If Blazer Management could harness their incompetence into electricity, they would have enough raw energy to power the city of Portland through 2020. Do not be fooled by the flurry of trades and picks the Blazers made last night. They screwed up this draft big time.

Here is a quick recap:
Portland went into the draft with the #4, #30, and #31 picks. When it was all said and done, they acquired #2, #6, and #27. They used #30 and traded #31:
- Sent Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff, and a 2008 2nd Round pick to Boston for the #7 pick, point guard Dan Dickau, and power forward Raef LaFrentz.

With the #7 pick they selected Villanova guard Randy Foye, then promptly swapped Foye and cash considerations for Minnesota s 6th pick: Washington guard Brandon Roy.
- Sent Victor Khryapa and the #4 pick, LSU Forward Tyrus Thomas, to Chicago for the #2 pick: Texas Power Forward LaMarcus Aldridge.
- Gave cash considerations to the Suns for the #27 pick, which they used to take point guard Sergio Rodriguez from Spain.

- With the #30 pick they selected forward Joel Freeland from England.
- Traded the #31 pick for three future 2nd round picks.
So, there you have it.

From what I understand, this has been the most trade activity by a single team in NBA draft history. Very impressive. Very exciting.

It s expected that Portland will keep Joel Freeland in Farnham, England for another 1-2 years. He is 19 years old and his skill and strength are not at an NBA caliber. The same may be true for the 20 year old Rodriguez.

However, if Portland decides to bring him to the new world, it means that they will possess a roster with 4 pure point guards:
Dan Dickau, Steve Blake, Jarrett Jack, and Sergio Rodriguez.
This does not include Brandon Roy. According to , McMillan has named Roy his starting point guard for the season opener.

Do not forget about Martell Webster. Unless McMillan moves Webster to the 3 and Roy to the 2, there is a definite log jam at the point position. Look for the Blazers to trade Dickau or Blake within the next couple months.

Theo Ratliff has 2 years and 23 million remaining on his contract. Raef LaFrentz has 3 years and 35 million. That s 35 million reasons not to make him a Blazer.

Darius Miles is still here. After all the hubbub, he is still a Blazer. Telfair is gone.

Khryapa is gone. What does this tell me? The Blazers are having an impossible time getting rid of him.

No one wants his attitude or his hefty contract. If they were unable to get rid of him on draft day, chances are, he will still be a Blazer come October. He s here to stay people, and as long as he is, the Blazers will not be successful, because he is a poison; I don t care how much great talent Portland puts around him.

Michael Jordan s Charlotte Bobcats used the third pick to acquire Adam Morrison. Over two decades ago the Bulls selected Jordan with that very same 3rd pick. The Blazers passed on Jordan then, and they passed on Morrison now.

Aldridge became quite possibly the next Sam Bowie. Morrison, though not nearly as talented or skilled as Jordan, carries a drive to win and an ability to score. He is the kind of player that Michael Jordan loves.

How ironic. Morrison is going to be rookie of the year. When Jordan makes him a star in his image, the Blazers will be cursed yet again.

And they have no one to blame but themselves. Passing on 28 points per game when you re the lowest scoring team in the league is stupidity.
It was common knowledge that Chicago was going to take Tyrus Thomas with the 2nd pick and Charlotte would take Morrison with the 3rd.

So why did Portland trade up with Chicago to take Aldridge, who was going to be available at 4 anyway? Why, why? The only reason they would need to trade up would be to snag Morrison from Charlotte.

Let me repeat, they gave away Victor Khryapa, the best and hardest working role player on the team, a player they just drafted two years ago, a player with a huge upside, for Aldridge, who they were going to get regardless. What a waste! Patterson and Pritchard have been touting Aldridge and Roy like trophies.

They could have had Morrison and Roy. Imagine that back court! This is a decision the Blazers will regret for a long time to come.

In 2004 the Blazers drafted Sebastian Telfair, Sergei Monia, and Victor Khryapa in the first round. All three are now gone. Yet Miles and Randolph are still here.

