Trail Post - A Portland Trail Blazers Blog

Teen Wolf has what many would call the greatest monologue of the last 25 years. Spoken as advice from Coach Finstock to young Scott Howard, he details his personal philosophy: “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.” These words have shaped nations and defined culture for a generation. Like the Constitution, they are a living document, and sometimes amendments are needed. With that, I introduce an addendum to the Creed of Finstock (COF).

“Never trust someone named after a snack food.”

Granted, this seems a bit hasty, however, let us not forget the spree of passed forged checks by Rollo Lauderdale. Nor can we expunge the image of Almond Joy Madoff after his ripping off charities. What of Snickers O’Flanagan? And finally, no Blazer fan can forget the numerous failings of Bonzi Wells.

This personification of sadness and defeat wasn’t always like that, though.  What wasn’t to love about the kid? He was named after the cravings his mom had when she was pregnant with him. Granted, this isn’t the best way to name a kid, as so many of us would be named Pickles, Ice Cream, or Taco Bell, but for our friend Gawen Wells, it worked perfectly. He arrived from Ball State as its all-time leader in a bunch of categories and was poised to be a stand-out.

My first experience with him was during the free scrimmage the Blazers through right before his rookie season. It was at Civic Stadium, before it was renovated into PGE Park, during that sad period where the Rockies were the only baseball to be found in the city. The chubby-cheeked guard immediately stood out with his athletic play and willingness to please. I picked him as my new favorite player. (My sister picked Antonio Harvey, a pick that was regrettable in the short term, but has paid dividends recently.) He didn’t see much time that year, but he finally broke through in sophomore campaign. I begged and begged for his jersey, until I finally got it for Christmas. I wore it proudly that first year, taking it to school with me to show how he was my favorite before anyone else. When I bought the new Everclear album, Art Alexakis was looking right back at me from the liner notes with his black number six on. Within a year, though, the luster of Bonzi, like that Everclear album, faded.

Bonzi became a marquee Jail Blazer. He would swear at the coach and get suspended. One time, he flipped off some Sixers fans and later rationalized it as “I black out sometimes.” Not too bad, I mean, I black out sometimes and moon the police horses, so I guess we’re even. In 2001, he teamed up with Erick Barkley to be charged with criminal trespass for not leaving a club downtown after a bar fight. One time, he threatened local beat reporter Jason Quick, saying “Don’t be surprised one day if you show up to practice with a steak over your eye.” Quick retorted that he would become a rich man if that happened. Bonzi simply replied, “I’m not dumb enough to do that myself. I’ll have my posse do it.”

One thing Bonzi was dumb enough to do himself, however, was to insult the entire Portland fan base in Sports Illustrated. I guess there was driving under the influence, too. And you know, the regular dispensing of racial slurs.

Still, he did his part to ingratiate himself to the Portland fans. Bonzi was instrumental in the creation of the first great Blazer song since Bust a Bucket; Can I Get a Headband.  It is Bonzi who has the franchise record for scoring in a playoff game, with his 45 point performance in the 2003 playoffs. Bonzi, along with Zach Randolph, led the team back from 3-0 against the Dallas Mavericks to force a Game 7, one of the only times that had happened in NBA history.  That Game 7 proved to be the last Blazers playoff game for half a decade.  In the end, though, he failed and the Blazers had had enough.

From here on, Bonzi bounces around the league, sucking the life from wherever he is and moves onto some other host.   In Memphis, he was unceremoniously cut out of the team like a tumor after his tantrums during the race for the playoffs. In Sacramento, he performed well, and found a friend in Ron Artest who even offered to cut his own salary in order to keep Wells. Bonzi, in a bold move against friendship, left. With the Rockets, he drifted in and out of practices and games, with words such as “overweight” and “lack of conditioning” thrown around. After one season, he was traded to New Orleans and soon afterward was cut, and has yet to be picked up again in the NBA.

Still, the man is paradoxically one of the most lazily motivated in the world. Because no one in America would take him, he took his act to China. There, he was a basketball god, averaging 34 points a game, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists. His undoing in this league? A 13-hour flight. He wasn’t motivated enough to come back from a break for the Chinese New Year at the end of the month. He reasoned, “Since I have been here it has been all business and I haven’t had any fun yet, so I am looking for some fun.”

So Bonzi’s back out there, looking for new and innovative ways to taint wherever he goes. He broke the rules of math by both being subtraction by addition and subtraction by subtraction. Maybe he’ll move across the supercontinent into Europe, to poison the Iberian peninsula. Like Keyser Soze, he shows up, creates turmoil, and then before you know it, he’s gone.

To Blazer fans, though, he’s a warning. He taught us that being good on the court is not enough. His jersey is still hanging in my closet, emanating its own aura of failure. I could take it down, and come up with some original way of disposing it, such as burning it in the torches in front of the Rose Garden, but it works better as a reminder. Character matters. You cannot insult the fans of your own team. The quality of the person matters. There were plenty of players who were treated worse than they deserved during this era. Bonzi, though, he got exactly what he deserved.

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