For the first time, a departure from the usual stuff you read on this blog, but hey — it’s a weekend in August and I should be on vacation, anyway.

OK, so I had this dream. For real. I was in Houston for some crazy reason and was watching an old-guys baseball league game. It was just a game in a city park among a bunch of guys I didn’t think I knew. I didn’t realize it when I got there, but Clyde Drexler was playing in the game. For some reason, he didn’t seem at all surprised that I was there watching.

Anyway, pitching against Clyde’s team was Bill Laimbeer, and he was throwing pretty hard. Clyde was just seething that they were losing to him. Huffing and puffing and snorting on the mound, Laimbeer had the bases loaded and a full count on the batter when he quick-pitched him. The guy managed to hit the ball, but it was a lazy fly to left field and Laimbeer was out of the inning.

I sort of casually went behind the backstop and mentioned to the umpire that I thought that was a quick pitch by Laimbeer and he sort of hit his forehead and said, “You know, you’re right,” and brought everyone back out on the field and called a balk on Laimbeer.

So now Laimbeer was steamed at me and was headed my way. This is about the time that I woke up. Seriously. And wondering where in the hell that dream came from. I’m not a guy who usually even remembers his dreams, but well, you can’t really forget one like that. Got any ideas on what that dream meant? And please, be nice.

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Tags: Baseball, Bill Laimbeer, Clyde Drexler, Dwight Jaynes, Houston

In an answer to a commenter recently who was proclaiming Roy “the best player in the history of the franchise” or some such nonsense, I think I responded along the lines of “No. Not even close.” Dave at Blazersedge.com addressed the same issue here, toward the end of his post and for now, has pretty much the same answer.

There were people who disagreed with that, but I’ll stick by it. Yes, Roy’s put in three terrific seasons here. But the operative word is three. It’s going to take more than that to establish himself as better than Clyde Drexler. And really, I’d still take Bill Walton’s magnificent season and a half over Roy’s three when it comes to greatness.

When healthy, and Portland had but that season and a half of full-scale Walton, I’m not sure there was a better all-around center in the history of basketball than Walton. Others were better shot-blockers or scorers or defenders. But none was a better passer and I’m not sure any of them did EVERYTHING as well as he did. He was a wonder.

In a franchise sense, you have to be great over a reasonable length of time — and I think we’ll be able to see it pretty clearly by the time Roy’s contract extension is fulfilled. Perhaps by then, we’ll know if he’s the greatest. (UPDATE: Ben at Blazersedge.com has done a terrific job of listing five things Brandon needs to do better as he matures as a player. It’s a must read.)

But right now, we can’t say it because it’s way too early.

I’m not one to measure players by their championship rings. That’s so totally unfair. Some great players played on lousy teams. You need help to win titles. Some great players played on teams that were loaded. My goodness, the old Celtic teams had so many stars it was hard to tell just how good any of them were without the other ones.

I saw Walton and I saw Drexler. With Clyde I saw just about every game he played with the Blazers after his rookie season. For those who didn’t see him, all I can tell you is that he may have been the best rebounding guard I’ve ever seen. He got tough rebounds, with games on the line.

He made clutch shots and clutch free throws. He wasn’t a consistently great defensive player but if you needed the ball late in a game, I saw him get steals 20 feet off his own man to help win games. He could block shots and he could get shots — for himself and his teammates. He played in Jordan’s shadow throughout his career and that was too bad. But he was an MVP-caliber player for years who hardly ever missed a game. He would have four- or five-minute bursts where he absolutely dominated the court — scoring points, setting people up, blocking shots or stealing the ball — like no Blazer I’ve ever seen.

I will never forget Game 2 of the NBA Finals when the Blazers had the ball in the waning moments with a chance to beat the Pistons in Auburn Hills when Rick Adelman called a timeout. “Square him up and bust his ass to the basket,” I could hear Adelman screaming at Clyde during the timeout through the din of the Palace. That’s what Clyde did and he drew a foul. With the game on the line — Bang. Bang. Two free throws and that series was square at a game apiece.

Man, that was Clyde.

And so quick. I mean really quick. Maybe the quickest 6-7 man I’ve ever seen. So kids, I’m warning you — don’t even think about it.

