Can anything change the pernicious culture that reigns in Portland? Posted: Wednesday December 3, 2003 12:35PM; Updated: Wednesday December 3, 2003 4:04PM Source:www.cnnsi.com There are a few NBA coaches you wouldn't want to be right now. You wouldn't want to be Cleveland's Paul Silas, who can't figure out what to do with Ricky Davis or how to break the Cavs' almost surreal inability to win on the road. (Tuesday night's loss at Denver being their 32nd in a row over two seasons.) You wouldn't want to be Eddie Jordan, who (like Doug Collins before him) can't figure out how to get through to Kwame Brown, who now blames his mediocre play on his not "getting noticed" by his teammates. Let's not even get into whether you'd want to be Johnny Davis, recently appointed to rescue the sinking ship that is the Orlando Magic, or Mike Dunleavy, stuck in the sloggy mess that is the Los Angeles Clippers. But for my money, the coach you'd really not want to be is Maurice Cheeks of the Portland Trail Blazers. With the news earlier this week that forward Zach Randolph was charged with driving under the influence -- by rough count the 879th time that a Blazer has run afoul of the law over the last several years -- it is clearly past time to blow that thing up in Portland. Randolph was cited for failure to drive within a lane, for not having an Oregon driver's license and for driving without insurance and, oh yes, a policeman also reported "a strong odor of burning marijuana coming from the vehicle," though Randolph has yet to be hit with a drug charge. The rough basketball counterpart of Randolph's early morning road trip would be to blow a layup, sprain your ankle, commit an offensive foul on the play, get hit with a technical for protesting, and then get ejected for bumping the ref. Though Cheeks is routinely (and rightly) praised for doing his best to captain this ship of fools, he will no doubt eventually be led, like a holiday turkey, to the chopping block. (This is not to suggest that the move is imminent, merely inevitable.) Despite having a roster full of talented players, and a payroll so bloated ($105 million) that deep-pocketed owner Paul Allen had to pony up almost half of it under the newly implemented luxury tax, the Blazers have been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in each of the last three seasons. It's almost as if Portland is cursed, its fate affixed by single disastrous moments or a series of brief cataclysmic events. Remember the 1991-92 Finals when Michael Jordan torched Portland's Clyde Drexler with six three-pointers in the first half? The Blazers never recovered, lost in six games and over the next six seasons were eliminated each year in the first round. In the 1999-00 Western Conference finals, they were close to celebrating a Game 7 victory over the Lakers but blew a huge fourth-period lead. That seemed to seal their fate over the next three seasons and, unless they turn it around fast, I don't see them going beyond the first round this season, either. Still, there are far less successful franchises on the court than the Blazers who have qualified for the postseason every year since 1982-83, albeit without a title to show for it. The bad news in the Pacific Northwest is that Portland has become the absolute worst team in the league off the court. There's no reason -- nor is there sufficient space -- to run through every legal indiscretion that's occurred in Blazer Land in recent seasons. But it never, ever seems to get better. Damon Stoudamire says he's turned things around, right before he gets busted for trying to smuggle pot through airport security. The drugs were the minor part of that transgression; he should be given max time for being stupid. Bonzi Wells was at times one of the outstanding players in the league last year and seemed to be a rising star. Before the season he had promised to be on his best behavior while allowing that "I'm going to have a 10 percent lapse sometimes." But early this season he was fined for making an obscene gesture to a fan during a loss, a transgression that happened at a home game no less. Wells was later suspended for two games without pay and stripped of his co-captain's title for cursing Cheeks after being taken out of the Blazers Nov. 17 game against Dallas. We can't be sure if all that fits within the 10 percent parameter. This season, less than a year after breaking teammate Ruben Patterson's eye socket with a punch to the face during a practice, Randolph had made the greatest strides on the team. Through Monday night he was averaging 20.7 points and 11.2 rebounds, All-Star-caliber numbers. Then he climbs into his car and gets all stupid. It's beyond obvious to point out that no Blazer so personifies the malaise that hangs over this franchise as much as Rasheed Wallace. His talents and court savvy should put him in a class with the best forwards in the league, but he continues to regress. Last week he scored three points and snagged exactly one rebound against the powerhouse Washington Wizards and three nights later was benched for a game against New Jersey for reportedly missing the morning shootaround. The saddest thing about the Blazers is that, for all their misadventures, they're not even particularly compelling. Bad-boy teams frequently seize the imagination of the sporting public, taking on a kind of loveable-rogue aspect; the Oakland Raiders and Oakland A's of the 1970s come to mind. But there's a certain -- what's the word? -- joylessness about this Portland team. Taking their lead from Wallace, they are sullen, humorless malcontents, rather than pirates with a sly smile on their faces. They are unapologetic, too. America loves screwups as long as they admit they're screwing up, but the Blazers are wholly uninterested in rehabbing their image. This was Wells' "apology" after he was asked about the obscene gesture: "If I did [it], it was probably wrong, but I don't remember," he said. "If something like that did happen, I apologize." Now there's a stand-up guy. The Blazers applied a coat of fresh paint in the offseason to try to cover up the sadly deteriorating state of the franchise. In August, the team unveiled a 25-point mission statement that included a promise to hold players accountable for their actions on and off the court. They brought in two experienced hands, Steve Patterson and John Nash, as president and general manager, respectively. But it appears that nothing can change the pernicious culture that reigns in Portland, certainly not the overwhelmed Cheeks, who recently said, "I thought we had started getting past dealing with these things that don't have to do with basketball." Yeah, right. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum covers the NBA for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.
I didn't even bother reading all of that. People will be people. Why should basketball players be any higher than any of us?
