Via twitter, ESPN’s Chris Broussard gave me his predicted win-total for the Portland Trail Blazers this season, in light of the injury to Joel Przybilla: “49 wins, Nate’s a great coach, and they still got enuff, though Pryz’s injury hurts. Bayless stepping up, taking adv[antage] of opp[ortunity].” With their injuries, I guessed Portland would be ecstatic to win 45 games this season, but his prediction isn’t so far-fetched. But though Portland is 19-12 and is playing 9 of their next 10 games at home against a group with a combined record well-below .500, they are going to need some more size if they want to compete with the bigger teams and live up to Broussard’s confident statement of 49 victories.

The Blazers can apply for another Hardship Exemption when Przybilla misses his third game, which won’t be until Monday. Because Portland will then have four players that have missed three games and are planning to miss two additional weeks, the team will have the opportunity to pick up a seventeenth player.

Their big men have played splendidly of late, and especially did a tremendous job without Przybilla against the Spurs, but it wouldn’t hurt to sign another.

They could scan the Developmental League again, as they did in choosing Anthony Tolliver as their 16th man earlier this month, or they could sign a free-agent. On the free-agency front, Jake Voskuhl is a possibility, but the Blazers would presumably much rather sign a player that has actually played this season, is in game-shape, and has excelled. Two names come to mind: 6-11, 235 pound Rod Benson, a 25-year old currently playing with the Reno Bighorns, and Dwayne Jones, a 26-year old who is currently playing with the Austin Toros, and who is the same height as Benson, but 15-20 pounds heavier.

Benson, nicknamed Boomtho, is quite exuberant, to put it mildly, and is a very popular blogger (he has a blog on Yahoo and another titled “Too Much Rod Benson“, which is definitely the oddest of the two). He has a variety of skills on the court, but is more renowned for his quirkiness off the hardwood.

Benson is co-founder of the “Boomtho Movement”, an organization based upon the philosophy of “having fun, being ridiculous, and being yourself.” He has produced music videos based on the movement, has that controversial blog, and somehow finds time to be a tremendously talented basketball player in the NBDL.

This season he has averaged 15 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 2 blocks per game. Clearly he is very versatile, and could be a do-everything guy for Portland. Though he has a tremendous sense of humor and, might I add, slick dance moves, he could either be a distraction with the Blazers or  just be thankful for the opportunity to play in the NBA and focus solely on basketball.

Jones doesn’t have the personality of Benson (few do), but though it would be exciting to watch Benson play, he may be the better player. He has 80 games of NBA experience, is listed as a center, whereas Benson is more of an LaMarcus Aldridge-type, and has put up mind-boggling numbers this season. In 11 games he is averaging a dominant 17 points and 14 rebounds per contest. He has gobbled up 24 rebounds in each of his past two games, both against Albuquerque, and could certainly give Portland a lift in that category on top of providing a scoring punch inside.

The Blazers will most likely pluck someone out of the Developmental League once again, and don’t be surprised if they chose one of these two.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Most Recommended, NBA, News Headlines, Portland Trail Blazers, Right Column, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.