The Measure of Success

by zaruga on Sep 7, 2008 1:54 AM PDT Comment 41 comments

With all this talk recently of how many championships our fair team will or will not win in the next decade (so nice to be having these discussions with a straight face now, by the way) I've noticed the resurgence of one of my least favorite insinuations of the athletic world. That being the concept that only the championship team matters, and all other teams are also-rans. Pathetic losers to the utter superiority of the champion.

This is, IMO, a touch of old world thinking. We instill it into our children because we want them to succeed, and we don't want them to be satisfied with anything less than their best. The problem with this type of thinking is that it breeds within us the idea that unless we're the ultimate winner of any game, be it athletic or financial, all of our efforts are wasted.

Now, perhaps part of my contrary feelings on the subject are due to the fact that I'm a martial arts instructor. In the martial arts, the competition is most often with oneself and not necessarily against an opponent, (unless you're in the ring, or something has gone very wrong). Too often, kids come in and don't even want to try, because they're so afraid to get even 2nd place and be a disappointment to their parents, or worse; themselves.

When it came time for tournaments, I always taught my students that while the ultimate goal is of course to be the best in every event, and come away with the gold, the reality is there are dozens of other people, all training hard and vying for that same singular prize. Sometimes, the skillset of two individuals is a wash, and other completely random factors come into play, like a judge blinking at the wrong moment. Are the efforts of the other dozen or so competitors completely pointless simply because they didn't walk away with a plastic trophy? If you're the winner, that's a fairly arrogant (and potentially dangerous) way to look at things. And if you're not, well, that can be damaging too.

I always told my students that there were three things they needed to do at a tournament for it to be a success. Have fun. Meet someone new. And learn something. If you take 2nd, but learn as much as you can about what you did wrong and what the other guy did right, you've improved. And that is the essence of martial arts.

So, before I get called on the carpet for digressing too much, how does this apply to the Blazers? I remember with great pride and fondness the Clyde Drexler team, even though they never quite got over the hump. Those years were still magical to me, and I still have loads of great memories from them. The same with the Rasheed/Grant years, even though those came with a healthy dose of frustration. Even the doldrum years in between, I was still proud of my club for consistently fighting their way tooth and nail into the playoffs, even if the talent may not have been enough to get past the first round.

Should we as fans roll our eyes and scoff at the Drexler Blazers, marking them as a failure simply because they beat out every team BUT one, not once, but twice?

The more pertinent question I have to ask myself, and everyone else here:

If, fates forfend, this amazing new team, the Roy Oden Aldridge Blazers, consistently perform well, become perennial visitors to the WCF and occasional WCF champs... but never get that championship... will we look at them as failures, and complain about their shortcomings, railing and moaning about who should have been traded? Or will we bask in the glory of a new dawning dynasty? One perhaps without the benefit of the final crown, but a dynasty nonetheless.

Clyde and his compatriots were only WCF contenders for a scant few years, yet we look upon those days as the days of glory. Will we grant our new team the same honor?

Oh, and btw, long time lurker, fairly new poster and all that. :)

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The travel is longer than the end.

I´ll be satisfied depending on the way we win or lose. If they are honest I´ll like it no matter how it ends. If they are not honest and great part is about egos and conflicts and all that stuff I won´t like the travel no matter how it ends.

PS: Hi zaruga, nice subject. Bedge is a good example of a travel that counts.

The Midnight Rambler

by amlmart1 on Sep 7, 2008 5:34 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Good stuff.

I agree with you baby, on all counts.

by einman77 on Sep 8, 2008 8:23 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, complete failure

And I’ll stop being a Blazer fan. The last 25 years or so have been a pretty big waste of my life anyway. To the Ducks and Seahawks, close but no cigar, siyanora suckers. (/sarcasm)

I really believe that anyone who has been a fan for more than 2 years is a fan that is more familiar with ‘failure’ than ‘success’ and as such will stick it out with this team as long as they don’t go all entitlement on us.

