Here is why Maurice Lucas wasn’t on the bench in the last game:

TRAIL BLAZERS ASSISTANT COACH MAURICE LUCAS TO MISS REMAINDER OF SEASON

Portland – Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach Maurice Lucas underwent successful bladder cancer surgery on Tuesday, the Trail Blazers announced today. Doctors anticipate a recovery period of 6-to-8 weeks. Lucas will not return to the bench for the remainder of the 2008-09 season.

“I’m disappointed that I will be missing this stretch run,” Lucas said. “I am so proud of how our guys have played and I’m confident that I will spend a good deal of my recovery time watching us win games.”

A 14-year NBA/ABA veteran and four-time All-Star, Lucas was a starting forward on the Trail Blazers 1977 NBA Championship team.

“Luke was in great spirits when I visited him yesterday,” Trail Blazers President Larry Miller said. “His biggest complaint was that I didn’t bring a DVD so he could see Tuesday’s win.”

Lucas, 57, joined Head Coach Nate McMillan’s staff in 2005.

“We are going to miss Luke, and will all be praying for his quick recovery,” Head Coach Nate McMillan said. “Anybody who knows Maurice knows there isn’t a tougher guy out there. We look forward to his return as soon as he is ready.”

Trail Blazers fans who wish to send cards or letters to Coach Lucas, can do so care of the Portland Trail Blazers, One Center Court, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97227.

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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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Kevin Garnett has been selling wolf tickets now for several seasons. He stalks around basketball courts all over the country, acting as if he’s an unchained tiger ready to bite someone’s arm off. He never stops talking, trying to intimidate everyone in his path — officials, players and even, in some cases, his own teammates.

Man, I’m sick of watching it. In the old NBA I grew up with, someone would have put a stop to it a long time ago. I don’t think the guy is anywhere close to being as tough as he thinks he is. But in the league the way it is these days, who would know? You can’t really do anything to call his bluff. I mean, you can’t breath on anybody without getting suspended.

In the old days, Maurice Lucas is fond of saying, you could punch a guy in the face and get fined $50. Man, in the case of Garnett, who among us wouldn’t chip in?

And while Lucas continues to recover from a nasty illness that’s kept him off the Blazer bench this season, I’m fondly summoning up a picture of Luke, in his prime, on the floor giving the stink-eye to Garnett. Man, the first time Garnett got out of line, he’d see a beast coming at him. I’ve seen this thing, folks, and it was a frightening sight to behold.

Garnett, trust me, would want no part of Maurice Lucas. He would be a very quiet, well-behaved young man on the nights when he played against the Portland Trail Blazers.

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This is an uncomfortable conversation for me but enough people have asked me about it (this happens when you get old — people ask you a lot more historical questions and assume you were there calling “next” on the day Doc Naismith nailed the peach baskets to the wall).

The latest Blazer announcement that No. 30 is being retired for two players — Terry Porter and Bobby Gross — caught me a little off guard. I mean, everyone knew the Blazers were going to hang Porter’s number at some point. Gross, though, was a surprise because we’re talking about a player here who played in only 486 Trail Blazer games and averaged just 9.2 points in those games. Those stats don’t come close to matching up with another No. 30, Rasheed Wallace.

Don’t get me wrong, I would be the last person to suggest Wallace’s number should be retired. His biggest contribution to Blazer history was inscribed on a T-shirt I still wear that says, “Both teams played hard.”

I’m not here today to bury anyone. A lot of the people mentioned in this post are friends of mine. Bob Gross was a key player on a Portland team that won an NBA championship and stats certainly aren’t everything when it comes to evaluating a player’s contribution to a franchise.

But I’ve always wondered, what exactly is the criteria for retiring a number?

Portland has laundry in the rafters right now honoring its former owner, Larry Weinberg, its former broadcaster, Bill Schonely, its former general manager, Harry Glickman, a former coach, Jack Ramsay and former players Dave Twardzik, Lionel Hollins, Larry Steele, Maurice Lucas, Clyde Drexler, Bill Walton, Lloyd Neal and Geoff Petrie. Porter and Gross will soon join them.