How can the Blazers expect to develop their young talent if continue to wipe the slate clean? Every season they bring in youth to replace the youth they have rashly and impatiently sent packing. They never keep anyone around long enough to discover their true worth.

Portland is turning into a quick sand. It s like a development team for the rest of the league. They spent two years building Khryapa s talent so that Chicago can now reap the harvest.

No wonder teams love making trades with Portland! The Blazers do all the heavy lifting. This is simply an awful way to run a winning franchise.

Who s to say that Aldridge and Roy aren t gone in two years to make way for a new 1st round class in 2008, another unending youth movement? What s that film called the Never-Ending Story?
Let s turn our attention to a Mr.

LaFrentz. I want to be frank: This has got to be the worst trade of the year. Ratliff needed to go, no one contests that.

Miles is first on the list, Randolph is second, and Ratliff is a close third. He carries with him an excessive contract, chronic injury problems, and lackluster play.
However, Ratliff is a much better player than LaFrentz.

LaFrentz lacks Ratliff s blocking ability and inside presence. While I wouldn t take either of them, Ratliff is clearly the better of the two. So replacing him with a worst player and a much larger and longer contract makes no sense.

I m sorry. It s just not smart. Gambling on Roy is not worth the risk of taking on LaFrentz.

It simply isn t. Now you re stuck with a guy who is going to limit your options on the free agent market for the next three seasons. The only suitable trade for Randolph or Ratliff is an expiring contract.

If the Blazers had traded Miles for LaFrentz, that would have made sense, because right now you take absolutely anything for Miles, as long as it gets him out of Portland. I would bring in Rasputin if it meant getting rid of Miles.
Five years from now, 25 of the 30 players taken in the first round will be forgotten.

I have no idea how good Aldridge and Roy are. I hope that Aldridge is an Amare Stoudamire, and Roy is a Richard Hamilton. And maybe they will be.

For all I know Cincinnati s Erik Hicks will be better than Aldridge. This last season, Hicks had almost identical numbers to Aldridge, averaging nearly a double-double. He earned those numbers on a team that wasn t very good.

Hicks wasn t even drafted. What does this tell me? That the draft is 40% skill, and 30% hype and 30% a popularity contest.

As long as Miles and Randolph are in Portland, you will not know the true potential of any of your other players. Miles is a chronic sickness, and Randolph is a ball hog. They negatively effect the play of everyone around them.

The Blazers parted with two young talents without fully realizing their potential; and they did it for two more unknown young players that could very well flop. Instead of working out the equation, the Blazer brass decided to cut some corners. They borrowed a cheat sheet.

Unfortunately for them, the sheet they used was wrong.
Today the Oregon State Beavers won their first ever College World Series, and for that matter, a national championship in any college sport since 1961 (cross country), by beating the North Carolina Tar heels 2-1 in the best of three College Baseball World Series. While I do not follow baseball, I am happy for my alma mater.

Oregon State staved off elimination on six separate occasions in this tournament. That takes heart and grit and nerves of steel.
I have spent all day trying to shake this off, but it remains too fresh and painful in my mind and so I must address it.

Hopefully this will prove cathartic. Earlier today Australia lost 1-0 to Italy in round 2 of the World Cup. The game was decided on a controversial penalty kick in the 93rd minute.

To call it controversial is to be kind. Replays showed Italian midfielder Fabio Grosso clearly took a dive. Francesco Totti fired the penalty passed goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer and the game was over.

This has been the worst officiated World Cup in history. For a referee to decide such a crucial match on a fabricated penalty is ludicrous. For a team s World Cup hopes to be snatched away so cruelly is shattering.

It s good to see that the Italian football scandal has finally decided to wrap it s long arms around the international game as well. The only thing that Grosso deserved after that dive was an Oscar.
FIFA should give a formal apology to the Australians.

They should also apologize to the Dutch for the 16 yellow and 4 red cards they dished out last night. These referees single handedly ruined these matches. This was more heartbreaking than the Blazers game 7 loss to the Lakers in 2000.