And you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future, otherwise you might get....all scratchy.

by shenanigans on Sep 7, 2008 8:12 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Posed the same question about a week ago

I read this and it summed up much of the way I think about the 90’s era Blazers for me. This is an excerpt from Dwight Janyes blog post about Duck’s memorial, but touches on that whole team. I would hope that we would give this team the same love if they end up being merely very, very good…but not good enough to get a ring.

Dwight Jaynes on Duck’s memorial: “It was an emotional two hours that brought home to me how fortunate I was to be a beat reporter covering those great Blazer teams of the early 1990s. Not because of how many games they won, but because of what terrific people they were. Harry Glickman, speaking at the memorial service, spoke about "winning with good people and he was so right. As I watched Buck Williams, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Clyde Drexler (via videotape from Taiwan) speak so lovingly and eloquently about their late friend and teammate, it reminded me what an outstanding group of men made up that team. These players of intelligence, integrity and great passion came together under a coach, Rick Adelman, who knew how to put what was a bit of an odd mix together into a winning team. Adelman, also at the Saturday service, built a tremendous pride within the team that was the cornerstone of its success. I was lucky to watch it up close and Portland was fortunate to call the team its own. As far as I’m concerned, that was a championship team. That it didn’t win the big trophy really doesn’t matter to me in the slightest. It won the hearts of its city and still owns a lot of those hearts. It won the respect of us all to this day. And it was a blueprint, off and on the court, for how to operate a successful pro sports franchise.”

Styx -"I'm schizophrenic....and so am I"

by 92wastheyear on Sep 7, 2008 8:51 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

There is a singular goal in competitive sports: WINNING.

The Drexler teams built up a ton of goodwill and were trying to win in the Jordan era. That is why we left them off the hook so easily despite the fact they didn’t bring home any hardware.

Anything short of a championship this time around can only be seen as a failure.

by Bust a Bucket on Sep 7, 2008 10:49 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Fair enough

But if a team averages 60+ wins during that run, that’s a whole lot of winning. Do we throw it all out the window if there’s no trophy?

Don’t get me wrong, I want championships, BELIEVE we have more than one in the very near future. Pretty much every year I believe we’ve got a chance to win it all. And I’m sure if we come up short, I’d be disappointed (exponentially more so if the L*kers end up being the team that wins instead), but I can’t bring myself to consider that “failure” if the team is bringing me hours and hours of enjoyment, and winning far more than they lose.

by zaruga on Sep 7, 2008 12:43 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, enjoyment is more about the journey than the destination...

I think the anticipation and the process of reaching championship contention is what makes a sports fan’s experience enjoyable, more so than actually winning the championship. If fact, once a championship run is over and your team stands on the playing field, either as champions or in defeat, you might question whether all the time, money and effort you expended following your team to that point was worth it.

However, I still think winning a championship is still essential because it authenticates the journey, the process of emotional ups and downs that the sports fan has subjected themself to. Without the championship, was it all worth it?

by Bust a Bucket on Sep 7, 2008 4:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hmmm

We’re going to have to ask Phoenix and Dallas fans how they feel.

Kwame and Darko - Grizz '07-'08. The rebuilding is complete.

by RecordTOs on Sep 7, 2008 6:33 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

They should feel terrible...

The window of opportunity came and went. Dallas in particular got jobbed and should have won a title.

They should look to Cubs fans, are experts in the practice of self-hate.

by Bust a Bucket on Sep 7, 2008 8:09 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

short answer: YES

The ride is fun no doubt, and all the sweeter to have seen it the whole way from 21 wins to the trophy, primarily with guys we drafted and grew.

but at the end of the day, if we look back ten years from now and don’t have a trophy – it’s a major major major major letdown.

Rule #1 of nitpicking is to get it right.

by douglast on Sep 7, 2008 9:31 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice post

Reading the comments to date, I see you probably haven’t convinced anyone. But I agree with you. What you said about the difference between first and second sometimes being no more than a judge blinking at the wrong time says it all. In the NBA, it can be a ref’s call, a key injury at the worst possible time, an opponent catching lightening in a bottle at the wrong moment (for you), etc., etc. In other words, the difference between first and second is often LUCK!

