Andanh.com

By Craig Edwards

It's a busy time down at the Blazers' practice facility, as they work out prospects before the NBA Draft. All sorts of names have visited Tualatin. But one name that hasn't worked out for the team is stirring up all kinds of debate.... Kevin Love.

The Blazers have invited the former Lake Oswego star to work out prior to the draft, but as of this writing, he has yet to RSVP.

For some reason, this has a lot of Oregonians upset, saying Love is snubbing his hometown team. These are probably the same people who leveled insult after insult at Love when he played down at Mac Court back in January, simply because he "snubbed" the Ducks to play at UCLA (that's another debate for another time).

Folks, there is nothing that requires Kevin Love to workout for the Blazers. The weeks before the draft are a long process, and take a lot of work to navigate. Here are three reasons Kevin Love should NOT work out for the Blazers.

1. The Blazers have the 13th overall pick - The chances that Love is available at #13 are minimal. A trade to jump up higher is possible, but would likely be too high for GM Kevin Pritchard to take. For Love, working out for the Blazers would mean working out for a team that probably CAN'T draft him.

2. Not every player needs to work out for every team. Let's look at CJ Giles of Oregon State, he's doing anything he can to sell himself to an NBA team. He HAS to. Right now, he's unlikely to get picked, and needs to generate as much interest in himself as possible. There are all sorts of teams interested in Kevin Love. He doesn't have to create a buzz... it's already there.

3. Workouts are NOT always a good thing. Say you work out for a team, and a coach doesn't like how you shoot the ball. It doesn't matter if you're a 100% shooter, word's going to spread like wildfire that you don't have a good shot, hurting your draft stock. Based on his in-game action from this year, Kevin Love has a great resume. Sometimes it is smarter and safer to let that resume stand for itself.

I think Kevin Love is going to make a great pro player, emphasis on the word "Pro." As with any walk of life, professionals only do things that help them gain something.

Right now, there is really nothing for Kevin Love to gain from working out for the Blazers.

The headline to this blog will make sense in a little bit.. but first I have some business to get to.

So, at noon and at 5 the "lush lashes" story was on deck. That's the one where folks on the glaucoma eyedrops noticed all of sudden they had movie star lashes; thick, dark, long (only minus all that glue and obvious fakeness that comes with most false eyelashes).

I talked about the race to bring a cosmetic product to market and the lawsuits in the race to be number one. Here's more on that:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=82949

I really liked this write-up on 'celebrity sickness' and the Kylie Minogue breast cancer screening effect:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=ajw4yJTzzK1w&refer=australia

Here's the State Of Oregon page on flouride in water:
http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/oralhealth/care/fluoride.shtml
This link was prompted by Haggen stores now offering free prenatal vitamins and flouride tablets if you have a prescription.

And finally.. look who came for a visit this morning:

That's Max sitting in Kate's lap. She's our 4:30am producer. Max turned up in the halls.. I dunno.. about 5:30 this morning or so. He is the cutest little guy. None of us in the newsroom could get enough of his friendly, happy antics. He totally kept us entertained. But where exactly did he come from?

I called the KINK studio (which is upstairs in this building) and asked them, "Um, any of you misssing a white dog?"

Sure enough.. that's Sheila Hamilton's little guy. She's tall, slender, and blond.. just like Kate-- so maybe that's why Max took to Kate so quickly. It was pretty cute. He kept pawing at her to get her to play.

PS. Sheila had him here because he was off to the groomer's after her shift ended. I told her to let us babysit anytime.

sstricklen@kgw.com