Knocking it around on a potpourri of sports topics …

• Kevin Calabro’s return to the broadcasting booth with the Trail Blazers is not a done deal.

The Blazers, who let Jordan Kent go last week as their TV play-by-play announcer, have extended an offer in principle to Calabro, who served as their TV play-by-play man from 2016-20 but gave up his job during the COVID-19-interrupted 2020 campaign.

Calabro said Tuesday his agent, Kristin Bredes, is negotiating with the Blazers, “but we have not come to any kind of terms. If you don’t have an agreement inked, you don’t have a deal. There is a mutual desire to get something done, but it hasn’t been done. We’ll continue to explore all other options.”

Calabro, who turns 65 on Sunday, served more than 20 years as the voice of the Seattle SuperSonics. After the Sonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008, Calabro did national radio work as well as call games on the Pac-12 Network. I still think Calabro and the Blazers will come to terms, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Calabro will choose to stay in Seattle and put together a package of broadcasting opportunities while living there.

• Kent took over when Calabro left for the “Bubble” portion of the 2019-20 season, and stayed to call games this season from the Blazer broadcasting studio. That experience will look good on his resume.

“It’s disappointing any time you don’t get an opportunity to continue something, but I’ve been cut from football teams before,” said Kent, a former three-sport athlete at Oregon. “It’s not the first time a terrific job has been taken away. What I’ve learned is, things happen out of your control. The way you respond speaks volumes about your character and resolve. As crazy as it was, I still have my family, friends and health. There will always be something else.”

Kent was also relieved of his responsibilities as host of the Blazers’ weekly “Courtside” show. It is expected that Brooke Olzendam will take over that duty when the Blazers move to Root Sports and ostensibly be paired with Michael Holton. But she said Tuesday night nothing has been finalized in that regard.

Kent, who turns 37 on July 14, has plenty to keep him busy. Jordan and wife Tiffany have two young boys at home. For the past 10 years, Jordan has been involved in the youth sports camp business. “Just Kids Skill Camps” offer football, basketball and soccer opportunities to boys and girls aged six through 12, along with lessons on life skills and nutrition education.

In the past, Kent has called games on the Pac-12 Network and in E-Sports along with some “TrackTown USA” broadcasting duties in his hometown of Eugene.

“I’ve been doing a lot of free-lance stuff over the last couple of years,” he says. “I’ve had to turn down a lot of opportunities because of the length of the NBA schedule. There’s a lot of stuff that can fill the calendar. I’m going to take my time to decide exactly what that is and enjoy some extra family time right now while doing it.”

• Plenty else has changed on the local broadcasting front since the end of the Blazers’ season.

Dominoes have fallen since the Blazers announced an agreement to move their games from NBC Sports Northwest to Root Sports beginning next season.

NBCSNW, which has aired the Blazers since 2007 (when it was known as Comcast Sports Northwest), will cease to exist on July 31. The “Brian Noe Show,” which was simulcast on NBCSNW and Rip City Radio (620 AM), is gone. Noe, an NBCNW employee, is done as well. He may be done in Portland, but he hosts a national show on FOX Sports Radio on weekends, so he won’t be out of work.

The afternoon “Rip City Drive” show with Chad Doing and Travis Demers will no longer be simulcast, though it’s possible a deal will be made with Root to have the program on that network as well.

Rip City Radio’s new daytime lineup looks like this:

6-9 a.m. Rip City Mornings, hosted by Justin Myers.

9 a.m. to noon: The Rich Eisen Show.

Noon to 3 p.m.: The Doug Gottlieb Show.

3 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Rip City Drive, hosted by Chad Doing and Travis Demers

Rip City Radio will remain the home of the Blazers and the Single-A baseball Hillsboro Hops. I’m hearing, too, that there will be some upcoming news about programming that will be a major addition to the Rip City Radio evening schedule. As they say, stay tuned for that.

Doing and Demers consistently provide an excellent listen for the region’s sports fans. I’ve always enjoyed Eisen, who specializes in the NFL, and I consider Gottlieb one of the best in the business in terms of interviews and offering his take on issues.

All of the NBCSNW employees will soon be out of a job.

Jamie Hudson, the website’s capable Trail Blazers’ reporter who has also served in an on-air capacity for the network over the past nine years, would like to continue working in sports media in the area but has nothing yet lined up.

Dwight Jaynes, NBCSNW’s Blazers insider since 2010, would also like to continue with broadcasting work. I won’t be surprised to see him surface doing talk radio, a position in which he has excelled in the past.

• What a great opportunity for Portlander Ime Udoka as the new head coach of the Boston Celtics.

