Courtside Live From ESPNZone
posted: 7/11/2006 at 9:47 PM
It may have been a day off for the Trail Blazers in the Toshiba Vegas Summer League on Tuesday night, but we put a few of the players to work on the radio. Because of the game last night, we hosted our radio show, Courtside Monday Night, presented by L.A. Weight Loss, tonight from the ESPNZone inside our hotel, New York New York, on the Las Vegas Strip.
I was amazed at how many Trail Blazers' fans showed up to join us for the show, and they all wanted to see our guests, much to Mike Rice's dismay. He kind of figured he was the main attraction.
Brian Wheeler and Antonio Harvey joined us on the air as well, and for the first 30 minutes we talked about our individual impressions of how the summer league has gone for Portland. Everytime we start talking about the week we end up talking about Brandon Roy. I posted a link to this article earlier, but if you missed it, here is NBA TV's Rick Kamla's article from today on NBA.com.
Click here to read who he thinks has been the star of the show down here. I'll give you one line from Kamla's article. He says, "Both Roy and Foye will be terrific pros, but Roy is a cut above. Simple as that."
Roy walked into the back room, where we were hosting the show, with Jarrett Jack. My first thought was how nice it was to see these two players already hanging out together. Jarrett, who hasn't played in the summer league due to the recent surgery on his ankle, has been here the entire time, and has been a very big help to his new teammates. He's also had a chance to workout with the team and continue the rehab on his ankle, which is feeling very good he says. You'll hear Jarrett discuss this in the interview, but he told us when the doctors went into perform the surgery they found that 85 percent of the tissue in his ankle was unhealthy, and they were amazed he played as much as he did last season. I don't think we've yet seen a healthy Jack on the floor, and the doctors are convinced the surgery was very effective in removing the bad tissue. Jarrett says he's planning on going full speed as early as August.
Click here to hear the interview with Jarrett and Brandon on the show tonight.
After Jarrett and Brandon stepped aside, we welcomed in LaMarcus Aldridge. He joined us late in the 6 o'clock hour of the show. I mentioned before this week how likable all these guys are, and one of my favorites, already, is Aldridge. He mentioned earlier this week that he was hungry and I told him I was going down to the convenience store to grab some water for my room. While I was there, I grabbed some snacks for him and took them to his room. He was so appreciative, and even joked that the trainers had better not hear about this because I didn't get him the healthiest things in the store. It was just one of those moments that let me know how grounded this kid is, and why everyone in his past says such terrific things about him. Aldridge told us, during the show tonight, he talks to his high school coach (who also coached Toronto's Chris Bosh) about five times a day. It doesn't suprise me that LaMarcus has a lot of friends.
Click here to hear the interview with Aldridge.
After LaMarcus left we grabbed the player personnel director for the Trail Blazers, Kevin Pritchard. If you read this blog often, you know how big a Pritchard fan I am, and there are many reasons why. If you haven't heard Kevin talk about his philsophy, you have to listen to this interview. He not only gave us a motivational speech, but recapped that wild draft day. He explained how, and why, the Trail Blazers made the moves they did on draft night. He also shot down a rumor that evidently was flying around Portland today concerning Darius Miles. Kevin is not a big one for blowing smoke, so believe him when he says something.
Pritchard also wanted to talk about the Joel Przybilla situation, but as of that time, couldn't. As of 9 o'clock Pacific Time tonight, he could have. We all know what the great news is, and very, very soon, it'll be made official.
To listen to our interview with Kevin,
click here.I want to thank everyone who made this show tonight such a great one. KXL's Jay Allen, who's been with us all week down here, hustled to make this happen in a portable studio at the ESPNZone. Jeff Curtin, who handles a TV camera the way Santana handles his guitar, was a great help as always, and TV producer Scott Zachry made sure everything ran smoothly. I also want to thank my TV and radio partner Mike Rice, and Brian Wheeler and Antonio Harvey. I also can't forget "The Captain" Rich Patterson, who runs the radio network from our studios at KXL in Portland. We're all so tight and have such a great time together. I think that comes through to all of you.
The Trail Blazers wrap up play in the Toshiba Vegas Summer League tomorrow, with a 1 o'clock game against the Phoenix Suns. You can hear that game, tape-delayed, on KXL at 9 o'clock tomorrow night. Then, we're heading for the airport and fly home to Portland. It'll be nice to get out of this heat. But, it's been a fanstastic trip. I hope you've enjoyed the reports, highlights, interviews, and tonight's radio show. Thanks for staying with me all week. It's been a lot of work, but a lot of fun. I can't wait for the regular season to begin.
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Mike, Just listened to the interviews, good stuff. Another advantage to having a guy like roy on the team i just realized is nate can really give sergio a first class crash course on defence!
What a great start to this off-season. I think the important part will be once the summer league is over today and once everyone has some "time off" that they just stay in portland and WORK WORK WORK to keep on improving, especially all of our young guys. i think the font office is working to do its part, but now the tough part begins with the players using their talent that we all know they have! i'm excited for it! Thanks for the awesome interviews also!
Martell in the Phoenix where were you? Did you let Vegas distract you...1-11 from the field 0-4 from the 3
How can you not get distracted in Vegas? He's bound to have a tough game and they have played quite a few in the past week, so perhaps fatigue set in. How did Aldrige and Roy do?
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