By Mike Rice

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Another year is upon us and like all years in the NBA preseason, there will be battles for who gets playing time. The most interesting position to watch and see what Nate does, leading up to the first game, will be the quarterback or who will be the point guard of the 07-08 Blazers.

I don’t think you want to call this Nate’s problem position. Any time you have the depth and skills that the five perspective guards have, it can’t be called a problem. The five that are in the hunt for playing time are: Taurean Green, Jarrett Jack, Sergio Rodriguez, Steve Blake and Brandon Roy.

To start the discussion on who might win most of the minutes, you might discount Taurean Green immediately – you shouldn’t. He can do two things that are necessary for a point to be successful – shoot and play defense. He will improve if he gets opportunity but that may be difficult since the people ahead of him are the hardest workers on the Blazers, and they’re not about to share the minutes down to his level.

If you’re Nate, you know you want the ball in Brandon Roy’s hands in the fourth quarter, but that might not take the other points out of the game. Both Steve Blake and Jarrett Jack have moved over and played the two guard spot before. That leaves the first – three quarters for playing time at the point between Jarrett, Steve and Sergio. Nate will look very closely at last year to see who might run his team the best.

Steve Blake played for Denver and became a starter at point as the year went along. He was able to keep the peace between Alan Iverson and Carmelo. He built up great confidence in himself when it came to taking the pen shot or keeping the ball in the hands of the hot shooter. He was the guy that kep the fast break going for George Karl, and both A.I. and Carmelo trusted Steve to get them the ball if they ran the court hard. Since Nate wants to run, give some points to Blake, who knows how to push the ball better than the rest.

Last year Jarrett Jack averaged 12 points, 2.6 rebounds and 5.3. assists a game. His assists were a team high. He averaged 34 minutes a game and started 79 games. He shot 45 percent from the floor and 87 percent from the foul line, a team best. In his 79 starts he led the team in assists 46 times. His efforts made him the 23rd best in assists in the NBA and 11th in free throw percentage. I give you these stats to show how Jarrett has improved since coming out of Georgia Tech in the 2005 draft. He is one of the team leaders and Nate knows Jarrett puts winning ahead of all personal achievements. He might not push the ball as well as Blake, but he is a little stronger on the defensive end checking the big 2’s (although Steve did a nice job on Kobe last year when A.I. couldn’t handle him).

That leaves Sergio Rodriguez as the third point guard. He is fun to watch and can get the ball to the right person on all pick and roll plays. He is an energizer out on the court when he comes in. When Sergio comes in the game, it’s a pick me up for both fans and players, but will that be enough playing time to keep Sergio happy. Sergio has a bright future in the NBA, but like Taurean, will he get enough exposure to help the Blazers team this year.

I believe most of the other positions will be much easier to deal with on the Blazers. We will talk about the two guard, small forward, power forward and center positions in future articles. Nate won’t have to stay awake thinking about playing time for the other ten guys, but he will lose plenty of sleep trying to figure out how to keep five young point guards happy in this 2007-2008 season.