If you do everything right in the assembly of an NBA team (and catch a couple breaks), as KP and Allen have done this time around, the odds are in your favor that you’ll win at least one title. But from a fan’s standpoint, years of serious contention mean years of incredible entertainment, and that has nearly as much value as the ultimate payoff: championships. Just thank God the Blazers have turned it around and aren’t destined for a decade as the Clippers NW.

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Sep 7, 2008 11:37 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

That's about how I feel

There’s far more than skill, talent and execution involved in winning it all. Consider that you’ve got thirty teams, each with a blank slate at the beginning of the year. Of those, 16 are marked as “good enough” to compete for the actual final prize, using a fairly decent metric based on who has won the most over the course of 82 games. By that time, there should be a pretty good idea of which teams are the best based on a trend of winning. But even then, you know there are always those tight races that come down to a single mathematical elimination game every year. But let’s go with it anyway.

Of those 16, generally only 8-10 of the teams are truly serious contenders for the crown. Anyone can take it all of course, but usually the first round tells a pretty good tale. At very best, you can boil it down to 2 or 3 really obvious contenders that are on fairly even footing. And every one of those teams had to put their blood and sweat on the line to get to that point. Out of thirty teams, you can’t tell me that only one of those teams is worthwhile. If that were the case, 29 teams wouldn’t be able to support fanbases. In fact, there are teams that will never see a championship, and rarely have a winning season, yet they still have rabid fans.

I’ll take a team that’s a consistent contender for a decade over the team that wins it all and collapses like a flash in the pan, any day. What’s going to bring you longevity and consistent joy as a fan?

And, to be honest, the winning of multiple championships is more to erase years of emotional mockery at the hands of L*ker fans than anything for me. ;)

by zaruga on Sep 7, 2008 12:54 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Um

I dont know what is luck cuz i cant prove its there but I know that usually the best team in the NBA winns. Like Boston when they made all the trades I knew that they were going to be the best team. I dont know anybody that won the ring by luck. I just know that who is the best team they are going to win it. What I mean the best team is the team that has talent and chemistry and who is the best at it will win. But if some one gets injured then that team should have a good back up. Well I never saw that some one won a ring cuz the ref called the wrong call. Even if the ref calls the bad call the best team still finds a way and will to win, that who I respect. I dont know if its luck or fate that we got the Greg Oden.

by RipCity on Sep 7, 2008 10:55 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Just guessing:

My hunch is that you’re not very old. That’s not intended as a knock. But when you’ve followed the NBA as long as I have and have got as many grey hairs as I do, you’ve seen titles turn on lucky breaks—or the lack of them. In retrospect, it’s easy to conclude that the better team simply won. But in reality that’s not always the case.

Many years ago, the Pistons were poised to finally get past the Celtics to the Finals. But during their Eastern Conference Finals matchup, just as the Pistons were pulling away in a key game, their red-hot sixth man, Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson—who the Celtics had no answer for—collided heads with a Celtic player. That was it; the Pistons lost the game and the series.

Too ancient an example for you? How about when Steve Nash got the bloody nose vs the Mavs a couple seasons ago? There’s no proving the Suns would have won the game otherwise, but personally I had no doubt at all. They were at home, they had the momentum, and they were poised to pull out the tight game. Then just like that, their quarterback got hurt and they’d lost the home court advantage they’d played all season for. As if that wasn’t enough to alter the course of the series, there was the infamous Horry hipcheck and the suspensions that followed. Oh, and did I mention: Donaghy refereed one of the Suns’ losses.

You’d argue that, had the Suns been of championship caliber, they’d have overcome all obstacles to win. They just needed more depth or determination. Nice idea, but ask yourself: would the Bulls have won a single championship without THEIR best player (Jordan)? I think not. Jordan was not only the best player of his time, but also remarkably injury-free. That isn’t to say the Bulls weren’t great. But they were also lucky. Likewise the Spurs: the one season the injury bug DID hit them, they fell so far in the standings that they were able to draft Tim Duncan—who just happened to be available that year.

