PREMIUMIZATION BLAZERS DEBUT

Premiumization Blazers are who we see play after the Lillard Era ends.

Has it ended?

After last night’s Summer League game it sure looks done.

And now?

Now we see why it ended when your Premiumization Blazers drafted Scoot Henderson.

Bitter Blazer fans saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Then the light went dark in the third quarter.

Scoot went out with a sore shoulder and didn’t return to the game.

What happened next? Shaedon Sharpe stepped up, just not near enough to close out the game on a final second desperation shot from a spent Rocket.

That went in.

The last second winners gave the Lillard wave on the way out.

But don’t worry, this won’t be the standard for the Premiumization Blazers delivering value beyond cost.

Or will it?

Team Turmoil Turned Over

Who doesn’t want to feel their favorite team is so much better than they look?

Everyone cheers for the underdog, the dark horse, the over achiever.

Damian Lillard is all of those, was all of those, for eleven years.

Older folks see eleven years and think, “I could do eleven years on one foot.”

To younger folks eleven years sounds like a lifetime.

What’s it feel like to remember 1977 and Bill Walton and the parade up Broadway?

Or Clyde Drexler’s finals teams in 1990 and 1992?

Lillard tried to join the small group who took their teams to the finals.

The Western Conference Finals were as far as he got.

Now he’ll piggyback on another team to the finals if they get there.

Or he could be their season savior.

The Lillard Difference On Premiumization Blazers

Damian Lillard has gone through things before.

“Growing up in Oakland,” Lillard said, “you see a rapper, you see a basketball player, a football player, but it was never like, ‘I’m going to get a college degree. That was never the talk. So that wasn’t something that I said I’m going to go out and do.

“As I’ve gotten older, it’s become something that’s important to me. Why go to school for four years and soak up everything that I soaked up in that experience, and then not finish it, not get the ultimate goal and walk across that stage? So it’s exciting. I’m happy that I actually went through with it and finished.”

With Blazer ownership facing an uncertain future and ignoring Phil Knight, along with coaching and general manager changes, the writing was on the backboard.

Ownership brought in a new crew of professionals who need to learn the correct way to suck up to them.

But they probably won’t need to fly around the world for a job interview on a yacht.

They will say the right things to the right people, like those who pay their freight, and give the rest of us their best song and dance.

Lillard sang. He danced. He joined Oregon life instead of being a frightened recluse living behind locked gates between games and practice.

During his time here he showed the rest of the NBA how to join a community.

Which of the new guys will pick up where he left off?

Who’s going to show them how Portland fits in Oregon and how Oregon fits them.

It won’t be Isaiah Rider.