Brandon Roy (photo. Aaron Hewitt)

Nate McMillan didn’t have any face paint, bows, arrows, or spears to add gravity to the most important speech of his young coaching career. But on the eve of the Blazers’ epic season-opener against the Lakers tonight, McMillan stood in front of his team and gave them the type of high drama that Mel Gibson delivered to his soldiers in Braveheart.

“They are the present,” McMillan started, referencing Kobe’s Lakers. “And we are the future.

“I believe in you,” McMillan recounted afterward. “I told them I feel we are ready. That I feel I have a group. If I was going in there by myself, or if I was going in there without enough, then I would be nervous. But I’m going in there with you. And I believe in you.”

Throughout his speech McMillan would broadly point to groups of players, and say how reassuring it was for him to look at the players before him and know he was going into battle with them.

I’m not a Blazers’ fan, but I still get chills from the depth of McMillan’s care for this team – this group of guys. And while he’s dead serious about believing in his team, the guys on the floor care just as much as he does. Nicolas Batum, who will start in his first NBA game, is borderline emotional about this moment in his life, as it evokes feelings of his father who died of a heart attack on a basketball court 16 years ago.

While Andrew Bynum has been busy turning 21, Greg Oden has been almost too serious in his preparation to prove the bounty hunters wrong.

And with Bynum, Tim Duncan, Amare/Shaq, Okur/Boozer, Yao, Al Jefferson, and Dwight as back-to-back-to-back-to-etc. centers on the slate to start the season, Oden needs to bring his absolute best from the jump. With that schedule, the Blazers could be in deep trouble if they start slowly.

Which team needs a Braveheart speech the most from their coach?

Source: Oregon Live