Missed Gold Medal

I missed the gold medal game – USA vs. Spain – so I didn’t get to see what was apparently one of the best games to watch of our lifetime from what I’ve heard. I'm glad the USA won but also glad Rudy Fernandez had a great game. I guess he carried his team on his back for much of the time, ensuring they kept pressure on the defense at all times. I did get to watch the game right before that which brought USA to the gold medal match-up. We played Argentina and the one thing I came away with was how amazing Luis Scola was for Argentina. He was in on every single play… at least it felt that way. If he wasn’t rebounding on one end he was scoring on the other. If he plays that way for the Rockets this year he’ll take David West’s place on the All-Star team. The Rockets are going to so good this year. But then again, Yao Ming and Scola both put in a lot of minutes during the Olympics. Hopefully they aren’t too worn out at the end of the year. I think the Lakers might have the same danger with Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant who each have played practically year round when you include the NBA play-offs and Olympics. Has there ever been a time where members from the NBA championship squared off against each other a few months later in the World Championship? Pretty cool to think about, but it may hurt the Lakers next year. I can hope, can’t I???

What I really missed when I missed the gold medal game was watching Rudy Fernandez. I tried to look up video on-line but there wasn’t much at all out there that showed him. But I did read up on it quite a bit and it sounds like he is going to be better than I expected. Apparently, he is fearless and has a very wide variety of offensive moves and can knock down 3’s regularly. His defense is suspect so I hope he listens and learns from Coach McMillan this year and improves in that area.

I think he has the ability to be the top sixth man in the league this year, unless we keep Travis Outlaw on the second team, then Travis may steal it from him. What a combo to have coming of the bench though!!

And what a bench we have! If we start Martell at Small Forward and Blake at Point Guard then we could have this team coming in off the bench:

PG – Jerryd Bayless
SG – Rudy Fernandez
SF – Travis Outlaw
PF – Channing Frye
C – Joel Przybilla

I’d take that line-up against the Knicks, Bobcats, and Grizzlies starters! Add Ike Diogu and Raef LaFrentz to round out our 12 for some serious size mis-matches and man!... we’re gonna be fun to watch!!!

Last year I predicted 39 wins for the Blazers. They ended up with 41. This year I am going with 47. Let’s hope they end up with 49!