For most people, the summer is a time to look forward to. It’s a time of vacations, barbeques, pool parties, and in the Pacific Northwest, it represents just about the only time of year when people willingly go outdoors. For many it’s the end goal that makes all those dreary winter days all worth it, because as anyone who’s spent any time in this part of the world know, it doesn’t get much better than summertime in Oregon.
That, of course, as with most great things, comes with a pretty hefty exception. For you see, from late spring all the way through early fall, things around Portland are just a little … off. No pilgrimages to the Moda Center. No dramatic, last minute comebacks. No random high fiving of strangers. That’s right, no Portland Trail Blazers for 5 whole months.
For most people this isn’t THAT big of a deal. Just go outside, enjoy the summer sun, and take a moment to disconnect for a while. Sounds like a great summer plan, right?
However, if you’re a die-hard Blazer junkie like myself, the 5 or so months from the end of the season until opening night can be excruciating. Suddenly, shirking duties at work, aimlessly surfing the net during Family Guy reruns, and ignoring those piles of dirty dishes becomes that much more difficult. And, let’s be real here, that’s simply unacceptable.
Sure, there are a few little respites throughout the summer. You have the NBA Draft in late June, leading into a few entertaining days of free agency to start off July, and then right into the unwatchable glory that is Summer League “basketball”.
Ahh, the Summer League. Where Qyntel Woods is a superstar, Nic Batum is a total scrub, and where calling the play “professional level” is only true in the most technical sense of the phrase. Yet, even with all its flaws, the summer league can be thoroughly enjoyable, because, it’s my last bastion of Blazer basketball for nearly 3 whole months. Oh, the humanity!
Summer League is now officially in the books, though, and with players, coaches, writers, cheerleaders and hot dog vendors all now headed for their summer vacation, Blazer news has slowed to nary a trickle. We can only debate for so long about whether CJ McCollum or Will Barton will be able to steal minutes from Dorell Wright and Steve Blake (“Yes”), if Meyers Leonard will FINALLY figure out how to stay on an NBA court for more than 10 minutes without breaking in during the middle of the night (“No”), or if the bench may finally NOT be the worst in the league (“Fingers crossed!”)
By now, those topics have already been beaten to death by most of us Blazermaniacs, and we’re left to spend our time aimlessly floating between ESPN, Blazer’s Edge, OregonLive, and (of course) Oregon Sports News, looking for any smidgen of new info to obsess over in order to briefly skirt the responsibilities of real life. Hoping for something (anything!) to stoke that Blazing fire inside the belly.
So, when word leaked on Monday that the Blazers would be getting new (gag) sleeved versions of their beloved “Rip City” jerseys, I could feel that fire grow. That irrational passion that can only be summoned by the world of sport had returned.
Like a colonial minuteman roused from his slumber by Paul Revere, I sprang into action. Friends, message boards, comment sections of articles, no one was safe from my wrath.
“SLEEVES!?! On basketball jerseys?!!! This is an abomination!”
“Sure, I get that some fans prefer to wear t-shirts more than tank tops, but, why do the players have to wear them? More fans wear jeans than basketball shorts, should the players now wear jeans, too?!”
“I swear to god, that if they put ads on these things, I’m NEVER buying another piece of Blazer merchandise every again!”
“This is only the beginning! Soon, they’ll replace player names with company slogans, the pinwheel at center court with a giant corporate logo, and the basketball itself will be colored to look like whatever food item sponsors the home team’s 100-point giveaway! Eventually, it won’t even be the Portland Trail Blazers vs. the Memphis Grizzlies, it’ll be the Nike Zoom Fit Cross-Trainers vs. the FedEx Overnight International Deliveries!!!!”
And, that was just the stuff that was fit to print on a family website. Clearly, I had lost my mind.
Gauging the level of emotion, you’d think that the Blazers just got knocked out of the playoffs by (yet another!) James Harden flop, followed by the team immediately announcing they were going to trade Damian Lillard for Raymond Felton and the draft rights to a mysterious foreign prospect Fran Fraschilla once called the “Guatemalan Luol Deng”.
OK, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but, I think you get the point: I was fired up! Not just because I dislike the idea of the NBA selling out the sanctity of team uniforms for the possibility of a few extra jersey sales and maybe a 2% increase in ad revenue (although, that was a big part of it), or because I think the sleeves make the players look like the dorky kid on your high school rival who everyone mockingly called “sleeves” (didn’t hurt, though), or even because I blindly fear any and all change in my life (ok, that may have been part of it).
I was fired up because I’m a hardcore Blazer addict, it’s the end of July, training camp is still months away, and we’re just now starting the dog days of summer. What the heck else am I supposed to do?
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