UPDATE: Chad Ford is doing a live chat over at ESPN and had this question and answer about Portland:

Brett (Portland)

Aloha Chad....the Blazers are obviously on the hurt right now with Batum, Outlaw, Oden, and Rudy all out. There was a lot of hype and excitement surrounding this team to start the season, but it seems like now everyone is jumping off the bandwagon. Coping with the injuries, this season will be tough, but this team still has a bright future right?

CF

Yes. Their future is still bright. But it would be much brighter if Oden hadn't went down. He was starting to look like a legit No. 1 pick before the injury. But now I don't think there's any way to escape the "Oden's injury prone" label. Without Oden, the team is still a good young team, but I don't think they have elite talent other than Brandon Roy.

Then regarding a possible trade situation from another e-mailer:

It's interesting. Miller is obvious trade bait. But I've spoken with a couple of GMs who have called the Blazers inquiring about Miller and I'm told they Blazers told them they weren't ready to trade 'Dre yet. Things may have changed in the last 48 hours ... but this weekend that was the word I was getting. So, I get the feeling they are being patient.

Remember about a month ago, when ESPN's John Hollinger and Chad Ford released the future power rankings for the NBA? Yeah, it was fun because Portland was number 1 on that list. The talent was apparently there and the future was bright.

A month later, not only have things changed in Portland, but Hollinger and Ford have changed their tune. Portland drops down to 6 now on the list with Orlando, the Lakers, Oklahoma City, Miami and Utah all moving ahead.

Even though these rankings don't matter in the grand scheme of things, it's still pretty amazing to drop 5 spots in a month when we're talking about the future. Obviously people are down on the Blazers, here's what they had to say about Portland:

Portland was the top-ranked team when the season began, but the Blazers' precipitous drop to sixth comes as a result of a sluggish 14-11 start that caused us to re-evaluate their talent base. In retrospect, we may have been overly optimistic the first time around.

Although the Blazers' roster still appears formidable, virtually every player has underperformed expectations or given us reason to doubt him. Most prominently, the season-ending knee injury to Greg Oden requires us to treat the Blazers center as a high risk to miss more time in the future. The struggles of Brandon Roy hurt, too, as they make last season look like a possible outlier. Add in struggles of young core players Martell Webster and Rudy Fernandez as well as LaMarcus Aldridge's inability to progress beyond his current level, and Portland dropped from first to fifth in the players category -- accounting for the Blazers' decline in the rankings.

Once again, this is on Insider, so more details aren't available unless you have a membership.

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