The Vig

Time was Blaer fans were as classy as they were knowledgable.  Apparently those days are over.  A decade of dominance?  When will they win their championship?  Sheesh.

A couple of things.

1. As long as Kobe Bryant is in the league, it is his trophy to lose.  He just turned 30 two weeks ago and he’s got a pretty decent cast around him for the next few years.  And the Lakers will make another move in the next few years to get their next super-star.  So the Blazers have to get past him.  See also #3.
2. Utah is going to be really good for the next several years.  They just locked up Deron “the next great Blazer point guard!” Williams and Boozer will get paid in 2010 as well.  They’re going to be every bit as good as the Blazers during this stretch.
3. There is nothing stopping another Eastern Conference team from assembling a team for a one or two years run like the Celtics did last season.  When LeBron moves to New Jersey/Brooklyn, that franchise will become a destination for guys fishing for their rings.  You could easily see Kobe heading to Brooklyn in 2011.  Easily.  You think that team might win a ring or two?  There will be lots of misfit puzzle pieces floating around the league for the next several years and lots of places for them to land.  To wit…
4. The Kumbaya-era of the Blazer franchise will be coming to an end.  At some point, one or more of the following will be asking for a ticket out of town:  Outlaw, Webster, Bayless, Fernandez.  Now it may well turn out that two of them will be gone just as part of the process, but there’s a log jam at the 2-3 and there’s no way Nate will be keeping them all happy.  Especially not this season.  Someone’s going to start griping.  Especially when there are any number of teams out there (Utah?) who could use a man like Webster.

The Blazers definitely have a wide-open window coming up, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that they’re going to win a championship.  I’d like to see Brandon Roy play an injury-free season first.  I’d also like to see Greg Oden play period.  Let’s maybe wait a little while before we go getting all giddy over the prospect of a Blazer championship.  At least that’s how we did it back in the day.