Prominent "Thunder" Blogger Admits Jealousy of Blazers

My pole vaulting pole is pre-sharpened…..I am ever vigilant….beware

It’s about as simple as that, really.

I’d never looked at it that way. Yes, it almost appears to be moving. I…I…can’t look away. What? Can’t….stop…looking. Yeeeeeeessss. Yes, pinwheel. I will obey…

Pinwheel has spoken.

Being from OKC we really didn’t have anything to love so we searched until we found a team we liked. Mine happened to be the Trailblazers when Scottie P was running the show! Now we have a team that used to be rivals with Portland and all that TrailBlazer Love i have is being split between two teams. The Team i grew to love and a Team that is Showing OKC in a good light. ( Sorry but i hate the Sooners!!!) I really don’t see that highway rivalry ever coming back. Sorry! Honestly , I grown to hate the Spurs and Mavs … A LOT. So I can really see where this guys is coming from.

Also Ben, didnt you say you would stop the “Thunder” nonsense after the first year???? It is over dude you can stop disrespecting my hometown team no matter how “childlike” the name might seem. We at WelcometoLoudCity have shown nothing but respect to the Portland TrailBlazers and your blog!!

Thanks Buddy,

Brandon

I fight with my cummerbund, not my pole vault. Different strokes, yo.

Heck MY second favorite team is no more……it was the Sonics. But my affection did not translate to a move to the midwest. My overall reaction to the Thunder….meh.

Clay Bennett and David Stern ruined it for me.

You ever give the L*kers in any form of praise or talk about them in a positive way or in anyway describe them as anything other than the most evil of evil empires then not only have you lost a reader for life I’d also watch your back.

Just kidding about the watch your back part, but serious you’re a dead man.

1. Portland is on a steep rise using high draft picks as the core. Ditto OKC. It is natural for an OKC fan to see the parallels and want the Blazers to succeed, thereby proving the path OKC is mimicking.

2. A fan in a non-NBA city has the choice of a) rooting for a star (i.e. a likely winner); b) for a previous home town team; c) or for a team that plays the right way and doesn’t allow any knuckleheads. Now that OKC has the Thunder the allegiance naturally goes to the Thunder but the eye is still on that former team as 2nd favorite. Portland has a national following for the reason c) and soon will gain from a) as well.

3. The Trail Blazers passed on KD and that endears us to OKC fans for all time. It is why Chicago fans should have listed Brazers 2nd while MJ was there. (For the record that pass of KD was not, in my opinion, an error).

plenty of people around the league have envy for the blazers and I’m proud of that, I like that my team is admired by other people, I wouldn’t care if they were hated, but its nice that people get on our side when we play a team like LA or the rockets. I know one guy from tocoma, a huge washington fan, who is now a blazer fan mostly due to the sour taste in his mouth, a love for basketball, and love for B Roy. all the fans won’t get on board right away in OKC, but eventually they’ll have a fanbase that can be heard with the TV volume turned up to 11.

and since when does the letter “a” appear after L and before K?

perhaps this blogger is the exception to the rule.

S

Either the Bulls or Hawks.

to be the fan of a team other fans admire for a variety of reasons. As we all know, that has not always been the case. Thus, I would say my reaction is “Cool!”

With respect to your second question, I think there are pieces of every team in the league that one might covet for one’s own. So had you written such a piece about the yellow/purple dudes, I might not like it but I would have to admit they might have some stuff from which we could profit.

They have been my 2nd for quite some time. The year they beat Dallas in the first round was phenominal, what wasn’t there to love about those crowds… it made me long for the days of yore in Rip City, and now proud that we have the same time of rabid fans back.

after that, so this blogger guy is an exception to the rule. Also, it doesn’t surprise me that most people around Seattle don’t care about a mundane organization like the Portland Trail Blazers. To be frank, I didn’t give a crap about the Trail Blazers when I first started watching basketball seriously as a 8-year-old kid during the 1992-1993 season.

As it was, I loved the Sonics, hated the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns, and respected teams such as Chicago, Houston, New York, and later San Antonio. The Trail Blazers, however, meant nothing to me. Yes, it was pure apathy.

Frankly, I only follow the team nowadays to get my basketball fix; it’s like a heroin addict who hates the drug, but nevertheless needs it. My favorite team to watch during the 2009 NBA Playoffs wasn’t even the Trail Blazers, but rather the Bulls.

Yes, I’m sure that sounds like blasphemy to y’all. That, however, is how I truly feel about everything.

“It’s really what I envision happening to my team in my city”…

Except that your team was founded in lies, theft and ill will. Good luck with that great start.

it shows how good we have it here in Portland these days…maybe all the perpetual gripers and haters can see this and realize things aren’t so bad

That said, Ben, if you ever wrote something like that about the Lakers I think it would be your last post on BEdge!

My second favorite squad is the Bulls

for the ripping up of Seattle. They were an entrenched team with history, and I will forever hate OKC for that. The fact the fanbase seems split over their love for the team just irks me even more.

I’m done being irked now. He likes the blazers? cool. whatever. I really just don’t care.

I read the whole Truehoops post earlier today. If you check out the voting poll, the Blazers were holding strong at the two spot for the best team to love second to a favorite. All throughout my childhood I was a loyal Sonics fan and to this day am infuriated with how the situation was handled by the d-bag that is Clay Bennett and all of the other idiots involved. That said, the argument made at the beginning of this article suits me perfectly. A recent grad from the University of Portland, I’ve been able to witness the rebirth of RIP CITY. Also yes there are numerous connections to the two I-5 teams.

1. Brandon Roy – UW Product and Seattle HS Phenom
2. Martell Webster- Also a Seattle HS shooting god
3. Nate McMillan – Mr. Sonic himself

That being said: The Rose Garden and the Blaze team colors coupled with the pinwheel… are pretty damn sweet.

*I now pride myself with being a part of RIP CITY and have already purchased my quarter season package for the 2009-2010 campaign (I had one for last year as well). So yes, the sting of losing the Sonics (now the Zombies according to B. Simmons) still hurts to this day, but I have found the Blazers…enough said.

Thanks to Ben for the kind words. That was nice coming from probably the best NBA blog out there.

And to try an explain without bringing out any animosity, us Oklahomans feel no connection whatsoever to past Sonic history or rivalries. I’ve been very clear in the past that I hate the way we got our team, but I’m not sad we have them. We view it as an expansion team, not a relocation. It’s hard to harbor any dislike for the Blazers when I have no reason to.

More than anything, I’m drawn to the Blazers because I love Brandon Roy. I’ve watched his 40 foot buzzer beater, oh, probably 30 times. But one commenter really nailed it – we see ourselves in the Blazers and we’re hoping our group mimics them. There’s a lot of similarities (one guy wrote something of the such comparing our franchises on my site) and I think the excitement and enthusiasm is similar.

Anyway, thanks again to Ben, and best to you Blazer fans.

Whoever is playing the Fl*kers.

I NEVER really considered the Sonics much of a rival though. I guess in my mind they were more like a little brother to us than a rival.

and moving to OKC

I root for the Blazers and that’s it. If the Blazers aren’t on, then I root for a good game. I don’t care about the Bulls or the Celtics, but their playoff series earlier this year was fantastic basketball.

I don’t care if other people root for Portland or not. If they do, I hope they treat other fans/teams with respect so that they represent Portland and the Blazers well.