Every time I hear about how well Kevin Durant is playing for Oklahoma City I say, “what if.” What if the Blazers had drafted Kevin Durant instead of Greg Oden? I was 100% for picking Oden. I was sold on the idea that you take a good big man over a great wing. But it looks like I was wrong, at least so far. Can you imagine Durant playing along side Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge? Wow, that would be amazing!
What has Kevin Durant done this year? Here are a few highlights:
• Averaging 29.8 points per game this year.
• 24.5 career ppg
• Durant has scored over 25 points in 27 straight games. No one else has done that in about 40 years.
Did Brandon Roy want to be on the Olympic team? The last we heard from him, he did! So why wasn’t he named to the 27 player roster?
Roy, Ellis, Horford not among 27 players Team USA invites to camp – Covers.com
Let’s pretend for a moment that all of the Portland Trailblazers are healthy. I’ve taken the 15 Blazers who are currently on Portland’s roster and broken them um into three pretty even teams of five. So which team would win if they played each other? And I just have to say, how crazy deep are the Blazers to be able to put together three good teams of five?
TEAM 1
G Steve Blake 6-3
G Brandon Roy 6-6
C Juwan Howard 6-9
F Travis Outlaw 6-9
F Dante Cunningham 6-8
TEAM 2
G Andrew Miller 6-2
G Rudy Fernandez 6-6
C Joel Przybilla 7-1
F Nicolas Batum 6-8
F Jeff Pendergraph 6-9
TEAM 3
G Patty Mills 6-0
G Jerryd Bayless 6-3
C Greg Oden 7-0
F Martell Webster 6-7
F LaMarcus Aldridge 6-11
No big shock, but “The Natural” Brandon Roy was just named to his third-straight NBA all-star game.
View full rosters here.
Portland’s 105-89 victory over Golden State on Saturday night was a good one for many reasons. First take a look at this impressive list of Blazers:
Greg Oden, C
Joel Przybilla, C
LaMarcus Aldridge, F
Steve Blake, G
Rudy Fernadez, G
Travis Outlaw, F
Nicolas Batum, F
Oh yeah, those aren’t the Blazers that won the game that improved the team’s record to 22-13 and was their 6th with out of their last 7 games. Those are the Blazers that are either hurt or sick and aren’t playing right now (some of them are out all year). This is the group that won Saturday’s game:
Brandon Roy, G
Andre Miller, G
Juwan Howard, F
Martell Webster, F
Jeff Pendergraph, F
Jerryd Bayless, G
Dante Cunningham, F
Shavlik Randolph, F
Coming into the season, everyone knew the Blazers were deep… but this is ridiculous!!!
UPDATE (1/16/10) – The Blazers have used even more starting lineups than I could have ever imagined coming into this season. Who would have guessed that Portland would have great success, beating Orlando last night, with this lineup:
G Andre Miller
G Jerryd Bayless
F Juwan Howard
F LaMarcus Aldridge
F Martell Webster
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I’ve been a Portland Trailblazer fan for as long as I can remember liking sports. I wasn’t alive with the Blazers won the championship in 1976, so I’m not going to include that lineup in my list of favorite starting 5s.
I’ve got a favorite for sure, no doubt in my mind it’s the lineup of:
PG Terry Porter
SG Clyde Drexler
C Kevin Duckworth
SF Jerome Kersey
PF Buck Williams
The lineup I’d like to see right now:
PG Brandon Roy
SG Rudy Fernandez
C Greg Oden
SF Nicolas Batum
PF LaMarcus Aldridge
Another great lineup:
2000
PG Damon Stoudamire
SG Steve Smith
C Arvydas Sabonis
SF Scottie Pippen
PF Rasheed Wallace
