Portland Trailblazers Slowly Winning Fans Back
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by user Deuelio
Like the prodigal son returning to his fathers’ house, the Portland Trailblazers are slowly winning back a once rabid fan base that previously had been turned off by constant scandal and embarrassment. Starting with an incident in a Salt Lake City hotel room in the early 90's, Trailblazers fans have suffered groin punch after groin punch as player after player have had their mug shot splashed across the evening news.
After the SLC hotel scandal came J.R. Rider, one of the most talented players in the NBA history, but also one of the more troubled. Rider’s tenure overlapped with that of Rasheed Wallace, who has since resurrected his career in Detroit. The mercurial forward was a fan favorite in Portland, but turned people off with his brash nature and for among other things, setting an NBA record for T’s in a season (editor’s note: not that big of deal in my mind), speeding down I-5 with a yellow Hummer full of pot smoke (editors note: not illegal in Oregon and he wasn’t driving, but still a terrible decision), throwing a towel in the face of Arvydas Sabonis a huge fan favorite. He threatened a ref in the bowels of the Rose Garden blah blah blah. The list could go on but I’m tired of thinking about it.
Wallace was a wonderful talent, but aggravated much of the fan base and became the ugly face of what was known as the “Jail Blazers.” Guys like Damon Stoudamire (Chong to Rasheed’s Cheech in the yellow Hummer of smoke) didn’t help the image when he learned a valuable metals lesson in an Arizona airport. Ruben Patterson never did register as the "Kobe Stopper" as he proclaimed, but he did register on another, more dubious list. Ruben was a vocal and controversial player and was sucker punched by Zach Randolph. Unfortunately for Ruben, the city rejoiced. For some reason, sex offenders don’t garner much sympathy around here. Patterson played the game hard but in typical NBA fashion, believed he was much better than he was and demanded more playing time, more money and removal of the government tracking device from his ankle. The Blazers traded him away leading to the current state of the Blazers.
What followed was more of the same. More overpaid, underperforming superstars counted upon to lead the Blazers out of the cellar. Darius Miles and Zach Randolph were supposed to be the cornerstone of a Blazer rebirth, instead they turned Judas on the organization with constant insubordination, disappearing acts and general worthlessness when the team needed them the most.
Now, thanks to wheeling wanna-be GM Kevin Pritchard, the Blazers have pulled a draft day coup and landed two of the top six picks in the draft and the 1-2 players on their draft board. LeMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy will not be knocking Shaq and Wade out of the finals next season, or even Kobe and Kwame out of the eighth seed. But they are cornerstones and pieces of a bigger puzzle necessary to building for the future. Trading up to get Aldridge was a risky move. He’s very tall and lean (editors note: weak, he could only bench press a UT coed which is about 115 lbs). But he downplayed that and really hit it out of the park when he told the Portland media that he didn’t like to go out drinking and partying. He just liked to play basketball and get better. (Another Editors note: that sound you heard was thousands of Portland fans simultaneously dropping their Venti non-fat mocha's onto their Birkenstocks). In any case, he immediately went from random tall guy, to guy we must get in Portland.
Next came Brandon Roy, a do-everything sort of well but not great guard out of Washington. He's a home-region kid who many thought could come in right away and play. Roy, like Aldridge is another good kid who will not embarrass the organization and will come in to be the anti-Darius...they suspect he'll work hard and improve his game. Roy’s game is harder to nit-pick, he’s good at everything, but does not seem to be capable of taking the game over on his own. But no matter, he’s a solid piece to a growing puzzle.
Pritchard also was able to buy the so-called “Spanish Chocolate” from Phoenix. Sergio Rodriguez looks like Steve Blake but has a worse jump shot. They also drafted a tall Englishman (Joel Freeland) who told the Portland media that he didn’t watch basketball until three years ago and didn’t have a favorite player. Those two picks are very small pieces to the puzzle that will hopefully develop into functional parts.
The final coup for Pritchard (incredibly, he’s still not the Blazer GM) was signing big man Joel Przybilla when everyone was certain he’d bolt for Detroit or San Antonio…or anywhere but here. My first thought when Przybilla signed with Portland, “He must not like winning very much if he turned down Detroit and San Antonio.” But then it came to light that Pritchard recruited him hard when the big guy was mulling his options. The GM must have said something that resonated with Przybilla because the big guy re-signed for five years saying he liked the new direction. It was another feather in Pritchard’s cap.
Now comes the hard part for Pritchard – find a buyer for Darius Miles for anyone and anything. I’d trade Darius Miles for a good ham sandwich at this point. Scratch that, it doesn’t even have to be a good ham sandwich, any sandwich is fine. Pritchard should also be praying to the sweet Lord that Zach Randolph gets 25 and 10 next season so his trade value will skyrocket. Whatever happens, there is a buzz around town that for once is not the buzzing of police helicopters. Rather, it is a fan base slowly stirring from an unwanted hiatus, ready to welcome back Blazermania.
And I didn’t even mention Qyntel Woods...or Sebastian Telfair...or Bonzi Wells.
Date
Thu 07/06/06, 9:14 pm EST
