{"id":362449,"date":"2025-12-21T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362449\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T20:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T20:26:08","slug":"the-2000-trail-blazers-are-deserving-of-celebration-even-with-a-complicated-legacy-bill-oram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362449\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2000 Trail Blazers are deserving of celebration, even with a complicated legacy| Bill Oram"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are plenty of stern, cynical things that could be said about the legacy of the 2000 Portland Trail Blazers, who will reunite on Monday night at Moda Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After all, that team failed more spectacularly than it ever succeeded.<\/p>\n

It came within a single quarter of the Finals and a likely NBA championship, a historic choke job that set the franchise back a decade, if not more. In some ways, it is still trying to recover.<\/p>\n

In the years immediately after, Paul Allen threw good money after bad to the point that he put the Rose Garden into bankruptcy. A revolving door of team executives brought in malcontents, miscreants and misanthropes in a scrambling effort to be as good as the 2000 team that almost did something special.<\/p>\n

Almost.<\/p>\n

But that spring I was 13 years old. NSYNC was about to have the song of the summer with \u201cIt\u2019s Gonna Be Me.\u201d I had never heard of Osama Bin Laden and Bill Clinton was the president.<\/p>\n

Then, with the Western Conference Finals tied 1-1 and the series headed back to Portland, my dog died.<\/p>\n

Chessy had a history of seizures and one day, I took her for a walk around the yard. When I opened the front door, she sprinted into my mother\u2019s bedroom and collapsed. In a panic, my mom told me to run out to the car where we kept Chessy\u2019s medicine.<\/p>\n

When I returned, I said, \u201cIs she going to be OK?\u201d<\/p>\n

And my mom wailed back, \u201cNo, I think she is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

A grandfatherly neighbor, Lloyd, dug a hole across the stream in our backyard. He carried Chessy over the little footbridge and laid her in it.<\/p>\n

Two days later, we watched the Blazers lose Game 3. And then Game 4.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t need to regale you with how the rest of that series played out. I was absolutely buoyant as the Blazers climbed back into the series. We scored tickets to Game 6 and I screamed myself hoarse as the Blazers won to send the series back to Staples Center for the decisive seventh game.<\/p>\n

It only takes two words to anger a Blazers fan: Game 7.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not much of a brawler, but I\u2019ve been ambushed enough times \u2013 by my sons, by my golden retrievers and once, long ago, by a sixth-grade bully \u2013 that I know how it feels to be hit in the gut.<\/p>\n

I know how the sensation spreads from your solar plexus, like an electrical charge in need of an exit point.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I felt watching the fourth quarter of Game 7 more than 25 years ago. As jump shot after jump shot clanked off the rim and the Lakers overcame a 15-point deficit and Kobe looked like he was going to shoot but instead threw up a lob to Shaq.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t wait for the final buzzer.<\/p>\n

I went outside. I cried. I wanted to puke.<\/p>\n

People ask me these days if I still root for the Blazers and the answer, of course, is no. It\u2019s professionally verboten, but honestly, it\u2019s also a bit of a relief. I don\u2019t know if I have the constitution for it.<\/p>\n

The 2000 team will always be my favorite because of where it intersected with my life. I never had the chance to see the \u201977 champions. Clyde and Terry and Buck exist as myth for me more than anything.<\/p>\n

But to be 13 and still starry eyed when Scottie Pippen arrived in Portland, and Damon Stoudamire came home, when Brian Grant tussled with Karl Malone, and when Rasheed Wallace stubbornly refused to dominate, was a gift.<\/p>\n

So when I learned this week many members of that team, light on star power but rich with talent and depth, were coming back for what they\u2019re calling a reunion against the Detroit Pistons, I got chills.<\/p>\n

I thought of what Damon Stoudamire told me a couple years ago, when he said<\/a> that players from that era don\u2019t feel a connection to Portland any longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody feels they just tried to erase our history,\u201d Stoudamire said.<\/p>\n

The Blazers have done a poor job this century of embracing their history, and the current leadership has taken meaningful strides to repair bonds that have been broken. There have been sincere efforts to engage alumni ranging from Buck Williams to Brandon Roy and Greg Oden.<\/p>\n

