Eleven months ago -- fresh off watching the Warriors win another championship and, before that, the Blazers get swept out of the first round in dominant fashion by a Pelicans team missing their second-best player -- I did something for the first time: I gave up on my team, and wrote a piece detailing how the Blazers should dismantle and move on.
Trade Lillard. Trade McCollum. Assemble a new, young core. Make a free agency push in a few years after some bad contracts expire and the Warriors have (hopefully) broken up, or at least gotten old.
You know, the worst kind of sportswriting, and also the most popular: that beat-them-while-they're down, armchair-coach, pick-against-the-underdog, glass-half-empty, faithless John Canzano bullshit.
It took a lot for me to get to that point, because it takes a lot for me to turn against teams. In January 2016, I even defended the Oregon football coaching staff after the Ducks blew a 31-0 halftime lead against TCU in the Alamo Bowl. (An opinion I stand by, for the record.)
But I got there. After yesterday's incredible road win over Denver to move on to the Western Conference Finals, all I can say is praise be to Allah that Portland kept their team together.
Even if the Blazers don't beat the Warriors this year, what has transpired in the past month is already better than any result that might have (eventually) come from blowing it all up last summer.
Even if the Blazers don't beat the Warriors this year, there now appears a very real chance Durant will change teams in the offseason, meaning there is now a very real chance that this season's success could be a precursor to more deep postseason runs in the coming years for Portland, and one of those runs might end in an NBA title.
Even if that never happens: let's go down together, led by a couple overlooked, undersized guards from small schools who hit 37-footers and wave goodbye at your trash-talking punk ass as you limp off the court without shaking hands, and who shimmy-shake and twist you up until all you can do is stumble and hopelessly look on as the ball splashes through that jawn.
Maybe I reverse jinxed it. Maybe if I had advocated for the Blazers to stay the course, Russell Westbrook would have dunked in a game-seven buzzer-beater and Blazer fans would be as sad as Joel Embiid right now. I'll never know -- nor do I want to find out.
All I know is the world would be a better place if there were fewer sportswriters hacking it up with baseless, negative opinions and predictions that often don't pan out. So today I'm doing my part and stopping one of them. The op/ed department of this blog is shuttered. Consider this patient cured.
Perhaps you think my self-inflicted punishment is too harsh, or overly dramatic. To the latter, I say, you are certainly right. To the former, I say, sometimes a man must set his own penance to find his path to inner peace:
Trade Lillard. Trade McCollum. Assemble a new, young core. Make a free agency push in a few years after some bad contracts expire and the Warriors have (hopefully) broken up, or at least gotten old.
You know, the worst kind of sportswriting, and also the most popular: that beat-them-while-they're down, armchair-coach, pick-against-the-underdog, glass-half-empty, faithless John Canzano bullshit.
It took a lot for me to get to that point, because it takes a lot for me to turn against teams. In January 2016, I even defended the Oregon football coaching staff after the Ducks blew a 31-0 halftime lead against TCU in the Alamo Bowl. (An opinion I stand by, for the record.)
But I got there. After yesterday's incredible road win over Denver to move on to the Western Conference Finals, all I can say is praise be to Allah that Portland kept their team together.
Even if the Blazers don't beat the Warriors this year, what has transpired in the past month is already better than any result that might have (eventually) come from blowing it all up last summer.
Even if the Blazers don't beat the Warriors this year, there now appears a very real chance Durant will change teams in the offseason, meaning there is now a very real chance that this season's success could be a precursor to more deep postseason runs in the coming years for Portland, and one of those runs might end in an NBA title.
Even if that never happens: let's go down together, led by a couple overlooked, undersized guards from small schools who hit 37-footers and wave goodbye at your trash-talking punk ass as you limp off the court without shaking hands, and who shimmy-shake and twist you up until all you can do is stumble and hopelessly look on as the ball splashes through that jawn.
Maybe I reverse jinxed it. Maybe if I had advocated for the Blazers to stay the course, Russell Westbrook would have dunked in a game-seven buzzer-beater and Blazer fans would be as sad as Joel Embiid right now. I'll never know -- nor do I want to find out.
All I know is the world would be a better place if there were fewer sportswriters hacking it up with baseless, negative opinions and predictions that often don't pan out. So today I'm doing my part and stopping one of them. The op/ed department of this blog is shuttered. Consider this patient cured.
Perhaps you think my self-inflicted punishment is too harsh, or overly dramatic. To the latter, I say, you are certainly right. To the former, I say, sometimes a man must set his own penance to find his path to inner peace:
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