The death of the great John Wooden last week prompted a memory that I haven’t pondered in years.

Probably American’s Greatest Coach (any sport, any level) Wooden is a legend as much for his contributions to life as to basketball. But only old timers know all the stories about Sam Gilbert, the legendary booster who was always said to be responsible for so many great players showing up at UCLA.

Most of the stories about how well Gilbert took care of the Bruin basketball players were told only out of the media spotlight. People whispered them back and forth but never published them — either unconvinced they were true or afraid to come close to tarnishing the Wooden legend.

But on a few trips to the Southland to cover basketball, I was told a story by a couple of veteran sports writers that fascinated me. And that story was that there was a book already written, prior to the death of Gilbert many years ago, that chronicled abuses in the UCLA program and told all sorts of interesting stories about that school’s recruitment and special treatment of basketball players.

They would tell me about this (and I heard it two or three times) and finish by saying, “But the agreement has always been that the book would not be published until after Wooden’s death.” I heard these stories more than 20 years ago and I believe the writer who supposedly wrote this book may already be deceased, too.

I never really believed the story. I just don’t think secrets like that could be kept for so long. But I guess now that Wooden is gone, we will find out.

God bless John Wooden. He’s published more sensible and valuable words to live by than a whole lot of famous philosophers and world leaders combined. And I have to tell you, as someone who was around while he was winning NCAA championships every season, there was no more of a hopeless feeling ANYTIME, ANYWHERE than rooting for a team on the same floor as one of his UCLA teams.

You. Could. Not. Beat. Them.

I mean, it was hopeless. I’ve never seen another situation quite like it. You think the Chicago Bulls were difficult to beat when Jordan was there? That was nothing.

Wooden’s UCLA basketball teams were absolutely impossible to beat. Season after season.

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Geoffrey Arnold speculated yesterday that the Trail Blazers ought to be making a run at LeBron James. Well, whatever.

To me, any amount of time the team spends trying to figure out how to get James is time it should spend trying to figure out how to do something a little more realistic. I mean, really, you think James wants to come to Portland? Really? And why would that be?

To pay a whole lot more state income tax than he’d have to pay just about anywhere else? To sit in the rain all winter? Nah, I doubt it. Look, the guy is trying to become the next Warren Buffett. Or Donald Trump. Not the next Sam Adams. I’m not sure how Portland would fit better in that scenario than say, New York, New Jersey or Chicago.

And just to clarify — Portland has no cap room. You cannot go over the salary cap to sign a player unless he’s already on your roster. And to do a sign-and-trade, the player himself would have to agree to sign that contract and to the trade in order to make it happen. In other words, you really can’t trick a guy into coming here — he’s got to be on board with it. I just don’t see any James will agree to that.

And as I mentioned yesterday, the hot new rumor is that James is going to end up in Chicago with the Bulls, with John Calipari as his coach. I think, more than anything, with James it’s a “big-city-bright-lights” deal.

We don’t make the cut in that category.

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I mean, seriously, the Most Valuable Player in the league and the guy just checks out on you in such an important game? I just don’t get it. Hurt or not, don’t you have to see more effort than that? More resolve than that?

That was weak, man.

And meanwhile, the basketball world is alive with rumors. Now LeBron is going to Chicago — where he’s going to be coached by John Calipari or Phil Jackson? How in the world can this guy leave if he loses this series? Now THAT would look good.

And by the way, for me — I know Shaq played well last night. But I don’t think, ultimately, he works with LeBron James. While he’s posting up, he’s a big roadblock right in the middle of the lane, keeping LeBron out of there. James’ game is going to the basket — he’s still not a reliable and consistent outside shooter — and Shaq keeps him away from that game. Plus, you can’t run well with Shaq out there dragging  you down. Heck, Phoenix found that out.

All in all, a fascinating series, considering how awful most of the games have been individually.

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And one would hope they’d actually do that — remember what they did and how they approached the game Monday night against the Chicago Bulls.

Portland played inside-out… almost all night long. Established all the big people — Oden, Przybilla, Aldridge — inside. Got them the ball early, often, late, frequently, and in position where they could score. And it opened so much of the court for the guards to operate.

And I’ll say this, too… since Andre Miller showed up with that killer lob pass, it’s become something like a new toy for his teammates. It’s as if it’s some new invention they’d never seen before — everyone wants to try it! Passing is infectious and the Blazers have that disease all of a sudden.

