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You can find that website at CSNNW.com

See you there!

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Strange coincidence, too, that he’s going to sit out the next three games — on the day this story came out. Catch this:

One plugged-in person with knowledge of Portland’s inner workings told me Roy spoke with Blazers management less than two weeks ago about the need for (Andre) Miller and him to part ways. While Roy did not issue a trade demand or request, I’m told he said something to this effect:

This is not going to work, so you should trade one of us. Whether it’s him or whether it’s me, somebody needs to be traded because this is not going to work.

Portland general manager Rich Cho, as well as Roy’s agent, Bob Myers, denied that such a discussion ever happened.

“It’s not true,’’ Cho said on Thursday.

Of course, these guys have no choice but to deny. You cannot admit Roy is in any way looking to be traded because it drops his value even further (if that’s possible).

And talk about a power play by Roy. Wow. But seriously, if I were the Trail Blazers at this point, I’d more anxious to get rid of Roy than Miller. But as I’ve written before, Rich Cho will need to be some sort of wizard-in-braces to get this guy dealt. So if you’re another team, all you know about his knees is he’s saying they’re killing him and flaring up all the time so he needs to miss games — thus, the only thing worse than Roy’s knees is his contract. In general, you have a small chance to deal a player with one of those problems, but with both? I don’t see any way.

As far as dealing Miller, it’s too soon. The only way you can have a trade advantage with him is to deal him near the trading deadline in February — when teams have made up their minds: A: they’re out of the playoff hunt so they may want to dump salary, or B: they’re suddenly in the playoff hunt and may think a veteran point guard is the last piece of the puzzle. Right now, too many teams haven’t made up their mind yet.

If Roy actually did go in and make it a “him-or-me” deal it says a lot about him, I believe. He’s asking the team to trade away perhaps its most consistent player — while he himself is playing the worst basketball of his career. And once again it seems so much like an alibi for his woefully inconsistent play.

Could he be playing poorly just to set Miller up as the reason? At this point, nothing would surprise me. Folks, the player inevitably has all the power. If he says he’s hurt, he’s hurt. If he says he can’t play, he doesn’t play. There isn’t a thing the team can do about it.

Roy is a walking soap opera right now. And the more he talks, the more I’m beginning to think he’s healthier than he says he is and just having a devil of a time trying to come to grips with how badly he’s playing.

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I’ve felt all along that every Pac-10 school ought to be rooting for the Ducks this season because the conference badly needs the prestige a national championship would bring.

But what about you, Beavers? Can you bring yourself to root for the Ducks? And if not, where are those “Go Tigers” shirts in Beaver orange and black?

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OK, fine. But what we’re seeing from Brandon Roy right now isn’t just a physical thing. Rumors abound. Put your ear to the NBA ground and you hear all sorts of things. One of the murmurs making the rounds right now is that there’s really nothing more wrong with his knees today than there was a year ago. No, they say it’s much more than that.

They say he’s not happy with what’s gone on here.

The theory espoused to me yesterday by one NBA insider is that Roy is feeling lost and alone in Portland now that his sidekicks — Martell Webster, Travis Outlaw and Steve Blake — are all gone. He feels abandoned. That makes sense to a degree and also helps explain the idea that the team was attempting to trade for one of his old pals, Jamal Crawford of the Atlanta Hawks.

But this guy is going through a horrible stretch right now, on and off the court. In his last three games he’s made just nine of 37 shots. He missed both his free throws last night and took just five shots all game — including just one in the second half. It isn’t often you see an all-star caliber player go through what Roy’s been struggling with on the court.

And my goodness, the guy threw his front office, his teammates and his coach under the bus two days ago and then followed it up with a “I-meant-what-I-said-but-I-shouldn’t-have-said-it” apology yesterday.

And oh yes, that little rumor also includes the idea that he doesn’t think much of the team’s front office and that he’s not real excited about  Coach Nate McMillan lately, either.

The result is that he’s pouting — big-time pouting. And that he’s just not putting out right now. And the addendum to that theory is that he still has trade value — that if teams were to trade for him, he’d perk up again, particularly for a winning team, and return to his previous form. So would that make Roy more tradeable than we thought?

No way, says one general manager I spoke with.

