It’s as if the Western Conference powers are sitting around a poker table and each one, in turn, keeps upping the ante. The Blazers might just as well swoop in and pluck Steve Nash from the dead carcass that was once the Phoenix Suns.

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Tags: Amare Stoudemire, Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, NBA Western Conference, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash

Over and over I keep hearing that from my friends around the league. Portland, they say, is trying to get up among the top five or six picks. The Blazers are chasing somebody at the top of the draft.

I keep thinking it’s Stephen Curry. I’ve said that before. He makes sense for them — a star-quality shooter to play alongside Brandon Roy. But a thought occured to me last night:

What if they’re going after Curry — or Rubio or someone else — for another team? What if they’ve got New Orleans convinced that if it can replace Chris Paul’s massive salary with a rookie salary that Curry or Rubio would serve the team just as well in the long run and help the team stay in business through tough economic times? Or what if Phoenix is wanting a big name to soften the blow to its fans for shipping Steve Nash to Portland?

Some NBA teams are going through some difficult financial times and Portland is in a position to take on salary. Could drafting one of these players lead to a lopsided deal in Portland’s favor?

I don’t know. It’s just one more thing to think about as we get inside a week before the draft. The Blazers are creative and gutsy — and I just don’t think they are going to get through this draft without a big move.

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Tags: Chris Paul, Dwight Jaynes, NBA Draft, Portland Trail Blazers, Ricky Rubio, Stephen Curry, Steve Nash

Joe Freeman did a good job of clearing up one thing in yesterday’s story about the Trail Blazers feeling pretty united about needing more toughness.

But it’s important to notice what the coaching staff had to say on the subject — and it was the same thing we heard last night on “Talkin’ Ball” from lead assistant coach Dean Demoupolis. That’s that the Blazers are looking for mentally tough players, not necessarily physical tough guys:

 ”Obviously we need toughness, but we need a tough guy with a high IQ,” Blazers assistant coach Monty Williams said. “It’s more than the cultural toughness everyone talks about. My idea of toughness is Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan (of the Spurs). They bring it every play. They don’t give up. They play hurt. They have the character to do what’s right in the locker room. To me that’s toughness.

“This (fake) toughness, throwing fists up and doing all that stuff, that’s overrated to me. The guys who bring it and do what they are supposed to do every day, no matter the circumstances, that’s tough to me. We can’t go out there and get a thug. This isn’t hockey.”

Blazers coach Nate McMillan agreed. When asked to identify some of the NBA’s toughest players, his answers were unexpected. The first name mentioned? Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns. The second? Duncan. Others included Derek Fisher of the Lakers and the Celtics’ Allen.

“It’s the mental part of it,” McMillan said. “You’re not going to be a bully, or become a bully, but you understand that you can’t be bullied. Mental toughness is being able to play in the moment. And being able to raise and play up to the level of that particular moment.

“It’s saying, ‘I know it’s June and I’m fatigued, but I want it. I’ve got to play through it.’ It’s about who can survive this grueling type of game and survive the no-calls, survive the physical play, survive the soreness of what you’re feeling, the mental exhaustion. So it’s mentally being able to play the 82-game schedule and be like, look, we got another 30.”

That changes the whole thing a little, doesn’t it? When you ask for an example of toughness and you get Steve Nash, rather than say, Kenyon Martin, you have a little window into what they’re thinking about.

And by the way, Nash’s name seems to pop up a little more often around here than you’d expect these days. Could he be a guy they’re looking to add in a major deal?

He certainly doesn’t seem like a Nate McMillan point guard, particularly with the slow pace the Blazers play. And he’s on the downside of his career, too.

Still . . . he’s Steve Nash — a tough guy.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kenyon Martin, Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Nash, tough guys

Just so people understand, Shaquille O’Neal getting in Robin Lopez’s face last night was a joke. Very similar to the KG and Big Baby deal in Boston earlier in the season.

At the time Shaq decided to come down on Lopez, the Suns were absolutely getting their asses handed to them on a platter. So time to yell at Robin Lopez for something.

Got a scoop for you Shaq, if you really want to make your mark as a leader, why weren’t you yelling at Steve Nash to get his tail in gear during his five-assist, three-turnover stint? Or screaming at Matt Barnes for his 1-for-8 snoozefest? Why not say something to somebody who plays, somebody who had an impact on the loss that virtually eliminated the Suns from playoff contention?

Oh, what the heck. Just go ahead and get in the face of the guy with bad hair who doesn’t play much and really had NOTHING to do with the outcome of the game. Easier that way. Now THAT’S leadership.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Phoenix Suns, Robin Lopez, Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash

During that great Portland run late in the third quarter, I remembered something Rick Adelman used to say when his Blazer teams in the early 90s played a great game.

“We were really in tune,” he’d often say. “The guys were really in tune with what we wanted to do.”

That’s what I thought I saw last night. Man, there were times when Portland played together about as well as it has all season. Really solid. Some thoughts:

– Sergio Rodriguez is really stepping it up. He’s penetrating and finding people and you can’t convince me he doesn’t see the floor better than any Portland point guard. He had about three passes last night that were eye-popping and logged eight assists and just one turnover in less than 15 minutes.

