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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As a Portland native and adamant defender of those things that, like myself, are born of the PNW, I’ve always enjoyed the work of Matt Groening. In particular I enjoy the collection of comic strips he published about his two kids, titled Will and Abe’s Guide to the Universe. Those familiar to the book will recognize how well he captures the asinine yet fundamental questions provoked by the literalist curiosity of childhood without peddling overt sentimentalism. When Will raises his head in indignation to ask belligerently, “Why do skeletons DANCE?” we are tempted to smile smugly with insouciance at the naiveté of the perplexed child, when really we should be asking the same kinds of questions about stuff all the time.

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The internet is full of wisdom and pornography. You have to be careful when conducting research on it to differentiate between the two, otherwise your book report will be totally ruined and you’ll probably endure another awkward parent/teacher conference.

Aware of the perils, I used my skills of discernment to track down online mock drafts and evaluate the choices the internet was making for us. As we know by now, sports bloggers and writers are never wrong and always predict how the lottery and draft will go so it’s in our best interest to pay them the respect they are due.

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The buzzer sounded. Streamers fell from the sky. Sergio dutifully handed the ball to the nearest ref. The Grizzlies dispassionately left the court, no less startled by the double-digit loss than they were impressed with Rudy Gay’s breakdancing while a jazz-ish band played Sly during player introductions 90 minutes earlier. The final score, to them, was an afterthought in a season of losses and personnel changes that no doubt became indistinguishably bland. When you’re in the Western Conference and you’re not on top, there’s really no reason to play with passion. As Sheed would say, so long as someone CTC, the Grizzlies would to a man keep towing the line.

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In my last diary I briefly touched on the prodigious efforts put forth to come up with a nickname for Travis Outlaw. As the Blazers organization's suggestion, "T-Law," has been (justifiably) summarily dismissed by fans, other more intense and ambitious suggestions have been made. "Trout" and its derivatives are certainly cute, especially since (hopefully) there are Blazer fans other than myself who have spent considerable time here in the great PNW catching, gutting, frying and eating this delicious fish. That said, my problems with it as a nickname are that it is an animal that is regularly caught, gutted, fried and eaten.

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Watching televised games this season I've come to the conclusion that Mike Rice sincerely believes next year Oden will come into the game and start knocking people's teeth out with reckless abandon. Literally. This point was emphasized perfectly when, during the New Orleans broadcast while Oden was sitting in with the Mikes, Rice brought up the violent element of GO's game so frequently Oden felt obligated to remind him that the game they were talking about was "basketball." As opposed to, I imagine, ultimate fighting.

Before I sound too critical of Rice I should mention that I'm actually a fan of his color work and that my sensibilities fall right in line with his. Like many Blazers fans, I've endured countless instances this season in which I've beaten my knuckles raw pounding my coffee table pleading with Channing Frye to box out. I can tell you from experience, throwing things at the television doesn't help him accomplish this task, it only makes it worse.

But the point of this post is to ask the question, what is the most important element to the Blazers' continued championship potential? Is it a physical presence inside? Many have argued Portland would be an even better team if we rode Pryz with more frequency. I assume they argue this given his ability to alter shots in the paint, gather rebounds, and stare into opponents' eyes with a fixed countenance that lingers somewhere between bloodthirsty intensity and ambivalent quiescence .

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This entry may be as close to craziness as fandom can come, but I felt the need to put some kind of personal spin on the whole, "we have a positive team image all of a sudden and wow doesn't it feel good to get rid of the jailblazers once and for all."

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"Portland Trailblazers: The Blazers lost their aging center before the season even started. Before, in fact, he had even played his first ever NBA game. We all wish Greg Oden a speedy recovery. I actually read one NBA season preview that said, `In Oden's absence, the Blazers will need a big contribution from Joel Przybilla.' I promise you that the writer was completely serious, too. Anyway, if that's what the Blazers need, then you can officially relegate this season to being one long training camp for next season."

--Basketbawful.com

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I've been avoiding writing this for a while now, and I'm sure nobody's looking forward to it, but this is--I think--an appropriate time to feel at least a little despondent about the sports team we all favor. The situation up front is more than a little desperate, and what seemed like an exciting era for the Blazers has been parlayed by at least a year, if not much longer. Things have been so awful in my head that I had a dream Brandon Roy signed with the Suns and I wasn't the least bit shocked. I need help, yes.

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This is part of a project to research the etymology of common basketball metaphors, and by that I mean: this is part of the project where I make up the etymology of basketball metaphors. For real.  

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In a bar the other night an argument sparked up between two patrons about who the greatest Blazer of all time was. I'm a notorious eavesdropper and while I usually prefer the creepier role of "silent observer" I had to accept the part of "noisy lonely outsider with no real acquaintances" and give my two cents.

The two men in question (I'll call them "green shirt" and "White Sox hat" to protect their identities and the fact that I was too insensitive to learn their names) each selected a Blazer from the stretch run of the early nineties. Green shirt argued for Drexler, White Sox hat somewhat mysteriously for Cliff Robinson. Don't get me wrong, I loved Cliff when he was here, and his drinking glasses/Franz Bread Cards were always the best in my opinion (quick aside: right after the dog fighting allegations broke I got a loaf of bread with a Qyntel Woods card in it. I thought two things immediately: A) Is it ethical to feed this bread to my dog now? and B) Is this the card he tried to use as ID when he got busted for possession? I ended up throwing that loaf out. Thanks, Franz). But greatest Blazer ever?

