Trail Mix: Nicolas Batum Goes To Normandy On 70th D-Day Anniversary

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Of course, in the offseason there isn’t a whole lot of Blazers content out there but we gathered what we could find, put it in a bag and maybe you can take it with you on a hike this weekend.

First, we go to Casey Holdahl of TrailBlazers.com who collected all of the photos from Blazers forward Nicolas Batum’s trip to Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Here’s my personal favorite and also, apparently, TMZ’s?

Epic! Picture of the year! pic.twitter.com/VntpifZuEw

— Nicolas Batum (@nicolas88batum) June 6, 2014

Batum always likes to make jokes and he recognized the awkwardness of the moment captured on the big screen between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama.

I had just a sample but if you want to see the full portfolio of Batum’s posts, click right here.

The NBA released a video thanking its fans and Portland’s Damian Lillard and Blazers fans bookend the tribute.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leEoDXpG46E&w=560&h=315]

I was going to breakdown the season for CJ McCollum but Dane Carbaugh already did a much better one than I would have over at Blazersedge. His breakdowns continue to be some of the best not just on the Blazers but among people covering the league.

Basically, he’s going to need to put in a lot of work in the offseason–something which he has said–and will need to use Summer League to hone some of his skills.  He also highlighted core strength and lateral quickness in his exit interview. We’ll be there in Vegas to see how he’s doing after a few months away.

Also, I’ve been participating in OregonLive’s You Be The GM “Expert panel” along with Oregonian Blazers beat writer Joe Freeman, Casey Holdahl of TrailBlazers.com and Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated and Blazersedge.

Today, we covered Robin Lopez. Here’s a page with all of the You Be The GM stuff and hopefully you can find all the other panels we’ve done and there are only a few more to go.

Finally, Timmay! from Blazersedge had a really cool piece about the NBA’s project to digitize and upload to the web all of their archived games.

Want to revisit the 1977 Finals? Good luck with the remaining fuzzy footage available on YouTube that hasn’t been taken down. How about that legendary Blazers win in the Boston Garden, the “1” in the Celtics’ 40-1? Nope. That was taken down from YouTube awhile back. What about Portland’s comeback thriller against the Sonics in the Tacoma Dome? You can only see a short clip of Terry Porter’s memorable three-point play. Maybe you want to re-watch that entire magical 1989-90 season, where the Blazers went from “Buck Williams should be an upgrade”, to “Wow, these guys are really good,” to “Wow, we’re in the Finals instead of the Lakers!”. You won’t have any luck. Few games are online, and the quality of the footage is questionable.

But that won’t be the case for much longer.

Timmay! outlines the steps of the eight-year process. I for one am salivating at the opportunities to watch classic games, like Boris Diaw’s 2005-06 season prime Hakeem Olajuwon or even Game 6 of the 2014 Blazers-Rockets series.

Have a good weekend and stay cool everybody!