Why The New-Look Blazers Are Like Myself

So here is the thing for those of you who don't blog: if you fall out of rhythm or you get busy with some school work, it is tough to get back into the swing of things.  That is why I have only posted three or four times in the past two weeks.  Classes, tests, papers, work, etc.  That shit piles up fast and as much as I hate it (and I know you do too), it causes me to have to put off blogging.  Which full on sucks because I have had about a million things that I wanted to talk about in the past couple of weeks.  Well since I have no tests or papers due this week (how the hell does that happen the week before spring break?), I'll try and crank these posts out like it is my job.

All of this is a lead-in for the point of this post.  Sometimes changes in the schedule happen and you're a little out of whack.  It takes some time to develop a routine that works for you and it can be frustrating most of the time.  That's what happened to me and that is what happened to the Blazers as a result of the trade deadline.

If the game last night proved anything, it is that these Blazers will have a little growing pains for the first few weeks together.  They are essentially in the process of a five player change in the rotation (six if you count Sean Marks) which is 1/3 of an NBA roster.  Pryz and Cunningham, both rotation players, are gone.  In their place comes Gerald Wallace, Brandon Roy and Marcus Camby, the latter two returning from injury.  Needless to say, that is why the Blazers looked dysfunctional last night against the Hawks.

We saw one of the reasons why this trade could backfire in the coming weeks.  With about two and a half minutes left in the first half, Aldridge picked up his third foul.  The problem was, Camby was already sitting on the bench with three fouls as well.  That left Gerald Wallace to play center, significantly out of his natural small forward position.

Now of course Camby did only play 20 minutes, his quota as allocated by Nate, but the Blazers were exposed in their first game together: attack this team in the middle, have their big men pick up a couple of fouls and trouble arises.  Hopefully the Blazers can pick up a big man on the buyout market and avoid this issue in the future, but it is one area that needs to be addressed sooner than later.

But hey, I finally addressed the issue of my schedule, right?