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A breath of fresh air for Portland and their fans. They deserve it after all these years.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...blazers18.html
PORTLAND — So this is what Blazermania looks like. Red, black and white everywhere.
After a five-year absence, the Blazers return to the playoffs and Portland threw the team a party unlike any celebration this city has seen in a long time.
Beneath blue skies, roughly 10,000 Blazers fans crowded into downtown's Pioneer Courthouse Square, where they danced to 1970s music and cheered for their favorite players during a three-hour rally Thursday afternoon.
Team marketers called it an uprising in Rip City, but it felt more like a basketball revival hearkening to the Blazers' glorious past when Maurice Lucas and Bill Walton delivered an NBA championship in 1977, the city's only major professional sports le.
"When we first pulled up, I was thinking, 'All of this for making the playoffs?' " two-time All-Star Brandon Roy said onstage, as M-V-P chants echoed blocks away to the banks of the Willamette River. "I can only imagine what a championship will bring."
When it comes to Portland and the Trail Blazers, their relationship is essentially a classic love affair story: City meets NBA team. They fall in love. They fight and threaten to break up. And they get back together again.
Consider Thursday's rally the reunited portion of their 39-year sometimes rocky romance.
"People here live and die for the Portland Trail Blazers," said David Harris, 57, a North Portland native. "That's what we do because it's the only pro team we've got."
Adam Ross, a 25-year-old retail manager, has waited a long time for this day. It wasn't just the rally that attracted him and his 18-month-old son Connor, but rather the chance to cheer for a team that he could be proud of.
"There was a time I was almost embarrassed to say I was a fan," said Ross, a Boring, Ore., resident. "I was a closet fan. I would watch games on TV, but I wouldn't buy tickets or the gear. It was hard to claim them back then, but things are completely different now."
These Blazers, led by coach Nate McMillan and Roy, are the anti-Jail Blazers, their alter-ego in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those teams disregarded the league's soft salary cap and adopted a win-at-all costs mentality that nearly killed Blazermania after a series of player arrests and run-ins with law enforcement.
"It feels like the locker room in here is a lot more together than it was," said forward Travis Outlaw, the longest tenured Blazer. "Everybody can get on each other. If another guy is doing something wrong, then you're more willing to help [rather] than sit back and watch. Before it was kind of like 'you're on your own.' "
It wasn't just Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells, Ruben Patterson, J.R. Rider, et al who threatened to ruin the Blazers' relationship with Portland.
In 2004, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, ranked by Forbes the third-richest man in the United States, put the Rose Garden into bankruptcy when the city wouldn't help bail him out. Back then, rumors circulated that Allen, who owns the Seahawks, had become more infatuated with the NFL and was looking to sell the Blazers and perhaps buy the cash-strapped Sonics.
During an interview Wednesday, Allen described the Blazers as "my first love" and gave no indication he ever considered leaving Portland.
"Some number of years ago when things were going in the opposite direction, a lot of people were disenchanted with our players and how they played on and off the court," Allen said. "I just made a decision that we were going to go in a different direction and so we were going to get players that reflected that new direction and bring in some different coaches."
The reclamation project began in 2005 when Allen hired McMillan while entrusting Kevin Pritchard, now the team's general manager, to skillfully rework the roster through the draft, trades and free agency.
"When I first got here, there were no fans that showed up to a game, but now they are definitely behind us," Outlaw said.
Wednesday's 104-76 victory over Denver marked the 68th consecutive sellout, dating to Dec. 21, 2007.
The win also gave Portland a share of the Northwest Division le, their first le since 1999 and guaranteed the fourth-seeded Blazers home-court advantage against No. 5 Houston in their first-round series, which begins Saturday.
These are happy days in the City of Roses.
The Blazers' 54-28 record is the most wins for a McMillan-coached team, surpassing the 52-30 record he posted during his final season in Seattle in 2004-05. It's also the most Blazers victories since the 1999-00 season, when they advanced to the Western Conference Finals.
Not even the most die-hard Blazers fan expects a similar run to the conference championship this year. Portland is the youngest team in the playoffs, which suggests many more playoff appearances are in their future and the team's rekindled love affair will continue to burn.
