As the diaries are indicating, many of you are commenting on the lack of Blazer young guys in the rookie-sophomore game in Las Vegas this year.
Suffice it to say I'm not surprised, and this is pretty much why I say that I don't give a rip if Zach makes the all-star team or if any of our guys even go to Vegas in any form. It just...doesn't...matter. It's not representative of anything important or meaningful or real except a little hype.
The closest anybody has come to describing a reason why this makes a difference is saying it brings us more respect, but it doesn't really. Respect is a by-product of two things: publicity and winning. The first will NEVER be a part of the Portland make-up. Only the second matters. The early-90's Blazers were absolutely, 100% ignored until they actually made it to the NBA Finals, and even then year after year people would predict against them in almost every reasonably tough playoff series simply because they hadn't heard of them. Until we win, and win big, there will be no respect. It's as simple as that.
It doesn't matter which Blazers go to the all-star game. They'll get five minutes of courtesy time and after that nobody outside of the 503 will remember that they were even there. Quick, name the album that finished fourth in the balloting for the Grammies this year (let alone 13th, like our guys would). That's how the rest of the world will view our representative. It doesn't matter that a Knick would get 62 times that much credit. We don't live in New York.
That's why I could care less and I won't spend any time fretting over it. I don't particularly want to be invited to the little party just to get shoved off into the corner with a pat on the head so our fan base can coo and be mollified and brag that we got invited at least. I want our guys to walk into the house, look around at everybody, and say, "This is OURS now. Let's talk about redecorating with some red and black around here." That's the only thing that matters.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)