Q: Did your book tour include a stop at the Rose Garden for Pistons-Blazers last week? I hope you checked out the way the Garden treats Greg Oden. Every time he does something basic, the place explodes like he dunked from half court. They are just willing themselves to think he will be good.
-- David G., Portland
OK, so one of the things you have to know about Portland is that the Trailblazers are the only game in town. When the team is playing well and winning...well, life looks pretty darn good. When they're struggling (and I'm not talking New Jersey Nets 0-18 kind of struggling)...the weeping and gnashing of teeth can be heard far and wide. A few days ago, the Blazers lost to Memphis (and former Blazer bad boy Zach Randolph). How you can lose at home to a team as bad as Memphis is the subject for another time...but you'd have thought the sky was falling. Still, it WAS Memphis, a team that would struggle in the ACC. Yikes....
The Blazers are 13-8 after beating Houston 90-89 Saturday night on a last-second Brandon Roy shot, but all is not well in Portland. You see, the relationship that Portland has with it's basketball team borders on something approaching codependency, and it can be pretty amusing at times. Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge Blazers fan...but come on, y'all. It's an 82-game season. When the playoffs start in April, who cares (or who will even remember) that the Blazers lost at home to Memphis in late November? Here in Portland, you'd be surprised just how many folks will care AND remember.
Here's what I took away from my Rose Garden experience: Portland loves the Blazers the same way a single mother would love her only child. The city's revulsion toward the "Jail Blazers" makes a lot more sense to me now. The team and the city are intertwined, and if one side isn't holding up that bargain, it's even more painful than usual. Anyway, I couldn't be happier that I got a taste of it. Great NBA city.
Yeah, it's a great NBA city, and the Rose Garden is a great place to watch a basketball game. You can take light rail to the arena from most any direction, so parking is seldom a hassle. The experience of a Blazers game really is a whole lot of fun. Since most fans see the team as something like their extended family, game night is sort of like Thanksgiving dinner- with 20,000 family members jammed around the dinner table. Good luck getting that second helping of pumpkin pie....
The way that locals embrace their team can occasionally border on the comical, but Portlanders DO love their Trailblazers. Play well in Portland, and you'll likely never have to pay for another beer anywhere in the tri-county area as long as you live (you can even run for Governor). Every now and then, a player comes along that we fall in love with as if he was our own child. Yes, if potential was money, Greg Oden would OWN Portland.
[T]he best way to describe the crowd's support for Oden: It's like watching 15,000 parents rooting for their kid, only all 15,000 parents fathered the same kid. If he ever explodes for 30 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocks in a game, you'll have to carry each deliriously passed-out Portland fan out of the Rose Garden individually like they were victims of smoke inhalation in a burning house. (The funny thing is, everyone in Portland is nodding right now. And yes, I know he's had a couple of inspired games this season. You don't need to e-mail me the stat lines. No, really. Save us both the time. Let's not put too much pressure on him. Baby steps.) I also was startled by Portland fans arguably (see, there it is!) liking Rudy Fernandez as much as, and maybe even a smidge more than, the great Brandon Roy.
Yeah, Oden's every move had been chronicled in breath-taking detail, and his every game has been analyzed as if it carried the same import as the debate over health care reform. The fact that he seems to be coming into his own this year and dominating games with increasing regularity seems to have more fans feeling better about life, liberty, AND the pursuit of happiness. Until this past Saturday night, that is.
While Greg Oden has been a ray of sunshine, there have also been some dark clouds hanging over the team...including, sadly, Greg Oden. Owner Paul Allen's cancer is back. Forwards Travis Outlaw and Nicholas Batum are injured and out of action- Batum until next season and Outlaw until near the end of this season. Coach Nate McMillan ruptured his Achilles tendon during practice the other day. During Saturday's game against Houston, Oden fractured his kneecap, ending his season. Now three of the top six Blazers are done for the year...and joy does not reign over Puddletown. And it's only early December.
Despite all the medical challenges facing the Blazers, most fans are usually happy if the team is winning. This season has been a bit of a challenge thus far for some. Though the team's record bodes well for things to come, the only consistent thing about the Blazers defense this season has been it's inconsistency. If you believe, as most fans do, that defense wins championships...well, you can imagine there's been so much weeping and gnashing of teeth taking place around town. Tonight, the Blazers are in New York to face the hapless and inept Knicks...and Lord only knows which Blazer team will show up.
Two other things shocked me. First, that's the whitest NBA experience you can have that doesn't involve the words "Salt," "Lake" and City." They didn't play hip-hop either before the game or during the game, each team seemed to have more African-Americans than the entire crowd and the pregame video right before the introduction of Portland's starting lineup was a local grunge band singing "Ballroom Blitz." And second, during a second-quarter timeout, my buddy House and I ran into the concourse to grab beers and noticed there was NOBODY else in line for anything. We felt like Will Smith in "I Am Legend." There was no sign of human life other than the workers. Everyone else stays in their seats. At halftime, those same people pour into the concourse like it's halftime of a football game. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know whether the Blazers have the most loyal, passionate, dutiful fans in the NBA, but at the very least, we can say nobody else tops them.
When you're the only game in town, as the Blazers are in Portland, things are going to look a bit different to an outsider used to having other diversions. Sure, we have a AAA baseball team and a junior league hockey team. The Trailblazers, though, are Portland's only claim on a major sport, and so we live and die with the team's fortunes. Like any committed relationship, it's difficult for people on the outside to understand...but, yes, things are a bit different out here...and most Portlanders like it that way.
Hey, at least we're not L.A., right??
How 'bout them Blazers??
