John Nash

Tuesday morning, we draped the stone walls of the Rogue Ministry in black crepe and donned our gloomiest mourning attire. (Well, we always do that. But this, this was special.) For on Tuesday, an era of unity and brotherhood ended in Portland.

We refer, of course, to the 'Sheed Years.

Thanks to the roguish actions of Trail Blazers general manager John Nash, Paul Allen and carping moralists everywhere, Portland no longer has Rasheed Wallace to kick around. When the city's NBA club dealt the loudmouthed, overpriced, underachieving forward to the Atlanta Hawks, the City of Roses lost a crucial communal rallying point.

Like County Chair Diane Linn and that girl from the old Regal Cinemas Pepsi ads, Rasheed possessed a unique ability to unite Portland's disparate tribes in a harmonious chorale of loathing.

When he hurled a towel into the face of teammate Arvydas Sabonis, we cringed as one.

When he likened NBA players to slaves on a plantation, nausea churned in the stomachs of a city that loves to talk about "honoring diversity."

And when he confronted a referee in the Rose Garden loading dock, we came together to recite the post-game soliloquy: "You better flinch, you motherfucking punk. Let's see how tough you are off the court, you punk-ass bitch. I'm going to kick your fucking ass...."

In Wallace's record for technical fouls in a season, Portland finally has its own version of Roger Maris' long-canonical 61 home runs.

Now, thanks to this trade, we are bereft.

Our water coolers will fall silent. (What, we're supposed to get lathered up about Dan Friggin' Dickau?) Local sports columnists Dwight Jaynes and John Canzano will have to find another objet d'ire. And Wesley Person--well, we hardly knew ye.

In the end, it is difficult to articulate just how close this man brought us all. The only thing we can say for certain about the 'Sheed Years, at their abrupt end, is this: Both teams played hard.