Peer into the mind of Steve Blake

Buckets! Steve Blake enters another campaign as the starting PG.

Tualatin, Ore.- It is his own basketball camp, and as it finishes, the Trail Blazers starting point guard chuckles at the notion that none of the 97 campers is wearing his jersey.

There are a handful of little Brandon Roy’s, and a couple of No. 25 jerseys of Travis Outlaw. And of course, there are Greg Oden T-shirts.

“For some reason,” Steve Blake says smiling. “My jersey doesn’t sell quite like theirs.”

There is no jealousy, no ill feelings and no edge in his voice. Blake knows his place on the Blazers is not to be the star, but rather the player who does the little things while Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge and Oden share the spotlight — and the jersey sales.

With that understanding, however, also comes the realization that he is merely a pawn in general manager Kevin Pritchard’s scheme to construct a championship contender.

Roy, Aldridge and Oden? Franchise cornerstones.

Blake, Martell Webster and Outlaw? It’s wait and see.

Oregonian Blazers’ beat writer Jason Quick has all the goods on Steve Blake, who’s never done anything to offend me. When Jarret Jack-it-up entered games last year, I was reaching for Tums and another PBR tallboy. Who knows if Blakey is the long-term solution, but he’s got the job for another year at least, and his ability to run the pick-and-roll should help, especially with Greg Oden entering the starting lineup. Patron saint of short white boys with hoop dreams everywhere.

Smoke on more for Greg Oden

Welcome to the return of the Beer Garden. This is, seriously, my last attempt at putting out a blog and post with any consistency. But fuck that, I’m excited right now. Preseason football is here, which means that college football is almost here, which means the Blazers are about to open training camp and then begin their campaign of destruction across the Western Conference. I’m sure you’ve all seen Greg Oden’s workout video, but if you haven’t, check it out. He is about three feet thick of nasty, and that last dunk damn near tore the rim down. It’s just insane what this dude is going to do in his career, but right now, I’ll take a 14-10 year and take some of the pressure off of LMA, who got pretty tired down the stretch. As long as Brandon comes back okay, I think we’re set for a run.

In other news, the Oregonian reports that Quizz Rodgers is coming to Corvallis, joining his older brother James. That Beavers backfield is starting to look a bit crowded, and short. Quizz is a listed at a generous 5-foot-6. Paul Buker has all the details from Corvallis.

I don’t need to mention anything about the Olympics, because I’m sure everybody is getting their daily dose of NBC’s non-stop coverage. One thing does bother me, though. UHD is showing nothing but Olympic boxing, women’s basketball and rowing. Boxing is a joke to begin with, and Olympic boxing has found a way to score the sport so that the entertainment value it was still clinging to has finally been clobbered away.

Rowing is just lame. Single person rowing. Doubles. Three, four, six, eight-person boats. There is exactly nothing exciting about people paddling boats in a straight line. It’s worse than NASCAR, and that’s saying something. At least NASCAR has turning. If you’ve even watched more than five minutes of women’s basketball total in the last year, well, we probably wouldn’t get along very well.

Couple of sad sacks have been showing up in the latest news cycle. Carl Pavano—hey, remember me, I won 18 games once—may make a start for the pitching-starved Yankees. Wow, is that team desperate or what? Homey hasn’t pitched in over a year and he’s cashing a fat $11 million paycheck this year. Nice job, Carl. Joining CP45 is former Blazers dud Shawn Kemp. He signed a deal with some Italian team. I’m not even going to bother linking to an article. Kemp needs to hang it up and deal with the fact that he’s fat, unemployed and has about 20 different baby mamas all knocking his door down for some child support. Actually, escaping to Italy doesn’t seem like a bad idea after all. Good luck with that, Shawn!