To be fair, there is no such thing as the right time to let go of a good thing. And while too much of a good thing can turn sour, too little can cause heartbreak.
For many local fans of the sport, the news that Brandon Roy would no longer play basketball for the Portland Trail Blazers, or anyone else for that matter, was a tough pill to swallow.
Roy will be missed, and not just because he was a polarizing star, or because he had the ability to take over close games, or even because his stop-on-a-dime-pull-up-jump-shot looked too clean to be real.
He was more than just a player. He was more than just a favorite player. Brandon Roy consistently made all of us, even the casual observers, believe in the impossible. He did even more than that. He pulled off the most unlikely of sports moves. He made us see him as a man.
Fans spoke and still speak of him as though he were a beloved relative, someone who may come bursting through the door at any second, ready to relax and rehash memories with those dearest to him.
Brandon Roy, the man, is far more powerful than B-Roy the athlete ever could be. He endeared himself to Portland the second his first made-shot at the Rose Garden grazed the back of the net. Everyone there knew they were witnessing someone special. Not something special, but someone. Special people can bring along special moments, and Blazers fans knew that was who Brandon Roy was, someone special.
A special player can turn heads, they can fill seats, they can challenge the league’s elite to try harder against what had become an also-ran team. Special people, however, can affect the entire community.
Admit it, when Brandon Roy announced his retirement, you cared a little less about basketball. “It won’t be the same” you told yourself, maybe even hanging your head in shock and dismay. Perhaps you even gave serious consideration to taking the season off, perhaps you still are weighing your options. You knew, and still know, that not seeing #7 on the court will pull at the heart strings, and that the entire team may as well have gone done in a plane crash if Roy won’t be playing.
Perhaps that last statement is too harsh, over the line, and unbecoming a Blazer fan. Yet we all deal with loss in differing ways. It is not uncommon for people to throw in the towel simply because a special person is lost. We all have big choices to make, and we should do so well. Brandon Roy, given the choice between spending quality time with his family while standing upright years from now, versus playing a game today, probably was not an easy decision, but I would wager a lot that it was a quick decision.
We do not get to choose the cards we are dealt. We do, however, have a very large say in how we play those cards, and Roy has done a masterful job against the deck thus far.
If there is just one lasting trait that Roy left with us all, it is that he is a caring guy. He likes this area, he likes the team, and he likes the people. He belonged here, and he knew it. He grew up just three hours north of Portland in the Seattle area, even played his college ball at the University of Washington, and was very pleased to be traded to Portland on draft day, rather than be stuck in Minnesota, hundreds of miles from everything and everyone he ever knew.
Instead he landed here. And from day one he wowed spectators with spectacles; again and again he did what we thought we knew to be undoable. He took a team on the edge of implosion and gave their fan base a reason to believe in something good. Then he took the team back to the playoffs. Despite losing in six games to Houston in 2009, Roy put on an epic performance, single-handedly keeping the team in contention.
In the 2010 playoffs, he did the unthinkable. He took the floor against Phoenix just eight days after knee surgery, something no one thought would be possible. There was no way in hell the Suns had a chance of winning that night, not with the Blazer faithful thinking they were witnessing sports heaven and cheering louder than perhaps any fan base ever has for a single player. For how much support he received, you could tell the fans truly loved him.
In the playoff series against Dallas in 2011, Roy gave Blazer fans one last amazing outing, scoring 18 fourth quarter points to mount one of the greatest comebacks in NBA playoff history. Everyone who saw that game was amazed. Even the Mavericks and their fans were amazed, even Mavs owner Mark Cuban. Anyone who says differently is lying. To say that it was a performance of epic magnitude is an understatement, and it was all Roy.
The fact that Roy’s final heroics in a Blazer uniform will stand as one of the greatest in league postseason play should speak volumes.
People around the league do not offer much empathy. They do not understand that Roy is a once in a generation type of guy. Perhaps he was not and never would become Michael Jordan. So what. The guy had style, class, and a never-give-up, never-surrender attitude. And he genuinely cared about the community. Who cares if he wasn’t going to supplant Jerry West as the guy in the NBA logo.
We know what we had. Roy was Drexler 2.0, he just did not last long enough to bring home a title, something many thought to be a foregone conclusion if Roy and/or Oden had been able to stay healthy.
Roy is the type of guy who changes a culture. He took hold of this franchise, and this town. He put smiles on faces where frowns were once prominent. He made folks stand and cheer when they used to slump in their chair and mope. He gave young kids a guy to look up to. Someone from the right side of the tracks, on the right side of thirty… hell, just someone with an upside for a change.
After the PR disasters caused by the Jail Blazers, guys like Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, and Kevin Duckworth were what this town needed, yet were distant objects in the rear view mirror by 2004.
Enter Brandon Roy. The guy did everything this town ever needed, and the fact that he did not win a title is not even a blip on the radar. Roy did it all for this town, and he did it with a smile on his face and love in his heart.
Roy made all of us believe in something greater. He took the depression and anger and turned it in to cheers and happiness. He gave us all a piece of something, something that was ours, something that can never be taken, something that can only be lost.
Roy gave us hope. Hope is a wonderful thing, maybe the best of things. Hope is good, and something good never truly dies.
Roy reminds myself and plenty of others of Clyde Drexler, who was in many ways just like Roy. Both had to try and get a fan base to embrace them while helping them to forget the recent past. Both ultimately failed to win titles, yet will be endeared to the Blazers faithful long after their playing days.
That is the power of a people’s champion.
While he may have hung up the sneakers, the tank top, and the trunks, he will always be a Blazer.
He will always be Portland. And thanks to him, Portland will always have hope.
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