Look out for the Utah Jazz!

[The Assassin]

3 wins in a row for them.........hows Stockton and Malone doing? They still play for them right? :?

[Dinsdale]

Kobe Bryant thought he was the man, until he ran into the defensive force that IS Steve Blake.

The offense/defensive tandem of Blake and Jaun Dixon, who kinda won an NCAA title just proved to be too much for Kobe. 45+ streak over. Lakers winning streak over.

Blazerfan is finding things to cheer about anywhere he can these days. I'll post about it again when I have something else to brag about, probably sometime next season.

BUT...Martell Webster IS the fucking man.

[The Assassin]

Kobe Bryant thought he was the man, until he ran into the defensive force that IS Steve Blake.

The offense/defensive tandem of Blake and Jaun Dixon, who kinda won an NCAA title just proved to be too much for Kobe. 45+ streak over. Lakers winning streak over.

Blazerfan is finding things to cheer about anywhere he can these days. I'll post about it again when I have something else to brag about, probably sometime next season.

BUT...Martell Webster IS the fucking man.

I was browsing the Oregonian online when I read an article saying the Blazers had the lowest attendance average in the NBA.(I call bullshit because as long as the Hawks are in the league they will own that distinction). What happened to RIP city? That fanbase used to be rabid,and they always sold out. Granted they've been the Jailblazers for a few,but from what I've seen they are trying to clean up the mess.

[Dinsdale]

I was browsing the Oregonian online when I read an article saying the Blazers had the lowest attendance average in the NBA.(I call bullshit because as long as the Hawks are in the league they will own that distinction). What happened to RIP city?

Two words -- Paul Allen.

It took him about 10 years, but he managed to take the #1 NBA city in the country and make them not care. When he bought the team, he had no clue about the unique relationship between the team and the community. Since he wasn't responsible for hiring Geoff Petrie or Rick Adelman, so he fired them, even though Adelman had the highest winning % of any coach in NBA history at the time. Then, instead of nuturing the home grown talent that had been a team tradition since the get-go, he let all of the veterans go. And goodness knows, the community HATED Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, and Buck Williams. Instead of the personable Adelman and Petrie, he decided we needed Idiot Whittsett and PJ Carlissimo, who were such POS human beings that the veterans all demanded trades, and each and every one of them apologized to the fans for what was happening to them on their way out. On Carlissimo, Williams just said "I'm a grown man, I won't be treated that way by anyone."

In the Glory Days, it was hard to get a ticket to any game, regardless how much money you had in your pocket, especially when they still played in the Glass Palace(by far the noisiest building I've ever been in...you could feel the ground shaking two blocks away. My friends and I all want the Blazers to play a few games back at the Colesium, since there's plaenty of room for everybody these days). Now, you can buy a $10 nosebleeder and walk down to the high-dollar section (the one where they could sell out every $150 seat for every game in the past) and make yourself at home, which is nice, since they have cocktail waitresses down there.

Then, there was the whole arena deal. A couple of years ago, the ownership group went bankrupt, even though that place had almost paid off its $300 mil bill in the first couple of years. But at the first sign of trouble, Allen bailed, and left everyone else holding the bag. The really infuriating part was when the city(which was deciding which schools to shut down at the time, and which school sports programs were getting the axe due to lack of funds(until Damon Stoudamire and Terrell Brandon ponied up their own cash to keep them going)) got stuck with $20 million of that debt, the news of which came down at right about the same time that we read about Evil Allen blowing exactly $20 million launching a toy rocket into space. Oh, and Allen's yacht, the second-largest privately owned vessel in the world they tell me, was parked directly across from the Rose Garden at the time.

Aaaaand another thing -- he proved what an out of touch moron he was when they named the building the Rose Garden. The Rose Garden is a very old section of Washington Park, which just about every man, woman, and child in the city is quite familiar with. It's truly a landmark, and just about every native (sup all 50 of us) got laid as a teen laying down in between the rows of roses(pretty spectacular place-btw). If you tell someone "meet me at the Rose Garden" you're talking about The Park, not the building.

This is a pretty forgiving, "look the other way" town, and I don't think the whole Jailblazers thing really soured too many fans -- it's not like Portland residents are going to judge anyone too harshly for smoking pot, which is what about 90% of all that bad press was about (although you REALLY have to be fucking up to get busted for weed around these parts...I've walked away from probably at least a dozen episodes(conservative estimate) of being caught by the Portland Police myself). Nope, the rotating door of free agents who only came for the big payday at the hands of the sucker owner that pissed everyone off.

The dude has done just about everything in his power to completely destroy the bond that existed between the community and the franchise since 1970, even before they ever took the court for the first time. That was before my time, but the older folks tell me how the Glickmans used to have open meetings on what direction the community wanted the team to take. Now, it's like the team says "this is what you're getting, and you'll like it."

So basically, the team has taken on a "you owe us because we're the Mighty Trailblazers, and we're the only game in town, so you have no choice." I think they didn't factor in the one choice the fans had. As a DIEHARD lifelong Blazerfan, it's been kind of heartbreaking. But, that's the ups and downs of modern sports. I guess we'll just hang on to that absolutely magical time that was 1977, when players, management, and community all got on the same page and just willed an underdog bunch of scrubs (and one HOFer) to the championship, and give up hoping that something like that could ever happen again. Allen and his Merry Dipshits will never be of a like mind with the fans.

If Allen sells the team, things could change quickly. Or another sports franchise coming to town and eating up the sports revenue (a few years ago, Money Magazine said the Blazers had BY FAR the best opportunity to profit from a sports franchise of any team in any sport in any city...and they did for a lot of years). Hell, this town is so sports-starved, that they often average 5...6...7+ thousand fans a night for junior hockey. The AAA ballteam averages almost 15,000 on cheap-beer night(and I think about 2500 or so on other nights...our fans have their priorities straight) And none of the sports leagues seem to want to have anything to do with letting Phil Knight have a sports team, and most of the other rich folk don't seem to have a lot of interset in sports, except a certain child-molesting car dealer.

Sportswise, this town is a freaking mess. Blazerfan is still alive and well and still his rabid self, but he's on hiatus for now. The spirit is still there, believe that, brother.

In other news, it sounds like the Marlins' owners are really liking Portland. I'm way way down, even though I'm an AL fan myself.