Red Hot and Rollin' Discussion Day One

I haven't read the book, but I really like your last question so I'm going to address it.

I have said before and I'll no doubt say again that people will always find something to be offended by... if they want to.

I have a copy of the magazine that came out in '89 or so, I think it was Sports Illustrated but I'm not positive, where a columnist made the statement that "Clyde Drexler is now no worse than the second best player in the NBA."

I remember reading the Oregonian for weeks after that issue came out with people writing in and lambasting the author for slighting Clyde.  There is nothing wrong with that statement.  Clyde was very, very good, but he really wasn't as good as Jordan.  It's always subjective as to who is better than whom and this was not a bad way of putting that in perspective.  Nevertheless, people will be offended if they want to be.

Portlanders are no different than anyone else in this respect.  Having been around the country and hearing different perspectives, I honestly don't think people nationwide have any real bias against the Trailblazers.  If they win they will be talked of positively, if they lose they won't.  If their players are boneheads they will be called boneheads, if they aren't they won't.

Being in a smaller market probably means a little less exposure.  So what?  Over the last ten years or so, the Blazers could have used a little less exposure.  It's been noted that they've gone from 0 to 19(?) nationally televised games this year.  It doesn't sound as though being a small market is going to hurt too much as long as they start winning sometime in the next couple of years.

I hope I didn't just hijack this thread, that isn't my intention.

I think Blazermania is something of a myth.  When teams win something lots of people get excited about it and show up at parades and so on.  When the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup they get a million people at the parade, and when they were awful they still had people going to the games, but I wouldn't say there was Red Wing Fever in Detroit (and I lived in the area, and played hockey.)  The biggest effect of Blazermania is that I have something to talk about online while at work.

Winning matters more than style.  The entire point of the game is a competition, it's not an art form.  Who would watch a team that was deliberately making choices that would lose them the game, but looked pretty?

There is no bias against Portland in the media and in general nationally.  You need to care about something to have a bias against it.  Portland is so irrelevant to the national media that they simply regurgitate what the local media says.  

Book Reports?

Dave, if I wanted to write a book report I wouldn't have dropped out of High School in the 12th grade.

Hank

that CBS cut away to golf and the excuse was that they had to due to their contract.  What made it even worse was that they showed the golfers in the club house due to fact that they were rained out!

I had not read the book so the above may be in there.

         I have seen the last few minutes of that game 6 on NBA's Greatest Games on ESPN. I remember Musberger announcing that the Kemper Open was about to come on. That is an example of how irrelevant the NBA was becoming in the late 70's right before Bird and Magic came on to the scene. You wouldn't have seen that 6 years later. Apparently that game wasn't on tape delay, but a lot of the games were back then. Even the Finals were, from what I heard. Portland had a wonderful team in the worst era for NBA Basketball ever. That is probably why that team gets overlooked when they talk about the best ever. That, and they didn't repeat. Walton's legs took care of that. That is why I am looking forward to the Roy, Oden, and Aldridge era, affectionately known as RUN-ROA(Just kidding, a copy of the Warriors RUN-TMC in the early 90's). Maybe this franchise will finally have a fulfilling era that doesn't end in heartbreak. It is long overdue. Then maybe they can write a new book called "Red Hot and Rollin-The 2010's".

It's a religion, and a hell of a lot better than many.

But seriously, the Blazers have had a special connection with this city and my family since their founding, and especially since the championship. I remember meeting the team at the airport after they came back from Philly. My mom bribed her shy five year old with an unheard of ice cream sundae to approach the big red head for an autograph as he chilled on an airport bench, which he gave after refusing all other requests (this part comes from mom, so it may just be wistful reflection). I remember jumping up and down with mom when they won it, although at 5 years old, it's a little fuzzy. Dad was at the game.

I was one of 10,000 people that met the team at the Hillsboro airport late at night after they beat Phoenix in the '90 WCF. Wasn't the same as '77, but the city wide euphoria and camraderie brought by the Drexler teams was palpable.

My family left my sister's high school graduation early in '92 to see Ainge lead the fourth quarter comeback in game 2. We went to games on Christmas. After thirty years, my parents divorce, moves all over the globe, deaths, births, season tickets bought and sold, the crushing grief of 2000 and the subsequent spiral into irrelevance, we still call each other after a stirring win.

Every once in a while, we laugh at how silly it is that a sports team provides such a strong historical thread within our family. I always come back to the nature of fandom in general, and its ties to our tribal nature. My family is my family, but the Blazers are me, my friends', and my family's tribe.

On the day of the lottery, I was driving to the Deschutes to camp and get away because I couldn't bring myself to watch it. My mom and I had talked about buying season tickets since they were so cheap, so I called and told her that we should get them before the lottery just in case we got one of the top two picks. She said she would order them- of course, she waited until they broke for the break before announcing the top three, but we still got them before the site crashed and the price doubled.

I didn't hear the results until night fell over the desert. My buddy, also a native Blazermaniac, and I waited for radio reception. We drank whiskey and rolled dice, trying to get combinations of 1 and 2 in some weird karmic attempt at predicting the outcome of a now passed event. Something that surely puts the mania in Blazermania.

We found ESPN around ten. They went to a commercial, teasing news about the lottery next. They came back, no goofy Sportcenter intro, just an announcer's voice, "The Portland Trailblazer will pick first..." Explosion of two grown men in the middle of nowhere, jumping around, hugging and screaming, high fives, dancing, incoherent rambling, disbelief, for at least 20 minutes. Perhaps my life is stale, but I haven't felt such pure joy in many years. Of course, we commenced arguing about Oden and Durant the rest of the night.

When I came back and started sucking in all the info from the lottery day, I watched the draft party celebration about ten times, tears coming to my eyes as my tribe celebrated.

My name is Sean. I am a Blazermaniac. And I won't be in recovery any time soon.