Talking sports: Trail Blazers trading frenzy, MLB strike and Adley Rutschman, Pioneers’ Jay Locey to the USFL
Weighing in some sporting issues of the day …
• There must be a method to Joe Cronin’s madness.
Or as Ricky Ricardo might say, “Somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
Pondering what’s happening with Damian Lillard, Ethan Thompson, Chris Duarte and Terry Porter …
Ruminations on roundball heading into the weekend …
• There is plenty of consternation in Rip City over the NBA’s “snub” of Damian Lillard as a starter in the upcoming All-Star Game. You fans who are up in arms: Sit down right now. You still have a chance to win the “Biofreeze Hoop With Dame” contest, where you can shoot it out with Lillard and win up to $100,000. (Personally, I’d rather have it out with Brooke Olzendam in ping pong.).
Blazers-Lakers should be an intriguing matchup. And my pick for the series winner is …
A few observations as the eighth-seeded Trail Blazers take on the challenge of facing the top-seeded L.A. Lakers in a seven-game first-round playoff series to which everyone across NBA circles will be paying attention …
• In a word, watching the Blazers’ nine-game run-up to the NBA playoffs has been fun.
Not because they made it — after 45 years in the sportswriting business, I’ll probably never think like a fan — but because Portland’s seeding games have been so watchable.
With Dame, CJ and good health, Blazers’ outlook bright in ’20-21
Last week, toward the end of a Chicago-based podcast in which I was the guest, I was asked if the Trail Blazers might break up their backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
My answer was that I didn’t see Lillard — an institution in the Northwest, one of the franchise’s greatest-ever player — going anywhere, but that the Blazers might choose to trade McCollum “at some point” to bolster their talent at the forward spot.
In retrospect, I wish I’d thought the question through a little more.