About halfway down this article by NBA.com's David Aldridge, there is a great look at the work Blazers Vice President of Basketball Operations Tom Penn has been doing to help St. Jude. Among many other things, St. Jude has developed new treatments to fight diseases such as non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, the type of cancer Blazers Owner Paul Allen was recently diagnosed with.

Aldridge writes...
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"It's a big time, change-the-world place. And so it's really more of a privilege to be associated with it," said Penn, the Blazers' vice president of basketball operations. He has served on the hospital's Board of Governors since 2002, when he was in Memphis, as the Grizzlies' assistant general manager, and became aware of the work the local hospital was doing for children facing cancer and other catastrophic diseases.
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"What I'm really excited about here is that so much of the NBA family has embraced it, starting with the dinners in Las Vegas," Penn said. "That's really exciting, to have professional players on the court at the same time, on the same day, at the same time fifth graders are doing it in PE class. For the athletes, it's just phenomenal to have them in a leadership role on this. Because they're involved, others will get involved."
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Here's a link to the Hoops for St. Jude website if you'd like more information. And, please, no jokes about benching the St. Jude point guard.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com) | Twitter