I covered Udoka, now 43, when he was a star senior swing man at Portland State in 1999-2000. I’ve watched him overcome the odds to play parts of seven NBA seasons, then become a valued assistant for seven years on the staff of Gregg Popovich at San Antonio. After single seasons on the bench with Philadelphia and Brooklyn, Udoka is getting an opportunity run his own show for the first time with perhaps the most hallowed organization in all of basketball.

I don’t know how he will do with the Celtics, but I can say he has all the ingredients — experience as an NBA player and coach, smarts, even disposition and an ability to lead — to be successful. And he has a good young roster to work with, led by stars Jayson Tatum (23) and Jaylen Brown (24).

I’ll be pulling for him.

What are the odds, incidentally, that two of the NBA’s 30 head coaches prepped in Portland and played their college ball there? Udoka is a Jefferson High grad; Miami’s Erik Spoelstra played at Jesuit High and the University of Portland.

• The next head football coach at Gresham High is also a graduate of Jeff.

It’s James Allen, the great linebacker at Oregon State from 1998-2001 and starter on Dennis Erickson’s 2001 Fiesta Bowl champions. Allen went on to play four years with the New Orleans Saints and has lived in the city since, except for two years (2010 and ’11) when he returned to Portland to complete his graduation requirements at OSU. He has been working in education in New Orleans since 2012, teaching physical education to students grades kindergarten through eighth. He also served as an assistant coach for three seasons at two high schools.

Gresham’s principal, Drake Shelton, is a childhood friend of Allen’s and a Grant High grad.

“It’s going to be great to reconnect with Drake,” says Allen, 41. “Getting this job is like a dream come true for me. It’s something that’s been in my heart for awhile. I felt stagnant (in New Orleans) in terms of personal growth. This is a great challenge and platform for me to give back to my hometown. I’m going to try to change the quality of life for every young man and woman I come into contact with in the (Gresham) community.”

It’s also a chance to move closer to the oldest of James’ four children. Jontae Allen is a 6-1, 215-pound redshirt freshman linebacker who walked on at Oregon State after a fine career at Beaverton’s Mountainside High.

“I couldn’t be more proud of him,” James says.

• If the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award came after the playoffs, the winner would be one of two people — Atlanta’s Nate McMillan and Phoenix’s Monty Williams. Not coincidentally, Williams was McMillan’s assistant for five of his seven seasons coaching the Blazers (2005-12).

McMillan began the season as an assistant to Lloyd Pearce. With the Hawks struggling at 14-20, Pearce was fired and McMillan named interim head coach on March 1. Under McMillan, the Hawks closed with 27 wins in their final 38 regular-season games to finish tied for fourth in the Eastern Conference standings. As the No. 5 seed in the playoffs, they beat the Knicks and Sixers and, after a 116-113 win over Philadelphia in the opener of the East finals, are now within three games of the NBA Finals.

Do you suppose McMillan has earned the right to have the “interim” tag removed and extended a multi-year offer to return as head coach next season?

• Looks to me as if Scott Rueck has added a couple of quality assistants to his women’s basketball staff at Oregon State.

Jenny Huth was head coach at Northern Colorado the past three seasons after seven seasons as an assistant at UCLA.

The more familiar name is Devan Hunter, a stellar power forward and four-year starter for the Beavers from 2012-16 who played a key role on their Final Four club of 2016. Hunter has been a grad assistant at San Diego the past two years. It will be great to have Devan back in Corvallis again.

• Jack Washburn is a big loss for Oregon State baseball.

The 6-2, 210-pound freshman right-hander — son of former major league pitcher Jarod Washburn — has entered the transfer portal along with about 200 other players (so far). The Webster, Wisc., native was 4-2 with a 3.12 ERA in 21 appearances (five starts) as a freshman this season. He yielded only 22 hits with 21 walks and 43 strikeouts and a .198 opponents’ batting average in 34 2/3 innings.

Word is that Washburn hopes to wind up at a Southeast Conference school.

• It’s no secret the civic unrest in the city of Portland provided the impetus for the move of the Cambia Portland Classic from Columbia Edgewater Country Club in Northeast Portland to Oregon Golf Club in West Linn from September 16-19.

Tournament Golf Foundation, which operates the event, had intended to stage it at Columbia Edgewater for the ninth straight year and for the 36th time in the classic’s 50-year history. Massive problems with the homeless camps in the surrounding areas of the golf course convinced TGF to find a venue outside the city.

The Portland Classic is the longest-running continuous tournament on the LPGA Tour.