Like Walton, Clyde’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame. ‘Nuff said.

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Tags: Bill Walton, Brandon Roy, Clyde Drexler, Portland Trail Blazers

You may have noticed that ESPN has been fiddling with this Mount Rushmore thing, trying to spark controversy with a list of four faces etched in stone that represent sports for each state.

ESPN.com columnist Scoop Jackson has taken it a step farther by attaching four faces to each NBA team — and here’s what he put together for the Blazers:

Billy Ray Bates, Clyde Drexler, Jack Ramsay, Bill Walton
Rationale: “Who is Billy Ray Bates?” you are probably asking. Ask anyone in Portland. Ask Brent Musburger, who lost his voice while at CBS calling his games. A player who probably should be replaced by anyone from Lionel Hollins to Brandon Roy, Bates to this day — nearly 27 years after his last game with the team — is still the most exciting player in Blazers history. His face represents the “I in team” side of the game.

I have to say this emphatically: No. No. No.

I don’t think Billy Ray Bates was the most exciting player in Blazer history. For everything he did, Clyde did it five times. Bates, for those of you who don’t know about him, was maybe the saddest Blazer story of all time. He had a talent for the spectacular, but wasn’t a sound player. I think the myth became bigger than the man and he was destined for a bad ending almost from the beginning (although he is now reportedly out of prison and living in the New Jersey area).

Walton, Drexler — they have to be there. Brandon Roy is the new face. And I have to say, Maurice Lucas should be considered. And for you old folks, Geoff Petrie would be in the running.

And funny how this works, but there’s another name just as tied into the Blazers’ history as any of the others — through good times and bad, the public face of the franchise for decades. That would be legendary broadcaster Bill Schonely — soon to be honored with Portland’s very prestigious (take a look at who has won it) First Citizen award.

But the reasons we have a comments section is for you to tell me what YOU think, so have at it.

(A tip of the hat to reader Douglas, for finding this.)

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Tags: Bill Walton, Billy Ray Bates, Brandon Roy, Clyde Drexler, Dwight Jaynes, ESPN, Geoff Petrie, Jack Ramsay, Maurice Lucas, Mt. Rushmore of sports, Scoop Jackson

Man, the NBA dunk contest has really turned into a living cartoon these days. I mean, a phone booth with an NBA logo on it? That was a real spur-of-the-moment thing, wasn’t it? Same with the backboard on a cherry picker thing that allowed Dwight Howard to raise the rim for a dunk.

Shades of one of those Trail Blazer “Slam and Jam” things in the summer at old Civic Stadium, where Clyde Drexler once dunked the ball on a rim higher than what they optimistically called a “12-foot” rim Saturday night in Phoenix.

Drexler used to show up for those All-Star Weekend dunk contests totally unprepared. He was a game dunker. He could improvise and dunk the ball in people’s faces all game long. But at a contest, with no defenders standing in his way, he was always perplexed about what to do. It made for some awkward contest moments.

The guy who was Drexler’s best friend in a Trail Blazer uniform was always the better dunker. In fact, he was the best I’ve seen to this day. No, not Jerome Kersey. Folks, it was Kiki Vandeweghe. And yes, I always have a lot of trouble convicing people of this.

But one time at practice we were talking about dunk contests and Kiki insisted that he’d never been in one that he didn’t win. Come on — a kind of slow, white guy who wasn’t a big jumper? How could this be?

Vandeweghe shrugged his shoulders and went on about his shooting jump shots. He felt no urge to prove his dunking prowess. But a few days later, after constant jabs from me about it, one day after practice, he quietly went over and picked up two basketballs out of a rack.

And I mean picked them up — the way you’d pick up two apples out of the produce section. The guy’s hands were enormous. Huge. And it immediately lit the light bulb in my dim brain. A big part of this whole dunk thing is simply the ability to manipulate the ball in your hand. Kiki could hold a basketball as well as you and me could hold a baseball.

Anyway, one of those guys who never showed much excitement about anything, ambled out on the court, took a few jog steps to the basket and twirled in the air. At the end, he threw down one ball after the other — a perfect, 360-degree, two-ball dunk. I’d never even seen one before. His teammates froze. Everyone wanted to see it again. So he shrugged his shoulders and did it again. With really no effort at all.

