Token Bi-Weekly Blazers Post

Cards on Cards has a cold. Okay, maybe the blog can't actually get sick, but the author has a head cold that has been making him cranky and lethargic all weekend. Fortunately, he has been able to kick back and watch the Blazers home winning streak grow to 11.

Why am I talking in third person all of a sudden? Anyway, I took a week off... unintentionally, if you believe that... and Portland has picked up 5 wins in the last two weeks, so I get to scan 5 more cards. Unfortunately, only one of the victories was on the road as the Blazers have continued their trend of coming up just short against playoff-contending road teams (Houston, San Antonio, Denver) and beating up on virtually everyone in their path at home. Throw in a road whipping of the Timberwolves and you have a 5-3 record in the past two weeks.

Greg Oden continues to stay in street clothes due to knocking knees with someone right before the All-Star break. Conspiracy theories abound, ranging from the usual "the sky is falling" fears about Oden needing another major surgery to questions about his work ethic and desire to play basketball. It will be nice to see him get back on the court, whenever that may be, but I've always had the attitude that I would root for the players who are suited up and in uniform and not worry about anyone else.

Unfortunately, my attitude still leaves the Blazers thin in the middle when Joel Przybilla needs a rest.

About the cards:

• If we don't see a late '80s/early '90s throwback jersey night in the near future, I'm going to start freaking out and calling local sports talk shows or something. Well, not really. See Cliff Robinson's '90-'91 Fleer card above to see what I mean. It's the jerseys with the lower-case letters, before the block lettering took over in '91 or so.)
• The Clyde Drexler Upper Deck card appears to be the only duplicate card in the box that I bought. You'll get to see the card again, unless the Blazers fall short of 50 wins this season. That had better not happen, because it feels like it might take about 53 wins just to make the playoffs in the West this year, which is incredible.
  
• There's a nice shot of pre-goggles Buck Williams, courtesy of the second annual NBA Hoops set. I own the entire set. I am fairly certain that if you were to sell it on eBay, no one would bid on it simply because it's worth less than what it would cost to ship the thing.
• Purple basketball cards = bad idea. Just ask Jermaine O'Neal, who is on his second team of this season already (Miami) after spending his peak years at Indiana.
• Bonzi Wells has an incredibly extensive Wikipedia entry, which is a good read. Seriously. It reads like a VH-1 Behind the Music episode, only for NBA basketball players.
  

Bonus: Ha ha! There is no bonus this week! Maybe there will be two bonuses next week. Maybe not. The Blazers play the Lakers later tonight at the Rose Garden, which has been a building of total failure for LA in recent times. Let me just say that if Portland wins tonight, there will be... I don't know... three bonuses next week. Go Blazers!

Token Weekly Blazers Post

The Blazers went 2-1 this past week, which was probably more notable for the burgeoning Darius Miles controversy (didn't we get rid of that guy a long time ago?) and less for what Portland did on the court. This is a franchise that has had plenty of off-court things to discuss over the years, but hopefully the focus will return to actual basketball very soon. Portland struggled once again without Brandon Roy against the Lakers last Sunday in L.A., but it was not a game anyone expected them to win. I was able to attend Wednesday's home game against Detroit, which was also quite a struggle, but the Blazers ended up pulling it out thanks to late surge thanks to rookie Jerryd Bayless and a game deciding shot by the much-maligned Travis Outlaw. It's nice to see Bayless, a high draft choice this past summer, finally get some playing time after getting very familiar with the bench.

Brandon Roy returned on Saturday night and so, it seemed, did the Blazers offense to give the Blazers a 113-100 victory and a 2-1 week overall. Golden State doesn't play a whole lot of defense or bother rebounding, however, but it was nice to see Portland beat someone who had dogged them earlier this season. Next up is a four game road trip, starting in Chicago on Monday and finishing in Charlotte on Saturday.

About the cards:

• The Blazers dedicated the season to the late Kevin Duckworth and wear a stripe with his number (#00) on their jerseys this season. What can you say about Skybox's premier edition of basketball cards? Nothing, of course, that doesn't begin or end with the word awesome.
• Walter Davis finished his career with a short stint with the Blazers at the end of the ill-fated 1990-91 season where they won 63 games only to be bounced by the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. What happened to the Hoops brand, anyway? It seems like they were the Pro Set of the NBA. I know that by their fourth release (1992-93) they had been acquired by Skybox, but I was surprised to see that they were long gone.
  

Bonus: I picked up this Jermaine O'Neal rookie card in a large 5 cent box at a card show yesterday. I got stacks of the cheap stuff of the Cardinals variety as well and will feature some of that in a later post. Yes, a baseball post, in fact... I still do those from time to time.

TWBP: Road Warriors

Yes, I'm trying to use up all of the cheesy titles I can come up with for these posts. If you've got any suggestions, let me know.

Anyway, the Blazers hit the road for the first four games of yet another five game road trip this past week and came away with three wins. Considering that their only loss was to the defending champs, this was a very successful trip. Greg Oden has continued to be up and down, his minutes usually dictated by how successful he is at managing to stay out of foul trouble. He has at least succeeded in every game at getting the opponent's attention on the inside, which continues to give pass-first players like Steve Blake wide open looks that are just too wide open to pass up.

After an impressive win over the Pistons where Lamarcus Aldridge outplayed Rasheed Wallace in a pivotal matchup, the Blazers pulled out wins over New York and Washington where they didn't really play their best game. As the cliche goes, good teams find ways to beat bad teams even when they aren't playing well, and Portland has certainly found a way to make this work on a number of occasions this year. Brandon Roy has usually been the guy that has taken over late in games to will the team to victory, but at some point the Blazers will need to figure out how to close teams out without Roy putting the whole team on his back.

As far as the Boston loss went, I really don't have a ton to say about it other than that it was disappointing and Kevin Garnett is making a strong push for my Least Favorite Player in the league. It's not a game I expected Portland to win, but I was disappointed that it wasn't a close game, especially after the way the game started.


About the cards:

• This box of cards didn't end up being completely junk, as I ended up with a Jermaine O'Neal rookie card. Not bad. Injuries have probably prevented O'Neal from ever being the superstar player that he looked like he was becoming during his peak years with the Pacers. His departure from Portland was a result of some shortsided thinking by the Blazers brass. Mike Dunleavy, his coach at the time, still contends that he did not want to get rid of O'Neal, but the Blazers GM had a different view as is often the case with these sorts of things.
• Mark Bryant was one of my favorite bench players. He didn't offer much in the way of offensive skills, but he took up a lot of space in the post and was a smart player.
• Mario Elie was another bench favorite of mine. He took over Danny Ainge's role in the '92-'93 season as the 3-point specialist and was a terrific dunker at that point in his career. He was best known for his time with the Rockets, winning two championships in the mid-90s. I liked the bumpy basketball design on these cards, but am generally not a fan of player names being displayed vertically.
  

Bonus: Here's the pocket schedule from the Blazers championship season. I wonder if there are any serious pocket schedule collectors out there.


Check out that eight game road trip in January. Yikes!