andalusian
Season - Restarted
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I just really have a hard time believing this. Paul might have sold the team, but I really don't think the team would have been moved.
I don't know how people can be so confident that the team won't move now, but so many people believe that the team would have moved if not for Brandon Roy.
This was right before the Seattle to OKC move so it was still not something the NBA really learned to abhor - and I have heard enough people with inside information that believe it was true. There were groups that wanted to move a team (OKC) - what if they could get their hands on the Blazers before the Sonics / Thunder a couple of years later? I am not buying the idea that the team would have been sold but not moved as an absolute, it clearly happened to the Sonics just a couple of years later. Let's remember that in the 2000s you had multiple teams being moved. The Griz moved to Memphis, Sonics to OKC, didn't the Charlotte Hornets move to New Orleans and become the Pelicans later, and Charlotte got the Bobcats? (I can't follow which of these teams were what at what point).
Is it 100% sure? No. But I am a lot more confident in it than I am with the idea that Roy somehow fucked Portland, which he did not. He had an opportunity to make some extra cash after his livelihood was taken from him, in no small part, because of the sacrifice he made for the Portland Trailblazers success. He had no obligation to anyone but himself and his family - and if Minnesota was willing to sign him up to give it another go, he would have been stupid not to do it.
Whatever it was, from my point of view, Roy s what made me a real Blazers fan. I moved to Portland in 1996, didn't really care for any specific team but became a "fan" going to a game against Houston (wanted to see Barkley and Hakeem) but fell in love with the fan experience (I was never a Pippen or Rasheed or Damon fan, I just liked how the fans enjoyed the games). And then the Jail Blazers era came and I hated it, and I lost interest in that team after the fallout and the crap ZBo years. Brandon Roy was what brought me back, I had a chance to spend a very little time with him and he was so nice to my wife and kid - even tho he did not have to, so for me, Roy is my real ground zero of Blazers fandom.
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