Zach returns from his bereavement leave, Portland embarks on theirs
Any hopes I had of the Blazers ending the season with 35 wins have gone up in smoke since Z-Bo came back from lap-dance…er…bereavement leave.
While he was out for almost a week to mourn the death of his girlfriend’s cousin (hard for me to understand how that merits so much time off, but that’s just me…) and watch strippers, the Blazers put together an impressive 3-game streak against playoff-caliber teams like the Knicks and the Bullets (I mean Wizards) and the not-ready-for-primetime Atlanta Hawks. Then Zach came back and the Blazers have now stumbled against the Bulls (a playoff team) and the Timberwolves (as bad as the Blazers, and maybe worse).
The basketball without Zach was better, more entertaining, more energetic, and more team-oriented. With Zach, we’re back to a plodding offense that log-jams in the hands of our “go-to” guy, who we were better off having gone for a few days.
We certainly needed Zach at the beginning of the season. But now we’ve seen the future, and it’s LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy and Sergio Rodriguez and a really tall draft pick. I don’t think it’s Zach, and I think this summer we may see the team own up to that realization.
Will we win anymore games? Absolutely. But I’m going out on a limb and saying that, as a team, we’re better without Z-Bo now than we are with him. Your thoughts?
Related posts:
I’m out on that limb with you. I thought it was premature to announce that he’d won his starting job back after one game only - and I didn’t much like what I saw from him last night.