More painful than Carson Palmer s season ending knee injury in last year s NFL playoffs. This is a loss that cuts very deep and is going to hurt for a long long time. It s rumored Bruce Arena told reporters going into the World Cup that Australia was the weakest of the thirty two teams.

Well, Mr. Arena, if you re reading this, I have a little something too say.
You, Mr.

Arena, not the Aussies, had the worst team in this World Cup. I would rather watch Gollum go Around the World in 80 Days, in real time, mumbling constantly to himself, with a continuous Bananorama soundtrack, then experience one more minute of your pathetic, painful, unrecognizable form of football. I would rather watch, in real time, a turtle, elephant, and hippopotamus race across the Sahara, stopping occasionally to enjoy Great Moments In North Dakota State Congress on C-SPAN.

Iran, Togo, and Trinidad would have beaten you. I wish my Socceroos could have played you and put you in your place. Alas, they ve got bigger fish to fry.

Like say the round of 16.
That s what the USA gets for talking sh-mack it can t back up. Even a buffoon like me knows that if you want to win on the biggest sports stage in the world you need a roster that plays it s club football in Europe, not the MLS.

The MLS is the equivalent of Double-A baseball. Get with the program Arena. Your team was rubbish.

Lets move on to a sport that lost its sport. This must be the first time in basketball history that the better team lost the NBA Finals. The next Waldo book should be titled Where the hell is Dallas?

The deciding factor in this series came from the free throw line. Please consider some statistics. In the first two games Dallas and Miami shot a combined 54 and 51 free-throws respectively.

In the final four games Dallas shot a grand total of 101 free throws. Miami shot 156! To use the word disparity is an understatement.

In the now infamous game five Miami shot 49 free throws. Dallas shot 25. Thats double thats insane.

Wade shot 25 of those 49. He finished with 43 points, 21/25 from the stripe. Rigged?

Let me give you some perspective.
In Kobe Bryant s 81 point performance, he went 18/20 from the line. The other 63 points were earned.

Wade scored more free points than he actually made on the floor. I m sorry, but that is not right.
This phenomenon is puzzling.

We re not talking about the Pistons.This is Dallas; not known as a rough and tumble defensive team. How did they so clearly dominate Miami in both the regular season and the first two games of the series, then completely fold four games in a row?

Did Miami get some help from the refs? You bet! The greatest month of the year starts tomorrow.

Too bad it only comes once every 48 months. The last four years have been miserable and divisive. Thanks mostly to a thankless President who has naively divided this entire planet with his ignorance and foolishness.

Leave it to football to mend the open wounds.
As I write these words my hands are actually trembling. In 10 hours Germany will kick off World Cup 2006 against Costa Rica.

I haven t been this excited since McDonald s created 29 cent Hamburger Tuesdays.
The World Cup transcends sports and politics. If I died on July 10th, I would do so perfectly content.

Let me make a suggestion. Watch Argentina vs Ivory Coast this Saturday. It will be mesmerizing, addictive and therapeutic all at the same time.

I guarantee it.
The world (by which I mean every country but the United States) completely shuts down for this tournament. No one goes to work.

Differences are set aside. Governments and politicians cancel their operations. Wars are postponed.

Everyone eats and sleeps football (if you haven t deduced that by football I don t mean gridiron, do yourself a favor and quit reading my article). I lived overseas for most of my youth, and World Cup fever is contagious. While the Blazers are my first team, football is my first sport.

My entire focus this month will be on Germany. Hail to the Socceroos!
With the greatest tournament in the world starting tomorrow I can t find one half-decent reason to watch the corporate, pathetic, contrived, uninspiring movie that is supposed to be a basketball heavyweight duel.

It s a potentially promising series that would be greatly improved if ABC completely redid their coverage. They are trying to superficially manufacture drama. Hitchcock s Psycho was pure genius.

