If you are a Portland Trail Blazers fan, listen up. You need to read anything and everything Jason Quick writes about the team. He’s a 10-year veteran of covering the Blazers, and in that time he’s seen everything. He’s gotten in fights with players, he’s broken the tough stories, and he tries to go beyond the game recap to get fresh, insightful material.
That’s why when he talks about this year’s team, I listen. He recently had a recurring series entitled “Behind the Blazers Locker Room Door,” and in that series he was able to get access to all the players and portray them in a different light than we usually see. We got to see how Brandon Roy is relaxed in front of his locker and how goofy Rudy Fernandez is. In general, we got to see just why this team is so likable.
Quick ended the series after Tuesday’s playoff game against the Houston Rockets. He said it was increasingly difficult with the playoff atmosphere to get the same access because players were behaving differently because of the pressure. Hopefully he brings it back next year, because I couldn’t wait to read the latest edition and see how the players reacted after a game.
His last installment really got me thinking, too. In his closing paragraphs, when he was writing about why he was shutting the series down and how he hoped he had accomplished some good, he mentioned something that struck a chord with me. He said that it was his hope that we had grown closer to the team, and figured out why we root for them: “not because it says Blazers or Portland on their jersey – but because they are good, interesting and hard-working people.”
I like this a lot. The fact that the team is full of a bunch of nice guys makes the team that much better. Everyone can remember the feeling from a few years ago when the likes of Rasheed Wallace and Zach Randolph were in town. Fans couldn’t relate to them. They were constantly getting into fights, and portraying the city of Portland in a negative way.
Now the whole state of Oregon is again proud of its team.
Granted, I must first make a disclaimer and call out all of you who shunned the team during the bad times, only to jump back on once it started winning again. I guess it’s understandable, but that type of fair-weather fan just sets my teeth on edge. If you just cheered for winners all the time, the memorable moments wouldn’t mean as much because you wouldn’t have stuck with Portland through the dark years, and you wouldn’t know how it felt to get blown out day after day, only to climb back to success.
That’s why this season has been so memorable for so many people, especially those of us who remember the team from the 1990s when they were making the playoffs every year. Every time Brandon Roy hit a jumper in Tuesday night’s game, I got the chills because I knew how far this team has come. It is an almost incomparable feeling seeing the team that you have cheered for since you were a one-year-old rise back to prominence.
And I don’t think anyone will argue with me when I say the rise came with Brandon Roy. He epitomizes the Portland Trail Blazers. He’s a good guy on and off the court, and he’s a talent beyond comparison. When he needs to he can score 42 points, but then he can do what the team needs as well. He’s so unselfish that there are times when you just wish that instead of laying it up he would dunk it. But then he wouldn’t be Brandon Roy, and the Blazers wouldn’t be the team they are.
No matter how this series turns out with the Rockets, I know the future is bright. There’s a rock-solid foundation and the team is probably only one signing away from winning it all. It is seriously that good. And that young. The window is going to be open for the better part of the next decade if the guys remain healthy.
But the most memorable moment for me hasn’t been in the closing weeks as they secured home court; it was in the fifth game of the season when Brandon Roy showed why he has become the most loved athlete in Portland.
With 0.8 left on the clock in overtime against Houston on Nov. 6, Roy sent a shot from 10 feet behind the three-point line sailing into the rafters of the Rose Garden, and like a shot from the heavens, the ball came back down to Earth, swishing through the net for the two-point win.
Radio play-by-play announcer Brian Wheeler called it best, screaming, “Hit it! Yes he did! Brandon Roy, the Natural, hits 30-footer! At the buzzer! And the Blazers run off the court, winners by two!”
Need I say more? So thank you, Blazers, for giving this fan a season to remember. All you guys did was make the playoffs, and it created magic for an entire state. Rip City Uprise.
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