– When Rudy Fernandez is on a roll like that, it’s something. I’ve said it a thousand times, but you can have all your dunkers in the world, for me the biggest excitement in basketball is when one of these pure shooters gets on a run where the basket looks bigger than the double Jacuzzi in my bedroom. I mean, that three at the end of the third quarter — was there any doubt?

– The officiating sure got better in the second half, didn’t it? Sorry, just kidding. Great to see Joey Crawford in the building for the first time this season. He’s old school but nobody controls a game the way Joey does. Alvin Gentry got banged with a technical foul so fast he didn’t know what hit him.

– You will never, ever see a game again where Greg Oden gets 1 rebound and Joel Przybilla gets 1 rebound. Ever.

– It kind of irks me to hear from so many people how much better Phoenix is now that it’s back playing a running style. What a bunch of BS. Terry Porter was right. This team can’t play that way anymore and it ought to be tightening down on defense. The Suns were giving up tons of open shots last night and that just doesn’t work. Plus, Portland nearly doubled them in fast-break points, 19-10. For the record, Porter had the Suns five games over the .500 mark. Gentry has them three over. And really, if Porter hadn’t slowed the game down early in the season, Steve Nash, Shaq and Grant Hill would all be on crutches by now from trying to play uptempo basketball.

– Portland still gave up a ton of points in the paint — 68. The Blazers aren’t where they need to be on defense yet, by any measurement. The Suns shot 50 percent from the floor.

– Forget about magic numbers. The Blazers are in. The Suns are out.

– Nobody noticed it much, but Nic Batum had another solid game. 10 points, five rebounds and three assists. I watch the kid shoot prior to the game and I can tell you, he’s going to be a very good shot-maker at some point. Right now, he’s not bringing it to the game all the time, but eventually he will.

– Oden had three terrific blocks and continues to find ways to score. Shaq’s a load, but Oden wasn’t afraid.

– Just wondering when Shav Randolph doesn’t dress down for a game like this, rather than Michael Ruffin. Randolph’s actually not bad and is bigger than Ruffin. Just wondering.

– I love how Przybilla stands up to Shaq. Love it. Man, it’s a shame two guys in the NBA can’t even stand nose to nose and tell each other what they think without drawing technical fouls. Good stuff. There’s too many hugs in basketball today and not enough of this stuff.

– Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge were every bit as good as you’d want them to be. When they shoot and rebound well, Portland’s halfway home.

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Tags: Alvin Gentry, Dwight Jaynes, Grant Hill, Joe Przybilla, Michael Ruffin, Nic Batum, Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodriguez, Shaquille O'Neal, Shav Randolph, Steve Nash, Terry Porter

I’m sure Terry Porter has some failings as a head coach. I’m not sure, having not seen it close up, if he’s even head-coach material. Not saying he isn’t — just saying I don’t know.

But I do know an ambush when I see one. Steve Kerr — how can you look yourself in the mirror?

The general manager of the Phoenix Suns didn’t have the stomach to back Terry Porter in the face of Steve Nash’s whimpering about the team’s new style of play (which, of course, was Kerr’s vision in the first place, having added Shaq to the roster) and that undercut Porter’s position with his players. Porter was set up to fail almost from training camp onward. The Suns’ veterans are a disgruntled group because they hated to see former coach Mike D’Antoni leave. I don’t blame them — he coached a fun style of basketball and it was successful.

Kerr has that on his resume, too — pushing D’Antoni out the door. But then, when a decision was made to rein in the team’s running style a little bit, Porter was brought in to instill a defensive mindset and a halfcourt game. That’s two things Phoenix didn’t have.

But when the players cried about not getting to run and having to actually attempt to play defense, Kerr didn’t march into the locker room and shut them up. He wasn’t honest enough to tell them and the Suns’ fans the truth — they’re too old and broken down to continue that running style. Even now, when it’s obvious that Nash, not Amare Stoudemire, should be traded for the betterment of the franchise, Kerr doesn’t have the guts to do it because Nash is too popular in Phoenix.

The Suns now are officially on the road to ruin. If they make the playoffs this season it will be for the last time in a long, long while. And in Phoenix they’ll remember Steve Kerr’s disastrous moves a lot longer than anything Terry Porter did or didn’t do.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Phoenix Suns, Steve Kerr, Steve Nash, Terry Porter

In the previous post, I wrote about Steve Kerr in Phoenix, holding onto old guys and trading his good young guy. Even though Nash, at 35, is the natural guy to be putting on the market because he’s still got some games left, but he’s on the down side of his career and his contract is at least tradeable.

Go try to get a promising young guy for him.

What you keep hearing, though, is something like, “You can’t trade Nash. He’s the most popular player on the team. He’s beloved. Season ticket holders wouldn’t renew. Blah, blah, blah . . .”

