On the Trail Blazers’ lousy start, Hassan Whiteside and my former boss, Alabama’s long snapper, a Texas grad assistant and all those $$ tossed around in college football
Things on my mind as we kick off a new (and hopefully far better) year …
• A statistical analysis of the Trail Blazers’ disappointing seven-game start to the 2020-21 campaign portends that the local NBA quintet is fortunate to be 3-4.
The off-season emphasis by general manager Neil Olshey was help at the defensive end, something that was a near-constant during Terry Stotts’ first eight years as coach. Portland brought in defensive-minded wings Robert Covington and Derrick Jones Jr. to stem the bleeding, and the move paid dividends in the Blazers’ best-by-far win so far this season — 115-107 over the defending champion LA Lakers in Staples Center.
The other six games, not so much.
The Blazers have had moments of strong defense but not enough to make them look any different than they did a year ago, when they ranked 28th in the league in defensive efficiency.
That’s exactly where Portland stands after seven games this season, along with 23rd in opponents’ field-goal percentage (.477) and 14th in opponents’ 3-point percentage (.362). The Blazers have also displayed weak free throw defense so far, with foes shooting at an .801 clip from the stripe (that’s a personal joke I share with Coach Stotts).
The Blazers are 26th in scoring defense, allowing opponents to score 118.1 points per game. They gave up 120 to Utah, 128 to the LA Clippers, 137 to Golden State (and 62 to Stephen Curry) and 111 to still-woeful Chicago, a game in which the Blazers blew a 20-point second-quarter lead.
Portland doesn’t pass the eye test on defense, either. Too many open shots and uncontested layups. Supposed adjustments in defending the pick-and-roll aren’t working, at least yet. Maybe it will all come around, but so far, it’s been a mess.
Offensive stats are interesting. The Blazers rank No. 11 in offensive efficiency (they finished fifth last season, third the year before) and are eighth in scoring (114.4 per game). They are shooting well from 3-point range (.375, which ranks ninth) but are next-to-last in field-goal percentage (.432) and 27th in assists (21.9).
One other interesting stat: Portland ranks 27th in blocked shots at 3.7 per game. A year ago, Hassan Whiteside had 2.9 a game by himself.
The Blazers have two of the top scorers in the league in guards CJ McCollum (sixth, 27.7) and Damian Lillard (11th, 26.0). While a trade for the NBA’s top scorer, Houston guard James Harden (33.0), may seem appealing, that would be furthering a truth that has been all too self-evident — that Portland has to outscore opponents to win games. (And before you offer any wisecracks, you know what I mean by that.)
The Blazers have a chance to right themselves quickly. Beginning with Thursday’s home date with Minnesota, the remaining 13-game January schedule includes only three games against opponents I projected before the season as playoff teams — and two of those are Toronto and Houston, teams that have had all kinds of problems so far.
The slate includes two games against Sacramento and Memphis (without Ja Morant) and single dates with Atlanta, San Antonio, New York, Oklahoma City and the Bulls. Portland starts a seven-game homestand on Jan. 14, with only four of the remaining 13 games in January on the road.
It’s a get-well quick card that may be returned for insufficient postage unless things get turned around.
• If you’ve lost track of Whiteside, who was let go into free agency at the end of last season, he is languishing on the bench in Sacramento. The 7-1 center, who led the league in blocks, was second in rebounds (13.5 per game) and ninth in field-goal percentage (.622) while averaging 15.5 points per game with Portland last season, is averaging 5.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 12.7 minutes for the Kings.
I’ve never understood the critics who say Whiteside is a selfish player who chases stats and doesn’t help a team win. I wouldn’t characterize him as a leader or character guy, but he was far from a bad apple with the Blazers.
Look again at those numbers he posted last season — and they went down considerably when he came off the bench behind Jusuf Nurkic after the re-set in “the Bubble.” I never saw any evidence of him being malcontent or dogging it in Orlando, either. He seemed to accept it and do his best to help out.
Give Stotts credit. He often gets the best out of players who struggle elsewhere. I thought Whiteside played his ass off for Stotts in Portland and never seemed to get the credit he deserved. Hard to believe he can’t make more of a contribution for the Kings.
