It's inept business and cynicism that drive this wreck

Oregonlive ^ | Sunday, February 26, 2006 | Steve Duin

[DuckFan4ever]

T he Trail Blazers are begging for charity and threatening to leave? You can't be serious! You mean, they're still here?

As a Portland institution, a point of pride, a civic treasure, the Blazers disappeared a long time ago. All that remains is a nasty little vaudeville act, stumbling about a half-empty arena, insulting our intelligence and posing as street-corner vagrants who need a curbside handout to get through the night.

As a sports franchise, the Blazers are merely passive underachievers. As a business operation, this gang is breaking new ground in terms of cynicism and audacity.

In the space of two years, they've moved from one of the stupidest decisions in the history of sports management -- handing over the keys to, and the auxiliary revenue from, the Rose Garden -- to the silliest ploy in the history of local politics.

Although the team is owned by Paul Allen, the world's seventh-richest man and the owner of the world's largest yacht, the Blazers are in dire need of public assistance, team President Steve Patterson announced. "All successful sports franchises have involvement by . . . the community at large," he said.

The utter cynicism of this development can't be exaggerated. In a town known for its death grip on losing propositions, like full-service gas and an antiquated school-funding system, there is no limit to the patience of the thinned herd of Blazer fans. There is no limit to their devotion or their optimism that the franchise can survive Allen and Patterson.

But there clearly is a limit to state and city welfare payments. Schools are strapped. State cops patrol without backup. There isn't a spare dime available for baseball, much less a Seattle billionaire. The Blazers know that, yet they are now peddling the notion that they can't survive, and may well move on, without a public bailout.

Help me, Steve: Which number is blackmail on the ol' 25-point fan pledge?

Wall Street figured out long ago that Allen is an erratic businessman, one seemingly bent on squandering his Microsoft fortune even as Bill Gates gives his away.

Allen and his advisers certainly know how to take things apart. Faced with a massive fan revolt, they ripped asunder a talented but sullen roster, shipping out the malcontents with little concern for what they got back in return.

But these guys don't have the sense God gave a goose when it comes to assembling a championship-caliber squad. As John Canzano, my intrepid colleague in sports, noted before the 2005 NBA draft, Wake Forest's Chris Paul was the obvious choice with the Blazers' No. 3 pick.

Allen, Patterson and general manager John Nash knew better. Eight months later, Paul is a shoo-in for rookie of the year, one of the league's top 16 players statistically and the cornerstone of a New Orleans franchise that would be lost without him. The Blazers are 18-35 and drawing flies in an empty barn.

Fate and the NBA lottery gift-wrapped this perennial all-star and set him on the Blazers' doorstep. The Paul Allen management team kicked Chris Paul to the curb, setting this truth in stone: They are incapable of fixing what ails them. Opportunity can't knock loudly enough. The team's most savage wounds are self-inflicted.

That brings us back to the Rose Garden. Two years ago, Allen could afford to pay off the building's $193 million mortgage at least 100 times over, thus claiming permanent control of the revenue from luxury suites, courtside seats, concessions and parking.

Instead, Allen's holding company filed for bankruptcy. Asked at the time why Allen refused to make his mortgage payments, Patterson said, "Why should he?" Why should he, indeed, when he was deluded into thinking he would be able to buy the building back for 50 cents on the dollar.

Not even close. In the business world, those miscalculations happen; in Paul Allen's world, they're the rule, not the exception. In this billionaire's world, an imbecilic business move is just another excuse to plead poverty, a pathetic turn that succeeded only in eroding the last bit of sympathy this town retained for the management team.

I don't claim to know what the future holds for this franchise. I haven't lined up the dominoes that need to fall before this team and this town are in a position to renew their vows. But in their outrageous and cynical demand for public assistance, Paul Allen and Steve Patterson made this abundantly clear:

In the coming war over the fate of the Trail Blazers, they're the mercenaries on the other side.

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com www.oregonlive.com/weblogs/papertrail

[DuckFan4ever]

Steve Duin lays it hard on Paul Allen and Co. It's about time someone did.