From: edrury@3cpu.rain.com (Ed Drury)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro
Subject: Blazer Report
Date: 13 Oct 92 12:39:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: 3cpu.4285
Reply-To: edrury@3cpu.rain.com (Ed Drury)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Garden Lane Software



                   Sun Oct 11 15:20:40 PDT 1992
        
		     BLAZERS HIRE DICK BARNETT
        
     An  article  in  the Sunday Oregonian  today  revealed  that  the 
    Portland  Trailblazers  have hired Dick Barnett, former  New  York 
    Knick, as a consultant. Barnett, who is president of the  Athletic 
    Role  Model  Education  Institute based in  New  York  City,  will 
    function  as a player counselor and staff consultant.
    
		    KERSEY'S ANKLES SORE AGAIN
    
     In  Friday's opening day of camp, it was reported  that  Jerome's 
    chronically  injured  bad ankles were bothersome again. It  was  , 
    however  , noted that he had a good practice on  Saturday  morning 
    and that several of the rookie players were also having some aches 
    and pains after the first week of informal work outs.
    

		   Mon Oct 12 14:57:24 PDT 1992
			 INTRASQUAD GAME
        
     After  only  two  days  of formal  workouts,  Portland  holds  an 
    intrasquad  game tonight. Practice pace has been  extremely  fast, 
    and somewhat ragged - bordering on down right sloppy. Tracy Murray 
    has  began  to find his shot, but has a lot of work to do  on  his 
    defense.  The rookies in general, are making a lot of  mistakes  - 
    forcing  things  too much. Rod Strickland was  quoted  in  today's 
    Oregonian  ,  "We're  going to get a lot better  that  this.  It's 
    early. We're making mistakes, and when we play our first game  and 
    our  first few games we're going to make mistakes. By the  end  of 
    the  exhibition season, we'll be coming together really well.  I'm 
    sure of it." Strickland went on to talk about what they've learned 
    together  so far about the fast break, "I think it's  great.  It's 
    very  simple,  but there's a lot more motion that  gets  everybody 
    involved. For me, in San Antonio I just basically was used on  the 
    fast  break  or  just brought it up and  passed  it  inside.  Here 
    there's a lot more opportunities for everyone." 
    
     "The timing is not there yet", says Strickland, " I still need to 
    learn where guys like the ball, even though I've gotten more  used 
    to them just playing the last few days. It' s not going to  happen 
    right away but the good thing about this team is a lot of guys can 
    make  plays  from a lot of areas, so if you give a  guy  the  ball 
    somewhere, it's not a tentative thing."
    
     Tracy  Murray adds, "If you keep running and get to  the  basket, 
    you get your shots. That's the motivation."
    
			    THE GAME
    
     So it was in this climate of lowered expectations (and a  traffic 
    accident  which backed up I-5 just before game time  causing  many 
    people  including coach Adelman to be late arriving) that we  went 
    to  see  the  first  public  appearances  of  Tracy  Murray,   Rod 
    Strickland,  Dave Johnson, and Mario Elie in Blazer uniforms.  The 
    format  was pretty traditional -- white verses black, veterans  in 
    white coached by John Wetzal. Rookies and other hopefuls in  black 
    and coached by Jack Shallow. I enjoy these types of affairs!  It's 
    an  event to me. A chance to see players play and not worry  about 
    scores  or standings. And this year was not disappointing --  they 
    put on a good show. Well, a show at least.
    
     Dave  Johnson lead all scorers with 25 points, showing his  great 
    athletic  ability.  The winning white team was paced by  18 points 
    from  Buck  Williams, Mario Elie and Kevin  Duckworth.  The  white 
    team's  backcourt  combination of Strickland and Porter  was  very 
    good  with  Porter contributing 10 assists. One  thing  which  was 
    painfully  obvious  about Dave Johnson: He can't check  Kersey  or 
    Robinson.  And  if he can't check them, there aren't going  to  be 
    many small forwards in the league he can defend. It's looking more 
    and more like he will have to learn to play the 2 spot. Here's the 
    box :
    

                       Black 85
                  Min  FG    FT   R   P  A   T   S   Pts
        Murray    37   7-19  3-4  5   2  3   4   2   19
        Kennedy   36   5-12  4-6  8   1  4   2   1   14
        Smith     22   0-2   2-2  4   6  2   1   1    2
        Johnson   37   8-16  8-10 5   1  2   3   3   25
        McCovery  30   1-3   0-0  6   3  7   2   1    2
        Perry     23   4-6   5-6  2   4  5   2   3   13
        Strothers 18   6-13  0-0  1   0  1   1   1   12
        Guest     20   2-3   0-0  2   0  1   1   1    4
        Portmann  17   2-3   0-0  2   3  2   1   0    4
        
                       White 113
                   Min  FG    FT    R  P  A   T   S   Pts
        Kersey     18   6-8   1-2   3  1  2   1   3   13
        Williams   24   8-12  2-2  11  2  1   3   1   18
        Duckworth  37   8-12  2-2   6  1  2   0   0   18
        Strickland 34   5-6   0-5   3  0  7   2   2   10
        Porter     32   2-7   1-2   2  0 10   3   0    6
        Robinson   35   6-12  4-7   5  6  7   5   3   16
        Elie       30   7-12  4-5   7  3  3   3   1   18
        Bryant     24   7-9   0-4   5  3  0   0   1   14
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