Portland Pre-season Presser of Positivity

[kucoach7]

Hello all. I am totally into mindfulness right now and I just completed my juice purge of negative thoughts and emotions so I'm going to literally be a ray of sunshine for this press conference. Last season we did some really awesome things. Marvin Bagley made the leap from a good backup to one of the best power forwards in the game. He was awarded with the award for the Most Improved Player. Totes congrats to Marv. He had another solid camp this year so we expect great things again from him and hope to see him become an All-star before the end of this contract. More importantly, he finally rescinded his trade request. Luv U 2 MB3. Ronald Small continued to improve and put together a season that was very nearly identical to that of the MVP, Duren. We have high hopes for Small that he can win an MVP and Defensive Player of the Year and a championship while here in Portland. No pressure, Ronnie, but it is totally all on you. Frank Jackson did Frank Jackson things. More important were the things we achieved as a team. We won 50 games for the second consecutive season for the first time in Blazers history! We also strung together the most combined wins in two consecutive seasons in Blazers history! We also had the second highest win total in Blazers history! We played really hard and only lost game 7 in the first round on a bogus foul call at the end of the game.

This year we are going to be under the apron, so that is exciting. We were a little sad to part ways with Jaylen Brown but we are very pleased with our decision based on how camp went for him. We brought in Chris Stevens and and Cristobal Santos in free agency and we think they are going to be solid. We also like our second round draft pick Demetrius Davis. We brought back Joseph Reading on a fair deal and lucky for us he got absolutely wrecked in training camp for the second year in a row so he is actually worse than he was when we traded for him as a rookie and has lots of room to grow again! Also very fortunately, KAT lost all of the progress we trained in quickness at the all-star break last season so his training was cheaper than expected.

The goals for this year are to win 50 games (maybe not realistic but definitely optimistic and that is the criteria for this press conference), make the playoffs again, advance in the playoffs, and prepare to build a true contender for the next couple of seasons.

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Frank Jackson looked incredible in pre-season. Do you expect him to be your leading scorer throughout the regular season?

[kucoach7]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Frank Jackson looked incredible in pre-season. Do you expect him to be your leading scorer throughout the regular season?

No. Unfortunately I think the pre-season was just a blip for Frank. We're going to ask more from him this year, so I think he'll finally break the 17 ppg mark but I still expect Small to lead the team in scoring.

[Wombataholic]

Do you think the Blazers can challenge the Bulls for the division?

[kucoach7]

Do you think the Blazers can challenge the Bulls for the division?

I don't think so, honestly. The Bulls are a really good team and we're taking a year to reset our standing with the tax man.