Finally, Tacho Tuesday!™ is upon us. First of all, WELCOME T-Mac to the family. Second, I may have limited computer access over the next several days. Don't get too excited, I will be back.

I want to talk to you about Skybox basketball cards. Specifically, why/how is there not a website/app that lets you "Skybox" any photo? This gigantic failure of the internet revealed itself to me during an in depth (for me) late night (for me) discussion with Travis Margoni of Beyond The Beat and mookie from A Stern Warning. Check out my twitter for a ham fisted attempt at doing this manually.  There really is no end to the Skybox possibilities, as you can see from my artistry above.

Tacho Time!

- Brandon Roy stood awkwardly in the background of a lame rap video. Ben wants to know if you are offended/disappointed/whatever about it. If you are actually upset with RoyBot over this perhaps you should just kill yourself relax. This has potential to get blown out of proportion. I assume a certain  (Oregon) Hall of Famer who loves Glamour Shots and takes his ridiculous nickname from a series of mafia films is on his typewriter right now getting all moral grandstandy on Roy. Stay focused people: The real enemy here is cliche ridden anti-creative hip hop. [Blazersedge.]

- A new (to me) Blazers blog has a measured reaction to the Roybot cameo. [Buzzer Beater Banter.]

- A recap of Batum's performance against Team USA [Beyond The Beat, Broadcaster Blog.] Check out Nic throwing one down on Tyson Chandler. [Via Portland Roundball Society.]

- Ode to Pippen and...SHEED! [Rip City Project.]

- Animal Shaped Rubberbands. Are they somehow involved with Sheed's reclusiveness?

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Yay; the LaMarcus Aldridge debate. Maybe you think he should be appreciated for what he brings. Perhaps you prefer to focus on the things that you think he should bring but doesn't. Its basically the Travis Outlaw debate all over again, albeit transferred to a more talented and important Blazer. Sophia and Nathan Begley of Portland Roundball Society discussed back in January. Now T-Mac of Bustabucket fame weighs in.

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For me, LaMarcus Aldridge has officially become the basketball equivalent of the movie "Jarhead." I remember when that movie was coming out, I was absolutely pumped--Iraq, Sam Mendes, three awesome actors in Gyllenhaal, Sarsgaard and Foxx--I just couldn't see a scenario where it wouldn't be a fantastic movie. Then, when it came out, something was a little off. It went on too long. It lacked emotional levels or any female characters. It didn't make any real political argument. Nice, but not amazing. Good, but far from great. I left the theater mostly overwhelmed with how disappointed I was. At this point, that's where I'm at with LaMarcus.

For some reason, I have from vivid memory of his draft day montage in which he was crashing the board in traffic, and then dunking on someone when he was at UT. They showed that clip a dozen times in fifteen minutes, and referred to his jump shot as a bonus on top of his rebounding and post skills. Essentially, I was fooled into thinking we had drafted the next Moses Malone instead of an above-average jump shooter who acts like a got zapped with a taser if he goes in the paint. What's even more frustrating is that LaMarcus either doesn't know that he should be playing in the post, or doesn't care. Let's explore these two options:

A) He doesn't know. I love watching Dwight Howard play because at least once a game he'll get pissed off and realize, "hey wait a minute...I'm way bigger and stronger than all of these guys, why don't I just go to the rim and dunk?! What's stopping me from doing that right now? Nothing? OK, I'm doing it." It's like it never occurs to LaMarcus that he's way bigger and stronger than most NBA players, and that the paint should be were he lives. He's a chihuahua in the body of a St. Bernard. 

B) He doesn't care. This is the even more disturbing alternative, and I think it's more likely--he's just comfortable shooting jump shots. People have been telling him how great his 18-footers are for so long that he's convinced himself he doesn't even need to go inside. The last straw was him bailing on Team USA before the World Championships in Turkey. It's not just that he would be a fantastic fit for international basketball--his range is the international three-pointer, and his ability to run the floor would make Rondo, Rose and him best buddies. It's that he would have benefited more than just about anyone from that sort of hyper-competitive environment. It would have been a total kick in the ass for someone who's never really played a game of major importance on that scale before, and given the lack of size on the roster, he would have been forced to play inside. If LA had gone to Turkey he would have returned a new, better player, especially if Team USA had won. Instead? He needs to take the summer off to rest some injury that I've never heard of. The Charmin-soft reputation is now one-plied. 

