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Terry Stotts: The Right Man At The Right Time For The Right Job

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:01:00 -0800

Fit and timing are two key components in successful coaching and both are positives for Head Coach Terry Stotts.

Sometimes Life Can Be Like Play-By-Play

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:24:00 -0700

Brian Wheeler's incredible adoption story continues as he travels to Illinois to meet his birth family!

Mondays Will Never Be The Same

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:50:00 -0700

Wheels shares the touching story of finding his birth mother.

Wheels' Mock Draft

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:53:00 -0700

Well, my esteemed broadcast colleagues have thrown out some ideas about how they think the 1st round of the upcoming NBA draft will play out. Figured I might as well provide you with my mock draft out to be smarter, than the rest! So here we go with my mock draft for the 1st round. This is of course not taking into account any trades that could be made, and I have a feeling there are going to be a few. But for our purposes, we will assume every team is going to stay where they are right now. So with the first pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, I predict…

2012 NBA Draft By Position: Small Forwards

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:32:00 -0700

So I’ve been given the responsibility of taking a look at the small forwards that figure to get a serious look come draft day. As we know, if the Blazers bring back Nicolas Batum, this would certainly not be a position of need for them. But remember, sometimes teams will select players in the draft that will then be used in a trade. So if you see the Blazers select

Image Consultants Need Not Apply

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 08:06:00 -0700

There are a lot of folks in this country that make a pretty good living as an image consultant. Their job is to define the proper way for a person or a company to present itself. A lot of people enlist the help of an image consultant when they aren't quite sure how to best create a favorable response to who they are. In some cases, people have had to take on an entirely different persona to achieve what they desire. I'm guessing an image consultant wouldn't be needed with Kaleb Canales. For one, he's as genuine as they come. Two, he doesn't spend a lot of time worrying what other people think outside of his select group of family and friends. Three, he doesn't have to worry anyway as anyone who has come into contact with him for more than 5 minutes raves about what kind of person he is.

I've had the pleasure of knowing Kal

The New Kid In Town

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:11:00 -0800

One of the top classic rock bands of all time, The Eagles, had a big hit with the title of this article. A couple of key lines from the song can apply to the subject I cover here. “Great expectations, everybody’s watching you”. And “everybody loves you so don’t let them down”.

'What You Got'

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:42:00 -0800

On his “Walls and Bridges” album (yes, they were albums back then!), the late, great John Lennon had a song entitled, “What You Got”. Had a very telling line, “you don’t know what you got until you lose it.” John was referring to a lost romance, but I think the song aptly applies as well to the NBA.

A Wonderful Night at the David Heller Hoopfest

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:13:00 -0800

During the lockout, all of the Trail Blazers’ employees have had additional opportunities to do some good in the community. As we like to say, make it better. On Friday night, November 25th, I had one of those opportunities. I was thrilled to be a part of a very special evening at Central Catholic High School. A group of Adidas employees got together to play hoops against a group of Nike employees. A rivalry game to be sure, but all for a wonderful cause…to raise awareness and funds for teen athletic cardiac screening. The evening was put together by the David Heller Foundation. David was a star athlete at Central Catholic when he died in his sleep in 2005 at the tender age of 17 due to an enlarged heart. His heart condition was never diagnosed, and in fact, he had never shown any signs of a serious illness in his entire young life. His family decided David’s name would live on, and the foundation has worked tirelessly since his death to encourage young athletes to get screened for cardiac health. The re

Blogshakalaka Mock Draft

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:50:00 -0700

I know it seems like we say this every June, but this NBA draft would appear to not have a lot of franchise players available. It could be an extremely weak one. But if we’ve learned one thing about the draft, it’s this: It’s only fair to wait 2 or 3 years to really judge the talent in a draft, or lack thereof.

No Faking A Real Love Of Wrestling

Fri, 20 May 2011 14:19:00 -0700

What I was thinking about was the fact that the boxing PPV I had just watched was not that unusual. Many times I’ve regretted spending the money on a card that didn’t deliver, especially the main event that was the reason I bought the PPV in the first place. Yep, about the only time I seem to feel my money is well spent on a PPV is the monthly stipend I put down on a wrestling show. That’s right…wrestling!

