THE NBA NEEDS TO LEARN PORTLAND

NBA Free Agents Need A Class Of What To Expect In Oregon.

via dailyknicks.com

Hearing the Portland Trail Blazers called small market by sports experts is like hearing Wesley Matthews called The Undrafted Wesley Matthews.

It’s old, tired, and worn out.

Is small market Portland smaller than Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, or Orlando?

The NBA needs better communication, better education, if even one player thinks so.

Explain how Portland is the slinky city of the NBA; it can be as big or small as you want.

A small market can’t offer housing choices to wealthy residents the way Portland can.

From expansive urban towers, to unique city neighborhoods, to suburban spreads, Portland has it.

Where else can you live on the side of a volcano, buy a river house, or open the doors of a cliff home that feels like you’re flying over the city?

Does the NBA know this about Portland?

Yet free agents are still reluctant to come to Portland. What are they afraid of?

Signing with the Blazers won’t mean joining The Woodsmen for a few episodes.

You won’t travel to the Albany Timber Carnival and top a tree, or pull a double shift on a local green chain.

Oregon used to be a great timber state.

The biggest wood chip exports came from North Bend on Coos Bay.

Not any more. No Blazer execs will send new players into the woods to prove themselves. Doing it on the court is hard enough.

The Blazers aren’t some minor league team running gimmicks to attract fans. This is the only NBA stop in the NW, brother. It doesn’t get any bigger in basketball.

Players around the world would love to join the Portland Trail Blazers. They won’t because they’re not good enough.

Only NBA players need apply.

If any team needs to do community outreach it’s the Detroit Pistons. Free agents could show the Motor City they care by engaging in local industry.

Set up the cameras and put the new Pistons on an assembly line.

Oregon is a huge outdoors state. It’s pioneer spirit and rural roots suggest living close to the land where growing and hunting your own food is considered an honor.

Even with that, no Blazer free agent has ever been forced to gut a fish, skin a deer, or shoot a duck.

Come to Portland. You won’t be shanghaied onto a deep sea trawler, an eastern Oregon deer stand, or a Sauvie Island duck blind.

Greg Monroe from Harvey, Louisiana might have liked the Portland lifestyle if he gave it a chance instead of signing with Milwaukee. That’s quite a change after starting his NBA career in Detroit.

Before giving Portland an inferiority complex, the NBA ought to address it’s stellar host cities.

No one wants to join Kobe and the Lakers, Carmelo and the Knicks, or Boston. Even Philadelphia feels better than the other big cities.

Compare NBA destination cities to Portland. One is running out of water, one is running out of Phil Jackson, and Larry Bird isn’t walking through the door of the last.

Portland is a new start. It’s where you’ll change the most and be the sort of person everyone you know hoped you’d become. Oregon does that to new residents.

Maybe you’ll look to the east and see a big white blob and wonder how snowballs get so big. It’s Mt. Hood in your backyard, Player. You can ski it, climb it, and most of all watch the sunset light it up in the best show this side of the aurora borealis.

You won’t find that in another NBA city. Portland is special if you’re smart enough to show up and play here.

Are the one and done players smart enough?