The next in our series of group projects around the NBA portion of SB Nation is a doozy. We circulated a poll among NBA bloggers at the network and asked them to name the first thing that came to their mind when they hear another franchise's name. The results got compiled and we were left with a huge spreadsheet of impressions.
Displaying every entry for every team would be cumbersome, so we're going to limit ourselves to people's impressions of the Trail Blazers. You can click around to other NBA sites using the navigation tools in the left sidebar. They'll have their own descriptions and impressions.
Here's how people characterized the Blazers:
- Unlucky (x4) The final one had a "very" in front of it.
- Snakebit (x4)
- Injured (x2)
- Cursed (x2)
- Lost
- Sad
- Fate
- Knees
- Bizarre
- Rabid
- Broken
- Uncertain
- Waiting
- Confused
- Organic
- PDX
- Jailblazers
- Dame
It's an interesting picture. On the one hand our fan base and franchise seem to be getting a fair amount of sympathy from folks in the know. On the other hand poker legend Daniel Negreanu once said that it's fine to talk about your bad beats now and again but you really don't want to get pegged as the unlucky guy at the table because that sticks with you and starts to affect your play. You know those same guys who are nodding in empathy with your bad luck stories aren't going to hesitate to take your money. Neither will opponents mourn victories over a hard-luck Blazers squad. This team once shook off the "Jailblazer" image behind Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Greg Oden. Apparently Portland needs a new revolution to shake off the hard-luck residue left in the wake of those same revolutionaries.
If you'd like to make your own association list for the teams around the league, feel free to do so in the comment section.
--Dave (blazersub@gmail.com)