Remember your first day in Portland? If you didn't live here you probably came for an event like the Rose Festival Parade.

Or a concert. Or a Blazer game.

You parked your car where it wouldn't get stolen or keyed. After the event you drove home from the Big City thinking, "I'm glad I don't live there."

Like too many Oregonians outside the city limits, Portland feels like a necessary evil, an urban resource to visit but no different than Seattle or San Francisco. It's just closer.

And wrong.

The second half of the season is off to an exciting start for the Portland Trail Blazers. Well, not if you’re tracking the team strictly by wins and losses. Then the 3-4 mark they’ve shown is about on par with the rest of the season.

But if you’ve spent time watching this team and have seen the way it’s progressing and evolving, you’ve got to be excited about the way things look going forward.

In the seven games since the All-Star break, coach Terry Stotts has shaken up the lineup. The starting five has remained unchanged, but those five starters are finally being allowed an opportunity to catch their breath for more than a minute at a time. That’s because Victor Claver, Meyers Leonard and the recently acquired Eric Maynor have all been logging quality minutes off the bench. And with the increased quality of those minutes, there has been an increase in the minutes themselves.

There is always talk about the so called "rookie wall" that these high profile rookies hit. For the most part I agree with the theory and see rookies hit a point in the season where it looks like their progress stalls out. But here in Portland we are seeing a special rookie that hasn't hit the supposed wall.

Every basketball fan has their own theory as to why the rookie wall occurs. One of the most subscribed to theories is that the NBA season is so much longer and more grueling than a college season. The rookies can wear out and become less productive because of the draining schedule. That is why after the first season, a lot of the rookies come back stronger the next year; they learn how to condition and improve themselves leading into the next 82 game dockett.

Long term goals provide vision for people and organizations alike. They make you consider what you’re aiming for, prompt you to think about what you really want. A short term goal, on the other hand, is where the rubber meets the road. These are the day-to-day mileposts that make you consider what’s important and what just gets in the way of reaching your ultimate prize. The Portland Trail Blazers organization seems to have gained perspective on how an NBA Championship becomes a reality.

Championship teams in a small market like Portland are not built on free-agent spending sprees or a blockbuster trade. Portland needs to make prudent decisions. It takes time to accumulate the right collection of players, coaches and management.

The Portland Trail Blazers might have literally hit the jackpot in the lottery this year. Landing Damian Lillard with the number six overall selection in this year’s lottery section of the NBA Draft couldn’t have worked out better for all parties involved. Lillard went to a team that desperately needed a point guard, and that’s probably an understatement. Without him, the Trail Blazers would have started the season with Nolan Smith and Ronnie Price running the point. Seriously. Think about that nightmare for just a second.

There has been a lot of discussion about the Portland Trail Blazers bench or lack thereof this season. It was no secret heading into the 2012-13 campaign that this was going to be a sore spot for this Blazer team. However, as you may want to criticize the second string for lack of productivity or GM Neil Olshey for failing to assemble a collection of reserves worth their salt, realize that there are three to four young players gaining valued experience in relatively meaningful games.

Meyers Leonard, Victor Claver, Will Barton, and newly acquired Eric Maynor will likely be key contributors on the 2013-14 Blazer team. The opportunity for these young players to play extended minutes in a season in which every victory over 30 wins is a bonus for the team is sure to pay dividends in the next few years to come.

We’ve talked about preseason expectations for the Portland Trail Blazers and we know they’re a hard working team. I think everyone has come to the conclusion that as long as they continue to work hard, they will meet expectations. They may win the majority of their games to end the season, but they could also miss the playoffs entirely. The fact remains that the end of the season schedule is going to be tough. Out of the remaining 26 games, 20 of them are against legitimate playoff contenders. That means a playoff-type atmosphere. No matter what the outcome is, it is my belief that as long as the Trail Blazers show up ready to play as hard as they can and leave it all on the floor, we can call it a successful year.

With the Blazers currently mired in a seven game losing streak and their playoff hopes fading away rapidly, I thought I would write about something that all Blazer fans can get on board with; really awesome dunks. There have been quite a few notable dunks from the past five seasons or so that I can vividly recall, and probably more that I can’t. Some of them made me jump to my feet, and others made me laugh in stunned disbelief.

One of the dunks that had me laughing in stunned disbelief was the Andre Miller dunk against the Denver Nuggets in March of 2010. I am sure most Blazer fans can relate. At the time of the dunk, I wasn’t aware that Miller was even capable of leaping more than six inches. He hadn’t dunked in a game in over three years. But on that night, he decided to make a statement against the Nuggets, who had let him go the previous season. Here is a link to the dunk for all of those who haven’t witnessed it, or for those who to see it a few times to believe it. Oh, and try to forget that Miller travels as he gathers for the dunk; it takes away from the hilarity a little bit.

I’m a diehard Trail Blazers fan and have been for quite some time. I actually started off as a Shaquille O’Neal fan when I was younger, especially through his Orlando Magic days. I’m sure my obsession of him must have started because of his fantastic showing in the hit film “Kazaam” but either way, I was fan of the dominant center.

As I grew older, I moved onto bigger and better things (well, maybe not bigger). I became a Portland Trail Blazers fan around the year 2000. The Y2K scare had come and gone, and many people were forced to pick up the shambles that the catastrophe had left behind. That led me straight to a love for my home town team.

The 2013 NBA trade deadline came and went last Thursday. It was a day when a ham sandwich would have dominated the headlines had it gotten traded. Instead, the biggest names to be moved were perennial bench players JJ Redick and Jordan Crawford. 

The Portland Trail Blazers made one move; Neil Olshey turned an obscure Greek player and a trade exemption into serviceable but limited backup point guard Eric Maynor. It was a nice move from Olshey - opportunistic, swift, and smart. But in the grand scheme of the Blazers, Eric Maynor doesn't change a thing.