• One of my bosses through the first part of my 45-year career in newspaper sportswriting, Bill Mulflur, died Tuesday. He was 94.
Mulflur was executive sports editor of the Oregon Journal during my time there from 1975 to 1982, when we merged with The Oregonian. The Journal and Oregonian were both part of The Oregonian Publishing Company.
The Oregonian was the morning newspaper; The Journal was published in the afternoon.
Sports editor George Pasero was my mentor, but Mulflur played a role in teaching me the business, too. He could be blunt and gruff and impatient to the point of being unkind, but he had a warm side, too (heck, he and wife Happy had nine children — there had to be a soft spot there!).
Mulf believed in me and gave me good opportunities as a young writer, and I always appreciated that. He did me some favors, including one I’ll never forget.
World Team Tennis came to town in 1977 with the Sea-Port Cascades, who split their home games between Seattle and Portland. The team featured Betty Stove, who reached the Wimbledon finals that year, and Tom Gorman, who would later serve as U.S. Davis Cup captain. It was a fun group to cover and, when owner Don Kelleher asked if I would make a road trip that summer with the team, I told him, ‘I doubt if George will go for it.’ ”
“I’ll cover the expenses,” Kelleher said. “It would be great to have you there at the matches.”
The trip was very appealing to a 23-year-old writer who hadn’t seen much of the world yet, with stops in New York, Boston, Indianapolis and New Orleans. I asked Pasero, who said no as I expected.
I went to Mulflur and explained the situation. I understood the conflict of interest in having a team pay a writer’s expenses, but told him it would have no impact on how I covered the matches. “It will be better for our paper and our readers to have me there,” I said, “and it’s not going to taint my coverage at all.”
Mulflur agreed that would be the case. He thought about it for a minute.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “Book your trip. You’re going to go and cover the matches. We won’t use your byline; we’ll just use a date line. Don’t tell anyone what we’re doing. George will never know.”
That’s what we did, and as far as I know, Pasero never found out. At least he never let on.
It was the trip of a lifetime to that point. My first visit to the Big Apple, first time back East, first time to the Big Easy. After the match in New Orleans, one of the players — Steve Docherty — and I hit a few places on Bourbon Street and got back to the hotel very late. Bleary-eyed and hung over, we were the last two passengers on the plane the next morning.
Thanks for that one, Mulf, and for all the others. May you rest in peace.
Thomas Fletcher (Source: Thomas’ Twitter account @longsnapfletch)
• He is hardly a household name in college football, but a former Portland-area athlete has made a major contribution to the best program in the country. And you’ll see him on TV Monday night when top-ranked Alabama faces Ohio State for the national championship in Miami.
Thomas Fletcher, a 6-2, 230-pound senior long snapper for the Crimson Tide, grew up in Vancouver, the son of long-time Trail Blazer executive Tom Fletcher. The junior Fletcher attended Skyview High as a freshman and sophomore before moving with his family to Austin, Texas.
Fletcher assumed punt snapping duties as a true freshman in 2017 and has added placekick responsibilities the past three seasons. Alabama’s press guide boasts that he has had a “perfect record on all snapping opportunities” through his career. Fletcher will be playing in his third national championship game and trying to add a second title to the one he won as a freshman. He has been named to participate in the Senior Bowl and is one of three finalists for the Patrick Mannelly Award, presented to the nation’s top long snapper. An NFL career seems likely.
It’s a storybook situation for Fletcher, who has devoted himself to long snapping since his sophomore year at Skyview.
“I can’t imagine doing any other job,” he said Wednesday night from Alabama’s team hotel in Miami. “Being a contributing factor to the success of a team that gets to this level has been more than fulfilling.”
Fletcher was recruited and has been on scholarship all four years. He has a degree in communications and commercial real estate and is working on a masters in international business management.
Thomas Fletcher (Source: Thomas’ Twitter account @longsnapfletch)
“Being at Alabama has been absolutely phenomenal — by far the best decision I ever made in my life,” he says. “I’ve learned more than I expected to, and not just from a football perspective.
