organization has endured the Bowie era, which needs no explanation, and the Trader Bob era, where at least you can't blame the Blazers for keeping large centers long enough to ruin their careers with injuries...

Now, we're in the Jay Jensen + Greg Oden era. I don't know the names of any other members of the training staff or the doctors responsible for treatment of injuries, especially regarding players' knees. But as former President Bush once said, fool me once, hehheheh, can't get fooled again. These jokers need to go. There are two alternatives - either Jensen and his cronies are 100% incompetent, or they've been dealt the worst stroke of luck in the history of professional sports. Over the past four seasons, including this entire year, Greg Oden will have missed 3 full seasons worth of play. Serious injuries have also sidelined Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake, Joel Przybilla, Martell Webster, Eliot Williams, and, of course, Brandon effing Roy. The sad part? I probably missed players because I'm five beers deep after reading the depressing news about Greg Oden. I root for 6 things in this world: the Beavers, the Packers, the Blazers, world peace, me becoming the Blazers the GM, and Greg Oden. I love watching Greg Oden play more than I love brownies mixed with ice cream. Now, this dream has been taken away from me AGAIN. You know what that means? I'd be better off rooting for Marc Gasol or Joakim Noah. Do you know how embarrassing that is? What am I supposed to do? How can I go on like this. Please fire the training staff. And the doctors. And anybody else that's responsible for this disaster. And please fire them on Thanksgiving because they have taken my dreams away from me and deserve to be punished.

That is all for now.