Notice that I’ve never said luck is the WHOLE picture. In fact, it’s a relatively small part of the puzzle. You can have all the luck in the world, but if you’re a crap organization you won’t be able to take advantage of it. Dynastic franchises and great players not only have more than their share of good fortune, but they capitalize on it every time. Pretty soon they have an air of invincibility around them that causes other players & teams to choke when they DO have a chance to win. (Think Tiger Woods in golf, or Charles Barkley missing a wide open shot to lose a series vs Jordan & the Bulls.)

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Sep 8, 2008 1:34 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ok

But remember that game 5 1987 between the pistons and the Celtics? Well they had a chance to win cuz the Cetlics were down by one point with like 18 seconds to go, but they turned the ball over like with 2 seconds to go. So the Detroits player grabs the ball and tries to inbound it with out even thinking about it, and Larry Bird steels the inbound pass and throws it to his teammate for an easy lay-up, and boston won. Well some one can arguee that boston got lucky but I see it as more of as if it was not for Larry Bird Boston would not win. Why i say that? Because i think that if it was some other player he would not steel the ball, and if he did he would not find an open teammate for a layup with 2 seconds left. Larry bird is good thats all. Maybe he got lucky he was born with the talent to play basketball, but if he would not work hard he would not be so good. But on Detriot part it was stuipid to do something like that with out thinking about it. I think maybe portland is not lucky they got Oden. Oden deserved to go number one, and portland had that pick. I would say that if Oden would slip in the draft, then the team that got him would be lucky. I would say that Blazers got lucky with Bayless.

by RipCity on Sep 8, 2008 4:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

an interesting question would be

would you rather be fans (within this decade) of the miami heat (with one championship surrounded mediocre seasons) or of the phoenix suns (years of excitement contention but ultimately didn’t even make a trip to the finals). Personally, I’d rather be a Heat fan, but thats just me.

This doesn’t take anything away from the early 90’s blazer teams because I love those guys but I wasn’t IN love with them if that makes sense? It could be due to the accessability of information, it could be because I was only 12 at that time, but if I compare those teams to the current one, I feel like I’m more emotionally invested in this one and I would really be disappointed if they are unable to win at least one championship with the talent assembled.

This is a proffesional level of sport and there is a reason they play championship games/series. If it were often up to luck, why play the games? Luck may play a part (one could argue “luck” plays a part in every aspect of life) in sports but championships are earned whether you like the winning team or not. Leave ties up to childrent’s games and soccer (sorry of that sounds redundant).

Asked whether he noticed Oden favoring his right knee, Frye dismissed it entirely.

"He favors dunking on your head, that's what he favors," Frye said after giving up his share to Oden in the workout.

by chrischa on Sep 7, 2008 11:57 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Putting my money where my mouth is:

I’d rather have been a Suns fan than a Heat fan over the past 5 or 6 seasons. With one caveat: I wouldn’t enjoy feeling—arguably with abundant justification—that my team fell just short due to referee corruption and/or David Stern’s bull-headedness. That—not simply the coming up short—would be agonizing.

That issue aside, sure: call me crazy, but I’d take years of entertainment—rooting for a serious contender playing an exciting brand of basketball—over a single, flukish title.

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Sep 7, 2008 6:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Me too.

The Midnight Rambler

by amlmart1 on Sep 7, 2008 7:08 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'd rather have

a Blazers dynasty.

by CaptainSexyJacob on Sep 7, 2008 7:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah

I want both the entertainment and the end prize of being that good of an entertaiment team

by RipCity on Sep 7, 2008 10:40 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, sure

And minus some remarkable bad fortune—especially key injuries at inopportune times—I expect the Blazers to provide us with that double-whammy: years of contention and at least a couple championships to show for it.

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Sep 8, 2008 1:36 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah

but tell me why do you expect them to win it all? Do they have something they never had before or what makes you expect that much from them?

by RipCity on Sep 8, 2008 4:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I will always love this team

If only for the fact that these guys helped shed that “jail blazers” persona. That will keep them in my heart forever, however, if this team becomes a 60+ win per year team without ever winning the title, I will be disappointed.

