This week marks the beginning of a rare transition in the life of the Portland Trail Blazers. For just the third (or third-and-a-half) time in franchise history, the team welcomes a new owner. The Blazers were inaugurated in 1970 by an ownership group of Larry Weinberg and Herman Sarkowsky. In 1988 Weinberg sold to computer software magnate Paul Allen. When Allen passed away in 2018, ownership passed to his trust, led by his sister Jody. Now, just yesterday, the franchise passed to an incoming coalition
led by Dallas, Texas businessman Tom Dundon.
Plenty is being said today about Dundon, his style, and plans for the future of the team. Some writers are optimistic, others wary. Amid all of that, a question has come to the Blazer’s Edge Mailbag that flips the matter on its head. Let’s address it:
Dear Dave,
I’ve always loved your voice. I feel like you speak not just to but for alot of fans. So I want to ask what you hope for from a new owner. If you could say one thing to Dundon, what would it be?
Pat
Thanks for the compliment. I’m sure all kinds of people will have things to say. If anything, the new owners will have to filter and parse out information as they get on board. Keep in mind, these people got to where they were working day jobs. I can’t imagine going, “I run Panda and loan companies and business conglomerates and, oh yeah…on the side, I’m going to pick up an NBA franchise. That’ll be fun and not at all hard!” I wish them luck (and as much excitement as possible) as they figure it all out.
As for one thing to say…I guess I’d just say that Portland is different. Blazers fans have the same basic needs and desires as most, but Portland’s history and culture have shaped those in unique ways. I’m sure that’s going to be frustrating for people who aren’t used to it, but it’s also part of what makes this organization special.
Blazers culture was born in the 1970’s. The big explosion came in 1977 when they won the World Championship. Nobody knew Portland back then. Not even Blazers fans truly comprehended that an NBA Title was possible. Innocent trust and awe accompanied Bill Walton, Jack Ramsay, and company into the ‘77 Finals series against the star-studded Philadelphia 76’ers with Dr J. and a host of big scorers. That experience formed the bedrock for Blazers fandom the same way your family of origin provides core experiences that you’ll never quite outlive. They include:
- An absolute contentment with, maybe insistence on, being the underdog. More famous franchises are going to strut around like lions. The Blazers have more of a badger culture. We may not look imposing, but if you mess with us, you’re going to have a fight on your hands. We don’t need the spotlight. We’re going to beat you while you’re chasing it.
- Valuing feelings of pureness, innocence, and joy. It’s not just that we win, but how we win. We want to be the good guys, the team you can root for. We love unselfishness, team play, at least the illusion of chemistry. We also need some sense of ethics. We don’t want to be the bad guys. That’s the Lakers. Or the refs. Or the LAKERS’ REFS. (Yeah, let’s talk about 2000.)
- We also value loyalty. Carrying the torch for six decades takes persistence. Seasons go up and down. We will devote ourselves through rain and shine as long as we feel that devotion is returned. Under the right circumstances, Blazers fans will fight for you to the point of being nonsensical. Cross them, and Blazers fans will fight against you far longer, and with more passion, than you suspected possible.
- It’s not enough to touch the head. Blazers fandom lives in the heart. We want to see players, members of the organization, and each other as people. We thrive with warmth, friendliness. Absent that vibe, it doesn’t matter how much money you’re making, how good your stats are, or what the latest ad campaign is. We’re a big city with the core beliefs of a small village still. If we can’t get wins, at least we want to make friends.
From those roots, and the championship that lit the fire under us all, Blazers fans have grown immeasurably.
Our innocence was broken when Walton experienced a foot injury, fought with the franchise over its treatment, and signed with San Diego in 1979. Eventually his exit was followed by every other member of that championship squad, even beloved Coach Ramsay, the north star through it all. One of the greatest debates of that era was whether Dr. Jack had lost his touch. The other was how to perceive Walton when he recovered and joined the Boston Celtics for a championship run. Be glad for him or hate that he wasn’t here? The emotions of these decisions superseded basketball. These are important matters to Blazers fans.
Fortunately, the franchise recovered quickly with the advent of Clyde Drexler in the 1980’s and a group of homegrown draft picks that would reach the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992. This era proved that excellence was not only achievable in Portland, but part of the DNA. Drexler, Porter, Kersey…then Kevin Duckworth, Buck Williams, and Danny Ainge added as adopted sons. These guys clicked ALL the right buttons: talented, hard-playing, devoted through and through. The franchise swelled to huge heights, blunted only by the ultimate primacy of Isaiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson. These were the days of winning 60 games per season, being nationally known. Once again the Trail Blazers were out of the backwoods and on center stage.
No era lasts forever, though. Clyde left in 1995. Once again, everybody else followed in short order. It was time for reconstruction again.
