blazesketball

Before we even discuss any future events, let’s just take a second to talk about what a cold-blooded assassin of righteousness and poetry Damian Lillard is. He is Mufasa in Lion King. He is Bruce Willis in Die Hard. He doesn’t use coasters. He is Neil Armstrong. He walks away from explosions without looking back. He paid your bill at TGI Friday’s one time. On Friday, he did things against the Spurs that it’s hard to do in video games.

That being said, there is another basketball game to be played. The Blazers now travel east to New Orleans to play the Jazz or the Hornets or the Pelicans or whatever.

Unfortunately for the Blazers, fresh off a valiant display of war and honor, New Orleans is home to a young superstar who seems poised to inevitably take the throne from LeBron James and dominate the league for the next ten to fifteen years. It’s frightening how good he is at such a young age. He has legitimate guard skills with power forward size, and his ceiling appears to be unquantifiable. I’m talking of course about the man, the myth, the legend: Luke Babbitt.

YESSIR BABS IS BACK IN OUR LIVES AND DOING WELL. NO LONGER BANISHED TO THE DEPTHS OF SIBERIA, HE HAS EMERGED AS AN HONEST TO GOD NBA ROLE PLAYER ON A PRETTY GOOD JAZZ / HORNETS/ PELICANS TEAM.

These are exciting times.

The Pelicans also have a young forward named Anthony “Tony” Davis who several people who know things about basketball are excited about. The game will be played at a place called the Smoothie King Center, which really puts the Moda Center thing in perspective. That’s an unfortunate name, especially when the Superdome is across the street. The Superdome is the coolest name in the history of stadiums, like no questions asked, whereas the Smoothies King Center has the word smoothie in its name.

The Pelicans are a weird team befitting of a weird arena name. Once they stumbled into the number one pick that became Anthony Davis, they tried to accelerate their rebuild by about three years, which was really stupid of them. Instead of having patience and developing other young players around Davis (cutting the Luke Babbitt bullshit- it’s scary how fucking good Anthony Davis already is), they made a series of trades that probably aren’t going to look like good decisions in retrospect in five years. First, they traded for Jrue Holiday on draft night two years ago. Holiday is a nice player, but he most assuredly isn’t worth the two first round picks they gave up to get him. From there, they basically gave away Greivis Vasquez and Robin Lopez for the right to pay Tyreke Evans 44 million dollars, and then this past summer they gave up another first rounder for Omer Asik. They also used the 10^th overall pick on Austin Rivers in the Davis draft, who has been super disappointing. He’s an undersized shooting guard who can’t shoot, and he doesn’t really play defense. And to make matters worse, their uniforms totally suck. They’re somehow less aesthetically pleasing than the ones that Chris Paul used to wear that looked like Pop-Tarts.

Regardless, Anthony Davis is already a transcendent player. Despite the fact that he could still be playing for Kentucky, he would probably win MVP if the season ended tomorrow. They might have thrown away some picks, and their pieces might not fit together perfectly, but they still have an undeniable level of talent. If those players can learn to complement Davis, the Pelicans will be a team to fear for years to come. However, this isn’t years to come. This is right now. Normally, I’d say that the Blazers would have an overwhelming chance to beat any team starting Luke Babbitt and Austin Rivers, but this game basically amounts to a toss-up. Due to the heavy minutes starters had to play in San Antonio, the bench will be called upon to deliver. If they can, the Blazers will probably win. If they can’t, the Blazers will probably lose. Either way everybody’s getting a postgame smoothie.