David Adelman’s looking at a short summer, ‘but short summers are good’
Dreams don’t often come true, especially in sports.
David Adelman goes 2-0 in his first shot as an NBA head coach
David Adelman has had a few “pinch me” moments through a career as an NBA coach that is now in its 11th campaign.
Through a dismal Blazer season, Brooks says he still loves it here
For nearly three decades, Scott Brooks made visits to Portland to play against the Trail Blazers — for the first 10 years as a player, then another 18 as a coach.
Pros vs. Joes No. 11: At 71, Twardzik is still calling games, and having fun doing it at his alma mater
Does Dave Twardzik ever wear the NBA championship ring he earned as a starting guard for the 1976-77 Trail Blazers?
Pros vs. Joes No. 2: Lester Conner is taking on a new experience in old stomping grounds
It had been more than three decades since Lester Conner called the Oakland area home.
Talking All-Star Game to Portland (nope), Geoff Petrie and Jerry West, Gary Payton and Lester Conner, The Kamikaze Kids … and more
Items on my mind during the chilly final days of February …
• Thought for the day provided by Frank “The Flake” Peters, at 78 still a juvenile at heart:
Herb Brown, Mark Warkentien Endorse Blazers’ selection of Billups as head coach
Herb Brown was an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons for only one season — but what a season it was.
The older brother of then-Detroit head coach Larry Brown was on hand for the Pistons’ ride to the NBA championship in 2003-04. One of his favorite players to work with on that team was the new head coach of the Trail Blazers, Chauncey Billups.
“I love him,” says Herb, now retired and living in Traveler’s Rest, S.C. “He was terrific when I was with the Pistons. He’s a major reason why we were successful. He was a great leader. He took coaching. He understood coaching. He was truly professional.”
Buck doesn’t stop at Olshey —At least, he says it doesn’t
Neil Olshey conducts a press conference not so much to inform the media as to educate them.
When the Trail Blazers’ president of basketball operations (general manager) believes the narrative about his team and the job he is doing is off-kilter, he’ll gather the scribes and set them straight.
Olshey has long been president of the Neil Olshey Fan Club, and when membership gets low, he does what he can to drum up the numbers.
That’s what he did during a Monday Zoom conference with local reporters, whose collective wisdom, he is quite sure, fits neatly on the head of a pin. Not only does Olshey not suffer fools gladly, he enjoys delivering a proverbial kick in the tush when he deems it necessary.
A discourse on Dame Time with the feral Scott Ferrall …
I was on with one of my favorite national sports talk show hosts, the incomparable Scott Ferrall, on Wednesday’s edition of “Ferrall Coast to Coast" after Damian Lillard’s record-breaking scoring/shooting performance in Game 5 of the Trail Blazers’ playoff series with Denver. We covered a lot of ground concerning Lillard’s heroics, his legacy and the current situation with the Blazers. He doesn’t drink alcohol anymore but invited me to go on a bender with him in some tropical paradise if he scores 55 points and makes a dozen 3’s in one of his pickup games. I told him I’d hold him to it.
The Schonz at 92: ‘I’m one of the old guys now’
Bill Schonely and I had lunch the other day in our annual celebration of his birthday.
His 92nd, which comes Tuesday, June 1.
“I remember as a young kid, I would see some of the older people walking around,” the legendary voice of the Trail Blazers said. “I thought, ‘Boy oh boy, are they old. I don’t ever want to be old like that.’
“Well, guess what? I’m 92. I’m one of those old guys now.”
On Aldridge’s retirement, the Trail Blazers’ lot in life, Tinkle’s contract, OSU women’s hoops, Transfer portal, Duck and Beaver baseball and other things on my mind …
Some (relatively) quick hitters about subjects on my mind in the sporting world …
• Item: LaMarcus Aldridge retires after 15 NBA seasons after experiencing a heart irregularity.
• Comment: Aldridge had played five games with Brooklyn after a buyout by San Antonio and signing as a free agent with the Nets. He had played well, starting and scoring 22 points in 23 minutes in a blowout win over New Orleans.
But after experiencing an irregular heartbeat during the Nets’ game against the Lakers last Saturday and some complications the following day, Aldridge chose to call it a career.
With David Adelman, Talking “the Joker and Jamal” and the Nuggets’ amazing ride to the Western Conference finals
David Adelman was up past midnight Thursday in his hotel room on the Disney campus in Orlando. For the better part of an hour, the Denver Nuggets assistant coach was Facetiming with wife Jenny and their two children, son L.J., 6, and daughter Lennan, 5, who were all back home in Denver. And there was some conversation with Nuggets head coach Michael Malone.