Sports Column

Record brings in crowd, not roster

On Sports

By dwight jaynes

The Portland Tribune, Apr 18, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (31 Reader comments)

Any way you look at it, this was a rewarding season for the Trail Blazers. How could one have expected much more?

The franchise, under Kevin Pritchard, has done a terrific job of establishing ground rules for how it wants to conduct itself and play. It knows where it wishes to go and how it wants to get there.

We labored so long in Portland under Bob “I wasn’t a chemistry major” Whitsitt that it’s a welcome change. It feels fresh and clean.

I have no doubt that the sky is the limit with Pritchard at the helm.

But I’d like to set the record straight about one thing. While I love that the team has acquired good people who stay out of trouble, I have difficulty connecting the team’s past behavioral problems with the decline in spectator interest the Blazers suffered.

Character – or rather, lack of it – can be a reason a team loses. But it’s not often why people don’t show up.

You might look back, as a fan, and say you wanted nothing to do with the teams of the Isaiah Rider era. The Ruben Patterson era. The Rasheed Wallace era. The Bonzi Wells era. And perhaps you didn’t.

But a lot of people did.

I still remember how disgusted I felt after a playoff series several seasons ago, when Rider was so full of himself he took off his uniform top, jumped onto the courtside press table and pounded his chest in egomaniacal delight –as everyone in the Rose Garden stood and cheered.

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