You'd think the Blazers won the lottery or something

Portland Trail Blazer fans are shooting their wad in their undies tonight because the Blazers will have the first pick in the NBA draft. I'm definitely not as excited as the screaming ninnies I saw on the 11 o'clock news.

The station I was watching (I think it was channel 6 but, who knows) completely ignored the fact that the last time the Blazers had a top pick, it was the Stumptown sports bungle of the 20th century. Back in 1984 when Portland had the No. 2 pick in the draft they left a guy named Michael Jordan on the drafting table to pick Sam Bowie. Remember Sam Bowie? Not surprising. He didn't have much of a career after college. As for Jordan, he led the Chicago Bulls to something like a bajillion NBA title.

The Blazers' front office, though staffed with a different set of yokels now than it was 23 years ago, still have to prove they won't step on their dick and grind it into the ground before I will give more than have a shit about their draft pick or their team again.

I wasn't much of a Blazer fan as a young man, not until a roommate after college got me hooked on watching Portland play. Until he moved in I didn't even know I had what was then called "Blazer Cable." But Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams won me over (I never did really warm up to Kevin Duckworth though). And I wasn't a fan back in the championship season of 1977 in no small part because the TV we got in our house in Bumfuck Egypt came from Washington state, and they had the Sonics after all.

And in college, call me a traitor, but I followed the L.A. Lakers as much as anyone else, because a guy I got to see play in college, A.C. Green, was the Lakers' iron man off the bench.

I'd be happy to see the Blazers return to winning form. I'd love to see the Rose City become, as former Blazer broadcaster Bill Schonely would say, Rip City once again. But first the Blazers have to keep from fucking up the pick. Then their pick needs to contribute to something better than this season's 32-50 record. A winning season might be night. A playoff berth perhaps. Maybe even a playoff series win.

Would that be too much to ask? From the modern-era Blazers, it just may be.