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The Trail Blazers kicked off their 57th season in Portland on Oct. 4 with their annual Fan Fest at Moda Center, an arena the organization doesn’t like in a city its owner seems to want people to think he hates.
There have been a lot of strange seasons and storylines to unfold in the Rose Quarter since 1970, but nothing has quite matched the situation entering this year. As the Blazers tip off their first preseason game this week, gearing up for the season opener Oct. 21, little is certain, including whether the team will reach an agreement to stay in Portland long term.
Last week, the Blazers held their media day, an at times contentious event in a crowded room in the back of Moda Center where many of the questions the team faces as it hurtles toward the crossroads were asked of team officials and players alike.
At Fan Fest, nobody asked any questions. The uncertainty just sort of hung in the air and turned the carnival into a very large funhouse mirror.
But if you had no idea what had been happening since subprime auto lender Tom Dundon bought the team, or that many fans face the coming months with a sense of disillusion and existential dread, you would have thought everything was peachy; the building had a family-friendly atmosphere, and the vibes were splendid. (Also the refs wore shorts.)
After media day and Fan Fest, many questions still remain unanswered before the regular season starts. Here are a few of the most immediate.
1. Who will call the games?
After seeming to go out of its way to get egg on its face throughout the spring and summer—this included lowballing legendary play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, who walked—the organization topped itself last week by hiring and firing a 29-year-old within the same day over racist and sexist tweets he had posted as a teenager. Some candidates to replace him in the booth:
• Evan Turner
• Lamar Hurd talking to himself
• Kevin Calabro but AI
• Your buddy Dave, a really good guy
• Joel Przybilla
• Blazers summer league legend Keith Bogans
• Blaze the Trail Cat, but it turns out he speaks only French
(In terms of actual options, a good choice would be longtime Blazers radio play-by-play announcer Travis Demers.)
Bonus question: What will Tom Dundon cheap out on next?
• Replacing game balls with indoor-outdoor balls stolen from a local middle school
• Firing the equipment manager and outfitting the team in replica jerseys from Fred Meyer (backup players will also just have to wear Dame jerseys)
• Gatorade out, Kirkland Signature Sport Drink in
2. Dundon got $280 million less for a virtually identical arena renovation project three years ago for his NHL team in Raleigh, N.C., a market very comparable to Portland. Has anyone provided any explanation as to why this one should be nearly twice as expensive?
Nope. Dundon was given $300 million in taxpayer money for a virtually identical renovation project three years ago for the Carolina Hurricanes, his NHL team in Raleigh. (Portland is the country’s 23rd-largest television market while Raleigh is the 22nd; Moda Center opened in 1995 and Lenovo Center opened in 1999.)
Nobody has really explained the gap between these figures or, for that matter, explained what exactly the public’s $587 million is going to pay for. Other than releasing a few renderings, the organization has said virtually nothing about specifics. One of the team’s co-owners, Sheel Tyle, once alluded to the need for luxury boxes closer to the floor.
3. Should one very rich guy—or, technically, a small group of very rich guys, none of whom has anything beyond a local connection to the city—be allowed to control with near-total impunity something that means so much to a community?
Historically, the NBA’s answer to this question has been some form or another of: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
One federal official thinks he can change that. WW sat down in the shadow of Moda Center ahead of Fan Fest with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. Oregon’s senior senator spoke to his long-standing relationship with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, plus the league’s ongoing crisis with its owners that culminated with last month’s suspension of Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.
“I think what happened with Mr. Ballmer is an indication that people are starting to get serious about enforcement,” Wyden said. “I mean, here he is, certainly, the league’s most financially well-off individual, and they really used their due diligence and came through with a very significant decision. So I think there’s an indication that there’s going to be greater interest in enforcement.”
The strong implication was the senator believed he could apply enough pressure to the other 29 NBA owners to get them to rein in Dundon.
“I’ve got a lot of tools. If I’m chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, we have things like taxes and amortization and all kinds of stuff. I’m prepared to use them all.”
4. Could any of this actually lead to Damian Lillard winning a title with the Blazers?
This quickly disintegrates into several other questions.
What will Damian Lillard and Ja Morant look like physically? Can they play together? Can they stay healthy? Who will be the team’s best player by April? Lillard, Deni Avdija, or Morant?
Could it unexpectedly become one of the team’s young players like Scoot Henderson or Shaedon Sharpe or Donovan Clingan?
Assuming a world where Lillard is a 36-year-old version of more or less the same player he used to be when he returns from his Achilles injury, it seems unlikely that any of the options above will produce a team capable of winning four playoff series. The team returning to the promised land is probably only possible in a world where Morant, still just 27, turns back into the player he used to be.
These hypotheticals would be a lot more fun if we didn’t have to go around thinking this could all blow away in the wind, and that the players on the team’s roster could one day represent some Midwestern city with more billionaire-friendly tax rates.
That the team is threatening to leave Portland by leveraging fans’ love against them is especially cruel given the timing, as this season will mark the 50th anniversary of Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas and Dr. Jack Ramsay’s triumph in the 1977 Finals.
Before Fan Fest started—it ended with Morant hitting a half-court shot to break the tie of the day’s scrimmage after he had already seemed to win over all the fans in attendance—the voice over the loudspeaker boomed, “This is our house. And there’s a storm comin’.” It was hard not to interpret a second meaning.
Maybe the biggest question we should ask is simpler than any of the others: Did it really have to be like this?