"I was a part of the Washington turnaround and that was great, but it was not like this," Roy said. "Man, these people are really into it. They love the Blazers. They feel like they are a part of it, like they are really on this team. Like they got numbers and lockers and everything.
"I've never seen anything like this in my life. Everybody kind of warned me that when you guys get it going, it's crazy. But I didn't imagine it would be like this. I mean, I can't go anywhere."
Roy's heart belongs to Seattle, but the longer he remains in Oregon, the former Garfield High and Washington Huskies star is becoming entrenched in this community that adores him.
"It really hit me my rookie year when I went to an Oregon State game," Roy said. "Just the year before I was a Husky and they booed me. I mean they were cussing at me and everything.
"A year later, I walk into the gym and they went crazy. They chanted my name. And I'm like, 'Man that's crazy.' And that let me know these people couldn't care less about what happened in college. All they cared about was I was doing good for the Blazers and they loved me for it. That connection between this team and this city, it's incredible."
A breath of fresh air for Portland and their fans. They deserve it after all these years.
the TailGayzers.
No one gives a about your mediocre franchise. They'll hover around the West's playoffs for few years while being eliminated by the Lakers again and again. By that time Roy will be peaked out and Oden on the verge of retirement at age 26.
Roy is freaking 24 you moron. When Roy is in his prime, Kobe will be gone...
You seriously think Andrew Bynum can carry the Lakers??
You seriously think Kobe is going to be gone at 34? You're re ed.
Besides that, at age 24 Kobe was averaging 30, 6, 6 and was already a 3 time champion. Roy has ing nothing on Kobe. And he turns 25 in like two months.
Clearly the majority of posters here have no knowledge of history.
So pull up a chair and let the Dr. edumacate your dumbasses. There are few things in life that are constant......POR getting their hearts broken to the Lakers in the playoffs is one of them. Throughout history we have seen the Lakers obliterate their hopes and dreams time and time again, even when it appeared victory was right in their grasp. So when people prop this Blazer team up as the next dynasty I can only laugh. I've seen this before and I know how it will play out.
As long as the Lakers are the dominant force in the WC POR will never sniff a championship. That much is certain.
So like... for two years or so then.As long as the Lakers are the dominant force in the WC POR will never sniff a championship. That much is certain.
Who's talking about a dynasty? They're just happy to go to the dance.
We're coming for you LA. Believe that.
Go blazers!!!!!!
An NBA player's peak is at around 28-32 and i don't see Kobe playing at the age of 35-36. I seriously don't, he has way too many miles on those chicken legs. If he does, his productivity will be down for sure.
BTW Kobe had a dominant big man on his side. What does Roy have? Oden & Grandmilla!!
So let me get this straight..someone wrote an entire article on Portland being full of bandwagon fans?
Nice edumucation, House..except for the fact that you can't call yourself a dominant force when you haven't won a le in 7 years...seriously dude...two times making it to the finals in 7 years with no rings while the Spurs have WON 3 rings in that time doesn't quite make the Lakers dominant..nice try though.
holy you got to 3,000 posts quick.
idk how you guys do it. sneaky, ive been here for almost 3 years, have no life and post here everyday and somehow im not there yet
i think he was meaning the spurs, i dont know how he got so mixed up he put the lakers
LOL...it's alright Bump...we all love your posts though...I never even keep up with my own posts..lol...but I do post a lot...I like to say what's on my mind..lol...
holy you got to 3,000 posts quick.
idk how you guys do it. sneaky, ive been here for almost 3 years, have no life and post here everyday and somehow im not there yet
this is about as arrogant of a post as it gets.
but its 100% true. sorry Portland fans
Typical Laker fan..they think that just because David Stern WANTS them to win the le every year that they automatically DO win it every year. They think they're the best team every year, yet they never seem to pull it off. Oh well...we should be used to it.i think he was meaning the spurs, i dont know how he got so mixed up he put the lakers
Ive got many friends who are Laker fans, they love their team.. just as we all love ours.. however house is probably the biggest laker /nuthugger ive ever had a chance to talk with... you could put 21 palins up there with him also...
The proof is in the pudding.
The Lakers have eliminated the Blazers from the playoffs the last 5 out of 7 times they've made it.
I don't make this up.
I'm dying to see Portland in the second round.
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