Memory is a tricky thing, as can be demonstrated by trending in sarcastic fanposts here in the sidebar. After the Chicago blowout, we had the “The Blazerz Really Suk Lolz” congratulatory trend, followed almost immediately by the “So Glad We Paid Roy SMH” fanposts. Memory, therefore, is a hindrance to meaning—the more it can be manipulated the more that structural cohesion in our opinions can be maintained. Thankfully, this is not an exercise intended to make us remember our own individual or collective hypocrisies; such an argument would no doubt just illuminate my own contradictions. Instead, I want to ask how we remember sports, and how we contribute to a collective sports memory.

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I've been working on a Fanpost for about a year now on what Basketball IQ means. I have about a page of text talking about Manu Ginobli and Anderson Varejao, but the essential thesis is that Basketball IQ means never following the rules. I'm not doing it purposefully to make people mad, but I do hope that's an eventual outcome.

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There's nothing quite like the soothing voice of Jim Nantz to get me in the tournament mood. I realize that at this point I should have purchased DirecTV so I can pick my announcing poison, but I am a poor grad school student living in New York City, so I suffer with the rest of us.

I will take this thread down, by the way,  if a similar one goes up on the main page, but I would like to share my idiotic bracket choices with the community: that is, if you'll have me.

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When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

This is a quote that gets repeated ad infinitum, in spite of the fact that it was almost definitively never spoken by anyone of any import (unless you count Hans Gruber, which, of course, I do). The quote is, then, a popular creation—a platitude that gains prevalence not because it is accurate but on the basis of the fact that it is likeable, that it expresses something that appeals to a large swath of the public.

This is especially important because of the content of the actual quote, provided by Plutarch:

Alexander cried when he heard Anaxarchus talk about the infinite number of worlds in the universe. One of Alexander's friends asked him what was the matter, and he replied: "There are so many worlds, and I have not yet conquered even one."

So the switch, maintained by the popular memory, is an important one: does Alexander weep because he has nothing left to conquer, or because he is so eager to conquer and cannot?

For those who have had the patience to get this far, the question is crucial to the current makeup of the Portland Trailblazers. Everyone on this particular blog, and those in the rest of the sportswriting industry, take the future of the Blazers as though the ultimate aim is a priori a championship. The context of the trade deadline was especially interesting to me, as people argued feverishly over what the definitive "championship piece" would be. An all-star SF? A "true" PG? A defensive specialist? And although this problem could never be resolved, that didn’t stop people from arguing over the arbitrary permutations of possibilities at each of these positions (quick note: I love this kind of arguing, even in it’s arbitrariness, so it’s definitely not the spirit of the argument I’m attacking). Perhaps rather than follow the rote routine of this ancient argument we would be better served attacking the very conditions of the argument: namely, that the championship is the thing. What if we started asking the question: which groups of players will produce the most beautiful ball?

Before I get Herm Edwards reminding me, politely, that you play to win the game, hello, I want to point out that the most treasured memory for most Blazers fans (my age anyway) are the teams of the early 90’s. Those teams provided Portland with some of the most entertaining and impressive basketball I’ve seen in my life, and although the period is referred to from time to time as "bittersweet," it’s really only the "sweet" half that I experience when I think back on those teams.

Or, okay, here’s a test for those who are still skeptical: who would you rather root for: the 2003-04 Pistons or the 2005-06 Suns? 95-96 Sonics or 98-99 Spurs? 61-62 Philadelphia Warriors or 61-62 Celtics? Yeah, I went there—those Celtic teams were mostly boring.

In the case that there are those who still think I’m crazy, who think that beautiful basketball that loses in the end is still just losing basketball, take a long look backwards at that Halberstam masterpiece The Breaks of the Game. That Blazers team, in spite of their remarkable talent, had nowhere to go in 78. The sense of aimlessness is palpable in that book—it’s crazy how quickly a team that seemed unbeatably singular manages to crumble into competing individual desires. As much as I’m looking forward to LMA pouting about his contract’s inadequacy, I’d rather just watch him throw down put-back dunks.

All I’m suggesting is that there’s a reason the first version of the Alexander quote is more popular: it’s the truer iteration. Whether or not it’s true is of secondary import.

These are a group of seemingly unrelated but totally related notes I've compiled over the summer. Like in a beginning fiction class, the intertextuality of the piece is practically impossible to spot. Still, the author will get irate and defensive if you question it, and will probably say something passive-aggressive about your piece when the class critiques your writing.

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Dear all current and future Portland Trail Blazers,

Listen, I know you’re busy people and likely do not make a habit of reading fan mail. I’m pleased you’re making an exception for me because this really is a matter of high import. As you are no doubt well aware, the Seattle Supersonics (a long-time rival of your team, but you knew that) have more or less left the Pacific Northwest for the dusty climes of Oklahoma. I know, I know, believe me—it felt as stupid to write it as it does to read it.

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This is an email conversation between a native Portlander and a native Seattlite regarding the experience of being a fan in both cities. I posted it because I thought it was interesting and somewhat humorous. I censored the graphic portions and edited out my friend’s name. I chose to call him “Pim” because it’s the name of a character from an excellent Samuel Beckett novel and also because I thought it was funny in this context (I was going to call myself “Pom” but decided against it for clarity’s sake). Anyway this is long and convoluted but hopefully someone will be touched by it and, like, be motivated to perform their own personal Tuesdays With Morrie. Or something.

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This is all subject to frequent updates, but I'm going to write it based on current intel.

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Sometimes history gets it right. This is seldom the case and often a fluke. Yet the fact remains, not all of history as imagined from the present deserves to be torn down and deconstructed. For whatever reason, sometimes our contemporary impressions collectively judge the past with justice.

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I recently received the gift-of-the-magi in the form of some additional office help at my job. The sinister part of it, the part in which I tragically trade my hair for a now-useless porcelain comb, is the fact that the new co-worker drives me crazy. She is not a native Oregonian and only moved here days before receiving the job. Now that she has found an apartment in the outskirts of NW she ceaselessly spends her weekends meandering the city of roses like Bolivar jaunting through South America; pretentiously crafting an ethnography solely for the purpose of controlling everything she circumscribes. My fabulous luck has it that she shares this newfound knowledge in an ostentatious monologue that never ends, 8:30 to 5 pm, every work day. The sound of her affected voice only drowns out when the steely and overbearing imagined narration of O. Henry didactically expresses how my worldly desires are proved petty and simultaneously noble through some form of depressing human universality. Meanwhile I get to hear about this great part of town. It’s called the “Pearl District.” And in this “Pearl District,” they have all kinds of shops. They even have this one shop full of books. It’s probably the biggest book store in the world. They sell new books and used books and they have a coffee shop and oh my god I think I really am going to put this ball point pen through my eardrum right now.

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