Brian Grant Well-Wishes and Favorite Memories

…and being congratulated by Karl Malone on the court, after Portland eliminated the Utah Jazz. Brian found a way to play the imposing Malone to a stalemate, while being muscled all over the court. By the conclusion of the series, it was clear that Brian had earned the Mailman’s respect.

I was so disappointed when he was traded. Even more so when I saw what we received.

The Karl Malone battles are definitely my best memory of him, and summed up his play and attitude on the court perfectly. Never backed down, no matter how many elbows he took.

I’ve wanted the organization to offer him work for awhile now, and now that I know they did and he turned them down for reason we recently discovered it makes me sad.

I got to meet him when I was younger, I don’t remember where but I was so happy then. He didn’t just give the usual wave or head nod you get from most players, he actually stopped to say hello, looked me in the eyes and gave a smile. I’ve meet many players, but that short moment is the one I won’t ever forget (I was too young to remember the location though).

He may have spent a relatively short time as a Blazer, but he easily made one of the biggest impacts. He was all heart and has cemented himself in my top Blazers of all time, and wont even be replaced.

He was a joy to watch.

He is probably one of the only past players I could see fitting in with this team and also being a major contributing member. Man, what I would give to have a healthy Grant teaching some toughness to our low post players..

I know Grant will fight as hard against this disease as he did when he played…best wishes Brian, remember this city will always love you.

My mom thought he was hot.

I wish him well.

The hair was rad

Willing to work. That’s what he was.

Well I am headed down to Cali this weekend with my Son to take him to Disney for his first time. I planned on packing all my jerseys to wear and represent while down there. I will be pulling out my Grant 44 Jersey now and take it down with me.

I loved Grant, he was fun to play and just like this current team you could love this guy. he didnt give you anything but his all every game.

mo lucas in the “walton era”
buck williams in the “drexler era”
grant in the “wallace era”

who is it gonna be for the “roy” era?

the hair was sooo beautiful…

Were epic…
I love this photo:

but he was always my favorite player. I loved seeing his two handed dunks. When I was probably 8 or 9 I got a minisized ball that said “B. Grant 44” on it.. coolest thing ever to me!

When he was not hobbled by injuries, his size, strength and quickness overwhelmed the opposition. No matter what the circumstances, he battled unrelentingly and left it all on the floor. To top it off, he was and is just a great human being.

That’s pretty high up on the list, he was obviously well liked here.

These do sound eerily like epitaphs, so how about:

Brian Grant was awesome and still is awesome and will be awesome for a long time.

is the most touching piece I’ve ever read about an NBA player. I hope Brian’s generosity and kindness come back to him tenfold.

He was also a stand up guy. A friend of mine met him at Buffalo Gap when he was still playing here, and Brian actually sat down with him and bought him a beer. Countless stories like this popped up while he was here. A true statesman of what the NBA should be.

i <3 him originally . What a class act!

Sophia

1999 playoffs against Utah, first Blazer playoff game I ever went to. I was 9. My seats were close enough that after the game me and my dad went down to the ledge that hangs over the players’ walkway to the locker room, and I got to high five Brian as he walked by. It was probably the best moment of my life up to that point. And Brian was my favorite player on the team at the time, I had his jersey, I had posters of him all up on my wall, I had an autographed card that I protected like it was one of my children. And to think we replaced him with Shawn Kemp, the coke addict.

Brian is a class act all the way, and I was heartbroken to hear this week of his diagnosis. But the way he’s handling it, how he’s saying he doesn’t want to let it get in the way of living his life, just makes me love and respect him more.

period.

Heart, tenacity, character!

Face-to-face with the Mailman giving it to him with stitches in his head – that video clip still gets me going. If the organization has it’s wits about it, they should have that clip play before every game next year.

J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award winner which is given to “outstanding service and dedication to the community.” Class, even when he was surrounded by Sheed, Isiah, Bonzi…

all those epic battles with shaq were, well, epic…to say the least.

Brian, you’re one of the main reasons I fell in love with the Blazers. I was devastated when you were traded.

Good luck with the Parkinson’s battle. I have no doubt that you will face it with strength and grace. You have thousands of fans wishing the best for you and your family.

that was the day that cemented Bob Whitsitt as a complete moron with no basketball IQ. I’d argue B Grant was a more important part of the team than Rasheed, and a better glue player than we’ve had in years. I wish him nothing but the best, and hope he uses his celebrity and position similarly as Michael J Fox and Ali have to push stem cell research. Type 1 diabetes, Parkinsons, and a slew of diseases can be cured. We simply have to invest in the research and have faith.

Favorite on the court memory: Brian Grant and Malone battling it out in the playoffs.

Favorite off the court memory: Rasta O’s, the delicious cereal sponsored by Brian Grant!

And was griting it out on the bench with a towel over his head and a camera guy was trying to get a close up of him,the next thing you saw was the face of a very angry Sabonis,I lip read real well and he said"out of my friends face asshole"

When Brian was a Blazer, my daughter’s best friend was undergoing treatment for leukemia in hte pediatric oncology ward at OHSU. One of the things I noticed on my first visit was a framed, signed Brian Grant jersey just inside the door to that unit. Being a huge Blazer fan, I was intrigued and asked a nurse about it. She said Grant was a regular visitor to that floor, taking time to visit with young cancer patients.

My daughter’s friend would get wide-eyed when talking about one of his visits. He meant a lot to kids who didn’t always have a lot of hope. And it was nothing he did for publicity. I had never heard about it until I saw the jersey in the ward.

