Pros vs. Joes No. 11: At 71, Twardzik is still calling games, and having fun doing it at his alma mater
Does Dave Twardzik ever wear the NBA championship ring he earned as a starting guard for the 1976-77 Trail Blazers?
Pros vs. Joes No. 2: Lester Conner is taking on a new experience in old stomping grounds
It had been more than three decades since Lester Conner called the Oakland area home.
Talking All-Star Game to Portland (nope), Geoff Petrie and Jerry West, Gary Payton and Lester Conner, The Kamikaze Kids … and more
Items on my mind during the chilly final days of February …
• Thought for the day provided by Frank “The Flake” Peters, at 78 still a juvenile at heart:
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.
A collector’s item for a mere pittance
Sometimes a rare nugget reaches your pan when you’re not even mining for gold.
A couple of weeks ago, I scanned the library in my study for a book entitled “The Coach’s Art.” It was written in 1978 by Jack Ramsay, then head coach of the Trail Blazers, with help from Portland writer John Strawn, an old friend of mine.
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.
On Aldridge’s retirement, the Trail Blazers’ lot in life, Tinkle’s contract, OSU women’s hoops, Transfer portal, Duck and Beaver baseball and other things on my mind …
Some (relatively) quick hitters about subjects on my mind in the sporting world …
• Item: LaMarcus Aldridge retires after 15 NBA seasons after experiencing a heart irregularity.
• Comment: Aldridge had played five games with Brooklyn after a buyout by San Antonio and signing as a free agent with the Nets. He had played well, starting and scoring 22 points in 23 minutes in a blowout win over New Orleans.
But after experiencing an irregular heartbeat during the Nets’ game against the Lakers last Saturday and some complications the following day, Aldridge chose to call it a career.
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.
The new guys look good as Beavers open 2020-21 slate with win over Bears
I liked a lot of what I saw Wednesday night in our first look at Oregon State in the post-Tres Tinkle era, a 71-63 non-conference win over California in a mostly empty Gill Coliseum.
A few observations …
• Coach Wayne Tinkle unveiled most of the recruiting class he has been so excited about, and the newcomers not only didn’t disappoint, they shined.
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.
Fifty years ago, the Blazers got it all started with a victory over the Cavs …
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the first regular-season game ever played by the Trail Blazers.
It was also the first professional game for rookie guard Geoff Petrie, one of the best players in franchise history and later the club’s general manager. And it was the first NBA game called by Bill Schonely, who was to become a legend and perhaps the most popular figure ever with the Blazers.
The date was Oct. 16, 1970. Portland beat fellow expansion club Cleveland 115-112 before a crowd of 4,723 at Memorial Coliseum.
On Pac-12 football, Pat Casey and Bud Ossey, MLB to PDX, Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat and Chad Doing and the Denver Broncos …
The Pac-12 football schedule was (finally) announced Saturday, with Oregon fans happy with the Ducks’ lone crossover game, Oregon State fans not so much.
The Ducks, ranked 14th in the latest AP poll, play host to Chip Kelly’s UCLA Bruins on Nov. 20. The Bruins were 4-8 a year ago. The Beavers’ only game against a South Division opponent, meanwhile, is at defending South champion Utah on Dec. 5.
With David Adelman, Talking “the Joker and Jamal” and the Nuggets’ amazing ride to the Western Conference finals
David Adelman was up past midnight Thursday in his hotel room on the Disney campus in Orlando. For the better part of an hour, the Denver Nuggets assistant coach was Facetiming with wife Jenny and their two children, son L.J., 6, and daughter Lennan, 5, who were all back home in Denver. And there was some conversation with Nuggets head coach Michael Malone.
My take on the NBA boycott, and why players were wise to not go dark the rest of the season
I’m glad NBA players decided Thursday not to boycott for the rest of the season.
Not because something like $1 billion in national television rights is riding on the playoffs, though that’s certainly a consideration, too.
Blazers-Lakers should be an intriguing matchup. And my pick for the series winner is …
A few observations as the eighth-seeded Trail Blazers take on the challenge of facing the top-seeded L.A. Lakers in a seven-game first-round playoff series to which everyone across NBA circles will be paying attention …
• In a word, watching the Blazers’ nine-game run-up to the NBA playoffs has been fun.
Not because they made it — after 45 years in the sportswriting business, I’ll probably never think like a fan — but because Portland’s seeding games have been so watchable.