This time, instead of an organic rebuild as had happened between Walton and Drexler, we got a slick, computerized version. Relatively-recent owner Paul Allen hired hot young General Manager Bob Whitsitt from Seattle. “Trader Bob” was aggressive to the extreme. His wheeling-dealing ways, backed by Allen’s billions in a time when that kind of wealth wasn’t as common, brought the Blazers a never-ending series of high-profile trades and free agent signings. With Drexler and company, Portland had taken the stage by virtue of their accomplishments. Under Whitsitt and a young Allen, they tried to buy their way back onto it.
If you look at some of those late-1990’s teams, you’ll find the middle and lower parts of the roster populated by aging future Hall-of-Famers. It was a traveling circus with an ever-changing cast. What a time it was.
The scheme worked, but only halfway. Portland made the Conference Finals a couple times, pushing the Los Angeles Lakers to the brink in 2000 before a famous fourth-quarter collapse in Game 7. But the relationship between the team and its fans was uneasy even then. With players in and out, with names on the back of the jersey outshining the franchise on the front, figuring out who to invest in was difficult. Would Scottie Pippen ever be a Blazer truly? Did anybody even want Shawn Kemp to be one?!?
Old-school players like Brian Grant got traded. New starters were rented seemingly every two months. Rasheed Wallace, the brightest talent on the squad, was outspoken, mercurial, and controversial…no help there. Nor in upcoming stars Bonzi Wells, Darius Miles, and Zach Randolph, still figuring the way into the league and its lifestyle.
During this time, the mantra changed from, “I hope they win because I sure like them,” to, “They’d better win because this is hard to swallow.” As long as the victories came, the relationship between the franchise and its fans continued, albeit uneasily. When the team started losing in the early 2000’s, everything fell apart. The quality of Portland’s constantly-rotating talent diminished. Relatability disappeared. The distance between athletes and fans, between “normal folks” and superstars, grew vast. Fans still wanted to close the gap, but everyone in the organization from management to players seemed to value elite status over connection.
This divide led to the infamous “Jail Blazers” era where fans abandoned the team en masse. The organization’s reputation was so dead that you couldn’t start a conversation about them on the city bus without drawing sneers and sarcastic retorts. Driving by the Moda Center was like looking at a big, fat billboard of your ex. No thanks.
Eventually Whitsitt was dismissed, his continual experimenting long since ground to dust. From the ashes came General Manager Kevin Pritchard—a homespun sort—and a pair of stars in Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. That trio led a resurrection than began in 2006, then exploded into full fireworks in 2007 when the Blazers won the first-overall pick in the NBA Draft and the rights to generational center Greg Oden.
The accessibility of Roy and Pritchard, mixed with the talent of Aldridge and Oden, rekindled the love affair gone cold. In a perfect world, those drafts would have led to championships that would have restored the same passion for excellence and relatability which had buoyed the franchise at the start. Sadly, injuries to Oden and Roy would cancel that dream before it saw the light of day. The fan base went into another funk, mourning lost aspirations.
Into that void stepped Damian Lillard, a young prospect from Utah’s Weber State: an underdog, supremely talented, with a knack for punching above his weight and the most relatable personality the franchise had ever seen. Were you to design characteristics for the perfect Portland player, those would be the ones. Lillard’s sweet shooting and personal charisma brought Portland out of the malaise, offering yet another chance at restoration.
Along with Lillard came new General Manager Neil Olshey, a slick, Hollywood type somewhat reminiscent of Whitsitt, just without the compulsive urge to make trades every ten seconds. Drafting Lillard was Olshey’s first major decision. He made a couple other good ones after. But his tenure was typified by smoke and mirrors, condescension, and sometimes outright lying.
For a decade, Lillard became the panacea for everything. Didn’t like the organizational direction or vibe? At least there’s Dame! Not enough defense or wins? Dame’s an All-Star! “Keep your eyes on Lillard and ignore everything else” became sound advice around Portland.
The Lillard Lifeline was definitely the best part of this era. The worst part was watching Blazers fans slowly lose their grasp on—and insistence upon—excellence in the process. As good as Dame’s personal brand became, it was a distraction from not winning more than a gateway to true success. That wasn’t Lillard’s fault. Management didn’t build around him, all the while insisting that they were.
Eventually Olshey was fired for workplace violations. Soon after, the man who replaced him—current GM Joe Cronin—inaugurated a rebuild by trading Dame to the Milwaukee Bucks. This followed a trade demand by Lillard himself, who had given everything he had to the franchise without progressing beyond a sweep in the 2019 Western Conference Finals. After a decade of centering organizational gravity around Dame, Dame, and Only Dame, this was another crushing blow.
As Cronin picked up the pieces, he ran up against the reality that much of his franchise was overpaid, few of his players had real value, and nobody was ready to carry the torch into the next era the way Drexler, Roy, and Lillard once had. The process would take a minute, necessitating as much deconstruction as reconstruction.
Right now, in 2026, we are just starting to emerge from the shadows of that rebuild. We’re not talking about climbing the mountain to a title, just emerging from the directionless swamp of misery far enough to find a road forward.