Memories of 2010-2011

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

When you’re going through it, an NBA season can often be just a blur. Things happen so quickly and the games come fast and furious that you don’t usually have time to reflect on what’s happening. But when the season comes to an abrupt halt and there are no more games to look forward to, all the moments, good and bad, come into greater focus.

Comparing Portland To Dallas

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:40:00 -0700

One thing about NBA play-off series. As opposed to the regular season, there’s lot of time to analyze and over analyze each of every game of a best-of-seven. And many experts will chime in with their reasons why one team will win the series, and very often those opinions and predictions will differ. After all, everybody can’t be right. But rather than tell you how the Blazers will best defend Dirk Nowitzki, or how the Mavs are going to deal with LaMarcus Aldridge, I figured I’d break down some other aspects of Portland vs. Dallas, many in ways you hadn’t even considered.

A Deserving Hall-of-Fame Nod for Arvydas

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:44:00 -0700

He never made an All-Star Game as an NBA player. He was never a league MVP. He was never an All-NBA selection. Yet Arvydas Sabonis richly deserved the nod of being named recently to the Basketball Hall-of-Fame. By the time Sabas got to the NBA in 1995, he was nearly 31. He had already earned a gold and bronze medal at the Olympics with the Soviet Union

The Celebrity World of the NBA

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:58:00 -0700

After our game with the Lakers in Los Angeles recently, I stayed in town an extra day since we weren’t playing again for another couple of nights back home. I took a date to see a taping of “Lopez Tonight”, the nightly variety/talk show hosted by George Lopez. I’ve known George since 1996 when he was still touring the country on the comedy club

How I got to be a Blazer!

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:41:00 -0700

Last week I promised I’d tell the story of how I got the best job of my life, the radio play-by-play announcer of the Portland Trail Blazers. So here goes.

I had finished 2nd four times for full-time NBA radio play-by-play jobs. And sometimes, it wasn’t even something I could control, like the time I was the runner-up for the Toronto Raptors’

Early Broadcasting Influences

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:18:00 -0700

I know I must be getting at least a little old when I talk to some aspiring young broadcasters of tomorrow. Many of them say that I am their biggest influence in terms of what got them excited about pursuing a career in announcing. It’s flattering to say the least, and I always hope I can live up to such high praise.

Reminds me, though,

Chemistry key to Blazers’ success on and off the court

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:01:00 -0800

I must admit something. Though I was a B+ student in both high school and college, I never did well in the sciences. You know…biology and chemistry. In biology, I never felt right about dissecting those poor, helpless frogs just to learn some more about anatomy. And in chemistry, as much as I enjoyed mixing things up to create some kind of

Another reason why we’re lucky to live in Portland!

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:03:00 -0800

We traveled to Sacramento recently and things down there were very strange. First of all, Arco Arena is no more. The long-time home of the Kings is now called the Power Balance Pavilion. More strange than that, though, is the strong possibility that the Kings won’t be playing anywhere in Sacramento much longer.

A Star Studded Weekend In L.A.

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:00:00 -0800

So I spent All-Star weekend in Los Angeles, which just happened to be the city that was hosting the NBA All-Star Game. I had been to only one other such game during my time in the league.

A Head Coach that deserves some respect

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:18:00 -0800

The late, great comedian Rodney Dangerfield made a living basing his humor on a central theme when he’d tell his audience, “that’s the story of my life…I get no respect!”

In sports and life in general, usually respect has to be earned. But there are those who feel they are being cheated out of the respect they deserve.

Things I’ve been thinking about on an off-day!

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:27:00 -0800

Is it ever too early to start scoreboard watching? It's only February and we're not even at the Al-Star Break yet, and I find myself paying even closer attention to the nightly scores as they come in. Sometimes you're even forced to root for the Lakers if it means they could help out a team the Blazers are competing with for a play

Wesley Matthews: A Deserving All-Star

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:12:00 -0800

I confess that I didn’t know a whole lot about Wesley Matthews when the Blazers signed him to a free agent offer sheet over the summer. Oh, I knew that he had surprised a lot of people by not only making Utah’s roster as an undrafted free agent last season, but also cracking their rotation, and even stepping into a starting role when their regular players hurt.

Welcome to BlogShakaLaka

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:47:00 -0800

Welcome to the very first installment of my blog "BlogShakaLaka". I could never hope to compete with the writing excellence of my esteemed colleague and good friend, Mike Barrett, so I will only be blogging once a week. Truth is, I just