Blazers Send Their Thoughts to Paul Allen Following Cancer News

Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen announced earlier this week that he has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for a second time. Joe Freeman of the Oregonian caught up with the team after head coach Terry Stotts gathered his players Monday after practice to talk about Allen’s health:

”I literally got goose bumps when Coach told us,” Meyers Leonard said Tuesday. “Life is fragile. And you grow accustomed to being around certain people and you think everything’s OK and then, boom, something like this happens out of nowhere.”

For Damian Lillard, whose aunt and grandmother also struggled with cancer, he reached out to Allen through text message to make sure he was okay:

“It’s the kind of news that you never want to hear,” Lillard said. “As players, you want to play for somebody who cares as much as you do, somebody that’s equally as invested as you are. And we have that.”

And Coach Stotts added a confident message about Allen:

“Obviously, it’s very concerning,” Stotts said. “It was good to hear that he and the doctors are optimistic about the treatments that he’s going to undergo. We’ll be thinking of him. He kicked cancer’s ass once; he’ll do it again.”

Although this is the second time in a decade Allen will be treated for the disease, he remains confident that he will be able to get through this ordeal with the help of his medical team.

You can read more from Freeman’s piece here.

Editor’s note: Thank you to Blazer’s Edge contributor Kody Tarbell for this write-up.