Tense times on Dame Watch
If you're a Trail Blazer fan worried that star player Damian Lillard might demand a trade, you can't be sleeping any easier after watching the U.S. Olympic basketball team lose again, this time to France. Lillard turned the ball over a couple of times down the stretch as the Americans posted another disappointing loss. This ain't your grandfather's Dream Team, the referees don't care how much money they make, and the international competition has gotten way better and smarter.
If Lillard comes home with a bronze medal hanging around his neck, or no medal at all, he'll be in an ornery mood. And then he'll notice that the Blazers management isn't going to spend the money, and isn't smart enough, to put another big star or two on the court with him. It will be more Zach Collins or Robert Covington or some such. And then old Dame Dolla will be rapping 1, 2, 3, Eastern Conference!
The Blazers remind me of the Seattle Mariners. Rip City has become another franchise that you can't take too seriously. Oh, these teams have their moments – right now the M's have their terminally bland TV play-by-play guy screaming when he's usually snoozing – but in the end, they find a way to disappoint. Some years, it goes a little further than others, but the result is always the same.
I'm glad I'm not on the Iranian Olympic team, because the USA is going to mop the floor with them in the next game in a couple of days. But it's not looking great for the gold, and that's not a good omen for the Blazers.
You have to be either lucky or super shrewd to be competitive in a small market. We got spoiled with Paul Allen over the years being willing to spend money to overpay on salaries, but looks like our luck has run out. Now Portland has such bad karma, the magic is fading. Plus Portland has so little Black culture, that even money is not enough to get big talent here.
ReplyDeleteThe overpaying brought most garbage. Darius Miles, Shawn Kemp, Meyers Leonard, the list of Paul's useless pets is long. Portland needs to make a deal like the one that brought Buck Williams in from New Jersey. That was before Allen's time.
DeleteMilwaukee just proved that it can be done. Phoenix isn't a big (or particularly Black) market, either.
It's up to Jody Allen to try to package the franchise for sale. If Lillard leaves, she loses eight figures on the sale price.