Not a whole lot is expected from this year's team. The national media is really down on it.

But that's fine.

The national media thought the Tigers would walk all over the Cardinals in the World Series.

I think the Blazers are like a ball of clay, and Nate McMillan is slowly molding it into the team he wants it to be. Whoever is on board will be here for the long run. Whoever Nate doesn't want here will either not be playing, or wearing another uniform in the next year or so.

I think the Blazers will improve about 7-8 wins this year. Maybe another 7-8 the next year. Then in 2-3 years they should be competing for a playoff spot.

But this was the year the Blazers should have been making their move.

After the 2003-04 season the Blazers window of opportunity for making the playoffs was pretty much over. They should have committed to go young. Instead they signed Zach Randolph to a 84 million dollar deal, Darius Miles got 48 million, and Theo Ratliff inked a 3 year deal at 33 million.

The youth movement went away like a pair of Jordache pants

I had one NBA executive tell me that the Randolph, Miles, and Ratliff signings set this franchise back 5-10 years. Instead of just going young, the Blazers thought they still had a chance to make the playoffs.

They are now going through the growing pains they should have gone through 3 years ago.

Trading away Ratliff this off-season got his contract off the books. But the Blazers had to take on Raef LaFrentz's contract which is in the 33 million dollar neighborhood.

That's called a push.

Molding an NBA team into a playoff contender isn't easy. There's a lot of guesswork and a lot of luck.

But you have to commit to a direction and go with it. This is something I don't think the Blazers have done until now.

So instead of thinking playoffs this season, we're still a couple years away.

I don't see the Blazers turning it around like the Suns did a few years ago when they got Steve Nash.

It's simply because the Blazers are over the Salary Cap and they can't be players in the free agent market for a couple years.

Check back in April.

RP
RPivo@kgw.com