Glory and excellence no longer define the franchise. Repeated pain and heartache—Jail Blazers, Oden and Roy injuries, lies and overselling, goodbye to Dame, and slow progress even to get to mediocrity—are Portland hallmarks now. Realistically, it’s been a quarter of a century since this franchise has been remarkable in any way, 35 years since they’ve been great. That’s not the fans’ fault. Maybe it’s not even the organization’s. That’s just what happens when you lose what makes you distinct in a business where everybody else is trying to step over you and get that glory for themselves.
In this environment, here’s what we need, in my estimation:
- A return to consistent, measurable excellence, reflected in the roster, drafting and trading of same, coaching, game plans, and execution on the floor down to the smallest moments. If a smaller-market team like Portland isn’t going to be truly excellent, they’re going to be irrelevant. Once upon a time the Blazers mattered. We were one of the distinct franchises in the league. We’ve let that mantle be taken by the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Suns even. Look back to the early 1990’s. Those other teams were GOOD! But who was kicking their butts in the playoffs every year? That’s all a distant memory. I’m not sure Blazers fans recognize real excellence the same way anymore, just better ways to distract ourselves from its absence. No more. Good enough can’t be good enough in Portland, else this is what you’ll get.
- Organizational practices that reflect honesty, pride, and relatability. Stop lying and saying bad basketball is good. Stop justifying everything you do just because you did it. And stop importing fireworks and lasers, policies and practices from L.A. to inspire a Portland audience. Ain’t nobody wants to be Baby Steve Ballmer in the sticks, getting our star player a no-show endorsement deal at Burgerville to supplement his salary. Everything corporate about the Blazers for the past two decades has pretty much missed the mark and fallen flat on its face. Help the corporate Blazers reflect the qualities embedded in the DNA of Portland fans: loyalty, honesty, relatability, enthusiasm. Stop throwing things at us and start working with us. Nobody evangelizes professional basketball like Blazers fans do. Why are you removing the experience farther from our hearts and everyday lives, making that evangelism so much harder to do?
- You know the green flag date thing of watching how someone treats servers and valets at the restaurant? That’s part of Portland pride too. You don’t have to retain anybody you don’t want to. For Pete’s sake, get the best people for the job! But when you have them, treat them well. Model respect, kindness, and trustworthiness. So many good people work for your organization. We never get to feel their joy and passion because it’s filtered out when other things are valued more. Full stop. When we see real, healthy relationships emanating from the organization, we will also feel that “good person, ethical” vibe about the organization. Just as much as winning, this has been missing from the team for years. Some people have worked against it directly, including prominent leaders. Other times it was just undervalued by folks who didn’t know better. Either way, scheming for leverage and ticket sales and good publicity won’t get you any of those things as quickly as just being an organization we can be proud of.
You’re dealing with a fan base that was once so invested in their team that “Blazermania” became a national byword. That fan base has since been hurt by all kind of forces beyond their control: injuries, narrow playoff losses, tragic endings to potential dynasties, and occasionally organization indifference or incompetence.
The corporate view diagnoses the problem of lower ticket sales and/or enthusiasm as “fans don’t care about us”. If you want to succeed in Portland, realize the issue is the exact the opposite. Fans haven’t mattered as much as they should have—in the cosmic sense or the relationship with the franchise—in a long time. Don’t tell us why you should matter to us. Tell us why we matter to you. Because that’s all most Portland fans want.
You’ll be able to do that best under the umbrella of the three basic attributes we’ve cited throughout this post: excellence, relatability (including honesty, ethics, and speaking in distinct ways to this market), and loyalty. Everything you do or say that reflects those three principles is going to sing out to Portland hearts and bring more investment into your organization. Every time you say something opposing those characteristics—or try to B.S. your way past them while pretending they matter—Blazers fans are going to shrug and assume you don’t get it. That’s the next thing to assuming that you’re not worth it, which is not where you want to be.
I don’t think any smaller city anywhere wants excellent, relatable, impassioned NBA basketball the way Portland does. I don’t think any city is less willing to ignore the fact that they’re not getting it either. Badger-like Blazers fans will ride or die with you until the end, but they also know where the exit doors are. They’re not impressed by who’s driving. (This market didn’t grow up revering billionaires and superstars. This is the land of Dave Twardzik, Buck Williams, Briant Grant, and Toumani Camara.) All they care about are the quality and destination of the journey and the fun had along the way.
The story continues today just like it began. We’re underdogs, both the fan base and the franchise. Nobody outside of this circle cares much. They’re not going to pay attention unless we make them pay attention, and even then they’ll probably underrate us and scoff. None of that matters. All that matters is that we’re doing this well and doing it together.
If that happens, the rest will take care of itself. We won’t have to ask for respect, prominence, ticket sales or national broadcast slots, calls from refs or congratulations from infernally lucky Spurs fans. We’ll have already earned them in ways so self-evident and overwhelming that they can’t be denied.
We’re Portland. That’s what we do.
