Blazers, Blazers everywhere, but not a shot to sink
Ugh. Thank God we’re finally (almost) through with this season.
Seriously, how hard are the Blazers making it to be fans? I’ve vascillated throughout the year, first praising the direction of the team, then taunting the non-efforts of various members of the team, then applauding the growth of some of the franchise’s young members, then deriding Paul Allen in the recent months.
If you like roller coasters, P-town’s the place to be. If you like basketball, though, this is a tough place to live.
For those keeping track, this year’s team has been less-than-stellar. After a promising pre-season victory over Seattle, most of this year has been a lost cause, with only brief glimmers of hope as we watched the 2005-2006 Blazers amass the third-worst (and, well, we could still tie for second) record in franchise history (the worst being the year the team entered the league, winning only 18 of 82 games; second worst was the following year, when the team pulled it together and won 21).
Combined with the horrible year is the on-going nightmare of the ownership situation. After announcing that he was hemmoraging money, Paul Allen’s people have pretty much fumbled the PR ball while trying to find a graceful exit from team ownership. After getting absolutely skewered in the press (and here on the Metroblog) for hiding behind his corporate curtain and trying to make us listen to the talking head (of Vulcan, his corporate shell for handling all-things geeky), Allen released a much-rehearsed “conversational” Q&A piece on the Blazers website and started to drop in at games again (only to be greeted by “Trade Allen” signs - classic P-town angst at work). The cavalry (AKA David “Who’s Your Daddy” Stern) was called in to help strong-arm the city and/or the owners of the Rose Garden, who are the ones delivering a deserved flogging to Allen’s pocket-book, and summarily retreated upon seeing the hole Allen had dug for himself.
Rumors abound about possible buyers for the team: “Trader” Bob Whitsett, Damon Stoudamire, and Terry Porter have all been reported to be working on putting together ownership groups. I personally don’t know how seriously any of them should be taken, although (if I had my way) Damon or Terry would get it, simply because I (and most Portlanders, for that matter) hate Bob’s guts and liver.
The big question on the sales front continues to be “what’s in it for the Garden’s owners?” After Allen defaulted on his loans and bankrupted out of ownership of the Rose Garden, the bond-holders-cum-landlords were in the strangely enviable position of having a building they didn’t want, but having a lease with which they could basically rape the very person who’d previously tried to screw them.
The Rose Garden has some tremendous upside. It’s the premiere venue for sporting and concert events in the largest city in the state of Oregon, and it isn’t likely that this city will replace it any time soon. It has a guaranteed tenant (in the Blazers) and, I assume, if the Blazers were to try to wiggle out of their lease, the bond-holders would happily sue the Blazers, Allen, the NBA, and Vulcan for everything they’re worth. And owning the Garden puts them in a great position to continue punishing Paul while waiting for a desirable buyer (say and NHL franchise) to come along, which would then still be able to punish Paul on the bond-holders’ behalf.
Of course, the Rose Garden becomes more antiquated every year (yes, stadiums are just like computers these days, today’s state of the art is tomorrow’s abacus) and various maintenance costs put an unanticipated strain on people who weren’t depending on having to deal with cash flow issues related to actual hands-on ownership. So, as I heard John Canzano say yesterday on The Fan’s Primetime with Ian and Big Suke, “the bond-holders want to be bankers,” as he explained his rationale for believing the ownership situation would be resolved by the draft.
Ah, the draft. The only ray of sunshine in this cloudy dark world. As the league’s bona-fide worst team, the Blazers have the best chance at scoring the first pick of the first round. All our team needs to be delivered of this crapulence is an Adam Morrison-caliber player.
Oh, yeah, and to rid ourselves of Darius, Theo, Vashon Leonard, and possibly even Zach.
Hmm. So much for next year…
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Bless your (black and red striped) heart, Betsy.
You think the draft is going to save the team that passed on Michael Jordan?
I want the Blazers to go public like the Packers did. Maybe before this season it would have been easy and it would have worked.
http://www.packers.com/history/fast_facts/stock_history/
Betsy? Dude, you’re killing me here…
Oh, maaaan. Don’t mix me up with the bald dude, please…!
I am sorry, but Morrison is destined to be a horrible NBA player (where have you gone Luke Jackson?) and the worst possible draft choice in a Blazer era that has already survived a death storm of bad decisions. True, he embodies East Portland, with his Benson HS stache, Pantera haircut and back pocket syringes, but other than making Quiet Riot cool again he doesn’t bring much to the table. Package the pick with Ratliff or Zbo, if not than draft the Euro, trade Miles for some KFC gift certificates to be handed out when the Blazers fail to score at least 90 points in a game, and for the love of god, get Mike Rice a sponser in the off-season!!
You make some good points, but your outlook is poor. There is no way next season can be worse, and you completely omit the fact that this is the first year in Nate’s system. Yes all the crap going on around sucks, and it’ll probably cost us Joel..
BUT.. on the bright side, all the young guys WILL be better next year under Nate, the rotation will not be as chaotic as this year, and even if we can’t get rid of Z-fat or Miles, Nate will find a way to either do without them, or make them work for the team. Don’t forget we got as lucky as heck by getting the best coach in the nba, and watch him do what he does best.
I’d say if we can get a decent big boy in the draft(pray for Noah), that can replace Z-fat, we’ll be better, let alone if we can actually use the money we are wasting on Zach/Miles for somebody who wants to play.
…rant on…and on…and on… it’s what we blazer fans do best! i would love that #1 pick and at the same time know that it can’t be trusted in the hands of current managment…could we really bring in a rookie older than half our players? we should…at this point a “fire sale” looks good to me…d.piles & z-no…let’m play elsewhere…paul”a fool and his money are soon parted”allen…egghead??blockhead is closer to the truth…rant on my good fan rant on!
The Blazer history page says the first year record was 29-53. You say that team had but 18 wins. Why the discrep??
Oops! I was using a database that wasn’t at their official site. I sorted and simply misread. My bad. I see that I was a whole season off; I can see how that would be highly disturbing…
I would love to see the Blazers trade Randolph and Miles, but I’m not sure who would want either of them due to their poor attitudes and huge contracts. Maybe the Blazers are bleeding money, but maybe it might help save the franchise to include payment of part of their contracts in any trade scenario involving those two players. Anyone out there besides me think they could probably trade Telfair as well, and that they’d be o.k. for a year or two with Blake and Jack at PG? I’d steer clear of Morrison and go for someone like Noah, maybe even Aldridge… but I’m no expert. At least with the new rules in place for drafting players, Portland won’t be able to pick a high schooler in the first round again this year.