I also have to say, without the crown you can never be considered a dynasty. Dynastys are DEFINED by championships. Without winning it all, you can’t be considered a dynasty. The Phoenix Suns are not a dynasty, the Atlanta Braves were not a dynasty, the Buffalo Bills were not a dynasty

by SalemORguy on Sep 7, 2008 5:23 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Excellent points

You can’t really take on that mantle without the defining feature. Disappointment is natural. Every year the moment our season ends, I’m disappointed on some level. It’s more the concept that if you are not the ultimate winner, then you’re automatically a pathetic loser that I find antiquated. That only applies if we’re talking about teams from Southern California. ;)

by zaruga on Sep 7, 2008 5:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

put another way

Fast forward 15 years into the future. Roy/LMA/Oden are all retired or close to it. Someone asks them “Think back to those great Blazers teams of the early 10’s. You guys had some great teams and some great playoff runs, but you just never quite got over the top. Was that a major disappointment for that team”

What’s their answer going to be? ’nuff said.

Rule #1 of nitpicking is to get it right.

by douglast on Sep 7, 2008 9:36 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Your glass

Is clearly half empty

by southern oregon on Sep 7, 2008 10:18 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah

but its also half full with anything you would like

by RipCity on Sep 7, 2008 10:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I disagree

You think Terry and Buck and Duck (Clyde and Kersey won titles later) look back and think “yeah, I’m satisfied. We had a good run, oh well”. No way. Those guys probably look back on those years and constantly think “man, we were THIS close. What if Clifford doesn’t fumble that pass in ‘91? What if we had picked up a bench veteran prior to 89-90? What if we hadn’t blown that big lead in game 6 in ’92 or game 1 of the WCF in 91? What if, what if…”

It would be no different with our guys now. Anything short of at least one title is going to be a disappointment to THEM, whether they admit it publicly or lot. And if it’s a disappointment to them, then it ought to be to us as well.

Rule #1 of nitpicking is to get it right.

by douglast on Sep 7, 2008 11:24 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah

it will suck for us knowing that we had such a team with Roy and Oden and still could not pull it of. I think that if that happens then I dont know what it would take for us to win a ring. Alot of people here are against super stars, cuz they have egos, but we will probably need one here in portland if we cant win with humble guys.

by RipCity on Sep 8, 2008 4:45 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

i think

and know that all teams want to win the ultimate prize(ring), but some GMs like our do the right moves and some dont like New Yourks GM. But we like and will appriciate what the team does no matter whats the out come. If the Blazers over achieve thats a means everybody is on one page and if they under achieve then it means some one has to move on. There is no comparison in the feeling when you know that your team is the best and every body knows it because they proved it by winning the championship.

by RipCity on Sep 7, 2008 10:31 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Luck never wins you a championship

but “luck” can cost you a championship.

Without bad “luck” (whatever that is), we win it all in 78, and it wouldn’t even have been close.

If Jordan goes down with an ankle injury in game 1 of the Finals, we would win. Bad “luck” would have cost the Bulls the championship. But we would have won because we were very, very, good.

You have to be very, very good to win it all, and you have to not be zapped by bad “luck” — the unexpected thing or even unfair thing happening.

That stuff can happen to us. But the 78 team wasn’t a failure, and no one would look back on them and say they failed because they didn’t win it. It was a drag that the injury bug hit — but failure? No way.

This team will fail if they do not become as good as they can be. And if they become that good, they will be good enough to win it all — unless they get “zapped” with the unexpected. If they get zapped, they get zapped — that isn’t failure.

What could constitute “zapping”? What if Lebron decides to go to LA as a free agent? That would be a zapping. What if Kobe or Lebron decides they want to play with Dwight Howard, and free agent off to Orlando? That might be a zapping. Either one of those events might cost us one or more championships, maybe even all of our potential future championships. Would we be a failure if someone was somehow able to assemble an even more dominant team than ours? I don’t think so.

