I thought I'd take a moment away from the struggling, hapless team we all love so much and talk about another unknown aspect of this teams near future, the naming of the last un-sponsored, NBA arena. I personally like the name it has now but it seems that ownership and management are looking to get a little more coin out of their investment, and I can't say I blame them. With that said, I feel like Portland is a real unique city and I can see a lot of people getting upset if we end up with some corporate sponsor that doesn't really mesh with our small-city, big town ideals and our quirky, jaded outlook. So I think it's going to be a tough fit for a lot of companies around here, and we might be best off having a sponsor that we can identify as being Northwest grown.

So what might our options be? Well, Nike is an obvious one though it seems like they like to stay away from sponsoring anything this large for one team in a market that they choose to spread their interests across, (Oregon Ducks being the notable exception). So another idea that's not so homegrown but does have its American headquarters in Portland would be Adidas, and this seems like a natural fit as they are already selling their wares in the Rose Garden and I think make the teams jerseys as well. However for the same reasons Nike isn't liable to plaster a swoosh on the outside of the RG I think adidas might feel the same. I suppose Microsoft, Intel, Starbucks are all contenders though they are also more Seattle and Silicone Valley than truly Portland. So I'm running out of ideas and because I'm a Portlander I'm left only with my sense of irony or absurdity to guide me.

So with that in mind, I'd like to propose that Kellog's buys the naming rights of the Rose Garden and changes the name to The Pringle's Can, because frankly the roof of the RG looks like a delicious Pringles Potato Crisp.

via upload.wikimedia.org

I think the second stage of this plan should be to remove the totally polarizing, and totally plagiarized from the Denver Nuggets mascot, Blaze the Trailcat and replace him with a character that is more in line with our new corporate overlords branding. I'm of course talking about hiring Mike D'antoni as our new full time mascot, The Pringles Guy.

via upload.wikimedia.org

Just look at how excited he is about it! (and we all know he's on borrowed time down in La La land.)

via upload.wikimedia.org

Anybody got any better ideas?