Look, I LIKE LaMarcus. I do. He's one of my favorite Blazers. I love watching his first-quarter jumpers that set the tone for the game. I love the big goofy smile on his face when he interjects himself in between two players who are about to throw down. I understand that he's had a really hard life and that he's a good guy. I'm just so frustrated that he bailed on Team USA when he needed it more than anyone. It's like having a fat friend bailing on fat camp two weeks before it starts. I just keep hoping that guy from the draft day montage will show up.

Stepping up for a guest post while I'm on blogcation (will be in Portland tonight, BTW! OMGZ!)  is T-Mac, the famous Bustabucket commenter not the obscure basketball player. He's playing What-Ifs with Sabonis coming to the Blazers earlier. Its depressing.

My recent encounter with Lithuanians got me thinking: what if Arvydas had come over in 1989 instead of 1995-96? What would have happened? In my opinion, that swings AT LEAST 2 of the next 3 titles, maybe more. Check this out:

--1989-1990: That team already made the NBA finals, but Kevin Duckworth broke his hand in game 3 of the Dallas series in rd. 1, and he was playing hurt for the rest of the playoffs. Poor Duckworth got destroyed in the finals by Bill Lambier (remember all those 3's he nailed?) and the Blazers really had no front-court depth beyond Buck Williams (who was busy guarding Mark Aguire and Dennis Rodman, who basically took him out of the series), and...gulp...Wayne Cooper. The rest revolved around an exhausted-from-guarding-young-David-Robinson-by-himself-for-six-games-and-by-the-way-he's-not-that-good-a-defender-to-begin-with Cliff Robinson and undersized Jerome Kersey, who played more minutes than just about everybody that post-season. Although that finals was a 5-game series win for the Pistons, 4 out of those 5 games were decided by six points or less and came down to the final 2 minutes. Sabonis would have given Portland a decisive edge in the finals and counter-acted Lambier's bombs. He would have allowed Duckworth to come off the bench and play a productive 20 minutes a game instead of an unproductive 39. Oh, and he would have known to jump out on Vinnie Johnson in game 5. Portland wins that series in 6 or 7 if Sabonis is on the team.

--1990-1991: The Blazers lost in 6 games to the L*kers but had home court in the series and if they had won in game 6, there's no doubt in my mind they would have won game 7 in Portland. Every true Blazer fan remembers Cliff "burn in hell" Robinson dropping the ball out of bounds with 30 seconds left in game six on what would have been the go-ahead lay-up. If Sabonis was on the team, he would have been the guy on that fast-break and he would have dunked that. BTW, that Laker team was starting a young Vlade Divac at center and backing him up with rookie Elden Campbell. Kevin Duckworth made the all-star team that year anyway, so I'm guessing he and Sabonis would have destroyed them, and the series might not have even gone 7 games. Although that Bulls team was legit, home court would have been decisive. I say the odds of Portland taking it are about 2-1 given how close the series the following year was.

--1991-1992: A six-game loss to the Bulls, and a series that was tied 2-2, doesn't need a whole lot to swing the other way. Remember, the Bulls were trotting out Will Perdue and Bill Cartwright as their front court along with an undersized and always-owned-by-Jerome-Kersey Horace Grant. Portland would have murdered them on the glass. The problem is that Chicago had home-court that year and that would have been a big deal, especially if they lost the year before. That series is a coin-flip.

From 1993 on, the Blazers started dismantling their roster and even Drexler was gone and winning a ring in Houston by 1995--but I think it's safe to say that if Sabonis was on the roster, things might have been different. Remember though that Sabonis didn't come over until the 95-96 season and even then, as a 31-year-old rookie, he averaged 23 points a game in the playoffs that year. In 1988 (a year before the Soviet Union gave him permission to come to the NBA), he led the Soviet Union to a win over Team USA and David Robinson/Danny Manning and dominated in Europe for the next 8 years, putting up 23-13-3-2 stats and winning multiple league MVP's against the toughest competition in the world outside of the NBA, so the guy could still play at an elite level. He was easily one of the top-6 or 7 best players in the world from 1985-1991. Moreover, he was a PERFECT FIT for those fast-breaking Blazer teams who loved to run and shoot and were already breaking every offensive record in the books. He would have pushed already great teams to dynasty levels.

