"I have a radical position that pisses off Blazers fans. Which is, I don't want to hear anything about bad luck or whining or anything. That's because this particular market has a particular problem with that. I reached over, I'm holding in my hand, the book about when they went to the Finals in 1990. The name of the book is 'Against The World.' It's like, you know, really? "They went through the same things every good team goes through, where you have to fight long odds, but for this team it's the entire world conspired against them. Get over yourself already. Life is hard, basketball is hard, the NBA is hard. It seems hard, it's not because you're particularly victimized, it's because it's hard. "This is a team with one of the richest owners in sport with a whole bunch of young talent. And, sure, OK, it didn't go as well as it should have. Yes, probably your two most valuable players have severe injuries, but so what? There's a deep well of talent. You're a middling team even after a bunch of bad luck. A couple of breaks go your way down the road, you're good again. You do the best you can with what you have and they have as much as most teams, very few teams have better rosters. It sucks that this isn't a great time to be a Blazer fan, but whatever. Better days ahead." http://www.blazersedge.com/2011/1/3...ry-abbott-talks-portland-trail-blazers-on-b-s
He makes a good point: we as a fandom stand upon the edge of a knife... on either side stand hordes of Cubs fans and hordes of Bills fans. We cannot, should not, become either fandom. Either direction leads to a certain madness, a complete lack of perspective. If we lose our perspective, we will fall in with them, and become just another bunch of "crazy fans" that people pity but do not respect.
Actually I think the Blazer fans have been pretty good with all the lumps they have taken. ' I haven't seen attendance really drop. While I have seen lamentation with what has happened, it still looks to me like the fans are still fans. It seems to me like more fans are like "WTF" than pissing in their morning cheerios.
At first I thought this was him showing his True Hoops critics that he's not a Blazer homer. But then I saw he put it on Blazers Edge, so that killed that theory.
He actually said this on a Bill Simmons podcast and the dude from Blazers Edge transcribed it. I have never forgotten Henry Abbott calling Greg Oden the most uncordinated athlete in he had ever seen. This from a man who, as a Blazer fan, surely saw Ha "play" basketball. After that, I could safely ignore every thing else the man says.
