Pick and Scroll

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

• Wendell Maxey asks, is Portland’s season already a success? Can we answer that? We can? Yes, yes it is.

• Geoffrey C. Arnold of The Oregonian takes a look at how Marcus Camby is adapting to his new team:

“I still think it’s early. He’s been here what, two weeks? He’s trying to find his way,” McMillan said. “We’re trying to advise him of what we do here and take advantage of what he does.”

• Also at The Oregonian, Joe Freeman says the Blazers might be shifting into a higher gear as the playoffs approach:

“I feel like we’re playing great right now,” LaMarcus Aldridge said. “With everything that’s happened to us this year, I feel like we’re finally figuring it out and we’re finally doing it out on the court. Everything’s starting to come together.”

I think that Portland will continue to be a team that starts a bit slow and heats up going into the playoffs for the foreseeable future. So far, it seems that Brandon Roy and Aldridge sluggishly begin the season then gradually pick up steam after the All-Star break. Also, the Blazers will have to re-integrate Greg Oden and (possibly) Przybilla into the lineup next year, plus Jerryd Bayless may get more court time as well. In 2011-2012 , Portland holds a team option on Andre Miller’s contract. Miller will be 35 at the start of that season and the Blazers may promote Bayless to starting point guard or go in another direction (Travis Diener—just kidding) as yet unforeseen.

• Speaking of heating up as the season comes to a close, Greg Oden is working hard and wants to play in the playoffs if possible. My prediction is that he will be on the playoff roster as a front office nod to his efforts, but that he will not play barring a miraculous recovery.

• Brian T. Smith of The Columbian has a great interview with Jerryd Bayless. Plus, here is the interview with Andre Miller and coaches McMillan and Demopolous and the actual transcript of Bayless’ interview. I really like that Smith provided the source material as well as the narrative, it helps prevent misunderstandings.

• On the eve of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference ,  Kevin Pelton looks at the state of basketball statistics as a whole and Kevin Arnovits of the TrueHoop “Motherblog” talks about how APBRmetrics are spilling over into his daily life. I imagine that after a while it will look something like this.

• One of the rising stars mentioned in Pelton’s piece, Tom Haberstroh takes a look at protecting the rim.

• Is Rudy Fernandez’s back injury slowing him down? Look how glacially he moves, he can barely get past his defender, it’s like he’s in slow motion…

• Dave over at BlazersEdge answers some mail.

• Charles Barkley is just Precious.

Comments

[LBright]

You missed the news that Arvydas Sabonis is now are Senator. He would get my vote.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/senator_dikembe_mutombo_blocks

[EVERYBODY KNEW KD WAS DA MAN]

PRITCHARD I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU THAT U PREVENT US TO SEE KD EVERY NIGHT