One of my fan posts got 50 signatures. And you thought I was egotistical before. But nobody can do Ego like I can.

by jscot on Sep 8, 2008 2:38 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

luck is where it all begins

The bulls were lucky that they didn’t have the first overall pick the year they drafted Jordan. They were lucky, also to have him fall to them. Maybe THEY were lucky that Bowie had his career cut short, that he didn’t present the match-up problems that he would have presented. On the flip side of the coin, We were lucky to get the #1 pick in last year’s draft. That’s the luck we needed. Hopefully a big injury doesn’t hit us, that would be the flip side of the luck coin. But I would love for someone to put together a really challenging team. The last time that the NBA had 2 teams that would have dominated most other years playing at the same time, it was the NBA’s golden years (think mid 80’s) and both teams had band wagon fans hopping on that remain there to this day (which they can’t really be considered bandwagon fans anymore).

It’s not bad luck if someone else puts a superior team together. It would make our team that much better if we could beat them. And if we can’t get over the hump, yes that is a failure. The Buffalo Bills had the most devistating failure I can remember in the early 90s. I’m an Eagles fan, and all those years of NFC championship losses hurt. And as far as not being able to beat the Pats? That was a failure, even though they were a dynasty. And when it comes to our Blazers? As much love as I have, they failed, even though they went up against the Bulls. You can’t say that someone putting together a better team than you is bad luck. If that’s the case, every year all 29 teams, or at least the losing teams who were considered in contention in the playoffs, can say it was bad luck. As I said below, there are 30 teams in the NBA, and only one can win it all every given year. The other 29 fail, and that’s a harsh way to look at it. However, a new title is given every year. If you aren’t able to cash in and you go on a 30 year drought without a title, that is failing. Not to say that 30 is the absolute imperative, but you should expect your team to do what they need to do to get over the hump when they are in position to. I am usually on board with your thoughts jscot, but not this time.

by einman77 on Sep 8, 2008 11:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I want the Blazers to be so good

that they can survive an injury or two, corrupt refs, bad bounces, etc. and still beat the best that the rest of the league has to offer.

I shoot layups like they're jumpers.

by MiledAnimal on Sep 9, 2008 4:35 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

If we don't win

Then I might actually believe there is a curse.

And then I’ll think it is time to murder Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, etc. That might be our only hope championship.

by BlazerD on Sep 8, 2008 3:32 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

as in:

Bill Walton and Sam Bowie are the originators of the curse, or would be if I thought it was real.

But that also might not be enough, it could be Jordan or even Drexler that brought on the curse. You might have to keep on killing NBA players until we win a championship.

That or I’m spending way too much time obsessing about the Blazers.

by BlazerD on Sep 8, 2008 3:35 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It surely can't be

the latter. Is there enough time in the universe to be too much for Blazer obsession?

The most amazing thing about my amazing ego is I have amazingly little about which to be egotistical.

by jscot on Sep 8, 2008 6:27 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

well

yeah if you kill all good players in the NBA, then there would be no good players and the curse would come off the blazers because they would beat all the crapy teams and win it all. Then some one else would kill our players cuz they brought the curse on the team that lost to us in the finals, cuz Oden would break the rim when dunking and the whole thing would colapse on LeBron that was under the basket.

by RipCity on Sep 8, 2008 4:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

We can think this way

but the Blazers had better not or all is lost.

I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich

by hobobob on Sep 8, 2008 12:29 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

The closest way to measure this numerically

is the number of season tickets that a team sells, especially in their not so strong seasons. Ineveitably, teams go up and down. The ones who actually achieve the goal of winning championships keep their stronger fan base for longer. The ones who don’t will have trouble keeping thier fans in the seats. Why? It’s difficult for fans to sit through the tough years if the good ones have only ended up short of the prize and inevitably just caused frustration. The reason the Blazers stadium emptied out despite all the good memories of the teams in the past is because not many fans remember what it was like to have that golden moment when the title was given to this team. Yeah, there are 30 teams out there that your team has to beat, but there is also a new title given to a team every year. If you’re winning it less than once every 30 years, you’re behind the curve. During the rare times when you have a top tier team, you have to put it together and win the whole thing. I like seeing the guys have fun out there, I don’t really care who they meet, and if they learn something they better be able to cash in on that knowledge next year. Teaching kids martial arts is a lot different than a stadium full of fans shelling out thier hard earned money to watch a team that they believe in not deliver.

