Miles ready to be a team player. Jury out.

I apologize for my extended absence on this blog. The first month of school is a bitch.

Anyway -- article on OLive about DMiles and how he has "fallen in love with the work ethic and character" of our team in the last year he has been out. Hmm.

Now. I ain't saying people can't change. But this is pretty out there from the $48 Million, I wanna be traded, get me outta PDX guy we saw last year. Maybe Miles has grown up. He has a wife and a kid on the way. Maybe his partner in crimes Randolph is long gone and he figures he better get with the program, as in Nate's program.

He says himself in the article that actions speak louder than words. You got that right.
And really, since the last time he gave an interview was a year ago, it's been pretty quiet.
And by that I mean, no traffic stops. No arrests. No 911 transcripts. No reports of dog abuse.
All the usual "I don't want to be a Blazer anymore" behavior. And, he's lost 25 pounds, has logged quite a bit of time in the practice facility, and seems to be a changed man.

I do know that when I saw the GO interview last week, and he said he had been "talking to Miles" I wanted to scream, Run Away, Greg. Run away! because I still think Miles is locker room poision, until and unless I get some proof to the contrary.

Time will tell.

Oden era, interrupted

Well. Our worst fears about the Blazer admin's silence were realized as GO had microfracture surgery and will be out for the 07-08 season. There was so much build up, so much hype, with the pick. So much celebration, even sober people had hangovers. Jerseys bigger than buildings hung around downtown. We partied at Pioneer Square. Season tickets sold upwards of $2 million the day the pick was announced.

But the ensuing reaction and headlines around town since the announcement (finally) that Oden will not play even one game his rookie year are as over the top as the partying. "Gloom and doom hits PDX" Sadness, grief. Blazer nation on suicide watch.

I am here to tell you to get over yourselves. GO was not the second coming of Christ and his surgery is not the first sign of the end of the world. Really.

Dave from Blazer's Edge wrote an open letter to GO. He assured the 19 year old that his injury and inability to play right away will NOT mean Portlanders just will stay away in droves. Those types of fans are usually Laker fans. If the star is out, the Staples center is empty. Are Blazer fans that shallow ?

As Brandon Roy said on Courtside recently, GO is family. You don't desert family when the chips are down. You rally around him. Support and encourage him. Imagine how he feels. That's right. Some people saw banners hanging from the rafters, money signs in their eyes, and forgot that the "product" in this case is a 19 year old kid from out of town. And he and his mom, when he came out of surgery, said over and over to Nate and KP "we're so sorry, we're so sorry" as if his knee could have purposely messed itself up to keep Portlanders from their overhyped dreams of granduer. This is not about YOU, portland fans. It's about Greg Oden. Stop whining
and support your team, ALL of them. And let Greg do his rehab without the guilt trip.

Helllooooooo -- Oden to have surgery and other news

Ok -- survived back to school (mostly) and I am back in the blogging saddle, if you will. Only to find that the Blazers are playing all coy about our new face of the franchise and his knee issues.
Did we know going in that someone 7 foot 2 was gonna be high maintenance ? I kinda did.

First, tonsils. Now knee surgery. Geez. I can hear the collective OMG it's the return of Sam Bowie. (If you say who is that, you are not allowed to read my blog anymore -- at least until you do some googling and figure it out).

Look. He's 19. Does anyone born before 1970 even remember being 19 ? I barely can. I worked at Pizza Hut for $3.10 an hour and thought $90 a week was living way large. But I digress.

Perhaps the Blazer admin could calm some nerves by, say, giving an interview and saying, It's nothing. That would be the least I would expect. The silence makes people go, Oh S*** we should have taken Durant. Maybe we should have. But, we didn't. But the Blazer front office, Nate and KP owe the fan base, re-energized and paying way more than we ever thought possible for nose bleed seats, some explanation. Not even saying No comment is a bad move.

One hopes and prays for our collective Blazer Nation sakes that this is not a serious issue. If it is, let's go back to premise #1: he's 19. He's in shape. He will rehab quickly. It will be fine. And hey, he'll give some minutes to the other 10 or 12 on the bench that need to develop.

Really. Big picture, people. It will be fine.