Well, I’m here to tell you that if you can improve your team, you better make the deal. In another year, if the Suns hit the skids — and they’re going to have a massive train wreck when all these old guys run out of gas at the same time — those season ticket holders are going to leave you, anyway.

It seems so obvious — you’re so much better off doing what’s best for the team than worrying about what the fans think. Sorry, fans — it’s the way it works and sometimes you just have to move on.

And the smart general managers know that.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, NBA, Phoenix Suns, Steve Kerr, Steve Nash

Don’t remember when I’ve seen a better game. It was a classic. Trust me, if all NBA games were played at that pace, they’d be selling a ton more tickets than they sell now. THAT was what NBA basketball used to be all about on a regular basis. In the early 1990s, such games were common. Let’s take a closer look at some of the happenings:

• You can say both teams played poor defense, but that wasn’t always the case. There were a LOT of tough shots made. “Travis Outlaw made some amazing shots,” Terry Porter said after the game. “A lot of their guys did. I don’t know if we were as bad on defense as it looked.”
• Actually, I think the Suns were better, defensively, than the Blazers quite often in the game.
• Phoenix made 56.9 percent of its shots overall. It made 66.7 percent of its three-point attempts. It made 86.2 percent of its foul shots (on a night when Shaq went 5 for 7). It had 28 assists on 41 baskets. It scored 119 points. AND IT LOST THE GAME BY FIVE!!!! My goodness, that’s incredible.
• In a game that finished in regulation with a 124-119 score, there were only 28 fast-break points. TOTAL. That’s ridiculous. It wasn’t really a fast-paced game, it was just very good ball movement and spectacular shooting. Spectacular shooting.
• Don’t pay much attention to rebounding stats in this game. There were only 67 rebounds, total, to be had.
• The Blazers really played hard. HARD. I think Phoenix is one of the toughest matchups in the league for them. But this team found another gear Thursday night.
• I’m telling you right now, folks, Greg Oden is coming. He’s coming. He got a couple of cheap touch fouls that shouldn’t have been called that sent him to the bench but he made a big leap from his last game against Shaq. You can still pick-and-roll Shaq to death and Portland opened the game doing it. You’re going to see more of that as the year goes on.
• Brandon Roy. What can you say — on this night he was almost as good as Damon Stoudamire? Uh, that’s not quite enough — even though Damon’s team-record 54 points is safe for now.
• Roy needed only 27 shots to score 52 points. He got to the foul line 21 times. Big scorers, clutch scorers, usually live at the foul line. “He’s learning how to do that,” Nate McMillan said after the game. “He’s learning how to draw the fouls without getting hurt. The biggest thing with Brandon is his health. He’s stronger this year and he’s learning how to protect himself better.”
• Steve Blake was terrific. You better not leave him open if he makes his first shot.
• The Blazers had only six turnovers and the bench had five of them. Rudy had three of them.
• Portland had only 23 assists on 45 baskets. That’s because so much of the Blazers’ offense was isolation stuff. Roy and Outlaw were getting a lot of their points off one-on-one drives and pullups. In the playoffs, teams are not going to allow them to just clear a side and play against just one defender. There will be hard double teams.
• Phoenix is one of the best offensive teams in basketball, no doubt. I don’t care what people say, the Suns don’t need to run. They need to defend better. In the halfcourt, they’re going to score so easily a lot of nights they need just a smidgen of defense to win.
• There was one incredible thing about this game that nobody’s mentioned. It was as if the ghost of Earl Strom came down for one night and inhabited the body of Monty McCutchen. Earl — one of the great referees of all times — would often tell his partner(s) to just put the whistle in their pocket and let him call the game by himself. I swear, Monty made about 80 percent of the calls in this game. And about half of them were not very accurate. I’m not sure when I’ve seen this happen before but the NBA ought to be asking these three officials why this happened.
• Steve Nash — 11 assists, 6 turnovers. He’s still a great player, but I believe he’s slowing down a little. He’s lucky he’s not in the old full-blown running game or he’d be toast already.
• A great crowd. It really helps. I have to say, the franchise is really doing a great job of putting fannies in the seats. Bad economy? No problem. Bad weather. So what? The place was legitimately packed. And I can’t imagine what the TV ratings might have been.
• That game probably kicked the whole town’s hysteria level up one full click on the scale. It’s going to be nuts around here come playoff time.

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Tags: Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Nate McMillan, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Nash, Terry Porter

Yeah, I know every commentator on television is lamenting that the Phoenix Suns aren’t running anymore. Columnists are writing it, too. Like, if they’d only start running, they’d win again. It’s what everyone is saying and it’s possibly going to cost Terry Porter his job at some point.

I was speaking with an NBA Hall of Fame player not long ago and he’d been watching the Suns. He laughed when I asked him about them.

“Everyone thinks they can still run,” he said, laughing out loud. “But man, they’re old. OLD. Their two best players, Shaq and Nash, are really old. Yeah — those guys could run. For about a half. Then they would get hurt.

“Ain’t no way those guys are a running team anymore.”

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, NBA, Phoenix Suns, Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash