Pros vs. Joes No. 1: Brian Wheeler is all in on ‘Pros vs. Joes’ challenge
Brian Wheeler hasn’t called play-by-play for an NBA team since being let go by the Trail Blazers after a 21-year run in 2019.
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.
Should Buck Williams be a Hall of Famer? Says Fordham Prep’s sports analytics club: ‘Yes’
Those in Portland in the 1990s recall Charles Linwood “Buck” Williams as the lunch-bucket power forward whose acquisition proved the missing link in the Trail Blazers’ rise to NBA Finals in ’90 and ’92.
On Kevin Calabro and Jordan Kent, the sports broadcasting scene in Portland, Ime Udoka, James Allen, the Cambia Portland Classic and much more …
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.
Hey Guys! I Was Listening
Seems that Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells used the occasion of a recent interview on “Rip City Drive” to engage a little hit-and-run action on my book, “Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball.”