I think the biggest off season question facing the Blazers is not who the coach or the GM should be but what the hell is PA's head at? PA has had two serious health issues. First a heart valve replacement and now cancer. Those things can instantly change your outlook on many things. You know it had to have scared the hell out of the Vulcans. I would imagine that of all the toys PA owns the Blazers are his favorite. It was that first big purchase he had as a new billionaire. And while he may have started out as a Sonics fan he's more passionate about the NBA than any other sport. The run of highly successful seasons those Drexler era Blazer team enjoyed didn't start until after PA bought the team. There's buying a sports team and then there's buying a sports team and watching them become championship contenders less than a year later. Many of you guys forget that PA is just as much if not more of a fan than all of us are. But... with that said because of PA's health struggles, the reduction of his net worth and the pressure from the Vulcans and PA's sister to run the Blazers as a small market franchise instead of a most favorite toy, I can see PA's ownership of the team ending in a year or two. I don't think PA is interested in having the Blazers be one of the businesses that don't continually lose him money. He bought the team to have fun and win championships. Running a small market franchise in the black just wouldn't seem as much fun. It would not surprise me at all to see the Blazers suddenly shift into a win now at all cost mode. I can see the team scrapping the cake, scrapping building through the draft, scrapping KP and trying to do what the Celtics did a few years back and bring in some aging vets for one last shot at a ring. PA seems to be pissed off about something concerning KP and Penn. It sure isn't because he's pissed off about overpaying to keep Penn. Hell, if one of the richest men in the world got pissed off about something like that he would have had Darius Miles rubbed out a couple of years ago. The firing of Penn and the shunning of KP could have been over something as simple as those two not relaying a trade offer for LMA to him. Maybe PA wanted Amare, maybe he wanted Bosh. It's not that unbelievable that KP would have chosen not to run an offer like that past PA because it would go against KP's vision of how this team should be built. Don't be surprised if instead of waiting for a 5yr long championship window to open in 2 or 3 years from now, PA doesn't just break it open this year because he plans on selling the house in a year or two.
While it's a very interesting post, I'm not buying any of it. People like PA think they're immortal. He doesn't want one title, he wants a lot of titles. To do that he has to have a solid core of players that will hopefully play together for a long time. Barring injuries, he has that. I think our biggest question is fashioning a bench to contend and looking for a PG.
To the best of my knowledge, none of us are Paul Allen's confidants (with good reason - if anyone was he/she would post his every thought on this board!) so it's rather idle to speculate about what is on his mind, who said what to him, and what he is going to do in 2 years. Hell, I have enough trouble planning what I am going to do in 2 years.
I think this is a great point about PA's health. I think we may see some major shakeups this summer. I wouldn't mind just one more ring. Fuck the whole dynasty thing seems an impossible goal in the modern NBA unless you are a top 5 media market city with a newly signed LeBron + Star(s). Even then anything can happen with injuries. Hell we mock the Celtics for their one and done but it's been 33 fucking years since we won a ring. A dynasty would be great but lets get real. At best we could hope to slip one championship past Sith Lord Stern with the hope that he lets us win to defuse all the (valid!) conspiracy theories. If I was PA I would ask Stern how much it costs. I would just drop 3 Billion into Stern's swiss bank account and be done with it. Stern could then send Bron here for 2 years and all is good. Bron wins a couple of rings in Portland and then off to NY or LA for the rest of his MANY rings.
I think the biggest question this summer is who will be our next GM? Even before the Penn fiasco the team refused to give KP an extension. Something is going on here.
It's in Texas and becomes the De Facto "Texas team" when SA and Dallas are out. Texans root for and watch Texans. Those team fan bases hate each other until they are playing someone outside of Texas. San Antonio gets huge swathes of Texas to tune in. Miami is similar in that Florida tunes in. Everyone points to SA as proof manipulation doesn't exist. I say the only numbers Stern cares about are viewers tuning in.
that's really not true about fans in texas. people in san antonio love the spurs. people in dallas and houston either dislike the spurs or are indifferent towards them. obviously i'm not speaking about every single person, but in general. tons of mavs and rockets fans weren't tuning in to the finals to cheer for the spurs.
I'm not entirely convinced that Stern/the league tries to affect outcomes directly, in the service of ratings. I do think that there's organizational encouragement to referees using the "star system." It's no secret that Stern has made the NBA the most star-driven league in US sports. While football and baseball obviously have big stars, games are rarely billed as Star vs. Star. There are exceptions...Colts vs. Patriots is usually billed as Manning vs. Brady, as NFL fans have always loved matchups of great quarterbacks. But Chargers/Steelers is usually not marketed as Rivers vs. Roethlisberger. Yankees vs. Red Sox was generally not billed as Jeter vs. Manny. NBA games are almost always marketed by the major stars involved. Durant vs. Kobe. LeBron vs. Dwight. IMO, it probably really kicked off with Magic vs. Jordan. Prior to that, in the '80s, the NBA was usually marketed by team brand. Lakers vs. Celtics. Lakers vs. Pistons. Celtics vs. Sixers. Magic vs. Jordan led to Jordan vs. Drexler. And then Jordan vs. Barkley. Since then, the NBA became a star-driven league. I think a team without a nationally accepted superstar is at a disadvantage when it comes to officiating. The league isn't willing to saddle major stars with fouls by and large, putting what they marketed as the entire reason to watch the game on the bench. The Blazers have generally been in that boat, of lacking a major superstar. Drexler was probably the last one. Pippen joined the Blazers in his twilight, not someone that was nationally marketed. Roy might become one, but I don't think he is one right now. Oden would be the Blazers' best chance if he could stay healthy and stay on the court long enough to establish his credibility with gaudy per-game numbers. So, yes, I think the league is systemically biased...not toward any particular team or market, but toward teams that have a true superstar.
Using this logic, Allen will blow up his funding of SETI unless they can find radio messages from outer space before he dies. He will blow up his funding for privately financed spacecraft unless they get to the Moon next year. He will torpedo his own giant yachts, convert the Rose Garden into an aquarium, and uninvent the RAM drive (or was it the DVD drive?)
Magic vs. Bird started the superstar brand, and it started in the 1979 NCAA title and basically gave the NBA a national footprint until Jordan came along and made the sport explode. I remember multiple commercial campaigns featuring Magic and Bird. The Converse ad in French Lick immediately comes to mind.
I agree that Bird vs. Magic was the first nationally marketed superstar pairing, but that doesn't seem to me to be when the NBA itself marketed the league's games by one superstar versus another superstar. Granted, it was a long time ago and I was just a kid in the '80s, but my memories were that the league marketed mostly by hyping great teams. Part of that, of course, is an effect of changes like the salary cap. In the '80s, franchises could build "super teams," that were stacked. Now teams are forced to try to build around one or two players and largely fill in with role-players around them.
You are overlooking the fact that the San Antonio Spurs are a huge $ market for the NBA, as they have been The US Navy's Favorite Team ever since they got David Robinson.
Magic v. Bird was a perfect storm. The two most marketable players playing for the two most historic franchises. The NBA couldn't have rigged it any better.
IMO it's getting key players healthy and reducing the amount of injuries. I think the training staff needs a big makeover and it should be priority one - the recent Blazersedge article is a good read about what PHX's staff has done for them in recent years - a no brainer IMO.
