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Trust me trust me trust me. Seriously. TRUST me, I KNOW, I blog a lot about the Blazers.

Every now and again the comments are thick with people noticing such things.

In my defense, I can offer:

• TrueHoop has always been this way. Back when it was an independent blog with about nine readers I was using TrueHoop as a platform for grand-scale Blazer love. And back then Sebastian Telfair was the best story in Blazerland.
• Small comfort, perhaps, but I blog about Portland way less than I could. (For instance, right now I'm not linking to the assertion here that doubling Brandon Roy like crazy is in the cards. I'm similarly not pointing out that with James Jones, Martell Webster, and Steve Blake hitting wide-open three-pointers, the team welcomes those double teams. And that's why Roy wasn't doubled on some key plays last night, I suspect. So ... that's what I'm not writing today. Whoops.)
  
• ESPN's Chris Sheridan, I believe, is not a passionate fan of an NBA team. He's the special exception. Almost everyone else I have ever met working in sports backs some team or another, and I think that's as it should be. Why? Because sports without passion are nothing. Why would anyone dedicate their lives to sports if they weren't passionate about it? You can ask me how it is that I can be so brazenly a Blazer fan. I can ask you why it is that [insert sports journalist's name here] hides his or her fandom. It's good to be impartial. But if you are not impartial, like just about all of us, I think it's good to be honest.
  
• The Blazers are as good an NBA story as there is right now, and a lot of what is good about the team has not really even hit the national spotlight yet.

And to that last point, let me point you to the recent work of Oregonian writer Jason Quick.

Quick writes in the Oregonian about the team's chemistry. A lot of writing about chemistry is very rah-rah and not all that rooted in reality. I think this Blazer team is different. He quotes nearly every player and coach saying they have never been on a team like this one.

One of the team's favorite stories is about how the team reacted, on the flight home, to the loss to Utah that ended their 13-game win streak on New Year's Eve:

The flight attendants, as they had in the past when the team had flown on New Year's Eve, tried to make the best of the situation, laying out tiaras, kazoos and confetti. But unlike past years, when the likes of Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells would ignore the party favors and retreat to the back of the plane, this year's team ambushed the supply.

Soon, everyone had a kazoo or a tiara and the mood quickly changed.

"It was New Year's Eve, and we lost, and we were all thinking how bad it was that we had to spend New Year's on an airplane," Blake said. "But by the time we were up in the air, we were all in the lounge area, talking, laughing."

"It was like a celebration of us being a young team and kind of hitting the national spotlight," Roy said. "We said, 'Let's be sure we bound back, but let's sit back and enjoy what we just did.' And I can honestly tell you, that was the most fun I have ever had on New Year's."

Rodriguez, the gregarious Spaniard who is always trying to make someone laugh, stood in front of the team and led them in the chorus of his unofficial theme song, "Ole, Ole, Ole." The players danced to the song, and called to the coaches to join them.

"They were back there singing, dancing . . . you know, acting stupid, but having fun doing it, " assistant Bill Bayno said.

I think Portland has a special advantage when it comes to chemistry that Quick did not mention: of the players who actually play (excluding Darius Miles, bought-out Steve Francis, or Raef LaFrentz) not one of these players has a big contract. It's easy not to be jealous at this stage.

Quick had a lot more stories than could fit into his article, so he wrote them up into a five-part series about team chemistry on his blog.

That's where the dare in the headline comes in. Really, honestly, you hard-bitten and bitter sports fans: Read that five-part series. It's not so long. There's nothing wrong with it. It won't hurt you.

And I think it will probably kind of make you like the Blazers a little. Here's an anecdote from practice:

After about 15 minutes, the players stop with their drills and start having a little fun. It starts with the players trying to make a full-court shot, throwing the ball like a football. Steve Blake is too far left. Joel Przybilla is dreadfully short, displaying awkward form. LaMarcus Aldridge rocks the shot clock above the backboard.

Meanwhile, Sergio Rodriguez is playing soccer with a basketball, bouncing it several times on his foot. He then puts it on the court and starts to dribble -- soccer style -- up and down the court, with Webster trying to provide defense. Rodriguez obviously has some serious soccer skill, and he jukes Webster with a foot-changing spin move, prompting Jack to lose his train of thought. "Damn, Sergio!" Jack hoots.

Then it got really interesting.

As the other players kept trying to make the full-court shot, Rodriguez entered the contest, only he didn't throw the ball. Rodriguez would bounce the ball once and kick it the length of the court at the other basket ... and nearly make it.

He did it over and over, just missing each time, causing Webster -- who had gone to the other end to retrieve the balls -- to squeal in delight at the closeness of each shot. The depth and volume of the squeals really showed Webster's youthful exuberance. It was like a kid at the circus marveling at the trapeze artists.  

Tiaras! Dancing! Trapeze artists! A lot of sports is not fun. But this team, right now: this is fun. I promise not to write about it all the time. But sometimes, it's too much fun to resist.

(Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)