When the NBA Rules Committee adopted its three-point play this summer, it didn’t pick the dimensions casually. Hobson had written several letters to NBA commissioner Larry O’Brien urging the NBA to adopt shorter distances.
Tag Archives: Portland Trail Blazers
Bill Walton: Appreciating Perfection, 1986
Fans mostly see results, which is why the Moses Malones and Artis Gilmores of the world appeal far more to the uneducated than to the aficionados. Coaches look at Bill Walton the way young actors look at Laurence Olivier. They don’t know whether to be more impressed by what he knows or what he intuits.
Otis Thorpe: Pure Power, 1995
You watch him on the court, and it can be like watching a machine. He doesn’t do everything. He never tries to do everything. But what Thorpe does, he does well. Filling the lanes on the break. Shooting the baby hook close to the basket. Rebounding and playing defense. No wasted motion.
Billy Ray Bates: Dunks & Downs of a Portland Legend, 1995
For all of the Bates’ mid-air poetry and last-second heroics, ultimately it was his endearing nature that made him a fan favorite and later a cult hero.
Jack Ramsay: On Clyde Drexler, 1994
Drexler, like the Energizer battery bunny, still is going . . . and going . . . and going.
Sacramento Kings: Run, NBA, Run, 1999
Their high-octane offense played at Concorde-like speed with laser-precision passing, conjured memories of 1980s hoops. It was Showtime on the West Coast all over again. Run. Pass. Shoot. At 78 rmps, it was, well, Magical.
Bill Walton Has a Long Way to Go, 1978
Walton sits in front of his dressing stall and stares down at the floor, treating his chronically aching feet with ice. Reporters surround him and lean forward to hear him speak. However, the words don’t come easily, and when they do come, they are few and far between.
Jerome Kersey: Diary of a Dunker, 1988
“I have two dunks that I really remember,” Kersey said. “Well, maybe four or five.”
Enjoying the NBA Action at Portland’s Paramount Theater, 1980
Other teams have broadcast games on closed-circuit theater TV, but only during the playoffs. The Blazers are the only team in the NBA, probably the only sports team in the world, to pipe every regular-season home game to a closed-circuit location.
Portland Trail Blazers: The Dismantling of Camelot, 1980
Jack Ramsay had always conditioned himself to take nothing for granted, never to live in the past, but he says he never dreamed it could be over so quickly.
From Way Downtown 