The Trail Blazers “Unfortunately Fortunate” Game

The Portland Trail Blazers were scheduled to play the Memphis Grizzlies tonight. As happened on Wednesday, the game had to be postponed because of Health and Safety Protocols. All good...health comes first! But what are we to do in the meantime?

There is a game I used to play as a child with my parents called “Fortunately, Unfortunately.” When we would be on long car trips, or sitting down to eat, it was a way to entertain ourselves. It was just me and them—I didn’t have siblings. So we often resorted to these little games. It worked like this: One person would make a “fortunately” statement. “Fortunately, it’s nice and warm outside today.” The next person would follow it up with an “unfortunately” statement. “Unfortunately, I’m getting a sunburn.” This particular game was one of my favorites as a kid because it always ended up being so silly. Rarely did we keep anything realistic. “Fortunately, I saw a rare Dragon on my way to work this morning.” “Unfortunately, the Dragon breathed fire and now my tires are flat.”

As I got older and had actual real life responsibilities and struggles, the game shifted into a way to see the positive. “Unfortunately my boyfriend broke up with me.” “Fortunately we didn’t like him anyway.” We are 14 games into a 72 game season and I think this is the perfect time to play “Fortunately, Unfortunately—Trail Blazers Edition”.

Unfortunately, we are injured— Collins, Nurkic and McCollum are all out.

Fortunately, we are deeper this year than we have been in a long time, and those injuries are temporary.

Unfortunately, our games against Memphis have been postponed.

Fortunately, that means less games without Jusuf Nurkic and CJ McCollum.

Unfortunately, our defense is struggling

Fortunately, we have Derrick Jones Jr.

Do you see how this goes? This, my friends, is how we remain positive and optimistic. Feel free to play along in the comments, but the rule is you have to end on a “Fortunately”...or at least follow up with a fortunately for someone else who didn’t!

This begins a morning of musing on the season. Dave Deckard will be along in an hour to talk about his five favorite and least favorite things about the year so far. This afternoon Steve Dewald will change it up with possible free agents the Blazers could chase to bolster their injured lineup. It’s enough content to make you forget about the postponed Grizzlies game for a while. Stay tuned!