Forget about the Sam Bowie pick, or passing on Chris Paul, or even Oden over Durant: this is the greatest what-if in Blazers history.

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Photo 1, Photo 2, and another Photo that should have been used.

Is a blogcation a vacation from blogging? Or is it when you take a vacation so you can do more blogging? I should have thought this through. Anywho, I'm taking a vacation from blogging. I need some time to get married and move back to good old Minneapolis. We'll see how long I can manage not subjecting you to Sheed conspiracies and Luke Schenscher fantasies.

If you have something that could work on this site email it over and I'll use it as a guest post. I'm looking at you, favorite commentors: TMac, Scotty B, and most of all, Animal Shaped Rubberbands. (Side question: Where has Dog Piss Jones gone? I miss having someone around to call me stupid all the time. Maybe Sheed got to him. Sheed.)

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As legendary hand model J.P. Prewitt once said, "Keep pulling the sweater, eventually the whole thing will unravel." I suspected this Sheed thing went deep. I wanted to dig. I kept going. Now I fear I'm about to get burned by the molten lava.

Sheed is out there, and he is taunting me. Behold the latest development, a photo from an encrypted anonymous e-mailer:

Against my greater judgment, I forwarded this image to the Bustabucket forensics team for analysis. Here are the results:

A: Wedding ring. This confirms the anonymous tip that Sheed has in fact recently married. The band is not gold, which is the correct call.

B: Passport. An obvious taunt.

C: Random woman on cell phone. What is she doing? Get back in your car.

D: Black Ball. The first solid clue on Sheed's whereabouts. Black Ball is a ferry line linking Port Angeles to Victoria, BC.

E: USA and Canadian flags. Confirms that this photo was taken at the US-Canada border.

F: Jiffy Lube. Assuming this is Sheed's car, he gets his oil changed at Jiffy Lube.

This does not mean that Sheed is in Victoria, BC. We don't know when the photo was taken or if it is Sheed himself and not some accomplice. (Do not forget that Cdub is also unaccounted for.) This photo does mean that Sheed is getting more bold. Whether or not this picture is an attempt to throw me off his trail it is an unnecessary risk on his part. Perhaps this new carelessness will create an opportunity. We must stay vigilant.

Missed by our forensics team: Sheed has a gorgeous left hand. J.P. Prewitt would be proud.

Oh, basketball:

- Blazers sign Armon Johnson. Duh.

- Portland Roundball Society coverage of Parkinsons' Disease fundraiser lead by Brian Grant. The funny part is EVERYONE in Portland being excited because Charles Barkley said Portland was a nice city. You know how you know you have a small city complex? When you get excited over Charles Barkley compliments.

- Blazersedge has some breaking news. The Blazers are playing the Knicks. This is actually breaking news in early August.

- Dwight Jaynes embeds a youtube video (!) only five days after all other interested sites have done the same. Information has to pass through several buffers to reach The Godfather. It takes time.

- This is odd. Henry Abbott: "Video scouting Kevin Seraphin, the Wizards rookie who has been compared to Nicolas Batum." Apparently the Wiz are going to be really surprised when they learn Serpahin can't shoot threes or guard Carmelo Anthony on the perimeter.

Its August if you can't tell.

It has come to this. Bustabucket celebrity and noted shakedown enthusiast Sheed has gone underground, and nobody seems to know why. Perhaps his reclusiveness is the inevitable result of overexposure. We see it with actors all the time, being too famous for too long is hard on one’s mental health. Is Sheed enduring a self-imposed exile on some tiny Tahitian atoll, desperately clinging to whatever shred of sanity his mind can capture? Or is he, as T-Mac’s (the famous bustabucket commentor, not the obscure basketball player) journey implied , locked away in a cabin in northern Europe? Is Cdub with him? As of now we have only unsubstantiated rumors picked up from encrypted international e-mail chatter and anonymous internet message boards.