“I cannot imagine any of us being able to go to our owner and convince him to commit to the kind of money that’s owed him,” he said. “There’s just no chance. Not, at least, without extensive medical examination. I just don’t see it happening.”

And for those calling for big, bold Trail Blazer moves, well, Rich Cho is going to have to turn into a magician to make those happen.

“What moves can they make?” one NBA executive asked me. “Unless they want to take back a contract worse than Roy’s, there are no deals out there for them. There are always people around who want to dispose of bad contracts. For Portland, they just don’t have many moves they can make. They are locked in on players to the point where they really don’t have much they can do.

“They look like one of those teams that isn’t going to be bad enough to get a good draft pick and not good enough to get anywhere in the playoffs. And that can last for a long time.”

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Although Roy didn’t mention names, he is clearly frustrated with his backcourt pairing with Miller. Roy wants to be surrounded by shooters like former teammates Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw, who gave him space to penetrate and create. Miller, although extremely effective and smart, frustrates Roy because he struggles with his outside shot, allowing teams to play off him and more easily trap Roy.

To make matters worse, Roy continues to struggle with his aching knees, and no other Blazers besides Matthews are hitting outside shots to make teams play honest. It has resulted in the Blazers being engaged in a nightly grind-it-out struggle for 48 minutes.

“I don’t know how people want us to play, because this is the personnel we have,” Roy said. “I wasn’t that slow until you put a guy who is kind of slow next to me. I’ve always been kind of slow … not to be controversial at all, but I was slow my rookie year, and now it’s …”

Frustrated, Roy shook his head.

“A lot has changed. That’s why it’s just delicate. With how I was able to play early in my career, I always said I was happy because of the situation I came into. I had this, this, this, and I didn’t have to change. Now that we have to adjust … some of it is we are running into rhythm problems, consistently.”

I yearn for the days of players who would just say, “Hey — I stink right now. I’m not making shots and I’m letting my teammates down. I need to play better if this whole franchise is going to be built around me. My bad.”

And trust me, those days did exist. I’ve heard some of the best players in sports say those words. I certainly don’t hear them very often anymore, though. And it’s hard for me to imagine a guy following a 4-for-16 game with a 3-for-16 game and then throwing his teammates under the bus.

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But the thing just won’t go away — I’m getting emails from people on a consistent basis about this and it’s one of those things people continue to talk about. It all started with a comment on this blog a short while ago:

Problem at the end of the day is – what changed between April of last year and October of this year.

Brandon isn’t the same Brandon, there was no injury and it has only been about 5 months. Players don’t change that vastly.

What I think is happening is fully Mental. I think that Brandon is currently struggling with a mental disorder, which would also shed light on many different things. His extended/continued summer visits with the psychologist, ego-inflation in the last 12 months, bi-polar reports, cannot run at all anymore… MORE IMPORTANTLY.

Is every obsessive OCD condition of wetting his fingers under his t-shirt. I watch it so much that it drives ME nuts….

I don’t think this problem is physical, I think the noodles upstairs aren’t functioning right.

And then came this follow-up email, which has been echoed, in various forms, from others:

Sure, Brandon slowed down a little bit last year – but the last 6 months (summer) have been night and day.
Brandon developed the OCD type “wetting fingers under jersey habit, sometime in the last 6-12 months”.
Brandon was very open about seeing a Psychologist over the summer and previous year.
Many of the opinions of Brandon Roy in articles have been very bi-polar. He says something, then changes up what he means by it later.
Brandon used to be a very humble guy, reading the articles now – his ego is extremely inflated….
When Brandon has left with knee problems this year, the ice doesn’t come out and there is no visible swelling.
The knee problems conveniently come out when he starts to fail clicking with the team in regular season.
We saw the same problem with Brandon in pre-season, before he had the stress on his knees. He looked just as slow.
There are more reasons you will start adding up in your head – but I think this is all made up. The Blazers would have to be secretive about this as well. You can’t talk about mental issues, not only from a legality issue – but for many other reasons.

I’m not sure what to think of all this but I will tell you this, if you’re watching Roy lately, just keep an eye out for the tapping and wiping the forehead thing. It goes on even when he’s dribbling the ball. A LOT. And the whole thing of sticking the hands under the jersey happens frequently, too.