Gus Van Sant s remake in the late 90 s was the work of a bad director with poor taste and even poorer judgment. The NBA Finals have turned into an abhorrent Gus Van Sant Psycho remake nightmare. No suspense, no heart, no joy.

Just pure trash. If you can give me one reason to watch these games, I m all ears.
What adds to this ludicrousness is that David Stern is starting the Finals on the eve of the World Cup.

Say What? Who runs their league final concurrent with the biggest sporting event on the planet?
Dallas will win.

They are superior to Miami in every way. It shouldn t go more than six. That is, unless the referees fix games to try and milk the artificialness by forcing a seven game series through petty foul calling on behalf of a Mr.

O Neal. I just heard that the Mavericks won by 10 in Game 1. Good.

The sooner its over the better.
The NBA should pull out all the stops. Get rid of Riley and Avery.

Bring in Harrison Ford to coach the Heat and Gene Hackman to lead the Mavericks. During timeouts cameras should zero in for dramatic close ups with an aggravated background soundtrack as the two actors eye each other suspiciously and then looking directly into the camera and recite scripted soul-bearing heart wrenching sports lingo. Set the teams up in organized brawls during commercial breaks.

Use the halftime show for international debates between world leader lookalikes. Willy Wonka is more in touch with reality than the NBA right now.
Some you already know.

Paul Allen s Vulcan Inc. and the Rose Garden have agreed to work together to examine ways to maximize value for their respective operations.
What a strange statement!

I would assume that any viable business operation that seeks to be financially profitable is constantly seeking ways to maximize it s value. They don t need a press statement announcing the obvious. If they have agreed to jointly put the team and arena up for sale, why don t they just say it?

I don t care if the devil buys the Blazers. My sole interest is in seeing that Steve Patterson is gone before the beginning of next season; a new owner will certainly make sure of that. If that man ever gets another job in the NBA again I will move to Morocco and become a black market dealer in yarn products.

It s obvious from his poorly worded statements to the media and slick snaky demeanor that Patterson hopes to become the permanent GM by dragging his feet on hiring a replacement for Nash. If we get a new owner I hope he has some common sense and a brain. Is that too much to ask?

Today Zach Randolph s car was pulled over for . He was not driving. Two licensed hand guns were found under the front seat, and the officer said that Randolph smelled of marijuana.

Randolph was not charged however. The Blazers have said they are going to conduct their own investigation. They aren t.

They re just saying that to appear concerned. I m really at a loss for words. Portland consists of a management team that has just discovered the wheel and two over payed players that are rolling it over the side of a cliff.

The two teams with the best records in the NBA will not be playing in the Finals this year. The usually resilient Detroit Pistons uncharacteristically folded yesterday. It was hard to tell whether they were outplayed or just plain lazy.

Flip Saunders was handed a gift. He couldn t have possibly come into a better coaching situation. All he was required to do was continue the good work of Larry Brown.

Anything less than the NBA Finals would be unsatisfactory. He should get fired this offseason. He s a great coach who just can t win in the playoffs.

Offense has trumped defense time and time again these playoffs. As the Suns have proved, speed and quickenss is becoming a valid subsitute for toughness.
In Blazer news, general manager John Nash was fired this week.

Not a surprise. What was though was that President Steve Patterson was not fired along with him. Keeping him makes Nash s firing pointless.

It was widely recognized that Patterson was more responsible for the team s downfall than Nash, who was both a puppet and press secretary. Patterson is culpable and needs to be held responsible for steering this team down the wrong path.
If Paul Allen wants to keep the Blazers, that is fine.

He needs to start making his goals with the franchise public. Doing this will give potential GM candidates like Kiki Vandeweghe more of a desire to come to Portland. The three-headed decision making construct that has been Nash-Patterson-Allen also needs to disappear.

Good GM s want control. No one wants to be a powerless scapegoat. Use of content prohibited unless through expressed written consent of Most Valuable Network, LLC.

All Trademarks referred to are the property of their respective owners.
All comments belong to their posters, and the views expressed here are solely the views of the poster and do not reflect the views of Most Valuable Network.