An NBA fan from Seattle who wants to see a game has to drive 3+ hours. To Portland. There's simply no win there. .
Portland has Aldridge, Batum, the 6th pick, and another lotto pick. Seattle doesn't even have a franchise anymore... Seattle fans have it worse
Seattle, no visible franchise and it was once without questions the most popular show in town. The Seahawks and Mariners were meh on two different levels. The Mariners always managed to be disappointing, while I don't think there was ever a time before 2005 where the Seahawks were a Super Bowl contender. The Supersonics were a powerhouse in the late 70s and most of the 90s. Had one of the more rabid fan bases in sports (not only the NBA). It was "The Team of the City." Even with all of the Trailblazers misfortunes, the Blazers are arguably one of the better franchises in the NBA (at worst, top 13). After Los Angeles (Lakers), San Antonio, Dallas, OKC (Seattle), Chicago, Miami (maybe), and arguably Phoenix/Utah. Can you name a less dysfunctional NBA franchise? They've only missed the playoffs 7 times, since 1976. Most of those six are in these decade. Moreover, they've only had 3 losing records in that same time span. You always get the sense with Portland that they will somehow manage to stay in the playoff picture or reach contender status at some point. You have teams like Milwaukee, Cleveland, or Atlanta (moved from St.Louis) who have been in the league for about the same period of time and have accomplished anything of significance. Milwaukee had their peak periods with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a few seasons in the early 80s, and that's pretty much it after the failed romance of their own version of the big 3 (Cassell, Allen, and Big Dog). Atlanta has two legends in Pete Maravich and Dominique Wilkins, and pretty good team in the late 90s (with Mutombo, Laettner, Smith, and Blaylock). I guess you could throw in the Horford, Smith, and JJ crew. Though, these teams were more 1st and 2nd round fodder for the monster teams in the East (Boston, Chicago, and any Miami or Lebron team). Cleveland franchise is full of ineptitude without the Late 80s squads or the Lebron period. Completely irrelevant to NBA history. Take out 1987-94, 2003-10. (Cleveland should be thankful, because no one cared about Cleveland basketball, before, even in Cleveland). For Portland, this is the worst period of basketball, they've ever had, since the first five years of the franchise. I noticed a few thing about Seattle and Portland that other teams often fail prisoner to: - Neither franchise ever really built their teams around one single player. Even look at OKC, now can you really say that team is completely built around Durant. More of a team built on a concept of a whole sum of all parts (with unique talents) and finding the best talent possible versus one or two superstars with supplementary players. Look at Seattle's teams from the late 70s - the early 2000s or the Portland teams from the mid 70s - the mid 2000s. Boston (60s-80s) sort of built it's teams on a sum of all parts, but they just happened to have a great number of Hall of Fame players. I don't really think LA did either until they got towards the end of the Shaq and Kobe period. With superstar talent or not, they tend to have multiple good players on the roster (often all-star worthy). - Drafted well and knew how to make the right trades. Outside of a few draft picks, have you ever seen either of these franchise make alot of mind-boggling moves. - Speaking of making the right moves, it seemed like they both knew when to update themselves and trade star players/competitive players to contenders or for draft picks. For the most part, each franchise invested in the right players. - With regards to Portland -- even with an ailing Bill Walton (soon traded to San Diego), they made the playoffs. The year they drafted Sam Bowie, they made the playoffs for the next 17 seasons, consecutively. Even drafting Greg (already hurting) Oden, they finished 41-41 in the 07-08 season and made the playoffs for the following three seasons. Even with an ailing Brandon Roy, they managed to make the playoffs, last year, while this year's team more or less fell apart mentally and chemistry-wise. They had the talent to make the playoffs. It's kind of weird, because historically each franchise is probably closer to the top 10 than the bottom 15.
and...worst of all, their former franchise is headed to the NBA Finals. Lead by an owner who said that he would keep the team in the Seattle.
Yeah, but how often does a stud 6'10 WING with a developed offensive package (for a rookie at least) and a 7.5 wingspan with a 9.2 standing reach come out? That's once in a decade/lifetime too. And he won player of the year and was only 19. And the other guy had injury concerns? Sign me up for Durant boss. Portland was dumb. http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/kevin-durant-390/
As great as Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant turned out, how can anyone have said at the time that either would've been a sure thing? Who would've predicted at the time before they were drafted that either player would have ascended past the superstar level early in their careers. It's easy to make any criticism in hind-sight, though. With Durant, as a college freshman, in all honesty, how many people in the world would've seen that particular player being better than possibly Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard. Very few. Same with MJ, how many people saw this NC product who would be better than Magic, Bird, or any of the league's great scorers at time (Dantley, King, Gervin).
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/21/blazers-front-office-looks-back-on-greg-oden-pick/ http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ail-blazers-chose-greg-oden-over-kevin-durant http://www.slamonline.com/online/nb...regrets-drafting-greg-oden-over-kevin-durant/
Big men may come once in a decade, but how often can you find a 6'10 wingman with arms that stretch down to the floor. He also averaged 11 rebounds in college. There hasn't been a freak of nature like Durant since Ralph Sampson.
