i don't think i've ever read a basketball article that made no mention of stats before. stick to what you know mercury. don't try to talk ball. leave the blazers alone. this aint some alt sub culture kwp shit. it's ball. dame got snubbed by kobe because kobe is one of the 5 greatest players ever and every basketball fan in the world wants to watch greatness one last time. his final game was one of the best send offs i've ever seen in any sport ever. i was watching that game as 26 year old me watching at the same time as 10 year old me watching kobe toss that alley-oop to shaq in game 7 of the 2000 western conference finals. the final nail in our championship dreams coffin. you think that was bad look back at our finals appearances versus the pistons and bulls respectively. you know kobe even said when he got the all star vote during one of his injured years that the fans should be voting for the "damian lillards of the league." as far as the nba's " current trend" toward "Death Star-like “super teams,” you do know that all of the best teams in the history of the game have been super teams? the showtime lakers were insanely deep. as were their counterpart celtics. just look at those teams in 87 and 86. the second three peat bulls attracted numerous free agents. including stevie kerr, coach of the warriors and member of the 2001-02 blazers. another insanely stacked "death star" like team. to quote stevie "we were SOOOO stacked that year. SO STACKED. we should have won that year..." cleveland drafted bron bron, t.t and kyrie so that's hardly even a super team. seriously dude the way you talk about ball is like hearing some guys girl friend that doesn't really give two fucks about ball but watches it with him because they like to have mutual interests (not that there's anything wrong with that.) next you'll bring up how meyers leonard aka the 7 foot justin beiber is cute or some shit but you won't bring up how we've wasted 4 years waiting for this pos to develop actual game. "scrappy underdogs" my ass. we have one of the best offensive systems in the league thanks to coach stotts. scrappy does the boys an injustice. they're professionals who work too hard to be compared to the lesser dog in a fight. "two nigerian players!" 10 american players! "one could play baseball if he wanted!" patty prolly should go play baseball tbh. " This also means that Blazers fans inhabit a larger territory in square miles than any other fanbase in the NBA" you clearly don't understand how this works. the lakers have the largest fan base by geographical area because the lakers have the most fans coast to coast numerically thereby covering more over all area. this article sounds like it was written by someone that's never watched a game of basketball before. maybe that's your target audience. your target audience can piss off. jumping on the bandwagon in sports isn't a good thing ya dink. here's to you warriors "fans." listening to you try to talk about the blazers is almost as terrible as hearing transplants refer to the rose garden as the moda center. smh. you didn't even mention our biggest off season move in acquiring evan turner. our soon to be 6th man// primary bench ball handler and a real curve ball to our lineup. a starting caliber 2/3 that can create his own shot in the mid range or play floor general while dame n 3j rest. yeah ed gained 20 pounds but have you seen the strides noah vonleh's 21 year old baby ass has made? he aint even fully growed and he's pulling down 14 and 14. like i said mane. stick to what you know. go review a dive bar themed food cart (vegan friendly obvi) or some shit bruh. the title of the article doesn't even make sense. get on the team? how? are they having open try outs?

@BongRipCity - Which one do you think is the cutest tho?

mo mo i guess

I've found most people, especially readers of an alt. weekly like the Mercury, aren't very interested in that kind of stuff

"sporty arguments you crave" see... that's that shit i'm talkin bout bruh...

Ooh, @bongripcity, you're going to love our preview. You'll need a spreadsheet to keep up.
http://www.portlandbugle.com/2016/10/09/…