Speaking of which, how long has it been since the Blazers last championship.

by einman77 on Sep 8, 2008 8:40 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I'd rather dream.

We all know better, but we talk about championships anyhow. And why not? It began in earnest the day we picked the little guy, Oden, because dominate centers more often than not lead teams to the brass ring. But, he didn’t play, yet the team still did pretty well without him as we dumped Randolph and let Aldridge play. Now, we have him back. And if that was all we had, we’d still have reason to be optimistic. But it’s not all we have. As if on cue, we came up with a player who commanded the respect of the US Olympic team and their coaches, and a second, who rained on everyone’s parade in the summer league. We know, of course, that we shouldn’t take summer league seriously, yet when your guy is the MVP, you have take it just a little bit seriously because you’d rather have that, than someone who simply disappeared. Now, Mac is back from the Olympics and preaching the good news on our Spanish player. As in “You’re going to like him”. As in “I stayed up all night thinking of how to play him”. As in “we knew that to win we had to stop Rudy and Pau – our Rudy”. As in “you better keep a body on him on the offensive end”. And you have to ask yourself “what do they mean, these NBA All-stars, saying that to win you have to stop Rudy?” Why would they even be worried about the guy – given how much better – (we, at least, think ) they are as players?" What do they know that we don’t know?

And so, we talk about championships. The Future. The fact that we have some nice cap space and enough young talent to work a trade to improve the team even more.

And we dream.

We know better, or course. We know that injuries (Walton/Bowie) can rob a team of its future, we know that it’s a long tough road to make it all the way to that final game. But still we dream.

But, I’d rather be dreaming. The rest of the world, after all, is tied up in the hum drum of daily existence, political controversy, and never ending arguments related to so many peoples insistence that they have a better reality – than others. I can do that stuff anyday. Indeed, we do it for a lifetime – and the argments never change. Nirvana never appears.

I’d rather dream.

Thanks Blazers. Wherever you go, whatever you become. You’ve given me that.

by Eben Calder on Sep 9, 2008 11:36 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

There are different kinds of success and failure

During my kids’ soccer years, my older daughter’s team showed up for their last regular-season game. They had only won two or three games up to that point, and their opponent that day was the top team in the league, a team so well-run, so athletic, that they were drubbing other teams by double-digits every game.

When we arrived at the field, our girls dropped their bags next to the field and began running warmup laps. Most of them trotted and chatted. They all cut the corners to the point that they were running an oval. After two ragged laps, they walked off the field in giggles.

The other team — I’ll call them the Spartans — began running their warmup laps. They looked like a Marine Corps platoon. They were chanting in unison as they ran, they ran in step, they hit every corner on that field, and they all had their Bayless face on. We knew we were doomed.

I’d like to tell you we nipped them in the last second on a wild, lucky shot from the corner, but the truth is that the Spartans were so dominant that our girls only got past the center line on offense a handful of times. Yet at the end of the game, our girls were the ones high-fiving and the Spartans were the ones looking like someone just robbed their grandma.

The reason why was expectations. The Spartans came into the game expecting to score easily and often and win 14-zip. Our girls had no expectations other than to play their best and have fun taking a beating. Sure enough, they were helpless against the Spartan defense, but they played great defense themselves that day and held the Spartans to only six goals. If we had taken the Vince Lombardi attitude, we would have felt like losers; instead, we felt like winners. The Spartans won the game but felt like losers. In a sense, they were.

My expectations for the New Blazers is to be a team I don’t have to be ashamed to brag about and identify with. I want multiple championships, but if that doesn’t happen there will be good reasons for it and I will still love watching these guys play and cheering for them. I will enjoy watching them win one or more championships as much as anyone, but I will also enjoy them if they don’t win any.

I shoot layups like they're jumpers.

by MiledAnimal on Sep 9, 2008 5:03 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs