Coming off the heels of an adrenaline-filled, Ron Artest-less post-season run, the Portland Trailblazers found themselves in a particularly opportunistic situation once the off-season arrived. With both Ron Artest and Steven Hunter falling off the books with no cap holds in sight, GM KuCoach felt now was the time to strike. Sure we could talk about the depth added in the draft, but that will amount to very little compared to what he had in store during restricted free agency.
The generous GM knew that his pockets were deep and the team was ready to spend. He wasted little to no time, with 12:00:01 rolling around Ricky Rubio’s agent was already on speed dial. “We have big things brewing in Portland, and Ricky will want to be a part of this. We were 1 Rubio away from a NBA Championship,” KuCoach said, endowing endless praise for the guard’s passing ability and defensive prowess. He emphasized the importance of having two floor generals on the court at the same time and painted a picture of creating a new NBA where teams had to gameplan for them. Ricky, who was hesitant to even take the GM’s call initially, was enthralled with idea of playing next to Rose. Who could stop that duo? Before 12:15a even struck, Rubio was ready to sign that dotted line. As he finished his signature, KuCoach made sure to add, “We aren’t even done yet. Please hold.”
Little did Ricky know, KuCoach had his assistant GM on the line with Wesley Mathews and his agent. The assistant named KidCoach was only buying time, waiting for KuCoach to let him know that he had closed the deal on Rubio. They couldn’t let Mathews talk to anyone else. They both spoke with the Mathews and explained the vision for the team, now endowed with Ricky Rubio. Mathews signed his max deal without hesitation.
KuCoach, fully erect, then made calls to Ron and Steven, asking them to come to his office first thing in the morning. He had big news for them both. Dawn broke, and both defensive forces arrived at KuCoach’s office, only to see him standing there pants off, fists on his hips in a superhero pose, and fully erect. Disturbed and hesitant to enter the room, both defensive stalwarts cautiously entered the room and sat at the GM’s desk. On the desk, infront of them both, they found super-max deals with their names on them, no team options in sight. They looked to KuCoach then looked both down at their contracts. “Join me, fellas. For I am erecting a team like never before. And for that I am fully erect.” Steven and Ron looked at each other, signed the contracts, and proceeded to join KuCoach in being both pants-less, superhero posing, and erect.
Training camp came and went. As expected, age has begun to show on Ron Artest, but he’s start a dominant forward in the league. The coach set on his starting line-up:
PG: Ricky Rubio
SG: Derrick Rose
SF: Ron Artest
PF: Emeka Okafor
C: Steven Hunter
6th Man/SuperSub/Extension of Starting 5: Wesley Matthews
They had a bit of a rough start in preseason, losing their 1st two games, but that is expected with a new floor general on the court. Rose needs some time to acclimate at game speed to his new role. However, after that 2nd loss, you could tell that things were starting to click. Hopefully it was indicative of how the regular season will go, and not just the very typical and common pre-season team play mirage.
Regular season tipped off, and the Blazers opened up their schedule against the Clippers in LA. The Clippers were receiving their rings that night, and the Blazers knew this would be an emotional night, almost set up for failure. But they needed to come in full 100% foot on the throttle. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to pull through, but in a riveting post-game speech, Derrick Rose called out each one of his teammates and challenged them to see their imperfections, adjust and work towards a better, more cohesive unit (as we all know, cohesion is always a factor in the Pacific Northwest).
After their opening night loss, they ripped off 13-straight wins, losing to the Lakers of all teams (go figure). During that stretch Rose and Rubio combined for 19 assists/game and were completely shredding defenses left and right. In game 34 of the season against the New York Knicks, Khris Middleton managed to sweep the leg of Ron Artest on a drive, causing him to break his leg again. After initial diagnosis, the injury was less severe than initially thought, but still he would miss almost the entirety of the regular season. Fortunately enough, Wesley Matthews was up to the task to step into the starting role and the team didn’t skip a beat. They finished the season off 61-21, and clinched the #1 seed in the West, won it from the 60-22 Clippers during the last week of the season.
In the playoffs, the Blazers steamrolled their round 1 opponent (8th seed Nuggets) and round 2 opponent (5th seed Kings). They faced off against the Utah Jazz in the Conference Championship, but that story is for another time, as we need to learn more about our other Conference Championship team, the Utah Jazz…. (coming soon).
