Yes, I head-bumped like Darius Miles when I received my high school diploma. Guess which wave of Blazer fans I came from.
When you ask a Blazer fan which team is their favorite, it’s almost always the ones they grew up with. Folks born in the before 1970 always identify with that championship team, you know, the one with the entire roster sanctified in the Rose Garden’s rafters. The next great wave was for the Gen-Xers, the people born right before or after the Walton years of domination. You find them idolizing Clyde Drexler and always wishing for another guy like Jerome Kersey that would finally make all of the pieces really fall together. (Kersey is that magical player that makes us Blazer fans expect magic from any second round pick; and I’m not innocent of this either. I can definitely remember uttering the phrase “Erick Barkley is going to be a beast in the NBA,” as if Seton Hall was an NCAA Goliath.) I remember the great title runs of these years, and my dad buying me a t-shirt that read “Real Kids Wear Black” but I didn’t understand them, nor what they meant to us.
We children of the mid to late 80s had our own representatives, they were the logical result of what would happen if you took a bunch of kids from the inner city, put them in the whitest city in America, gave them more money than they knew what to do with, and told them they had that money guaranteed for the next 4-5 years, as long as they won at least 40 games in a weak Western Conference. This team of mercenaries was like the no-money-down loans causing the economic collapse; someone should have noticed what was happening, but Jesus Christ, I got a free house and Rod Strickland’s putting up 17 and 9!
This team became the national laughingstock known as the Portland Jailblazers. In some strange irony, because the team had so much trouble with the law, each new charge just became more and more funny no matter how serious they were. Hell, dog-fighting was just an “Aww” worthy offense, but when Michael Vick did it, it was like someone at set bombs off simultaneously in Atlanta and Bristol. This is how bad the team was - no one cared when a dude was murdering dogs. Take that Cincinnati Bengals!
This generation (and it was a generation, lasting for at least ten years by my count) defined basketball in Portland during the dot-com era. It squandered the good will of an entire city, and almost killed basketball here, and made it so “Rip City” was a term to be explained (even if I still don’t exactly know what it means, does it refer to the city of Portland? The way the ball goes through the net? I’d love an answer about it). Then again, this team WON. No matter what happened off the court, they always got to the playoffs, and gave us a show as they were once again finished off by the Lakers in 4-6 games. For that, they deserve some respect.
They defined how to play basketball for every one of us growing up in the suburbs here in Portland, Oregon. Sure, you wanted to play like Mike or that boy scout Grant Hill, but every night we kept on seeing Rasheed Wallace and hearing his whoops and profanities when the game wasn’t blacked out or on Blazer Vision. A high school rec game in Beaverton in the early part of the aughts was one of Stoudamires vs. Wallaces vs. Pattersons vs. Sabonii.
Anyway, I figure it’s time to give the Jail Blazers their just due. This will be a retrospective on certain individual players through the era, and I will, more than anything, try to be less libelous than most other pieces of media. These were flawed people that defined a city, whether the city liked the definition or not.
Arguably, the beginning of this era is defined by a few people. The first definition is the end of the vaunted Drexler-Porter era (and the end of Portland Trailblazer domination in NBA Jam: TE). By the 1995-1996 season, both players were long gone, and one was winning the championships he deserved to have. My definition is the arrival of Rodney Strickland, the catalyst for the entire Jail Blazer era.
Strickland came to Portland as a free agent, after playing for both the Knicks and the Spurs, with varying success, even sitting out part of one of the seasons due to a contract dispute. It was through free agency that Strickland arrived on Portland’s doorstep. He became the first Blazer in Portland to pioneer the Jail Blazer image. Sure, there were other players in the team’s past who doubtlessly experimented with marijuana such as Cliff Robinson or Bill Walton, but damn it, they were good, and they were winners. Rod Strickland was not a winner. He had his run-ins with the Portland Police Department, and he was chewed up by the Oregonian. He was the model for the Jailblazer team, even if the era didn’t hit full steam until after he left. The players were defined by their enormous natural talent, their inability to play to their abilities, and how hard the local media rode them about that. Strickland was a prototype. After a few seasons he was shipped off for the ringleader of the movement, Rasheed Wallace.
However, Rod’s Jailblazerness followed him around afterwards. He received three DUIs throughout his career, which is three more than the amount of All Star Games he played in. He had a few assault arrests, and also an indecent exposure charge. And according to the Washington City Paper, “best of all, [Strickland had] an indictment for allegedly KO’ing a waitress in the parking lot of a T.G.I. Friday’s in Bowie.”
There’s also the classic Mr. Defiance story about Strickland from columnist and PTI shouting head Michael Wilbon taken from a Washington Post chat:
Al - D.C.: We’d all be remiss if we didn’t remember Rod Strickland puking up hot dogs during Bullets games.
Michael Wilbon: Yes, and that would often happen on the bench, after Rod ate hot dogs from the press room, sometimes with reporters. This is an actual conversation from a Rod Strickland hot dog grab one night.
Reporter: Rod, you can’t eat that. You’ll get sick and throw up!
Rod: I know. Won’t be the first time…or the last…Can you slide me that mustard?
Anyway, Rod has finally turned over that leaf and became the director of Student-Athlete development at Memphis. During his tenure there, the team has gone 71-6 and reached the Elite 8 and the NCAA championship game. Back in September, Strickland was promoted to be the university’s director of basketball operations.
Strickland’s proof that you can transcend the Jailblazers and become a decent and successful human being. It won’t be the first time…or the last. (Can you pass me that mustard?)
