Trail Blazers Organization Owe The City Of Portland

We hear all the time in sports that the athlete has an obligation to the city in which he plays for, and we as fans believe this and maybe put too much blame on the players. Now, I am not saying that players should not be held accountable for their play, but maybe those players are actually playing their best. The Portland Trail Blazers have been a decent team for quite some time now, but that has all they have been. Maybe it is time for the city of Portland to hold the organization to a much higher standard.

Portland is unique among cities with professional sports teams, as there is only one of the four major sports league (NBA, NFL, MLB & NHL) in the city and the state does not consist of any team from the other leagues. The people in Milwaukee have the Green Bay Packers, Sacramento fans have many Bay Area teams in the other leagues and the same goes for San Antonio. Therefore, the Trail Blazers have a bigger responsibility of providing quality basketball for their city.

Portland holds the NBA record for most consecutive seasons making the playoffs at 21, from 1982 to 2003; however they have only won the championship once, in 1977. The last time the City of Roses even saw a finals game be played in the city was in 1992 and have only made it out of the first round of the playoffs twice since then. It is easy to get frustrated watching the Blazers on the court this season, but should Portland fans really be expecting something else.

Since the dismantling of the Drexler-led Blazers of the 80’s and 90’s, the franchise has only been able to provide us with good players and not difference makers. Players like Isiah Rider, Rasheed Wallace, a washed up Scottie Pippen, Steve Smith and Shawn Kemp were asked to lead us to a championship. The problem was that none of those players were capable of carrying and leading their team to a championship. Portland made more of name of having players that were criminals rather than leaders and hence the “Jail Blazers” moniker.

Front office should be commended for being able to clean house and are at least more conscious about adding high character players. Management, however, still has no clue about what a franchise player looks like. They always say that history repeats itself and the Trail Blazers proved this when they passed on Kevin Durant for Greg Oden in 2007. The Blazers brass felt that Durant was not needed because the team already had Brandon Roy, but wouldn’t have been great to have Roy be more of a facilitator and Durant leading the team. Roy was always a very good player, but he is more in Scottie Pippen’s category than Michael Jordan. Durant on the other hand is the ultimate scorer and scores 30 points with ease on a nightly basis.

With the losses piling up, it is a wonder if the Blazers can even make the playoffs this year, however if this were a video game, they would be one of the better teams in the league. Aldridge is a good player, but he just like many big men are better suited to compliment that special guard with a killer instinct. Of course, if the Blazers are to miss the playoffs this season, they need to really consider blowing up the team and this time try to find that superstar player that is a true leader. The Blazers also need to consider the possibility of finding a new coach. Nate McMillan has been subpar his entire coaching career even before Portland. He is a solid coach and can get an average team to the playoffs; however he can only take them so far.

With many cities having multiple teams and for those that don’t; a neighboring city in the state should provide more teams for fans to root for. Portland does not have that luxury, as the nearest city with teams is another state, and should therefore be given a team that is a perennial winner and a bigger than life superstar. It already rains a lot in the Northwest, so shouldn’t the fans of the NBA in this region be given an opportunity to celebrate a championship.