StumpTownSports

Given the significance of this moment, I am way behind getting something posted. But I’m a family first kind of guy and as giddy as I am about the Blazers, that news paled in comparison to the news I got about my Dad yesterday. For those who don’t know, my Dad is fighting the return of a particularly nasty cancer. There is one treatment. It is a drug that either slows or stops the growth or is ineffective. We found out yesterday that preliminary results show that the drug is working. So, rather than watch the biggest draft of the last 20 years I spent the evening coaching my son’s T-Ball team and having dinner with my parents and siblings. It was hard to ignore the roughly 40 emails I got from friends about the draft, but in that context basketball is pretty meaningless. So, please excuse my tardiness in posting about yesterday’s lottery. But this is a sports blog, so let’s move on to my comments about yesterday’s improbable events. First, let me speak for reasonable, articulate Blazer...

HUGE day in the NBA today. If you are lucky, every 3 or 4 years the top pick in the draft is a player who can single handedly remake his team’s fortunes and change the landscape of the NBA. That’s if you are lucky. This year, we have the momentous blessing of 2 such players. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant will go 1 and 2 (probably in that order) in this year’s NBA draft and the lottery which will determine which lucky franchise gets one of those guys takes place tonight. Hopefully I will scrape up the time to do a recap and some analysis of who should go where later this week, but for now, here is how I would order the teams if I were in charge. Or maybe this is how I would rank the lottery teams from teams I would most like to have the top pick down to the least. 1. Portland….of course. With the top pick, they have to grab Oden. Both Oden and Durant fit a need and Durant may be the better player, but you don’t get size, strength, skill and ability in the combination you find ...

Now that the Lakers have been ousted and that ousting has been inevitable for several days now, you have already been seeing a lot written about what they should do now. Suddenly lots of people who were saying the Lakers would be crazy to trade away a great prospect center like Bynum for a veteran near the end of their career like Kidd are now changing their tune. When Bynum was one of the early surprises of the season and putting up good numbers everyone (the Lakers included apparently) thought he was the one guy they had to hold onto. Now everyone is killing the Lakers for not giving Kobe help. The real problem? Before you can really help someone, they have to (a) realize they need it and (b) actually want it. Kobe does niether. As a result, I believe Kobe’s Lakers are about to look very much like Iverson’s Sixers. Chad Ford on ESPN.com said that the Lakers could end up looking like the T Wolves, but I think the Sixers are a much better comparison. Two things conspired against...

Thought I would take a minute and pass on some stream of consciousness thoughts about the first weekend of the NBA playoffs. It was a great hoops weekend for me in that I actually got to watch quite a bit of hoops. Thanks to my lovely wife for putting up with that. If you haven't done so already, scroll down and check out my playoff predictions. I'm already looking pretty dumb. Good times. Detroit v. Orlando – Orlando’s just not ready. Detroit should absolutely sweep. No news there, but it was even more obvious than I expected. Detroit showed little to know weaknesses, though I still think they will against better teams, and Orlando just doesn’t have a legit number 1 or number 2 option on offense. Howard is a beast, but he is not a go to scorer. Great rebounder, decent defender and very limited offensively. And he’s a disaster when Detroit slows the game down. Bigger mystery though is what happened to Jameer Nelson this year? This was to be his year. He came on st...

Just so I can say I knew it all along, here are my predictions for the NBA playoffs: WEST Round 1 Dallas v. GS – Dallas in 5. GS will get hot and beat them in one game, but their D is so bad, that will be all. Phoenix v. LA – Phoenix in 6. LA is a mess since they went back to relying on Kobe to score all the teams’ points and the rest of the team are just the only ones in the arena with a better view than Jack. Still Phoenix plays such bad D and plays at such a consistent fast pace that the Lakers will be able to hang around a few games and even take a couple. By the way, anyone arguing Kobe is the MVP is right out of their mind. The league MVP doesn’t allow his team to back into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record after the all-star break and with the team playing its worst when he plays his best. Enough already. SA v. Denver – Spurs in 5 – Karl, AI and Melo against Pop, Parker, Manu and TD? Not even close. I don’t care how “hot” or “dangerous” the Nugs are. The only parts of...

This is the continuation of an email discussion on the NBA draft. Scroll down to the beginning post entitled "No Noah" and read that first. Here is my reply to Adam's response: KP - I'm completely convinced Pritchard was the brains behind last year's brilliant draft, so I think the Blazers are in good hands. I also completely agree about Roy and Brewer, so I'll comment on one other thing from your first response. If the Blazers keep Randolph, and barring injury, they will make the playoffs next year regardless of who they draft. Now if they get it right and get a decent 3 in the draft that helps, but if they resign Udoka (really much more valuable than people who don't watch this team play could know), and just trot out the same team as this year without the injuries, this team should beat out the Warriors and Clipps and Wolves for the 8th spot. I'm not saying that because I love Zach and I think Aldridge will be better, but Zach is a freaky score...

After my marathon response to Adam, he saw me and raised me as follows: Epic work right there. It is too much to handle to write one coherent response, so I am going to enter responses under each topic in your email below ... On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:48 PM, Stump, Joshua wrote: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard and I think I have reason to in this case. I think Portland will be looking for someone who can score because whether or not they want to keep Zach right now, they have to know that it could blow up at any moment. If they move Zach, they are going to need another proven scorer and no one thinks Noah is that guy. Pritchard went away from the flashy big name last year, so I'm just going to trust him to do it again this year. If KP was the architect of last year's draft as I have heard, then I think the Blazers are in good hands. I still think Brewer is the perfect piece, because as long as Aldridge kicks this Wolf-Pakistan-Whatever disease, he can do what Randolph does an...