“We love having the event at Columbia Edgewater, and it was all systems go until we started to get concerned about the health, safety and wellness issues in the immediate area,” TGF president Tom Maletis told me. “About 95 percent of the people involved with the event — the employees, the volunteers, the fans — arrive from NE 33rd between Columbia Boulevard and Marine Drive.”

That’s one of the many areas throughout the city where the homeless have congregated, leaving behind a trail of tents, rubble and garbage.

Maletis says TFI officials have spoken at length with representatives of Columbia Edgewater, the LPGA, the city of Portland and the Port of Portland. City reps “said they would work on remedies, but couldn’t assure us everything would get cleaned up and everyone would be safe. We were running up against a deadline to get infrastructure needed at the course ready for the event.”

The Classic has great history with Columbia Edgewater, the site in 1974, 1977-78, 1982-83, 1986-88, 1990-2008 and 2013-20. It has also been staged at Portland Golf Club (1972-73, 1974-75 and 1979), Riverside Country Club (1980-81, 1984-85 and 1989) and Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club (2009-12). This is the first time it will be held at Oregon Golf Club.

“(Columbia Edgewater) has been instrumental in the support and growth of the tournament,” Maletis says. “Taking a look at the situation and its pluses and minuses, though, we were not comfortable holding it there this year. It’s disappointing and frustrating, especially since this is the 50th year (of the event).”

TGF’s contract with OGC is for one year, with dual options in 2022 and ’23.

“We both have the flexibility to opt out after this year,’ Maletis says.

There will be no limitations on spectators, and Maletis says he is hopeful of both big crowds and a strong turnout of LPGA players for this year’s Classic, which will carry a purse of $1.4 million. The Solheim Cup — a team competition between players representing Europe and the U.S. — will be held Sept. 4-6 in Toledo, Ohio. The next event is the Portland Classic.

“Players will have a week off and then be ready to go when Portland comes around,” Maletis says. “I anticipate a great field. We’re looking forward to working with Oregon Golf Club to make this a very successful event.”

I’ve been covering the tournament since 1975, when it was called the Portland Ladies Classic. It’s a special event that has brought all of the sport’s female greats — from Kathy Whitworth to Joanne Career to Nancy Lopez to Annika Sorenstam to Inbee Park — to our city. Many of them have told me this is one of their favorite events on the tour, with the weather and the people and the golf courses and even the city itself being major attractions.

To have the city’s homeless situation — along with the destruction of our downtown core — impact major sports endeavors such as an LPGA tournament, a potential Women’s Final Four and the pursuit of Major League Baseball is both sad and maddening. Perhaps it will serve as a wakeup call for the politicians who have done too little to prevent these things from happening. Or — unfortunately — maybe not.

• Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell — two of the better young players in the NBA — lost out on a lot of money by not being named to one of the first three All-NBA teams.

If either had made one of the top three teams, they’d have been eligible for a rookie max extension with a starting salary at 30 percent of the salary cap. Instead, they are eligible for an extension at 25 percent of the cap — a difference of $33 million over four years.

A rule in the collective-bargaining agreement dictates that if a player makes one of the top three All-NBA teams in two of the previous three seasons, he can start the extension at 30 percent.

I know. They’re still in line for an ungodly amount of coin — about $163 million in four years.

But it’s not right to allow a global panel of 100 members of the media who vote on the teams to decide something that can determine massive amounts of money for the players.

I’ve never thought individual awards or statistics should be tied to player contracts, which is often the case through bonus money. A player’s impact on his team’s achievements should be the determining factor, not number of All-Star teams or personal standings among the league’s top scorers or rebounders.

• The increased pressures of political correctness — being “woke,” as they say — is even getting to Charles Barkley.

The NBA Hall-of-Famer has been a funny and compelling studio host for TNT broadcasts for nearly two decades and has won four Sports Emmys for his work. But Barkley, 58, says his time in front of the camera is nearing an end. He plans to retire after two more seasons.

“You can’t even have fun nowadays without these characters trying to get you ‘canceled,’ ” Barkley said recently. “I’m trying to hang on until I’m 60, and then they can kiss my ass.”

It’s a zero-tolerance world these days. One comment can get someone in the political world or entertainment or sports industries fired or run out of a job.

“All we ever talk about behind the scenes is like, ‘Yo man, be careful going in this direction,’ ” Barkley says. “We can’t even have fun anymore. We’ve had fun all these years, and now all of a sudden in the last year and a half, everybody is trying to get everybody fired. It really sucks.

“I’m not working until the day I die. That’s just stupid. And if I don’t have enough money by now, I’m an idiot and they should fire me, anyway.”

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