Brandon Roy Has Been Ready For A While
April 17, 2009 – 8:00 am by Tas Melas
The Blazers’ Brandon Roy makes his first trip to the postseason this weekend on a team which is by far, the youngest Western Conference playoff team. They absolutely do not play like a young team, however, not even close, but the NBA already has their storyline for the Rockets series starting Saturday. In three years, Brandon Roy has helped turn a laughable franchise in to a playoff team, and, this is just the start. Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard has done his homework flopping the “Jail Blazers” of old in to high-character guys. Roy was a highly polished (but not that well known) player coming out of the University of Washington, and those four years have helped him grow very quickly in the NBA. Stay in school, kids. In only his 2nd year he was an All-Star and now he’s one of the top few any coach would want handling the ball in the 4th quarter. It’s a little disgusting how many cracks he’s gonna have at the postseason as a premier player. He’s only 24, he has a young, fantastic team around him, and he has an equally as fantastic basketball town cheering him on. People may dismiss this team as the playoff newbies, but if they have seen them play, they wouldn’t take that stance – example #1 versus the Rockets earlier this season. This team, much like Roy, is ready. Listening to him in this interview, I got a little: ‘We’re happy to be there’ type feel, but there is no chance they come unprepared. Roy joined KJR Seattleto discuss how the Blazers surpassed his expectations this season, how far they’ve come since he was drafted, concerns going up against Houston, and the team’s homecourt advantage.
On where this team has come from in just three seasons:
“I still remember being drafted and Portland was almost like the U-Dub (University of Washington), they called us bottom feeders in the NBA. A lot of people would say it’s gonna take a miracle to turn this thing around. It has been a lot of hard work, but I was sitting there yesterday (Wednesday) when the game was ending thinking, ‘Man, 54 wins, Northwest Division Co-Champs’ – I can’t say I imagined it. We put a lot of hard work in to it and I’m just happy to be part of another great turnaround… It’s something about turning around a team – there’s nothing like it.”
On how the team is playing currently:
“We’ve been playing great basketball. People say we won 10 of our last 11, but if you look at some of those teams on the list, I remember: Utah, Phoenix, the Lakers, Spurs, Denver. These are a lot of top teams in the Western Conference, for a young team to finish so strong, it shows how much we’ve matured over this last month. Anything’s possible, we’ve gained a lot of confidence.”
Brandon Roy on the Rose Garden advantage, playing the Rockets, and the full interview after the jump.
On the Rose Garden advantage:
“Our home is almost ridiculous (laughs). It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Oklahoma City, Memphis, or we’re playing the Lakers, it’s a playoff atmosphere in the building. I mean, those people, they go crazy when the Blazers are at home. I’d like to go back to our road record, coming in to the season, our goal was to win 20 games on the road… We don’t feel like our 20-21 road record is a failure; we definitely would have liked to have a much better road record, but 20 was our goal, so we’re happy with that. Playing at home is a serious advantage for us.”
Are there any worries playing against Houston?
“Our concerns are they are a big, strong team – they are extremely physical. I think it’s an opportunity for us to kinda erase that thought of people that we are soft and we are young, we’re probably gonna play the most physical team in the playoffs. They’re strong, they’re big, they have Yao inside, we’re gonna have to double team him. Some of the strengths are: we’re a deep team – we can put a number of scorers out there on the floor. We got a great bench… It’ll be a big thing how physical we play because they are gonna bring it. Every game we play with them is a battle in the interior.”
Listen to Brandon Roy on KJR in Seattle with Dave “Softy” Mahler
Tags: Basketball, Brandon Roy, NBA, Portland Trail Blazers
