Tanking again
Another Trail Blazer season is winding down, and once again they're trying to lose every game in order to improve their chances of winning the draft lottery. The best players are sitting out entire games now. It's quite a disappointment, not to mention an embarrassment, squandering yet another year of the career of probably the most talented player in the history of the franchise, Damian Lillard.
But the disastrous year does not really come as a surprise.
The Blazers' front office is terrible. They can't, or won't, do what it takes to assemble even a first-round-exit team. And of course, the coach they hired, Chauncey Billups, is one of the worst decisions they ever made. He wasn't qualified, and still isn't, to be an NBA head coach. His predecessor, Terry Stotts, looks like a genius by comparison.
Hard-core Portland hoops fans are now pretty much waiting until the team's owner, Jody Allen, sells the Blazers. Their real estate deal with the city will expire in a couple of years, as I recall, and that's probably complicating things. Phil Knight has made an offer, at least half-serious, to take over, but Allen's people, notoriously difficult to work with, have apparently given him the cold shoulder.
And so we muddle on. One more way in which we admit that things in Portland aren't as they should be, but we wait for salvation from some quarter, yet unidentified.
Half-serious is right. He tried to get them for $2B, which is half of what the Suns sold for in December. It was a nice try. Someone at Vulcan whispered the right things in her ear.
ReplyDeleteBrain donors are whispering things to protect their personal territory. Wouldn’t hire any of them to manage a sandwich shop
DeleteAt his age, why would he want it? Do his kids want it?
ReplyDeletePhil has never seemed into pro hoops or the Blazers, and he does seem too old to jump on the bandwagon. My guess is his partner (Alan Smolinsky, who is only 43 and part owner of the Dodgers) sold him on trying to get a local angle/fire sale out of Jody at $2B if there was something in the estate that made her sell within a short timeframe or give preference to a local ownership group. Vulcan aside, I'm sure the other owners and maybe even the Commish told her to issue that public statement so they'd get serious or get lost.
DeleteThe NBA is on the verge to sign a new mega TV deal that will drive up the values of the franchises.
ReplyDeleteMat Ishbia saw this and paid $4B for the Sun's without hesitation.
Vulcan is holding out.
Vulcan has never impressed me as being particularly smart.
DeleteBroken Clock is right twice a day..:
DeleteStill, you gotta love the PR department's risible attempts to implant team spirit among an indifferent public, to wit, the colossal mural on the grain elevators by the Steel Bridge that depict an exuberant young woman with a Blazers scarf around her neck. Rip City!!
ReplyDeleteThe PR department at the Blazers is a perfect fit for the Portland press.
ReplyDeleteThe Blazers author a press release and the Portland media published it.
A perfect marriage.
The team needs to be renamed. They should be called the Portland Heartbreakers, as that is their greatest skill.
ReplyDelete