I’m sure he’s probably always done some form of these things in the past, but I don’t know it’s been this often. It has no accelerated to the point that if you’re watching for it, it can hypnotize you. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still not in the league of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose public battle on NBA courts with Tourette’s Syndrome led to all sorts of uncomfortable mannerisms.

What do these things mean for Roy? I’m not sure they mean anything. But Roy’s significant dropoff in performance is bound to bring a lot of scrutiny. Tender knees or not, the guy has had struggles with things like dribbling the ball, passing and finding open teammates that he never had before — things that don’t necessarily seem knee related. He’s also been pretty puzzling with some of his quotes, too.

And then came the game last night. He “tweaked” the knee again — twice. He certainly didn’t play well and I guess the tweaks could explain that. But he says he’s going to play tonight and sort of passed the knee tweaks off as only something that frightened him a bit.

The second tweak came at the tail end of a drive against Richard Jefferson, when he planted, felt a twinge, and lost the ball as he went to the ground. He recovered the ball and continued to play, but he said the sharp pain played tricks with his mind.

“After that, it was hard going to my right,” Roy said. “I was a little tentative with my left leg.”

Roy said the first tweak robbed him of his “explosiveness” and his “lift.”

“But you know, it’s something that is going to happen,” Roy said. “The good thing about it is, it’s not really painful now. A couple of weeks ago, it would linger a little bit longer, whereas now, it just kind of bothers me a little bit. Hopefully, it will be better tomorrow.”

I’m not sure what those quotes mean, really. The pain would have lingered longer a couple of weeks ago than it does now? Is this because his condition is somehow improving? Why? I would have thought, given that he says he’s “bone-on-bone” in both knees, that it couldn’t get better during a season. That only rest would help it get better, or some form of surgery — Or a heaping helping of some form of pain killers.

This is a player who only a day or two ago said he wanted to get rid of any playing-time restrictions. Who wanted to just go play. And a game later, he’s “tentative.”

I’m sure when a young player finds himself with an injury that could impact his entire career, it is tough to deal with. He must be going through some very difficult times, mentally.

And how that manifests itself is anyone’s guess.

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J.J. Reddick wins today's Chad Doing lookalike contest

Now THAT is the kind of game that gives promise for a season. Portland’s 97-83 win over Orlando Thursday night was the first time I’ve felt all year any optimism about the upcoming season.

In fact, it’s the Blazers’ first win over a quality team. And it was done in convincing fashion after a poor first quarter.

The Blazers actually did a nice job of defending, too. It helped that the best three-point shooting team in the league had a horrid night from outside as the Magic couldn’t find anyone to step up to help Dwight Howard. Part of that was the Portland defense and part was just happenstance — but that’s part of the game.

Andre Miller has become an incredible story for this franchise. Face it, he’s a guy who was their third choice when he signed as a free agent and a player who had to call out the head coach in a profanity-laced tirade just to get himself into the starting lineup. And he’s the team MVP this season, a guy able to make things happen for himself and his teammates.

And the guy is a warrior. He brings it hard every night.

It was a fun game.

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We announced today on the Morning Sports Page that Friday will be my final show. I’m leaving to take advantage of a fantastic opportunity with Comcast Sportsnet Northwest. I’ll be moving over there to do some television and Internet work — and we’ll be talking more about all of that in a few days. Keep your eyes on this blog for details.

In fact, I can tell you this, I will be in Arizona with the Ducks for the BCS title game on behalf of CSN– and will be there the whole time the team will be there. More on that at a later date, too.

For now, just let me say thanks to Brian Jennings and the entire staff at 95.5 The Game for making it such a fun place to work. I had a blast and would have loved working there for the rest of my life — other than the getting-up-at-4:30 a.m. part. That got to be a serious problem.

I want to say that nobody in radio could ever have a better partner and friend than Chad Doing. The kid is going to be a major star in that business at some point — if he isn’t already — and I’m going to be bragging to anyone who will listen at the Old Folks Home that I once worked with him.

Thanks Chadwick, for doing all you could to try to make me look good.

And if you have any ideas about who he ought to bring in as a partner, seriously, shoot one of us an email. It’s wide open.

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Greatest Cuts SEC Guy_mixdown

Great job, Steve Herman.

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