That’s a lot of cloth hanging from the ceiling of a team that’s won just one championship, isn’t it?

One of the people who has a number retired told me several years ago that he thought the Blazers made a huge mistake in not putting one banner up for the championship team — with all the numbers or names of the players on that team — but not actually retiring all those numbers. You know, honor all those guys but don’t get carried away by putting their number away.

I agree with that. I think retiring numbers should be saved for Hall of Fame caliber players — or people who have been with the franchise for a long period of time, like Schonely. And I’d hope that when retiring a player’s number, that fans could look up there and see that number and know who the player is, without the name even being attached to it. Clyde? That’s No. 22, of course. It always will be. Walton? 32! Luke? 20! You know those, right? It would have been silly for anyone else to attempt to wear those numbers after those guys wore them.

Lloyd Neal? He was No. 36. Larry Steele was 15. Twardzik had lucky 13. I love those guys. Great people. Now I hate to play this game, but fans do it all the time – you could start comparing statistical contributions and ask where is Jim Paxson’s No. 4? Mychal Thompson’s 43? What about Buck Williams’ 52? Jerome Kersey’s No. 25?

Again, the point isn’t to diminish anyone’s role in the history of the Trail Blazers. Congratulations to all of them. But when you need one program to identify the players on the court and another one to sort out the jerseys in the rafters, that may be a little much.

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Let me start off by saying I’m astounded that I seem to be the only one with a keyboard paying much attention to this story. Maurice Lucas, not only the Trail Blazer assistant coach charged with developing the big players but a beloved former Blazer player who was the starting power forward on the 1977 championship team and one of the most feared enforcers in NBA history, has been sick.

Sick enough that he’s been away from the team for more than a month now. And it seems nobody is talking much about it. Lucas deserves better than that. You could make a case that he’s one of the most popular players in the franchise’s history. And you probably could also make a case that the Blazers — noticeably soft in the early season — could be that way because of Luke’s absence.

“We’ve missed him,” said Blazer coach Nate McMillan after practice Tuesday. “But I talked to him on the phone this morning and he sounds much better. In fact, he was talking about things he wants to do with the bigs when he gets back.”

Lucas’ return is not imminent, however. He was struck down by what was thought to be a mysterious virus early in training camp and was hospitalized for several days. It’s now, according to McMillan, been determined that Lucas had pneumonia. He’s slowly recovering, more so says one of his relatives, since he got out of the hospital and returned home.

“Our players have been texting him,” McMillan said. “He’s notorious for not answering his phone so you have to text him. We really miss him. All the guys miss him.”

It’s hard to imagine that big guy in anything close to a weakened state. Even on the bench in a suit, he’s always looked the part of one tough dude. And through this battle, I’m sure he has been. Get on back here, Luke. It’s not the same without you.

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This was posted on dwightjaynes.com last night as a comment underneath one of the Maurice Lucas updates:

I just visited him about an hour ago…he’s doing better. I’m a relative of him, and I won’t say anything else. But, just a status report: He’s recovering from the surgery, and he’s fairly weak. But one of the things that I’ve always loved about him, is that he always has the same mind, and knows when to be serious or funny. The thing is, is that no one knows what the virus was, and they’re sending a sample of it to New York. I hadn’t been to a hospital in so long, but when I got inside, it was painful to see him laying down. He could move and what not, and he was actually on his laptop when I walked in, but he was still a little out of it. Of course, that could just be the lack of sleep, too. But, I’m wishing the best to him. I love him to death.

FURTHER UPDATING:

According to this same source, Luke is now home and improving. Still no word on exactly what the virus was.

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Former Trail Blazer power forward and current assistant coach Maurice Lucas is in a Portland hospital fighting, according to a team source, a virus of some sort. No other information is known at this time but Lucas missed Sunday afternoon’s exhibition game at the Rose Garden against Utah.

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