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I mentioned the fervor over the KG trade the other day and I have to admit, I was totally gulping on the Kool-Aid. Hard, yo. The following is a pretty accurate summation of what was running though my head when I was reading all the articles in the Boston media about how to polish the trophy when Stern air-mails it to them this weekend: Wow, KG teamed up with PP and RA? Is there a better three-team core in the NBA? Nay, has there ever been such an explosive collection of complementary players assembled to play the game of basketball? Furthermore, why have I contracted the bad habit of calling all players by their initials?

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Lost in the hubbub over the KG trade (a justifiable hubbub to be sure) was the Truehoop bullet item that linked to a report (http://www.queencityhoops.com/LineupEfficiency.html) postulating that Derek Anderson was one of the most productive rotation players when calculating combined +/- in a single Charlotte/New York game last season. Now, I've related in many ways my distaste for DA, and I feel kind of bad about it. Fans in Portland have considered it a matter of course that the poorest-behaved players would receive the majority of the public ire. Things like breaking a teammate's eye socket, getting arrested for attempted rape, fighting dogs, or proclaiming "you know what it is" when asked to identify a package of marijuana wrapped in aluminum foil at an airport metal detector (my personal fave) rightfully caught the most media flack as well. (Quick aside: My sister has taken the Mighty Mouse outburst as her personal motto. You cannot get a straight answer out of her without first dealing with a few, "you know what it is" jabs thrown in for flavor. "How are your classes going?" "You know what it is." It doesn't even make sense).

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Our roster next season has been a source of a lot of discussion for quite a while now, on this site and on the streets, mostly (I think) because at one point the Blazers employed so many hopefuls that I confused our starting summer league SF with a Mediterranean foodstuff. True story.

My real interest wasn't (and isn't) whether or not Taurean Green would make our final roster (although I've said it once and I'll say it again, he's got the coolest b-ball name on our team) but rather what our rotations will look like next year. Last year you could pretty much satisfy your curiosity over this with the knowledge that Z-bo would gobble up touches the way hippos gobble up marbles when they are hungry hungry. My impeccable knowledge of the proud hippopotamus' diet notwithstanding, Randolph pretty much was our halfcourt offense last year for better or worse.

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I might as well come out and say it. I like Martell Webster. Although the faux-natural setting of athlete interviews and the oatmeal-soft questions lobbed by the complacent local television news sportscasters never really give anyone any accountable or trustworthy information, he seems charming and unaffected. I like him. I feel confidant (for whatever reason) in saying he's a nice guy.

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The subject has been approached in the main page here, and I know my addition should probably be in comment form, but I have a lot to say on the subject of Ime Udoka and Travis Outlaw. For the most part, I tend to agree that we'd be best served signing one and letting the other float, but I summarily disagree with the logic in this case that we should go for the younger guy based on potential gains. In this specific instance, I have to go against everything I think I know about basketball logic and make a claim I know I will probably regret making in two or three years: the smart choice is Ime.

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My friend Kyle ran into me on the streets today. The first thing he brought up? Not Greg Oden. "It's on ESPN.com or something," he said, "that they're looking to make a move to bring in a shooting forward, someone big." I asked him who he thought we could get with the pieces that we have. "I don't know," he said, "someone said Marion. Maybe Rashard Lewis. I hope it's Marion."

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Outgoing:

Zach Randolph: You were kind of a mess to deal with. I liked your post play, but I usually frowned on your 30 footers. It does feel odd to have you leave. My roommate called you the "baby-headed Blazer." I don't know that anyone will get a better nickname from her for years to come.

Freddy Jones: I had to have oral surgery this morning and I still think you had the worst day of the two of us. By far.

Dan Dickau: I know it's irrational, but whenever I saw you line up for the lay-up drill I always thought I was in better shape than you. You know what? I kind of still do.

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I actually met a Blazer's fan today who didn't know we had the first pick in the draft. She was wearing an old-school T-shirt of the "Rip City" ilk. I told her I liked it and asked her if she was just wearing it or if she was a fan. "Oh, no, I'm a big fan," she said. I asked her where she was going to watch the draft. "What draft?" she asked. The draft, I explained condescendingly, the NBA draft. "Is it soon?" she asked.

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My friend Ward gave me the opportunity to take him to his first ever basketball game. This was some time in 2001, I think. I don't even remember the opponent, or the score. I know that we lost, and furthermore I know that we scored 100 points. I know this because in the fourth quarter, Ward asked me what everyone was chanting. "Cha-loo-pah," I explained. What's that? Ward asked. "Everyone gets a free Taco Bell Chalupa if we score 100 points." But we still lose the game, right? Ward asked. He seemed pretty confused with the chanting. At last Shawn Kemp--too exhausted to hustle back on defense--caught a lucky break and managed to get a wide-open dunk on a turnover to put us over the century mark. The meager (and apparently hungry) crowd erupted. So we got the Chalupa? Ward asked. I nodded. Ward looked at Shawn Kemp for a moment. He's probably the last person on earth who needs a Chalupa, Ward hypothesized. I agreed.

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Now that Portland has the number one pick (through the grace of god) in one of the most important drafts in NBA history, there has been a tendency to assume that interest in the Blazers is no longer organic and instead a kind of mimetic process. Fans who suffered through humiliating moments (my favorite: in 03-04 the Blazers are still in the playoff hunt when a Hornets team lacking both J. Mashburn and B. Davis limps into the Rose Garden. Fans in attendance that night are treated to Derek Anderson shooting roughly 1/75 from beyond the arc. At the buzzer, having been humiliated by PJ Brown of all people, having all but crushed all playoff hopes, DA can be seen laughing as he leaves the court--no doubt wondering why anyone would pay to watch him) are bitter that newer fans can start their Blazer experience on the most dramatic upswing the team has seen in a long while. What right do these newbies have to share in this glory we've waited so long for? Well I have stunning news for you, long-suffering Blazers maniacs: I love bandwagon fans.

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