Offensively, it was as good as we’ve seen from Portland this season. They played — dare I say it? — the right way. Now, lest you thought I was just going to gush all over them, it’s only fair that we point out another thing about that game:

The defensive end wasn’t so hot. Portland still doesn’t close out on three-point shooters. I lost count of how many open jumpers the Bulls got. They didn’t hit a lot of them, though. In fact, in the second half, they really struggled from the outside. But the shots they wanted seemed to be there for them. And they couldn’t rebound at all and that killed any chance they had of staying in the game.

Oden continues to improve, though — and Portland’s defensive improvement is tied almost strictly to his improvement.

And for a guy who wasn’t expected to be much of an offensive force, he’s turning into a beast, real quickly. Now he’s not going to do that against every team. But some of these teams just don’t have anyone who is physically capable of defending him. And he simply overpowers them, the way he did against the Bulls.

And the only way he’ll keep improving is if he continues to get those chances with the ball. He’s not polished or perfect yet — far from it. A Kareem he’s not. But he’s already better than a lot of people thought he’d be this season and improving at a rapid rate.

And I’m sorry, doubters, if you can’t see the potential of what this guy means to an NBA team, you really don’t understand the game.

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The New York Daily News is reporting that Jason Kidd’s free agency will begin Wednesday with a visit to the Knicks. He’d have to want to be a Knick pretty bad because all New York can offer is a mid-level exception, which is a lot less than Dallas or Portland could give him.

The story, by the way, also mentions that Kidd will meet with the Trail Blazers.

And in other news involving potential Trail Blazer point guards, the Detroit News is reporting that the No. 1 free-agent target for the Pistons will be Chicago combo guard Ben Gordon. That’s important because most people believe if Gordon leaves the Bulls, Chicago will not be interested in trading Kirk Hinrich.

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Perhaps this is true, that the Chicago Bulls point guard is telling friends he believes he’s being traded to the Trail Blazers. But all I can tell you is that Portland could have had him back at the trading deadline — and very cheap, too. The Bulls were ready to practically give him away at that point of the season.

Maybe the Blazers were convinced by the solid playoff series Hinrich had against the Boston Celtics. Or perhaps Kevin Pritchard — who has always liked Hinrich — finally won his argument with someone else in the organization who has been adamantly against the move.

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The Blazers could name their own tune Monday night in Chicago. Want to win big, by pounding the ball inside? No problem. How about winning small with some three-point shots? That’s easy, too.

You watch these teams play twice and you figure it would be hard for the Bulls to beat Portland in 10 tries. There’s that much difference in the talent level of the teams. Roy and Aldridge had off nights and the Blazers turned the ball over too much. So what? Greg Oden pummeled the Bulls, Travis Outlaw got (and made) just about any shot he wanted and Portland feasted on open three-point shots. There isn’t too much else to say about the game.

Wednesday night’s game doesn’t figure to be so easy. The 76ers are playing much better, now that they’ve pretty much shaken Maurice Cheeks out of their system.

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Oh, don’t worry… I’m prepared to give the Trail Blazers a lot of credit for their 42-point win over the Chicago Bulls Wednesday night. Portland finally showed some interest in defending, moved the ball around well and scored at will against the Bulls. And for a team last in the league in points in the paint, took the ball to the basket with power. For a time, it was a layup and dunk fest.

But come on — why isn’t anyone mentioning the pathetic effort of the Bulls? Talk about packing it in, there were several periods in this game when Chicago just flat-out quit. About halfway through the third quarter, it got totally embarrassing and if I’d have been Vinny Del Negro I think I would have been screaming at my troops.

It was the worst defensive effort I’ve seen from an NBA team in quite a while. Awful.

But speaking about the Blazers, there was a lot to like in this game. Everyone played, everyone scored — and a lot of team stats got turned in a favorable direction. Finally, after 11 games, Portland has outscored its opponents for the season.

Nobody seems to notice him, but I continue to be impressed by Nic Batum’s improvement. He gets overlooked because he’s seldom on the floor in the fourth quarter and gets few minutes past the opening ones of the first and third quarters. But the kid does a lot of things that help you win. He defends, rebounds, passes and makes the responsible play. For a teenager, he’s fitting in very well in an environment that’s well, very foreign to him.

There is no such thing as a bad win, but this one was better than most. Teams need blowouts. Lopsided wins allow everyone to feel better and bolster the confidence level. Portland has had to scrape and scramble for a lot of its victories over the last year or so. This was a welcome respite.

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