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Earlier this week, I put out a call for some help.
Tom Goldman, a Portland-based reporter for NPR, was looking to interview fans of the Portland Trail Blazers about the upcoming ESPN documentary about Sam Bowie, which sparked a little brouhaha last week. In the documentary,Bowie indicated that he lied about his health prior to the 1984 NBA Draft. Shortly thereafter, he tried to walk back those comments.
Kelly AuCoin, a longtime Blazersedge reader, was quoted in Goldman's piece, which can read and listened to right here.
"I gotta say, um, I'm pissed off. Can I say that? I am," says Kelly Aucoin, 45, who's been a Blazers fan since 1975. "He couldn't have asked for a more forgiving, protective fan base, and then to find out that you were protecting a guy who lied to the people who were making an evaluation, it's a little hard to swallow."
Other Blazers fans think Bowie's words are being blown out of proportion. As does Bowie, who's 51 and lives in Lexington, Ky.
"The thing that people fail to realize is after they gave me that thorough physical, I played in 76 of the 82 games, which obviously indicates that the bone was strong, that there was no tricking of the medical personnel," Bowie says.
Also this week, NBA commissioner David Stern said that he didn't remember much about the 1984 Draft except fining the Blazers for illegally contacting Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing in the run-up to the selection.
-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter