1983-84 Portland Trailblazers PreSeason Presser
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:12 pm
The cat sits dourly, fidgeting in his chair while the Portland PR staff hands out brownies and milk cartons to the assembled reporters. After giving the reporters perhaps a few minutes more to enjoy the brownies than he should have, the cat slowly rises and leaps onto the podium.
"What a waste of a season. As you all know, the goal here is championship or bust. And we busted. Again. Didn't even make the Conference Finals. Swept in embarrassing fashion. Of course I'm not at all happy."
The cat flicks on an overhead projector and an enormous likeness of Dan Roundfield appears on the screen behind him.
"Yes, that was on the bench in Game 2 last year. The Game when we got annihilated by 46 points. What do you notice about this picture? Dan is laughing. LAUGHING! Dan, you had almost as many turnovers (4) as points (5). We got Dan assuming he was the missing piece. What we discovered was that he wasn't an integral part of the Nuggets' championship, he was a sawft player that ran from the ball most of the game but wanted the final shot for the glory."
The cat winces, then chucks a notecard over his head. "How did Darth's notes about Tyrese Haliburton get in here?"
He continues, "anyway, the punch line is we thought bringing in Roundfield might give us a puncher's chance against the Warriors' Parish-Malone combination. Joke's on us. We never made it to that combination and it turns out the Kings' trio knocked them out as well as us. So now we have to pivot to find ways to beat the Kings. Roundfield was expendable."
"We're going to continue to be an egoless team. The only room we have for egos is here in the GM's suite. This is going to be another season where we follow our plan and hopefully get another crack at the title. We lost Dan Roundfield in Free Agency. This was expected, we knew someone else would pay him the max and we didn't think he was worth that. The fact that Danny Boy went to the HAWKS tells you everything you need to know about what kind of a player he is. Stat-stuffer. Not a winner."
"We took some swings on Day 1 at Free Agents. Bill Cartwright came back, which we're thrilled with. He's been a rock for us since we acquired him. We grabbed Eddie L. Johnson and were a little bit surprised to get John Drew. Johnson was an attempt specifically to weaken the Warriors, we don't think he fits our timeline here and will be happy to move him to any team interested in giving us something good for him. Drew is a player that I think is miscast as a starter but we'll be happy to use him off the bench here. Losing David Thompson to the Warriors hurt. I wouldn't have traded Johnson for Thompson straight up, but the Warriors, I think, panicked and overpaid David. We wanted David back, but not at that price."
"With David gone, though, it's time for Lester Conner to step up. We've been grooming him to step into the starting point guard role for a while now, and he'll give us a different energy than David did. One of our sore spots the past few years has been turnovers; while Lester doesn't have David's scoring acumen, he's a much more careful distributor and while I don't think we're going to cut our turnovers out entirely, I'm looking forward to not turning the ball over 5 times in a row at the end of a close playoff game."
"To those asking about our rookie draft pick, Thurl, we're going to take pretty much the same tack we've taken with our last few rookies (except Worthy)... give him a year or two to season on the bench and learn the Blazer way."
"I do expect we'll take a step back this year without Roundfield and Thompson, but I also believe we have the pieces in place to step up and continue our winning ways. Are we the favorites in the West? No. That's still the Kings and the Warriors. Can we make them sweat? I think so."
"What a waste of a season. As you all know, the goal here is championship or bust. And we busted. Again. Didn't even make the Conference Finals. Swept in embarrassing fashion. Of course I'm not at all happy."
The cat flicks on an overhead projector and an enormous likeness of Dan Roundfield appears on the screen behind him.
"Yes, that was on the bench in Game 2 last year. The Game when we got annihilated by 46 points. What do you notice about this picture? Dan is laughing. LAUGHING! Dan, you had almost as many turnovers (4) as points (5). We got Dan assuming he was the missing piece. What we discovered was that he wasn't an integral part of the Nuggets' championship, he was a sawft player that ran from the ball most of the game but wanted the final shot for the glory."
The cat winces, then chucks a notecard over his head. "How did Darth's notes about Tyrese Haliburton get in here?"
He continues, "anyway, the punch line is we thought bringing in Roundfield might give us a puncher's chance against the Warriors' Parish-Malone combination. Joke's on us. We never made it to that combination and it turns out the Kings' trio knocked them out as well as us. So now we have to pivot to find ways to beat the Kings. Roundfield was expendable."
"We're going to continue to be an egoless team. The only room we have for egos is here in the GM's suite. This is going to be another season where we follow our plan and hopefully get another crack at the title. We lost Dan Roundfield in Free Agency. This was expected, we knew someone else would pay him the max and we didn't think he was worth that. The fact that Danny Boy went to the HAWKS tells you everything you need to know about what kind of a player he is. Stat-stuffer. Not a winner."
"We took some swings on Day 1 at Free Agents. Bill Cartwright came back, which we're thrilled with. He's been a rock for us since we acquired him. We grabbed Eddie L. Johnson and were a little bit surprised to get John Drew. Johnson was an attempt specifically to weaken the Warriors, we don't think he fits our timeline here and will be happy to move him to any team interested in giving us something good for him. Drew is a player that I think is miscast as a starter but we'll be happy to use him off the bench here. Losing David Thompson to the Warriors hurt. I wouldn't have traded Johnson for Thompson straight up, but the Warriors, I think, panicked and overpaid David. We wanted David back, but not at that price."
"With David gone, though, it's time for Lester Conner to step up. We've been grooming him to step into the starting point guard role for a while now, and he'll give us a different energy than David did. One of our sore spots the past few years has been turnovers; while Lester doesn't have David's scoring acumen, he's a much more careful distributor and while I don't think we're going to cut our turnovers out entirely, I'm looking forward to not turning the ball over 5 times in a row at the end of a close playoff game."
"To those asking about our rookie draft pick, Thurl, we're going to take pretty much the same tack we've taken with our last few rookies (except Worthy)... give him a year or two to season on the bench and learn the Blazer way."
"I do expect we'll take a step back this year without Roundfield and Thompson, but I also believe we have the pieces in place to step up and continue our winning ways. Are we the favorites in the West? No. That's still the Kings and the Warriors. Can we make them sweat? I think so."