Nate McMillan: The Way the Season Ended Leaves A Sour Taste
September 28, 2009 – 10:00 am by Jimmy ShapiroThis post was written by Chris Fedor of WKNR in Cleveland. Brandon Roy is a perennial All-Star, they had a 54-28 record in the regular season last year to earn the fourth spot in the Western Conference and they had home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. These aren’t the Jail Blazers anymore. In fact, The Trail Blazers might be one of the deepest teams in the entire NBA. General Manager Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan have done a really nice job of building this team through free agency and through the draft and this could be the breakout season for Portland. Even though their season ended early last year at the hands of Houston, the Blazers return much of their core from last year. On top of that, the Blazers went out this offseason and acquired Andre Miller to be a veteran ball-handler and take some pressure off Steve Blake and Brandon Roy.
Needless to say there are really high hopes this season in Portland and this could finally be the season where the Blazers take that giant next step forward.
Nate McMillan joined KFXX in Portland to talk about the way the season ended last year, the expectations for the team this year and the addition of Andre Miller
On the way the season ended:
“Well, one of our goals last year was to get to the playoffs and see how far we could go and we were able to do that and get home court. We didn’t take advantage of home court and it leaves a sour taste. We will be hungry to go farther in the playoffs. Our goals are going to be higher this year. I thought it was good year last year, but certainly higher this year. We want to win our division, get to that second round and see if we can win the Western Conference.”
On whether they can be a championship team:
“I don’t want to throw that around lightly, a championship team, because a lot of things must happen. You must have some luck to get there. We feel that from here on out that’s certainly what we’re competing for. We’re not a team that’s developing. We’re still are a young team, but we’ve gone through that, not to say that we’re making excuses, last year and the years prior to that, was real. We were building our team and building it through the draft and we were a young team. Our goals were to get to the playoffs. We’ve done all that. We’ve talked about bringing back respect to this organization where our fans would be proud and respect this team as well as the rest of the league and we felt like we’ve accomplished that. We want to become a contender. That is what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
On the Addition of Andre Miller:
“Well I think it’s good. We were in position this summer to add a free agent to our roster. One of the players that we wanted was another ball-handler. A guy that can create some offense and an experienced player that could help our younger guys. I think adding Andre to our roster; he’s going to make the guys around him better. He’s a guy that’s played with some All-Stars and had to do a number of different things as far as being vocal and being a leader by example. Having gone through that it should help this roster become better.”
On the competition at point guard between Steve Blake and Andre Miller:
“I know we’ve got two really good guards. On Tuesday when we start, when we put our first unit out there, Steve Blake will be the guy that we introduce our offense to.”
Listen to Nate McMillan on KFXX in Portland with Isaac and Big Suke