It was amazing.

In games, Kiki was also an incredible dunker. For a guy who didn’t jump well, his dunks were NEVER blocked. His hands were so big and so quick that he could quick-dunk — throw it so fast over the rim that nobody could get to it. He wouldn’t ever windmill in a game — too much chance for someone to time it for a block. But I guarantee you, if he’d ever wanted to do that, his windmill — with those big hands and long arms — would have been sensational.

I doubt he’d have ever won an NBA dunk contest because he didn’t have all the showmanship. Brent Barry actually won one, but because of HIS lack of showmanship, barely anybody remembers that Barry took off from further away than Doc or MJ on their foul-line dunks. He’s an afterthought.

If only Brent would have had the courage to do what he told me later he thought about doing. He said that day he was wearing a T-shirt under his jersey that said, “White men CAN jump” – and he planned to reveal it at the post-contest press conference. But he didn’t have the nerve.

Too bad. Maybe more people would have remembered his historic dunk.

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Tags: Brent Barry, Clyde Drexler, Dwight Jaynes, Kiki Vandeweghe, NBA, slam-dunk contest

I was asked last night about how Brandon Roy compares to Clyde Drexler. And you could make a case that in his third season in the league, Roy compares quite favorably to Drexler in his third season.

I can buy that. And I think Roy has a chance to be as good or better than Drexler before he’s done. But to say he’s as good at this time is foolhardy. Crazy, really. There’s just such a long way to go. For one thing, check out Drexler’s games played for his first NINE seasons in the league: 82, 80, 75, 82, 81, 78, 73, 82 and 76. Man, the guy played EVERY night. And toward the end, he was carrying his team on his back through a long playoff run, too.

So give Roy all the credit in the world. But don’t short Drexler, either. Being as good as he was, and staying as healthy and strong as he did, made for an extraordinary career.

It’s going to be fun to watch Roy take a run at that kind of greatness.

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Tags: Brandon Roy, Clyde Drexler, Portland Trail Blazers

Fans, ex-teammates, media and friends gathered in Memorial Coliseum Saturday morning to bid a final farewell to Kevin Duckworth. And I want to publicly acknowledge what a terrific job the Trail Blazer organization did to make it a wonderful gathering, from the stage setting to the video, the music, the roster of speakers and the atmosphere.

It was an emotional two hours that brought home to me how fortunate I was to be a beat reporter covering those great Blazer teams of the early 1990s. Not because of how many games they won, but because of what terrific people they were. Harry Glickman, speaking at the memorial service, spoke about “winning with good people” and he was so right.

As I watched Buck Williams, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Clyde Drexler (via videotape from Taiwan) speak so lovingly and eloquently about their late friend and teammate, it reminded me what an outstanding group of men made up that team. These players of intelligence, integrity and great passion came together under a coach, Rick Adelman, who knew how to put what was a bit of an odd mix together into a winning team. Adelman, also at the Saturday service, built a tremendous pride within the team that was the cornerstone of its success. I was lucky to watch it up close and Portland was fortunate to call the team its own.

As far as I’m concerned, that was a championship team. That it didn’t win the big trophy really doesn’t matter to me in the slightest. It won the hearts of its city and still owns a lot of those hearts. It won the respect of us all to this day. And it was a blueprint, off and on the court, for how to operate a successful pro sports franchise.

And the encouraging thing, of course, is that the Blazers now seem to be going about their business in much the same way. Duckworth knew this and during his post-playing career I’d never seen him happier than I had the last 12 months. He was a Trail Blazer again, back in the family — thanks to Larry Miller, Mike Golub, Kevin Pritchard and all those who have brought a conscience and a heart back to the franchise. The Blazers were a family Duck could once again be proud of.

This can be such a special franchise and it can have such a huge impact on the city and even the entire state. We can thank Kevin Duckworth for reminding us what the very best of the Blazers looks and feels like.

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Tags: Buck Williams, Clyde Drexler, Dwight Jaynes, Harry Glickman, Jerome Kersey, Kevin Duckworth, Portland Trail Blazers, Rick Adelman, Terry Porter