Brian Grant is the ultimate class act.

Plus, he was a BEAST in his battles with Malone and Shaq. :-)

I had the opportunity to talk to him about a mutual passion, and that was reggae. I was working at an unnamed local music store, and he came in with an obviously unhappy Gary Trent. I chatted w/ BG about Bob Marley, and some of my favorite classic reggae artists, and Trent sat on a short flight of steps, pouting like a six year old who was tired of being dragged around town with his parents…..
B,G, was, is, and always will be one of my all time favorite Blazers. It’s sad that nagging injuries throughout his career never let him achieve all-star status, but his lunch-pail attitude will always be admired. If anyone can fight this, it’s B.G. Good luck my idren!

Wouldn’t parkinsons being given to that kid now?

They don’t come any tougher than Brian Grant. And he showed that you don’t have to be a bully—or lacking in finesse or intelligence—to be an ultra-tough hoopster. A late-in-his-career Brian Grant coming off the bench for this Blazers team? That’d be a match made in heaven.

But all that seems so trivial in the context of Grant’s battle with Parkinson’s disease. I only hope they come up with a cure for Parkinson’s in time to help this Blazer great.

is when I made him a 12-ounce non-fat white mocha (no whipped-cream) about 3 years ago when I worked at Willamette Coffee House in WL. I think I was a little starstruck, as he was my favorite Blazer when he was on the team.

The girls all had, let’s say “impure” thoughts about him, and they made it known. I can get behind that.

He has always been a top five blazer for me and will continue to be. What a stud, if he were on this team my life would be complete. He was also the favorite blazer of my 80 year old 4th grade teacher Sr. Dolores who regarded him as a modern saint, haha. My heart goes out to him and his family.

I hope he truly can accept his tough fate. There is little he can do against it, but a lot he can still do with it. That he stepped out into the open about it shows his courage once again. He could become a part of the next generation of athletes after Ali as a public face for/against Parkinson’s together with more prominent people like MJF. He is another proof it can hit anyone no matter how athletically gifted and well trained, and we need to find a cure.

He would fit awesomely on the current roster of good character guys. I hope the Blazers involve him in some capacity for their youth foundations.

…My defining memory of BG was his play against Malone in the playoffs. Does anyone remember this: “you could hear a mormon pin-drop in the Delta Center!!”

Riley said in a statement, "Brian Grant is one of the greatest team players and warriors that I have ever coached. I’m saddened by this news. Brian will find a way to fight this because that is the way he’s always been, a fighter. He will overcome this."

everyone in my family loved him, and i being a naive kid didn’t understand why so many people thought so highly of this man. Until the season he was traded when i realized that he was much more then just a player. All the things went unoticed by me until it was too late to truly appreciate him as the definition of a diamond in the ruff of during the jail blazer days. Good luck Mr. Grant

I was pretty young when he was a Blazer and really didn’t know or probably care about basketball but I fell in love with his hair. After that, he became my favorite Blazer.

I also remember in my third grade class we would be able to get prizes at the end of the week. On week my teacher had two Brian Grant posters. I was begging my best friend to let me have her’s if she got one. She got it but never gave it to me…I didn’t talk to her for a few days. In fact, I am still resentful about that to this day :(

I was totally bummed when Grant was traded. It felt like the icing on a bad-trade-era cake.
Here’s my personal off-court Brian Grant story:

One day I was skulking around my Albert St. Neighborhood and came across a huge church dumping loads of furnature into a big green dumpster bin. Good stuff too, no rips, no real wear, no real damage. They were tossing out couches, pews, lecturns, mic stands (!!!! Something I needed) and even some microphones.

While scavenging, I asked the head dumper, who was the Deacon or Paster or Priest or whathaveyou, what the deal was. He said they were moving and this cleaning out all the junk. Tossing it out, not giving it away.

Just then I uncovered a pair of light hiking boots size Paul Bunyon. HUGE. Dude said they came from Brian Grant who, although traded a year earlier, was still an active church member and donated all his used clothes as well as money for a lot of the treasures heaped before me and headed for the landfill.

This story made me an even bigger BG fan and even less of an organized religion fan. One stays true to his roots, loves his neighbor. The other takes what it can get, then tosses it out.

Grant was the best kind of ball player: playing beyond his talents with tons of heart.

in the ‘Jail Blazer’ era. Worked his butt off and was not getting into trouble. Did great things on and off the court during his stint in Portland. Then got shafted by the front office. Had no ego and had the best hair in all-time Blazer history!!

Imagine how B. Grant would fit on today’s Blazer team. Everything our current Blazer team strives to be, Brian Grant was all of that rolled into one person. Major respect! It is truly sad that its always the good ones that seem to go through these types of situations. My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Grant and his family.

..and Mr. Grant, THANK YOU for all the pleasant memories and waring that Blazer jersey with pride and honor!

I have with my wife. We had recently married and that run in the playoffs led by Grant was on our TV every night. My wife got a real good look at what she married during those playoffs and she really got into supporting the team as well. Grant instantly became her favorite player of that generation. Just watching him battle with Malone, not take any crap from a guy who historically got away with it. The blood that Grant gave up in that series. Awesome.

You can listen to a BG interview with Mark Amazon of WLW (Cincy) here

http://700wlw.com/podcast/LanceMcAlister.xml

Marc Amazon 5/21/09 Hour 1 (starts at 18:15)