The following is what we know.

April 29, 2010: Sheed’s last post - "Game 6 Preview: Blazers v. Suns"

This entry wasn’t written by the same Sheed that we had come to love; the enthusiastic young man (?) with undeniable flair and unending charisma. This was a passionless vampire robot copy & pasting clichés from the How Sportswriter’s Suck trifold informational pamphlet. “Do or die time” and “buckle down and win one at home” both make cameos, as does “terrible offensive game plan and bad defense,” which must be played out because it has been used to describe every single game ever coached by Nate McMillan. Sheed didn't even have the heart to call this a shakedown.

Maybe Game 6 finally broke Sheed. It was an inglorious end to a frustrating season of injuries and power struggles. If this entry is evidence that Sheed’s enthusiasm was on life support, Game 6 could have pulled the plug.

July 11, 2010: Sheed deletes twitter account

Over 1,000 Sheedophiles cut off without warning. In a search for answers some call out my name, but I too am in the dark. I too am floating in empty space. The night grows colder, my blogs less coherent.

July 13, 2010: Sheed comments, or does he?

A comment is left by an individual named “Sheed,” three days after the post has been written and two days after anyone else has bothered to read it. Is it the Sheed? If so, why surface in a place guaranteed to be ignored? The mystery deepens.

July 25, 2010: Reported Sheed sighting

Commenting legend Scotty B uses awful Chris Paul entry as platform to announce a Sheed sighting at a wedding. No further details are provided, making triangulation of Sheed’s possible hideout locations impossible.

July 27, 2010: Mysterious E-Mail

I receive an e-mail from an anonymous sender with an agenda. The subject line reads “Scotty B” and the contents consist of only a youtube video, which I’ve embedded below. Clearly, someone is running a smear campaign aimed at discrediting Scotty B. Is it Sheed himself?

Whoever the culprit it’s clear that their plan backfired. All this video does is make me want to hang out with Scotty B. That guy owns the dance floor and is by all accounts awesome.

Considering the recent spike in Sheedtivity I believe that he is close. When and if Sheed surfaces again, we must be ready. Send me any tips regarding his whereabouts or plans. Or drop them in the comments, if you dare.

UPDATE: Anonymous source indicates that Sheed is getting married today. The location? Undisclosed, naturally.

T-Mac, the famous Bustabucket commentor not the obscure basketball player, checks in with a story about international unity and Arvydas Sabonis. T-Mac is in Europe, where I assume he is attempting to track down elusive Bustabucket legend Sheed:

I'm at a debate camp in Holland, and we had a culture night yesterday for everyone at the camp--there are somewhere around 30 countries represented. I came around a corner and saw the Lithuania table and immediately yelled, "he's not your-vedas, and he's not my-vedas--he's OUR-vedas!" They laughed and told me that he's from their town in Lithuania, and offered me a shot of some really strong Lithuanian vodka. Thus began two hours of drinking and celebrating the life and career of arguably one of the top-5 centers who ever lived. We talked about his shooting. We talked about his no-look passes in traffic. We talked about his match-up problems he presented Shaq. We talked about his total dominance of Team USA in 1984. We talked about the 1992 Barcelona games Grateful Dead t-shirts for Team Lithuania he inspired, and how after leaving the NBA, he went home for one more year and won the league MVP. We talked about his awesome wife and her DUI's. We talked about youtubing his clips from the 80's every so often and being shocked that he's not in the discussion for best player ever. It was a celebration of an amazing career that people in only a handful of places in the world can truly appreciate. I was so hammered that I had to be helped on the bus home, but it was AWESOME. I'm telling you: basketball brings people together.

- Coup is leaving Rip City Project to go work for the Miami Heat. It is so cliche for talented people to do that these days. Coup has also publicly acknowledged his debt to Bustabucket for the first time. Somebody is starting to feel the pressure. [Rip City Project.]

- In less interesting news, the Blazers new assistant coaches are eligible for discounted breakfast at Denny's. Buck William's new nickname is "The Kid." [Blazersedge.]

