Pick and Scroll

Your daily (Mon-Fri) roundup of links from around the blogosphere, typically Trail Blazers related.

• Dwight Jaynes, the voice of reason after a tough loss to the Lakers.

• Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune thinks resting Roy is smart, and has coverage of a spat between Kevin Pritchard and Lamar Odom.

• That’s really all I’m going to link to regarding the loss to the Lakers. There really isn’t much to glean from the game; the world champions came into town and finally managed to pull off a victory over a team with no center, no All Star, and only one player 6’10” or over (The Lakers, on the otherhand, have four players 6’10” or taller, three of them being seven footers). Portland could not pull off the improbable upset that they had pulled off so many times before. Nine straight victories over the Lakers in the Rose Garden, that’s amazing. That streak tells me that the Blazers get up to play the Lakers when they come to Portland, the loss tells me that eventually, injuries mount up and the energy of a raucous crowd can only carry a team so far. Don’t hang your heads, Rip City, we were all fortunate to witness such inspired basketball for nine straight games. Now, lets look forward to starting another streak.

• The Sacramento Bee covers the league’s reaction to Miller’s 52 point outing.

“To see him get 50 (points)? I think a lot of people were really surprised. I think everybody was pretty surprised that Andre Miller scored 50 points. I can’t honestly say I saw that coming.”

• Tom Haberstroh dropped a bomb onto the world of basketball statistics with this motion chart. Does this chart make any major breakthroughs about the value of a possession or how much an individual player contributes? No, not really. What this chart does, is it makes the data come alive; it helps tell the story behind the numbers. You can set one axis as PER and the other as Time, then watch the ebb and flow of a player’s career. You can select blocks and defensive rating to try and isolate what players are likely to be good help defenders. Not only that, but you can view players in the context of their peers and who plays similar to them. Try the blocks and defensive rating combo and then press play and you will see the rise and decline of Shaq, Ben Wallace, Marcus Camby, and Theo Ratliff. Or set the axis to blocks/steals to watch how do-it-all defenders rise and then fade back to the clustered masses, or, because I’m having fun with the defensive stats, run one axis as PER and the other as defensive rating and watch the wheat separate from the proverbial chaff. Here is the lighter version of the same chart with Kobe vs LeBron pre-loaded.

• The Painted Area gives us the background on this year’s All Stars.

• The Columbian’s Brian T. Smith gives us the low down on Blazer’s Trainer Jay Jensen and shooting coach John Townsend.

• By now you’ve read our article below mentioning that the Blazers are interested in Caron Butler. Would you trade for him? Or what about this trade scenario from the Sports Banter? Jared Jeffries and Jordan Hill for Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw, would you do it? Why not give ESPN’s Trade Machine a spin and leave us your best trade idea and the rationale behind it in the comments.