What's the Matter With Portland?

The Blazers expected to contend for a championship; as such, a 12-7 record after one of the league's five easiest early schedules is disappointing. This weekend, in particular, has been rough, as the Blazers were blown out by the Grizzlies (!) and the Jazz. (Prior to that back-to-back, the Blazers nearly gave New Jersey its first win. Guh.) Most notable has been how the Blazers offense has fallen off despite the improvement of center Greg Oden, who leads the league in field goal percentage.

The problem, apparently, is either something to do with how coach Nate McMillan has sorted the rotation ... or how Oden is impacting the Brandon Roy-LaMarcus Aldridge driven offense ... or perhaps just that Roy and Aldridge are in a cold stretch. Whatever the case, it sounds dramatic, the way Jason Quick of The Oregonian tells it.

Quick writes that in the garbage time that was Saturday's fourth quarter in Salt Lake, frustration on the bench became readily apparent.

It created for interesting viewing in the fourth quarter, as the team's core was yanked and engaged in a series of animated conversations on the bench. Roy reached past [Steve] Blake's shoulder and tapped [Andre] Miller, asking him why he didn't play after the first quarter. Miller and Joel Przybilla talked, at one time shaking their heads. Roy passed a folded statistics sheet to Aldridge, who studied the sheet, refolded it and then put both hands over his face after discarding the sheet under the bench. Later, Roy and Aldridge talked, with Roy revealing that their conversation revolved around how different things had become this season.

This is New Portland, so there's no screaming or punching. But tension overflows from Quick's piece. (Dave Deckard's Blazers Edge recap is a bit less dour, if still dire.) It sounds like a team in crisis. The biggest problem may be Miller's obvious struggles in getting along with McMillan -- the pair have now argued in the media about the starting point guard job, the success or failure of the team's three-guard line-up and now how well Miller was moving in the Jazz game, with McMillan explaining to Quick that he limited the veteran to six minutes off the bench because he looked slow out there, while Miller insisted he was fine. Clearly, that marriage remains on rocky ground.

Perhaps that problem could be solved by a trade -- losing Miller would definitely fix it, and trading Blake has a good chance of fixing it, knowing what we know about Miller as a player. But that's not the only problem here, and who knows how the Portland braintrust will approach the greater crisis. Perhaps -- dare I, a fan of good basketball, say hopefully -- the players and McMillan can figure it out on the court.