Twelve minutes of basketball morphed the Portland Trail Blazers from a powerhouse into a laughingstock.
Six years ago, we were one win from the NBA Finals, dominating the Lakers in a Game 7 on their home court with a thirteen-point lead into the fourth quarter. You could have heard a pin drop on the hardwood at the Staples Center. No team in NBA history had climbed out of such a deciding-game deficit with just a quarter to play. The Blazers couldn't lose.
I'll bet Boston sports fans know exactly how I felt watching that meltdown. Supremely confident of a victory; feeling the first pangs of uncertainty when the lead got chopped to 10; rationalizing that just one basket would stop the Lakers' momentum. But the Blazers clanged off thirteen consecutive misses; entering full-blown "Dear God, this cannot be happening" mode when Shaq threw down Kobe's lob to put the Lakers ahead by six; staring blankly at the television when the final horn sounded. Lakers 89, Blazers 84, in a game that ESPN Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons called the biggest single-game collapse in sports history. I was 13 years old, and the memory still devastates me. Probably every sports fan has some deep loyalty-inflicted wound that time simply won't heal; this one is mine.
Los Angeles went on to win three straight NBA titles, and Portland torpedoed its franchise in a failed effort to keep up with the Lakers. After that soul-sucking loss, Blazers brass decided to bring in veterans to provide stability during future playoff runs. Here's who we acquired: Shawn Kemp, who was so grotesquely overweight that unnamed teammates feared that his size, combined with his locker room cocaine binges, would literally kill him on the court; Dale Davis, for whom we traded some guy named Jermaine O'Neal; and Ruben Patterson, who had just pleaded no contest to attempting to sexually assault his childrens' nanny. Suffice it to say that history has not borne out the wisdom of these transactions.
General Manager Bob Whitsitt mortgaged the future for troubled talent, and Blazers fans got the worst of both worlds: a step backwards in performance and humiliating behavior from our players. The 2001 playoffs came, and we were swept by the Lakers, and the 2002 playoffs came, and, you guessed it, we were swept by the Lakers.
Rasheed Wallace seemed determined to put the single-season technical foul record out of the reach of mere mortals. Damon Stoudamire tried to bring marijuana wrapped in tinfoil through an airport metal detector. Wallace threatened to kill an official after a game and received a seven-game suspension. Scalpers hawking tickets at the Rose Garden suddenly had to find honest employment because nobody in Portland wanted to go to the games anymore.
I couldn't believe that this was happening to my team. The only professional sports team in Oregon is the Blazers; people's moods used to wax and wane with the team's fortunes. Suddenly we had guys like Wallace, who said that he didn't care about winning or losing so long as somebody "cuts the check," Darius Miles, who came to practice drunk, and Bonzi Wells, who gave fans in Portland the finger for booing him.
We spent a first-round pick on Zach Randolph, who sucker-punched Patterson in practice and broke his eye socket. Zach spent the night at a teammate's house because he feared Patterson would come to his home and kill him. We used another first-round pick on Qyntel Woods, who managed to get arrested for breeding pit bulls for the purposes of dog-fighting. It was a soap opera better suited for Telemundo than ESPN.
So the Blazers plunged into the lottery, ending up with the third pick in last year's draft. The fans were clamoring for Chris Paul-the Blazers picked Martell Webster. Paul had the best rookie season from a point guard since Magic Johnson while Webster spent most of the year in the NBDL. History really does repeat itself: we passed on Paul because we had Sebastian Telfair at his position. NBA fans might remember that the Blazers once passed on some guy named Jordan because they already had Clyde Drexler. We don't even have Telfair anymore (he was traded for rookie Randy Foye and the vaunted Raef LaFrentz and Dan Dickau over the summer). I will now throw myself from the library roof.
This is how you can single-handedly run a beloved franchise into the ground. I'd like to think that we have glimmers of promise for the future, but the karma of this city gives me the willies. Sporting Gods, I beseech You, let my championship drought not be 86 years, and please bring down fire and brimstone on the Lakers if You have the time. Amen.
Matthew Mertens is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