From time to time (and by "time to time" I mean daily) I have some email conversation about sports with one or more of my buddies who love sports as much as I do more or less. Most of my friends manage to come up with much better insight and observation about it than I do, so when appropriate I will try to share that here. Below and in the next couple posts on this site is an email conversation with my buddy Adam who is a law student, professional sports blogger, fellow fantasy league owner and all around good guy and sports nut. Enjoy and feel free to join in the conversation by leaving your comments: Under the email heading "worst nightmare" Adam sent me the following: Draft Express is currently projecting your worst nightmare, Jo Noah to the Blazers at #6 ... http://www.draftexpress.com/mymock.php?page=official Not being able to resist commenting, I checked out the mock NBA draft on that site and then responded as follows: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard ...

A few comments on the sporting world. I wish I had time to say more, but have to send this out there: 1. I hate that the Blazers weren’t rewarded for their work and good play against the Wolves with a win, but I love the effort. The playoffs are out of reach, but the Blazers are playing like no one told them. At this point, if Roy isn’t unanimous ROY, it will be injustice. If you gave up on the Blazers, it’s past time to come back. They have the 2 best players from last year’s draft, a great coach, play hard and are actually fun to watch. 2. Staying on the Blazers for a moment, what is the hold up with Pritchard being the GM? It is starting to really anger me. They guy that got us Roy and Aldridge and was the lone voice trying to get us Paul (don’t get me started on what a Paul/Roy back court would look like), should have been made Mayor of Portland, much less the GM of the Blazers. Come on! 3. One of the biggest sports announcements of the year was made today and I bet you might have ...

I am still alive. I just haven’t been able to blog. It’s sad really. When I started out I was able to find the time and now that things have cranked up at work, it is harder and harder. Maybe I need a ghost writer. Anyway, the big news of the moment is that it is the beginning of the NCAA tournament this week, or as I like to call it, “the greatest event in the world of sports.” There is the drama of the games, the upsets, the passion, the school spirit, the competition from wagering (if you’re into that sort of thing, which of course I am not…as far as you know...), it has it all. Anyway, if you are into that sort of thing, rumor has it that you can participate in a pool by leaving a comment here with a way for me to email you an official invitation.

I can’t wait for March Madness. Not only is it the greatest sporting event on the planet, but the sports world is just completely devoid of interesting topics, events, etc. Let’s review the depressingly bleak landscape: 1. Jon Amechi is gay. First, I don’t really care. Second, I hate the way the media uses stuff like this to try to trap players and coaches into saying something politically incorrect so they can stir up a story where there isn’t one. I imagine the professional jocks of our country are perhaps not the most culturally sensitive folks in the country and frankly that is fine with me. But this is a non-story trying to become a story in hopes that others will comment and make it an even bigger story. This guy has a book to sell and this is an easy way to get publicity. The sports media are like the refs who still buy Manu Ginobili’s flops. They should all know this is just to get their attention, but they just can’t help themselves in turning it into a “story.” Now ...

I’m getting frustrated. Maybe it is because none of my sports teams are any good. Maybe it is because I haven’t been on a basketball court other than shooting with my 6 year old in our driveway in months. Maybe I’m just naturally impatient. But I have to get some things off my chest. 1. I’m sick of Barry Bonds. I held out longer than most and still think he’s the best hitter in the history of the game, but now I’m just tired of him and all the allegations and stories and accusations and slamming he and the Giants on talk radio and on and on. For once I would like to be able to read and hear about the Giants and not have to talk or think about Bonds at all. Just once. I can’t wait for the Bonds era to end. I’m hoping this is the last year and then the Giants can trade for A-Rod and rescue him from NY. 2. I’m tired of NBA players being praised for their skills when the skills they have do not win basketball games. The point of the game in the NBA is not to score or ke...

Hello everyone. As usual, it is late on a Wednesday and I’m just now getting this posted, but better late than never…right? Tonight, we are going to take some time to discuss what we’re going to be discussing for the next few weeks. I admit that I was very intrigued by Larry Morgan’s comments about going through and putting people on the hotseat. Unless there are some objections, I’m going to propose that we do that. So, we’ll talk about that and how that might be structured. My thought is that we give some people some kind of structure to tell us about their lives. So, give some thought to what that structure might be….unless you hate the idea and then you should bring that up tonight as well. Regardless, we are starting tonight off with Larry’s “have you ever had a near death experience” question. See you tonight.

This week’s sports observations, coming to you at no charge as usual as far as you know. This was supposed to be posted last Friday, but technical issues intervened, so this is a touch dated, but oh well. Happy New Year. Zito to Giants – My very own penny pinching SF Giants (ok, so not compared to the KCs and Milwaukies of the world, but still…), agreed to pay Barry Zito 126 million dollars to land the free agent pitcher recently. A couple things are astounding about this. First, one of the NY teams (Mets) were in the hunt and no one ever outbids them except sometimes Boston. Second, it is very unlike the Giants to pay that much for a FA, and they did this even after paying Bonds his ransom for the year. Third, why pay Zito all this jack and not pay Schmidt? Schmidt has been their ace and they let him to their bitter rivals down I-5. if they had the money to pay an ace, why not pay Schmidt? Is Zito that much better? Maybe. Not a huge deal. Frankly, I’m just happy they got an...