- One day, Nathan Begley won't be able to blog freely because he will be one of David Stern's minions. Enjoy him while you can. [Portland Roundball Society.]

- The venerable Wendell Maxey is adding staff over at Beyond The Beat; including longtime twitter homies Travis Margoni and Nick Poust. All these Blazers blogs building empires. Meanwhile I sit here alone and reference tachos. This will not end well. [Beyond The Beat.]

Since my days are clearly numbered anyways, I'll go ahead and embed this Monty Python clip that H.T. sent me. Also, shout out to H.T., Team Finland is out there destroying teams sans-Finnagler right now. I know you're jealous of my Koponen Finnish National jersey. Deep down.

Sometimes when a group of people get excited about something they follow up analysis with more and more analysis. This path is problematic when the answer is simple. Eventually, the group can arrive at final thoughts that are not optimal. We've all been in those meetings.

In the case of the potential Chris Paul trade, the answer is simple: do it. There are some basic caveats of course. You have to keep Roy and, in my opinion, two out of three of Oden, LaMarcus, and Batum. Of that group LaMarcus is probably the least desirable to New Orleans since he is owed a lot of money and they already have a nice power forward. That brings us to Oden or Batum.

The idea of trading Oden remains unacceptable to many fans. I'm all for keeping him, but in the case where you can get a young player that is proven All-NBA quality, an exception should be made. The Blazers are not "married" to Greg Oden. Also, can we stop comparing NBA relationships to matrimony? That has been irksome for a while. These are professionals in a business. If you want a framework to help explain things, economics is more useful. Everything Portland has invested into Greg Oden the asset is something of a sunk cost. That we have invested so heavily in him for a while doesn't mean that we should exclude him from trades that will help the franchise. Holding an asset because of what you've invested in the past is a fantastic way to limit success.

The League seems to hold Oden in high regard. The word on Batum isn't totally out to the masses yet. I'd rather keep Oden than Batum, but the fact that I felt the need to say that speaks volumes for Nicolas. Emotionally, it would hurt me more to see Batum leave. With Oden there has been frustration almost every step of the way. That makes it easier to see him leave. Batum has been the feel good story, always seeming to rise above expectations.

There aren't very many players that are on Chris Paul's level. He's a hall of fame guy. Opportunities to add that type of quality are rare. It would be a major change for the Blazers. It's scary. You have to give up high potential guys that you really like to do it. There's that risk that he will leave as soon as his contract is up. Doubt starts to creep in.

Because Paul was injured most of last year I think some of us have forgotten how dominant he is. Remember in 2008, when many became convinced that Dwyane Wade wasn't really an elite player? We have bad memories. The only reason there is a "best point guard in the NBA" debate today is because Paul was injured last season and we forgot a little bit.

Chris Paul is worth the risk. It's worth a little Brandon Roy pouting over his loss of ball domination rights. It's worth parting with a beloved young player. He's that good, and thats why it's that simple.

Photo.

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Increased work load and decreased internet access is blog poison. This is me trying to catch up.

• I know absolutely nothing about new Portland GM Rich Cho that you don't already. We should stop all the weak attempts to make fun of his name. "Cho Mama!" is not the new "Pritchslap!" However, I would like you to disregard what I wrote a sentence or so ago and announce that I will be referring to this man as "Cho Nuff" frequently, unless he sucks, in which case I have something else in mind. (His first name is Richard. So easy.) Cho Nuff is, of course, a reference to The Last Dragon, a film widely regarded as the best thing in history.

 

• The Koponen Watch haters will appreciate how I will go out of my way to relate things to The Finnagler. First, Cho Nuff went on a trip to Helsinki, which is in Finland, which is where Petteri Koponen lives. Then, Virtus Bologna of the Italian League offered Patty Mills a contract. Virtus Bologna is the team currently refusing to let Petteri Koponen leave for better opportunities. If Mills accepts, would Virtus Bologna be more likely to let Koponen walk? Not really. There is enough interest in Koponen to not let him go for free. And there probably isn't enough interest for a team to pry him out of his current contract. Sweet spot.