Canzano: Blazer Fans and the Front Office suck!

The visiting locker room at Moda Center is a dump. The place is the size of a kitchen. It's cramped. There's a folding table in the middle of the room. Piles of shorts and shirts are stacked on the floor. Once the room is opened to working media, it's so bottle-necked with bodies players can't easily move from the showers back to their locker stalls.

LaMarcus Aldridge took the end locker, right side, nearest the showers on Wednesday night. The media scrum around him pinned Kawhi Leonard, David West and Tony Parker in the shower area, towels around their waists, unable to pass.

Parker leaned in to listen.

Said Aldridge of the boos, "After a while, I got used to it."

I suppose it needed to happen for some fans. Like an exhale. Or maybe a burp. Those who cupped their hands around their mouths and booed Aldridge must have needed the catharsis. Who knows? Maybe they were some of the same fans who cheered a registered sex offender when the Blazers had Ruben Patterson playing small forward.

Aldridge walked off after the Spurs 113-101 victory. His 23 points led all scorers. He turned as he came through the tunnel after the game, headed toward the visiting locker room and said, "I'm glad that's over."

The Blazers are a lot of things this season. They play with a furious tempo. They shoot at times without conscience. They're a mostly fun date. But it's not the Blazers I want to focus on here, rather, Blazers fans. Because they're stuck with a disappointing basketball team and somehow the blame for that has skipped over the team's front office and instead landed on Aldridge's head.

Aldridge chose the Spurs. He took $27 million less in the process. He moved closer to his children's soccer games and his mother's cooking. Nevermind nine seasons in Portland, four All-Star games and too few playoff breakthroughs as an organization. It's his fault. The cheap narrative being sold is that Aldridge is a thin-skinned, prima donna so miffed at the Blazers for not kissing his hand that he decided not only to ditch Portland, but to sabotage the organization.

Sorry, not buying it.

I get it. You feel jilted. You feel misled. You dreamed that Aldridge would remain a tent pole for an organization that promised you for nearly a decade like it was only a move or three away from being a contender. Forever close, but ultimately a non-factor. Aldridge was on the inside of the organization, deep inside, with a nine-year look around, and decided he just couldn't do it anymore. That's where his defection begins and ends.

You've booed him. Now, it's time to let it go. Also, to wonder what Blazers general manager Neil Olshey plans to do about fixing this organization. If Olshey's master plan this season is to tank it without looking like he's tanking it some of the boos from Wednesday night ought to be directed his way.

Olshey lost the franchise's best player. Misread his poker hand. Got fooled. Whatever. Who cares? On paper, nobody had a worst July than Olshey, who planted himself on the visiting bench during pre-game warmups, directly in the path of Aldridge. As the Spurs new forward walked past Olshey onto the court to warm up, the Blazers general manager remained eyes down, busy with his iPhone.

Let's hope he's plotting a move. Aldridge will be fine. It's the Blazers I remain worried about. The Blazers have the lowest payroll in the NBA ($49 million), some $14 million below the NBA's minimum-salary floor. As badly as I want this season to be about a bunch of fun, unproven players busting expectations, the sobering reality is that the organization is playing with one arm tied behind its back.

The Blazers are overachieving at 4-5. But that's a sorry consolation.

Over the other way, a reporter asked Popovich after the game if he felt Aldridge (three for his first eight shots) was rattled by the boos initially. Popovich's reply, "Did you watch the game?"

Another reporter asked Popovich if he felt Aldridge, who made five of his last nine shots, got more comfortable.

Reply again, "You watch the game?"

The Spurs are a fun study. They're chasing a title while simultaneously re-inventing themselves. It's a 95-year old Tim Duncan scooting around screens set by Aldridge. It's West taking less money to win. Unselfishness in every corner.

Aldridge settled into that the folding chair squeezed in front of the last locker in the visiting locker room. Reporters surrounded him. Teammates were caught in the gridlock. And Parker leaned in to listen as someone asked Aldridge what he thought of spending his first night in the visiting locker room at Moda Center.

"I'm glad I'm leaving," Aldridge said.

Time to let him go.

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/or...lamarcus_aldridge_is_w.html#incart_river_home

 

Ruben Patterson is another player who I'm surprised has just faded away. I would have bet that Miles, Rider, Patterson, at least one of them would be in prison by now. It would be ironic if Outlaw is the one who ends up in jail.

 

And I have no problem with the visiting locker room being a dump.

But I did get the feeling that Canzano only mentioned it because it's uncomfortable for him to move around and not because he cares about the players.

 

When I skimmed down on this thread, I saw yours...but instead of a "dumpster" fire, I thought you proposed he die in a "hamster" fire and I thought that was cold blooded!

 

If you always predict the worst you will be right more times then you will be wrong. And those few times you're wrong you can still claim credit because it was because of your pressure that finally made them do the right thing.

Canzano/Internet 101.

Canzano didn't know shit about LMA. If he did he would have written a detailed fact filled article like Woj did yesterday.