When we were looking back at this part of the schedule a month and a half ago, plenty of folks (the author included) assumed the Portland Trail Blazers would have a good chance to rip through what would be one of the easier schedules in the league. That hasn’t happened.
Despite Deni Avdija dealing with a back injury, should the Blazers have more wins and be in firmer position for the play-in or the playoffs? Also, potatoes made their way into the conversation… a lot.
Conor and I talk about it and more
on the latest We Like the Blazers (this specific convo starts at 6:58):
Brandon: This a loaded question. For this stretch of the schedule when we were looking at it before… were we thinking they would go slightly below .500 or were we thinking perhaps something else?
Conor: Loaded and you know we our eyes were wide…
Brandon: Loaded like a baked potato, buddy!
Conor: Loaded like a baked potato. I thought this was going to be the Blazersl time. Like right before the All-Star break, Deni was coming back. People were were becoming healthy. Scoot’s back. You know, Jru and Jeremi, this team that has struggled with health all season finally kind of reaches some stable ground… not only that, the schedule got really soft and instead of like…
Brandon: Softer than a baked potato, Conor!
Conor: Boom, two baked potato references.
Brandon: This segment is brought to you by the Potato Farmers of America! We salute your service.
Conor: But it’s just it’s disappointing, and I’ve been confused lately watching this team because this was like finally going to be the time to put it together. They move up in the play-in race. There’s a very getable eighth spot in the play-in race, and that we all know that makes a huge difference between nine and eight because you get two chances to win one game versus you have to win two games in a row, and they just have not capitalized on it. They look the shakiest they’ve looked all season. So, instead of trending upwards, they actually seem to be trending downwards with some so dispiriting performances and wins and then some dispiriting losses too.
We also touched a little on the recent news and legislative movement on the Moda Center renovations, funding that will largely (and perhaps entirely) be shouldered by taxpayers (convo at 34:12):
Brandon: As far as we can tell right now, there is no commitment from the Trail Blazers in this funding at all. Right now, as it stands, this commitment is entirely public. PUBLIC. And listen, this is the reason why Seattle lost the Sonics. They said, “We don’t want to do public funding for this.” The billionaire said, “Bye.” And he took the team to Oklahoma City. So, I will reserve my comments to open the floor to you. Like, tell me, A) did I miss something in those deets, and B) kind of like what do you what do you think is gonna happen? What do you want to have happen?
Conor: I’m so for the Blazers that like I feel like I’m so biased. I’m like we’ll do what we need to do. But I I think it’s going to… it could get messy. Like it sounds I don’t think a lot of people in the public, you know, the non-sports people are going to be thrilled about paying this. And I think part of it is like Dundon as far as billionaires go, he’s not the richest billionaire. He had to sell part of his stake in the Hurricanes to to help finalize the sale with the Blazers… I think you and I are both always on the lines of like it’s okay to have some healthy worry about the deal. You should always have a little bit of like healthy skepticism… let’s see how the public reacts over the next year or so to what this what this deal is sounding like it’s going to be.
Brandon: There are people on City Council who are not ultra-stoked about how this process played out. They [the Blazers] kind of came out of nowhere. All of the sudden it’s an emergency. Tom Dundon is getting in the Governor’s ear, getting in the Mayor’s ear, getting in the legislatures’ ear to like, “hurry, hurry.” The legislature is legally bound to only meet for a month on even-numbered years. So, they didn’t have much time anyways. and just kind of felt like it was thrust upon everyone real quick. And so there have been Portland City Councilors who have been publicly very skeptical to the point of like ‘Blazers, you need to demonstrate how this is going to benefit the public if we’re going to be investing in this.’ And one way that I heard this framed that I really appreciated that helped me clarify my thinking a little bit… because you hear a lot about, well, the Moda Center is owned by the City, you know, the City bought the Moda Center for a dollar. And the way I heard it framed which I appreciated was that that sale was not the transfer of an asset, but rather the transfer of a liability that now needs $600 million worth of work.
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