Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells Discuss ‘Jail Blazers’ Era in New Interview

A new interview with former Portland Trail Blazers Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells was released by Underdog Originals for free on YouTube last week, featuring the duo discussing the Jail Blazers era (H/T Nick Krupke, KPTV). They talk about the use of marijuana, the image of the team, announcers attacking them, Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, and more. Watch the interview and read an excerpt below.

Wallace:

During that whole time when we were going through this tumultuous time with the whole ‘Jail Blazers’ and all of that, you know, I’ll watch the replay of the game if it’s a home game or whatever. They just be killing us. ‘Oh, what are they doing right here? Why would you try to make this pass? Da da da da da da,’ and they giving more accolades to the other team. Like, ‘See, this is how the Blazers need to play. Look at the swinging movement of the ball and they’re just moving and leads to a perfect layup, blah blah blah blah,’ right. So I’m like, ‘man,’ I got tired of it, right.

So, it just so happened, coincidentally, one day I’m out over at a friend’s house and she knows Bill Walton. And I was like, ‘Man, I do not like that f---ing dude. He bashes us every time.’ And, you know, like Bonzi just said, ‘Oh Portland’s a team full of potheads and this and that,’ and she was like, ‘What? That’s what he said? This and that, talking about y’all?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ She was like, ‘Well, he can’t talk because I was smoking weed with him and doing shrooms and acid and all that’ and — I forgot the name of the park, but where we would always play softball at — she was like, ‘Yeah, at so and so park, he used to come out there after the Blazers games and da da da.’ I’m like, ‘Ohhhhh.’

So, one day he was killing us, you know, I see him in the back and I’m like, ‘Yo, dawg you got to stop talking about our guys like that because you’re sitting up here saying this and that,’ and it went on to what Bonzi was saying, like, ‘Yo, this could f--- up a job opportunity later because you sitting up here bashing because you don’t know the whole story, you just going off of the whole mystique of the Jail Blazers.’ I said, ‘Yo, I know about them acid trips,’ I named my girl and her husband, and I was like, ‘Yo, keep talking shit about us, I’ma start talking shit about you.’ I ain’t have no problems with him from there on out.

A full documentary has been rumored to be in the works for a few years now, though none has surfaced. What would you like to see in a feature-length documentary about that era? Sound off in the comments below.