I wanted to make the 100th post of my NBA blog something special. Instead, I decided to just make it business as usual. I'm not big on milestones.
I came across a column by John Canzano of the Oregonian that I thought you Knicks fans would find interesting. Essentially, Canzano is waxing poetic about how the Blazers have become "a family" with the departure of Zach Randolph and his entourage, known as the Hoops Family.
You need to know that Zach Randolph's entourage of swaggering, sweating, swearing sycophant friends have been replaced by Brandon Roy Jr., not even a year old, who was napping on his mother Tiana's shoulder along one wall.
And here was 2-year-old Jadynn Jones and 4-week-old James Jones Jr., who were with their mother, Destiny, across the corridor, waiting for daddy. And also here was Raef LaFrentz's newborn son, whose mother rocked him to sleep. And Steve Blake and Joel Przybilla's toddlers, too.
This bunch is packing, sure.
Diapers.
Canzano is an excellent columnist who replaced a ridiculously good writer, Chuck Culpepper, a few years ago when Chuck left the Pacific Northwest to join Newsday. Alas, Chuck has since left Newsday to pursue other interests, and your sports section has been noticeably less literary as a result.
In any event, I can appreciate all the feel-good vibe coming out of Portland with Zach and his band of alleged thugs out of the picture. It is always this way in sports. When a team parts ways with a player, coach, or manager, the revisionist history begins. The stories are all about how much better things are around here without THAT GUY.
The jury, of course, is still out on Randolph and his entourage in New York. (Maybe that was a poor choice of words, considering Zach's legal history.) But the stories about how sane and family-friendly the Zach-less Blazers have become strike me as somewhat convenient and predictable. We'll see if Zach's entourage causes any trouble in NYC and surrounding burbs. I'm just a little skeptical of this snapshot of the Blazers' locker room, which makes it out to be some sort of Montessori school. Let's not get carried away, people.
Anyway, happy 100th to Newsday's NBA blog. Thanks for keeping things going ...
Comments (11)
Congratulations Ken, on your 100th post.
Some quick suggestions to encourage readership:
--be impartial and fair when covering the Knicks, try not to go for the knee-jerk, Isola/Lupica response.
--listen carefully to the audience, people want to hear about trade rumors, what's happening in the locker room, what the word is outside the standard cliches.
--respond to your posters.
--blog frequently.
Enjoy!
"alleged thugs"...come on now. The jury is in, literally, on those guys. Thugs for sure.
As a fan of the Blazers and someone who will continue to root for Randolf, it's nice to have the Hoops Family gone.
No they didn't ever personally hurt me but it's obvious Zach is a little impressionable and they don't bring out the best in him.
Countless articles and just public posts of the Hoops Family causing trouble in Zachs nieghborhood, Portland City streets, and the Rose Garden just got old! They were w/ Zach every time he got in trouble w/ the law here in town.
I'm not giving Zach a pardon cause of this following or am I completely pointing a finger at the Hoops Family but I will say this, Portland is a happier and much more upbeat town with the new image Trailblazers and if it took moving Zach's 20 & 10 along w/ his possie than I'm ok w/ it.
New York probably will hardly notice Zach and his Hoops Family because it is a much different world. From what I've heard you can expect it out there.
Good luck Zach!
Actually Zach's band of thugs was every bit as bad as you read about. There's no revisionist history going on here, 99.9% of Portland is glad to see him gone.
Oh, also the Blazer's locker room is ten thousand times better than it has been at any point over the last ten years, and if you don't want to believe Canzano's column, there are a million other stories out there about the subject if you care to do some research.
Hey!
Great to see some props for Chuck Culpepper!
His literary style, as you aptly describe it, I think was befuddling to lots of The Oregonian's readers (who'd been numbed by years of Dwight Jaynes' garden-variety grumpiness) and there's no question that he didn't pay enough attention to the Blazers. But you could count on him for splendid creativity, psychological insight and writerly style.
the blazers WILL be better with zack gone...
but who they really need to dump is Canzano,
writes one bad article after another.
Ive never read someting by him thats journalism.
Zach's crew was that bad, but his presence in the locker room was probably the biggest reason he was moved, and because the offense had to wait for him constantly.
But I have to disagree on one point: Canzano is the WORST sports writer I've ever been subjected to. Constantly trying to create news instead of just reporting it.
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