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:
Covering a number of subjects, including bad basketball in Oregon, the Trail Blazers’ future, Dan Burke, Gary Payton II, Patty Mills, Nike & Alberto Salazar …
A few sporting items on my mind as we ring in the new year …
• The state of Oregon is known for some pretty good basketball, but its major teams are displaying little of it so far this season.
A collector’s item for a mere pittance
Sometimes a rare nugget reaches your pan when you’re not even mining for gold.
A couple of weeks ago, I scanned the library in my study for a book entitled “The Coach’s Art.” It was written in 1978 by Jack Ramsay, then head coach of the Trail Blazers, with help from Portland writer John Strawn, an old friend of mine.
For Chad Forcier: 25 years in the NBA, and now two rings
Most coaches never get to experience the thrill of an NBA championship.
Chad Forcier has done it twice — once with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014, this year with the Milwaukee Bucks.
“I was so fortunate to have gone through it once with the Spurs,” says Forcier, a long-ago assistant coach at both Oregon State and the University of Portland. “To have a second shot at it with the Bucks … I’m not sure that ‘living a dream’ adequately describes it. I’m keenly aware of how many players and coaches never get to taste that. I feel very blessed.”
Forcier was on the bench alongside head coach Mike Budenholzer as Milwaukee took the Phoenix Suns in six games to secure the franchise’s first NBA title in a half-century. The city was agog over the prospects. An estimated 65,000 people jammed into the Deer District surrounding Fiserv Forum to watch Tuesday night’s Game 6 on a big screen outside the arena and then celebrate afterward.
A fond farewell to Herb Brown, the octogenarian Oregonian who has coached the world
Put Herb Brown in among the famous Oregonians who flies under the radar in the world of sports.
The older brother (by 4 1/2 years) of Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Brown is an accomplished casaba coach in his own right.
Brown, who turns 85 in March, is most well-known for his time spent as head coach of the Detroit Pistons from 1975-77.
But Brown’s resume is replete with stops throughout the world. The native New Yorker has had assistant coaching jobs with eight franchises, including the Trail Blazers. He was a member of Maurice Cheeks’ Portland staff from 2001-03.