You know, I’m not quite sure what was so interesting about watching the NBA Draft from the Trail Blazers’ official party at the Rose Garden.
It’s another chance to buy ballpark food at ballpark prices, and contemplate a new jersey purchase. And, let’s face it, there’s a good reason the Rose Garden’s plain, red jumbotron is getting replaced for next season – the TV signal would have looked better at my parents’ house.
But there’s an undeniable sense of pride and celebration from being at the draft party. Some in the stands were talking about the atmosphere created by the estimated five to six-thousand strong crowd; of course the atmosphere’s better, you’re letting diehard fans in for free! That always makes for a better atmosphere than people who are at the game to network.
If anything, the public reaction to the draft party and the following day’s official unveiling of Greg Oden downtown proved one thing: Rip City is back.
Greg Oden and the team apparently passed up an opportunity to have the former Ohio State center appear on national late-night TV shows in order to bring him ‘home’ to his new adoring public. That was a good move; how they did it on Friday was even better. Oden arriving at Pioneer Courthouse Square via the MAX train, umbrella in tow? Brilliant.
The team has the city’s imagination back, and its marketing department is proving they know what the city wants from its team. Players with good character and who are solid citizens (and also happen to be incredibly good ball players) not only make for a happy locker room, but go down better in the Northwest, where it seems we not only like our teams to win, but be nice guys and win.
If prickly Rasheed Wallace had led the team to a championship, would it have meant as much as the title Bill Walton helped lead the franchise to?
Probably not.
That’s what makes the team’s bond to the city so unique: Like a parent and child, the city will always love the team unconditionally, but responds best when the child behaves. Portland’s attitude toward the Blazers, even when the team struggled on and off the court, was always like a parent who was disappointed in their teenage son or daughter. It’s as if the city – living, breathing, speaking through the brick, asphalt, and rivers – was saying at that time, “We still love you, but wish you wouldn’t stay out past your curfew and would stop hanging out with those friends. They’ll only get you into trouble.”
The last player on the roster from Portland’s last post-season run five seasons ago was Zach Randolph; only Darius Miles and Travis Outlaw are around from the following year. A reinvention of team and culture was needed, and the last two seasons have seen sweeping change.
Not coincidentally, the public has grasped back onto the team, especially last year. It’s still fascinating that the public would prefer a team of choir boys with potential over a contender with off-court issues, but that is the nature of the Trail Blazers’ relationship with the public. The city always wants to embrace the team; it’s visible in the scenes of celebration from the 1977 title win, it’s palpable in David Halberstam’s classic book “The Breaks of the Game” about the 1979 team, and it was tangible during the Drexler era when I was a kid in Northeast Portland.
Now it has roared back – a quiet bass when Nate McMillan was hired as coach three years ago, a splash with the 2006 draft, building up throughout the 2006-07 season to the explosive climax, featuring the goofy, 7-foot 19-year-old who has won the city over already.
Rip City is back. You could see it as several thousand people turned the Rose Garden into a Thursday afternoon party; you can feel it in the city now. All that’s left is for the calendar to turn to October, and the NBA season to begin. The city is waiting, the stage set. Everybody’s waiting for you, Trail Blazers. It’s about time the city felt like this again.