“At Alabama, you’re guaranteed a Ph. D in football. For four years, I’ve had a behind-the-scenes look at how a Fortune 500 organization operates, which is something I can take into more football or business.”
Fletcher said there are physical requirements to snapping as well as techniques involved.
“But the biggest part by far is the mentality of it,” he says. “Can you snap the same ball in shorts and T-shirts during summer workouts as you can snap with 100,000 people in the stadium in an SEC game?
“There are a lot of people who can snap when the lights are off and doing it for fun. When the lights go on and you’re on the field, you need to be able to focus and do everything you’ve been doing in practice.”
Tanner Sanders
• Another local youngster who has ventured far from home is Tanner Sanders, the former Oregon State three-sport athlete who is now a grad assistant to the athletic director at Texas.
Sanders, a 2018 OSU grad who played football, basketball and baseball for the Beavers, has been grad assistant to Texas AD Chris Del Conte for a little more than a year. Del Conte was a high jumper at Oregon State before the Beavers dropped their track and field program in 1988. A roommate at OSU was Scott Sanders, a Beaver football and baseball player who is Tanner’s father.
Del Conte hired Tanner after the Sanders visited Austin in 2019. Tanner has been working on the events operations team since he started that fall.
“I’m getting to see the ins and outs of athletic administration,” says Tanner, 25. “It’s been incredible to be on the other side of the student-athlete experience, seeing the day-to-day work that employees did on my behalf when I was at Oregon State. The time and people and effort to run the ship here has been eye-opening. Couple that with being at a prestigious athletic institution like Texas — it’s a great opportunity I’ve been afforded.”
His first year in Austin, Sanders roomed in a house on campus with Hunter Jarmon, the ex-Beaver football and baseball player who also had a job at Texas. Jarmon ended up getting a job as an intern and amateur scout with the San Diego Padres.
When the UT athletic department went into shutdown in March due to COVID-19, Sanders returned to Corvallis for five months and continued to take graduate classes on-line. He returned to Austin and resumed duties in August as part of the staff establishing safety protocols and measures within the athletic department.
Sanders, who is working on a masters in education with an emphasis on sports management, hopes to be an athletic director at the college level some day.
“That’s my goal,” he says. “Whatever path leads me there. Whether I can get my foot in the door here at Texas or branch out and see other things, I’m excited I got the initial process started with this grad position.”
• Sanders’ position was not affected by the all the recent financial moves within the Texas athletic department, which frankly have been staggering.
In September, the Longhorns announced layoffs, paycuts and furloughs due to COVID-19, saving the department $19.9 million for the 2020-21 fiscal year. A total of 35 staff members laid off and 35 vacant positions were permanently eliminated. In addition, 273 staff members temporary salary cuts and 11 staff members furloughed with benefits, beginning Oct. 1, 2020, and extending through Aug. 31, 2021.
Texas’ overall athletic department budget in 2019-20, incidentally, was $187 million. Oregon State’s for that fiscal year was about $80 million. Oregon’s was $113 million.
But football is what drives the bus. And when somebody at Texas decided Coach Tom Herman had to go, he had to go.
Last week, the Longhorns negotiated a $24 million buyout — $15.4 million plus nearly $9 million for assistants — to get out of the final three years of Herman’s contract. They had given Herman a two-year, $13.25 million extension in May. Texas went 7-3 this season, including a 55-23 dismantling of Colorado in the Alamo Bowl. His four-year record in Austin was 32-18. For all of that? Bye bye Tommy and hello Steve Sarkisian — yes, the same Sarkisian who lasted a season and a half as head coach at Southern Cal in 2014 and ’15.
The buyout, incidentally, is not the highest in college football this season, according to Bloomberg News. Auburn paid $21.45 million to get Gus Malzahn to go away. South Carolina forked over $15.5 million to get rid of Will Muschamp. Arizona had to give up $7.3 million to pay off Kevin Sumlin.
I’d have taken half of that to vacate my job at the Portland Tribune, folks.
Readers: I covered a lot of territory in this column and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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