Parker

Regular dude in Portland. Classical liberalism, music, woodworking, guitars, Blazers, Mariners, comedy...

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

More Blazers BS:

I say this as a person who firmly believes that the NBA is a failed league with a subpar product. Personally, if I could snap my magic fingers, I would dump the NBA and bring in the MLB, but that’s just my personal opinion. I’d rather travel to LA or San Francisco or Seattle to see a game than sit in a crumbling facility in Portland to watch a mediocre product.

The socialists, most of whom moved here within the last decade from parts of the country that didn’t appreciate their wackiness and have no concept of Blazers' history, will tell you this is about the “B word” – billionaires.

It is not. This is about the identity of the city. The Blazers ARE Portland. Even though I didn’t live here at the time, I still remember the ’77 Championship. I still remember that horrible June day in 2000 when the Blazers blew a seemingly insurmountable 4th quarter lead against the hated Lakers in the 7th game in the semi-finals, which if they had won, they would have undoubtedly crushed a far less-talented Indiana Pacers team in the finals.

This isn’t about “the money.” Portland dumps 3 quarters of a billion dollars every year towards increasingly failed homelessness policies without blinking an eye, and without a single complaint from city or county councilors. The city’s $8.5 billion annual budget is 2 to 4 times higher than many other cities of similar size in this country.

This is about Portland’s increasingly anti-business morons who run the city.

Speaking of morons, a week ago, delusional Mayor Keith Wilson excitedly sent a ridiculous term sheet to Blazers ownership that would supposedly establish a framework to renovate the Moda Center.

In the proposal, the mayor suggested a 250% increase in the taxes that the Blazers would pay to city to use the facility (which would increase yearly). It also demanded the use of union workers, which with their PLA’s (union Project Labor Agreements) would demand much higher wages and much higher numbers of workers in anything involved in projects around the Moda remodel – which will drive up costs exponentially.

$600 million? Try $1.5 billion.

As expected, Blazer ownership announced the terms of the term sheet were a “nonstarter.”

Now, county commissioners Brim-Edwards (who originally ran as a moderate but is now siding with radical left-wingers in her attempt to grab the county chair position) and Moyer have announced their intention to pull a third of their $88 million commitment to the facility’s renovation.

It is now reported that negotiations between the city and the franchise are at an all-time low. In the meantime, there are multiple cities chomping at the bit to bring an NBA franchise in with open arms. If there is one thing you can count on with this city’s leadership, from its mayor, to its city and county councilors, to its bureaucracy, is to royally f things up. At this point, it seems losing the franchise is more likely than retaining it.

Portland simply can’t stand any more loss. Losing the Blazers would be catastrophic to this city, no matter what you feel about the current ownership.

But don’t worry. The morons who got us into this mess are gonna figure out a way out of it.

Or so they say.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@SleeperBlazers Annoying.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@ArcainiLuke 🤢

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@blazerwagon Love this lineup!

[The Conservative Alternative @OldeWorldOrder]

THOMAS JEFFERSON: "To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens would be nothing less than to admit the Trojan horse into the citadel of our liberty & sovereignty."

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@LibertyPDX1 Kornblatt’s Deli, Skyline Tavern, Hawthorne Eagles Lodge.

[Switch @IISwitchII]

There were 14 players to do the following in the first half: ≥ 250 PA, ≥ 15 HR, ≥ 144 wRC+

13 were named an All-Star. One was not.
The one exception is Dominic Canzone.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@loyalmoses God damn that is gay!

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@BlazeEnthusiast Hopefully Scoot can be in the Bucket/Stop zone with Jrue. He certainly has the tools and strength to guard 1-3.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@BlazersArgento @BlazerFreeman And by “wherever”? … we’ll see how Cronin takes that.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@SleeperBlazers Shae Shae!!

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@SleeperBlazers Me too, I wish it was Jrue and Kris for Ja.

[Woden The Wanderer @WodenWanderer]

We have dragged a race with Stone Age genetics into the modern world.

Instead of acknowledging this reality, we’ve tried to Stone Age proof the modern world.

[Parker @EnergyWarning]

@SleeperBlazers Trey Murphy, Peyton Watson, PJ Washington are my favorite targets. Then Rui.

[David Santa Carla 🦇 @TheOnlyDSC]

If you think about it, these pictures are the same.

[Evan Sidery @esidery]

Robert Williams signed a three-year, $44 million extension with the Trail Blazers, per @ShamsCharania.

Portland now has Donovan Clingan, Yang Hansen and Williams at center to go along with five starting-quality guards after trading for Ja Morant.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

The reason Blazer owner Tom Dundon is probably looking to move the team isn't just because of the issues around the Moda Center.

Dundon is not a bad sports owner. His NHL team, the Carolina Hurricanes, won the NHL championship a couple weeks ago under his ownership and the Hurricanes are one of the biggest economic success stories in the NHL.

The main reason Dundon is probably going to move the team is due to his economic plans around the Trailblazer's franchise. His plans echo what the Atlanta Braves have accomplished in the MLB with their The Battery Atlanta district, in which Braves' ownership LIberty Media developed a highly successful mixed-use district of restaurants, offices, apartments, hotels, and other entertainment venues around Truist Park. The development of the battery has increased the team's revenue by approximately 25% in just three years, making the Braves' revenue the 5th highest in the MLB, although Atlanta is a mid-market team. Dundon has already begun this process in Charlotte, with a commitment to private development of 80 acres surrounding the Lenovo Center. Unfortunately, Portland's private development has completely tanked since 2019, falling between 65-70% across the board. It was also recently named 80th out of 81 US urban municipalities in development desirability.

Development around the Moda Center has been attempted in Portland before and it failed...miserably. Also, the city leadership would rather cap the highway around the Moda Center and build the Albina Vision Trust, an affordable housing development. As anyone with even a remedial understanding of economics can figure, affordable housing developments are never an economic engine. As a matter of fact, they tend to significantly economically devalue a neighborhood.

Portland's business taxes are too high and its economy is at the bottom of all large US cities. One only has to look at the example of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Portland to see that any large development in the city core would be highly risky and fool-hardy by anyone considering it. The Ritz-Carlton went into insolvency within 16 months of opening, although it still operates as a hotel with residences. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these luxury residences have failed to sell, even after dropping sales listings by around 50%.

In his interview yesterday, Dundon mentioned Portland's exorbitant tax rates and said this about city, county, and state leadership:

“Just in general, you want to create an environment of growth and competition and innovation, and that’s the job."

It has been very obvious from the city council's DSA contingent all the way up to the governor, that ideas of the city's growth, competition, and innovation are the furthest things from their collectivist minds.