Forever on Our Mind: Breaking Up With the Portland Trail Blazers
Rethinking my relationship with the team I've followed, through thick and thin, for nearly three decades
102. Breaking Up With the Portland Trail Blazers
July 4, 2015:
A jackhammer pounds the crevices of my barely sentient brain. The purple bags under my eyes would make a beat-up boxer wince with empathy. The laughs, chatter, and conversations on the sidewalk outside sound less like excited tourists than a rock concert pummeling my eardrums into submission.
Here in a darkened Astoria hotel room, following a day of drinking and a night of karaoke that ended with me asking to sing the National Anthem, I am nursing the worst hangover of my life. And LaMarcus Aldridge just made it a whole lot worse.
Nine years after the Portland Trail Blazers drafted the lanky power forward out of Texas—and one year removed from saying he wanted to retire as the greatest Blazer of all-time—LaMarcus Aldridge just announced via Twitter his departure for the mirthless San Antonio Spurs. The same Spurs who play with all the joy of a hedge fund manager and who will probably reel off another handful of titles over the coming decade. Those San Antonio Spurs.
In recent years, the Blazers anointed Aldridge their franchise cornerstone in the wake of Brandon Roy and Greg Oden's unfulfilled promise—and they looked poised to contend for NBA titles with Aldridge at the helm. Three months ago, the surprising Blazers seemed ready for a deep run in a wide-open Western Conference. But a rash of injuries sent the Blazers limping out of the playoffs after a sobering first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies.
By opening night, four months from now, four-fifths of last season’s starting lineup will play elsewhere—and the Blazers will usher in the latest in a series of perpetual rebuilding phases. Another once-promising era in Blazers history has crashed before takeoff. The Black-and-Red Wedding is underway.
I’m tired of saying, “There’s always next year.” This time, there will be no “next year.” As far as my fandom goes, there won’t even be a “tomorrow.”
The blinds drawn and a half-empty cup of water at my bedside, I set fire to the seven stages of grief, only slightly less apoplectic than the jilted Cavaliers fans who burned LeBron jerseys in 2010. There is no denial, grief, or bargaining, much less acceptance. I spent most of my life enduring the Portland Trail Blazers’ precarious highs and agonizing lows, but within 10 minutes, I unfollow every Blazers- and NBA-related Twitter account. I rescind my "thumbs up" on every Blazers-related Facebook page and text my friends: That's it, I'm done. This is my Rubicon. There is no going back.
I briefly consider memorializing the over-too-soon era of Blazers history with my father, who took me to my first game in 1988. Scraping together every penny he could muster on a grocery clerk’s salary, Dad splurged for last-row tickets against the Seattle SuperSonics, butting up against the furthest reaches of the Memorial Coliseum's concrete bowl on creaky wooden benches. I don't remember who won or lost that night, but the crowd's vulnerable sense of unbridled passion washed over me like an Oregon Coast wave. Those grown-ups cared as much about the Blazers as I did cereal box prizes, and the Coliseum's glass facade stood on the brink of shattering the entire night.
I didn't consciously choose to become a Blazers fan after that game, not like figuring out a retirement plan or angling for the best route during rush hour. It's just who I was and what I did. A few years after that first game, I sobbed in front of the television when Danny Ainge missed a potential game-winning shot in a meaningless regular-season game. As a teenage grocery clerk, I hid from customers in the stock room, listening to a high-stakes playoff game that a coworker had piped in over the store intercom. Several years after college, well into actual adulthood, my boss started keeping tabs on the team—not out of personal interest, but so she could gauge my mood around the office the morning after each game.
But as much as the Blazers meant something to me, they meant a whole lot more to the city of Portland and the state of Oregon. One legendary photo sums it up: Thousands of Blazermaniacs swarm every square inch of available real estate, holler to the heavens, and stand on cars as the team's 1977 NBA Championship victory parade inches down Broadway in downtown Portland. There is no telling where the fans end and the parade begins. How could an impressionable kid not hope to get swept up in that?
The Blazers didn't belong to me, my Dad, or even Paul Allen (who’s owned the team most of my life); they belonged to all of us. We all drew a kind of collective energy from the grid, and that electricity sustained us through the Drexler and Porter years, the infamous "Jail Blazers" era, and in the calamitous aftermath of the Greg Oden draft. Absent a bowl-bound college football team or the resurgent Portland Timbers, the Blazers have always been the most reliable conversation-starter in Oregon. But no more. That power kept the lights on in the darkest of nights. But after nearly 30 years of asking "What if?" I shut off the proverbial breaker and resign myself to life in the dark.
When I can summon no more fury or enmity for Aldridge, I turn inward and attack my own righteousness. I have long imbued this team with a depth of meaning it didn’t deserve; how could Coach Terry Stotts’ free-flowing offense save me from crushing disappointment when it couldn’t save LaMarcus Aldridge from fleeing for grayer pastures? Why did I unleash the digital equivalent of an eight-year-old's tantrum when Aldridge, fairly and rightfully, pursued other, more beneficial opportunities? Shouldn't I have gotten over this petulance after the historic cratering in 2000, rather than stew in betrayal today as a hysterical 32-year-old? Are the occasional highs—a last-second win here, a decent draft pick there—worth the abysmal lows? Is there any gratification left to delay? What am I doing with my life?
I have no answers. I turn off notifications, put down the phone, and try in vain to sleep. Just outside my hotel room, tourists carry on like the world hasn’t just ended.
Later that evening, after the ibuprofen kicks in and guided by muscle memory, I glance back at my Twitter feed. That Al-Farouq Aminu signing might provide defensive depth on the wings. C.J. McCollum seems poised for a breakout season. Damian Lillard could be on the verge of something special. Maybe they’ll get a good pick in next year’s draft.
They'll be young, sure. But they'll be a whole lot of fun.
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