TheSportsTrap
How vain it is to sit down to write when you haven't stood up to live?
Another Kyle ‘Fatoss’ Chapman Edition: Portland Trail Blazers Summer Preview
Originally Drafted: JUNE 18, 2012
BY KYLE CHAPMAN
Well Blazer fans, we have once again approached a fork in the road for our beloved franchise with plenty of holes to fill this summer. While other teams this offseason will be undertaking limited remodeling to their house, patching up a few holes here and there, the Blazers don’t even have a damn house yet. In fact, our blueprint was just inked two weeks ago. At the moment we have no coach, half a roster, and just signed our GM Neil Olshey a few weeks ago, giving him less than four weeks to prepare before he starts making significant decisions to try and get the ball rolling again. Six months ago, if you mentioned “Blazers” and “draft lottery” in the same sentence I would have been pissed off and rather offended. However, on the bright side, we do have a pair of lottery picks and money to spend in free agency pool to wheel-and-deal. This is going to be a huge summer coming up for the Blazers, and between those two top picks and cap space, there’s going to be huge decisions made that will shape our franchise for the next 3-5 years to come. These decisions are either going to turn us into a conference contender, or will turn us into an average team, treading water, trying to stay afloat and relevant on the edge of the playoff picture.
Like any fork in the road, there are different directions one can take, clearly some with more potholes and dead-ends than the others. With this piece, I hope to grab that imaginary wheel that Olshey is clutching and steer us in the right direction. I’m not going to project trades, because Im not the swami (Chris Berman) and I take speculative analysis (and “sources”) with a grain of salt. As we all should! I’m only going to touch on players who are actually available. I’m going to be breaking this offseason preview down in the order I think our new GM should be breaking down our current situation and I will conclude this preview with a final roster that is the most realistic to obtain, and makes us a contender alongside the Oklahoma City Thunder as soon as next year. Bold statement, yes—but, hell, let’s dive into this mess, see if we can turn our franchise around, make the right turn, and get this vehicle going into the right direction. Grab a brew, your favorite smoke, kick back and enjoy my Blazers summer preview…
Geoff Ziemer
Life is a short hop. Charge it or get benched
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