Schonely’s April 10 send-off promises to be an emotional scene
Bill Schonely doesn’t know what Trail Blazer officials have in mind with the retirement ceremony that will take place at halftime of their regular-season finale April 10 against the Utah Jazz.
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:
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.”
Ben Golliver’s Travels From Inside the ‘Bubble’
Bubbleball: Inside the NBA’s Fight to Save a Season
By Ben Golliver
Abrams Press
Ben Golliver didn’t just write the first book of his career. He lived it.
The Washington Post’s NBA writer was one of the select few who spent the entirety of the league’s post-shutdown portion of the 2019-20 season in the isolation zone — called the “Bubble” — at Disney World.
In “Bubbleball,” Golliver chronicles the three-months-plus experience of being inside the Orlando Bubble that allowed the NBA to complete its season and saved the league more than $1 billion in revenue.
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.
On the Trail Blazers’ lousy start, Hassan Whiteside and my former boss, Alabama’s long snapper, a Texas grad assistant and all those $$ tossed around in college football
Things on my mind as we kick off a new (and hopefully far better) year …
• A statistical analysis of the Trail Blazers’ disappointing seven-game start to the 2020-21 campaign portends that the local NBA quintet is fortunate to be 3-4.
The off-season emphasis by general manager Neil Olshey was help at the defensive end, something that was a near-constant during Terry Stotts’ first eight years as coach.
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.
With Ron Callan and Jim Wilson, offering our favorite Beaver athletes ever…
Note to readers: Jim Wilson and Ron Callan will serve as occasional guest columnists on my website. The Oregon State broadcasters’ first offering is a list of each’s top five favorite Beaver athletes to watch through the years. That’s not necessarily the best players, but the ones they most enjoyed watching at their craft.