But reconnecting with the 2000 team feels particularly fraught. Their 59 regular season wins rank second in franchise history, but no one from that period has their number in the rafters \u2014 which is telling in Portland where the bar for jersey retirement is particularly low.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the greatest teams in franchise history, but also one of the hardest to celebrate.<\/p>\n

The impact of that one loss was incalculable. With apologies to Damian Lillard and the thrilling conference finals run of 2019, the Blazers haven\u2019t so much as sniffed the possibility of an NBA title since 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottomline,\u201d Bob Whitsitt said, \u201cis it was a hell of a basketball team. And hopefully Portland\u2019s proud of that because there are some pretty good records that are on the board for the Trail Blazers.\u201d <\/p>\n

Whitsitt should already be in Hawaii for a three-week holiday vacation. Instead, the Blazers\u2019 general manager and president from 1996-2003 will meet his wife in Maui after attending Monday\u2019s reunion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you,\u201d he said this week, \u201cthis is basically the first time since I left that, that they\u2019ve ever called me to say, \u2018Would you want to come to a game or something?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Virtually every person associated with that era left on bad terms. Only Grant, the Rasta Monsta, is around, and he just returned to the team in an official capacity as a basketball liaison last summer.<\/p>\n

Figures such as Sheed, Stoudamire and Bonzi Wells were pummeled for their transgressions, minor by modern standards but transgressions nonetheless. Wells flipped off the fans. Wallace threw a towel in Arvydas Sabonis\u2019s face. Zach Randolph clocked Ruben Patterson and broke his eye socket.<\/p>\n

Not all of this happened in the 1999-2000 season, of course, but that season had, and continues to have, a long tail.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also impossible to separate the hostility between the team and the fans from the fact that you had Black players constantly being scrutinized by a largely white fanbase over matters of good citizenship.<\/p>\n

After chasing the near glory of that conference finals run for three seasons that produced three first round exits, the bottom fell out for the Blazers.<\/p>\n

Whitsitt resigned amid fan backlash. The team missed the playoffs each of the next five years and attendance plummeted. There was plenty of shrapnel to go around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organization spent probably a half a dozen years throwing stones at everybody associated with that era as a way to try to deflect for their incompetence,\u201d Whitsitt said. \u201cThere was a while there where if it rained in Portland they tried to spin it where it was Whitsitt\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time doesn\u2019t heal all wounds.<\/p>\n

If it did, there would be no question of whether Wallace would be part of Monday\u2019s reunion. As it is, he is not expected to make an appearance.<\/p>\n

And if it did, I wouldn\u2019t feel that pit of guilt return to my stomach when I thought of Chessy. When I went out to the car that day 25 years ago, I couldn\u2019t find her medicine. I didn\u2019t realize things were as grave as they were, so when I returned to the house I casually informed my mom I had come up empty.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t prepared to learn my dog had died. Perhaps if I had looked harder or run faster…<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re 13, you\u2019re only just starting to understand the complexities and tragedies of the world. What happened on the court in Game 7 was far from a real-world tragedy, but in sports there is a difference between failing to win and really losing. To truly lose, there must be stakes and expectations.<\/p>\n

And I can\u2019t help but view the 2000 Blazers with profound gratitude for fostering that belief.<\/p>\n

I understand that this reunion could be seen as celebrating mediocrity in a way that is uniquely Portland and that, perhaps, we should all feel a little sheepish about.<\/p>\n

On the night Kobe Bryant retired, I stood with him at center court in Los Angeles and, after covering him dispassionately for three years, quietly shared the impact<\/a> he\u2019d had on my life.<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cYou know you ruined my childhood, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

He smirked.<\/p>\n

In truth, my youth was not ruined by Bryant\u2019s villainy, only enriched by it and the shortcomings of the 2000 Trail Blazers. <\/p>\n

On Monday, when members of that team return to the building they remember as the Rose Garden, I hope they will be applauded for what they did there.<\/p>\n

That team is the one thing I choose not to be cynical about. I owe that to a young Blazers fan I once knew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are plenty of stern, cynical things that could be said about the legacy of the 2000 Portland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,178698,99],"class_list":["post-362449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-nba-kneeling-championships-championship-comeback","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}