You can skip reading this book by Traitor Bob
For more than a decade, Bob Whitsitt was the curator for Paul Allen in running both the Trail Blazers and the Seattle Seahawks.
On Austin Maurer, Clyde Drexler, Joey Crawford, Beaver football (and the Attrition Bowl) and the greatest Duck QBs of them all
Winding up the old year as we head into a new one …
My favorite Blazers: Buck Williams
The husky voice carried across the phone lines from Albania, north of Greece off the Adriatic Sea, where Buck Williams and his wife were visiting their son Malek, who is married to an Albanian woman.
Lillard is Blazers’ biggest scorer — Who is the G.O.A.T player for the Trail Blazers?
The wait is over. In his 11th NBA season, Damian Lillard is the Trail Blazers’ career scoring leader, having passed Clyde “The Glide” Drexler last week at Oklahoma City.
My thoughts on the NBA’s Top 75, the dozen greatest players ever, and another 10 for good measure
The All-Star Weekend’s cavalcade of events in Cleveland will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the NBA.
January 2022 Book Reviews
Three-Ring Circus
By Jeff Pearlman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
As the manuscript was completed for “Three-Ring Circus” in early 2020, author Jeff Pearlman found himself in what some would consider a quandary.
Should Buck Williams be a Hall of Famer? Says Fordham Prep’s sports analytics club: ‘Yes’
Those in Portland in the 1990s recall Charles Linwood “Buck” Williams as the lunch-bucket power forward whose acquisition proved the missing link in the Trail Blazers’ rise to NBA Finals in ’90 and ’92.
On the Pre Classic, Rich Brooks’ 80th birthday party, Adley (and Ad) Rutschman, Damian Lillard, Kevin Calabro and the Trail Blazers …
Sporting items on my mind as we swing into a new week …
I’ll put the Prefontaine Classic up against any 2 1/2-hour sports event in the state of Oregon — and yes, I’m including a basketball game involving the Trail Blazers.
The 47th annual invitational — with a crowd of 8,937 looking on at the newly refurbished track and field shrine called Hayward Field — featured nine meet records and seven world-leading marks in the first international meet since the end of the Tokyo Olympic Games two weeks ago.
Ben Golliver’s Travels From Inside the ‘Bubble’
Bubbleball: Inside the NBA’s Fight to Save a Season
By Ben Golliver
Abrams Press
Ben Golliver didn’t just write the first book of his career. He lived it.
The Washington Post’s NBA writer was one of the select few who spent the entirety of the league’s post-shutdown portion of the 2019-20 season in the isolation zone — called the “Bubble” — at Disney World.
In “Bubbleball,” Golliver chronicles the three-months-plus experience of being inside the Orlando Bubble that allowed the NBA to complete its season and saved the league more than $1 billion in revenue.
Talking Jail Blazers, Jerome Kersey and the NBA with the 3&D Love Podcast crew …
I had fun spending an hour with these Portland natives and obviously diehard Blazer fans. We covered a lot of ground and a lot of NBA history. Give it a listen!
Thoughts on Tyler Shough, Ryan Crouser, Paul Castro, the Hops and Volcanoes, NBA-All-Star Weekend and the real G.O.A.T
A wintry weekend? Snow way!
Thoughts on some sporting subjects:
• Item: Oregon quarterback Tyler Shough enters the NCAA transfer portal.
On shoddy officiating, COVID’s impact and Pac-12 women’s hoops, along with a little Terry Stotts and Charles Barkley …
Reflections from ye old scribe on a few sporting subjects …
• I’m rarely one to criticize sports officials. I have friends who are referees and admire their integrity and intestinal fortitude. I umpired and refereed during my high school and college years. I believe those who work college and pro sports most often do a very credible job.
But what happened Saturday night in Seattle was nothing short of a travesty.
On Cliff Robinson, Another one gone before his time From the early ‘90s Blazers …
Cliff Robinson’s death Friday at the age of 53 leaves another gaping hole in the heart of Rip City.
In 2008, Kevin Duckworth died of congestive heart failure. He was 44.
In 2015, Jerome Kersey passed away from the effects of a blood clot. He was 52.
Hey Guys! I Was Listening
Seems that Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells used the occasion of a recent interview on “Rip City Drive” to engage a little hit-and-run action on my book, “Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball.”