LaMarcus Aldridge didn't hold back in his comments on 1080 AM The Fan in Portland, declaring himself the best power forward in the game, as Ben Golliver documents on Blazer's Edge. He's indicated a willingness to be patient through the Blazers' rebuilding process before, but he doesn't think he'll have much of a wait, a belief he apparently shares with the front office. "I have really good talks with the management, with [GM] Neil [Olshey]," Aldridge said today. "We don't feel like this process is going to be that long. We feel like one year for guys to get better, for myself to also get better. We feel like we should have enough next year to be one of those top teams again. We can always add some good guys through free agency next year." While we wait to see if the Blazers can bounce back so quickly, here's more from Portland and elsewhere in the Northwest.
- Blazers rookie point guard Damian Lillard is trying to find the right balance between passing and looking for his own shot, as The Oregonian's Joe Freeman documents.
- Though Kevin Love could be back in five weeks, sooner than originally expected, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports, his broken hand will shine a spotlight on coach Rick Adelman's influence on building the Wolves roster, writes Sean Deveney of The Sporting News.
- Adelman said the specter of injuries helped shape the team's offseason plans, as Kent Youngblood of the Star Tribune notes. "That's one reason we made a lot of changes," Adelman said. "Because we didn't do that last year, that last month [of the season], we got hammered."