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Time for good news before my beloved Portland Trailblazers take the court for the upcoming NBA season, their Rip City Reuse program with partner Bold Re-Use has now “officially kept over ONE MILLION single-use cups out of landfills.” That is also a lot of Oregon beer.
The new principal owner of the Portland Trail Blazers is Tom Dundon,the owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. Dundon leads a purchasing group that includes Marc Zahrof Blue Owl Capital.
The owner / investors also include the owners of Panda Inn and Panda Express. Score over 100 and get 1/2 off Orange Chicken?
From all reports Dundon is a good owner. You can fault Jody Allen all you want but for me the lack of active ownership was the biggest issue. It is akin to inheriting a home in a different state. Not living there full time can mean you miss things.
Of course, I can hear fans screaming that being too involved is an issue too and can leas to Ballmer sized problems and the Clippers having alleged under the table payments but I prefer the Cuban style on the sidelines at games model better.
And hopefully this might make for an infusion of cash. Splashier contracts done smartly might entice players who might have previously passed on Portland.
It is cause for hoop optimism in the Rose City as the WNBA returns to town as well.
Fresh hop. Pretty easy choice here. Fresh start for a team and a beer style synonymous to the PNW. The fresh hops are unmissable like a Avjdia drive to the basket. Other cities may not have near the quantity but if you search hard, most places have at least a few.
September when one turns away from Oktoberfest beers because it is now Christmas season according to all the stores and because all the Festbiers came out early in August and are now kaput. But it is also the time for…..
~ e-visits to (3) breweries from Baltimore
~ special featured reviews of a bevy of hoppy beers from the likes of Russian River and Stone
~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ A Book & A Beer reads some Stephen King
~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Hard Knocks
~ Sports & A Beer returns with the Portland Trailblazers have been sold!
~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.
Well this draft started for my beloved Portland Trailblazers, the day before the Flagg Festivities. For a team that was missing three point shooting and that needed to jettison some veteran players to allow runway for our younger players while needing to grow our pile of draft capital.
Oops, all that out the door to the Celtics for Jrue Holiday, whom we had traded to the Celtics as part of the Dame Deal. Oh and he has a new big, three year contract as well. The Blazers are now a very expensive team that barely missed the play-in tournament and are not a lock to be that close next year. All to pay Holiday for Championships won for the Bucks and Celtics.
Then on draft day they made up those second round picks plus a little by giving the 11th pick to Memphis for the 16th this year and a 2028 First Rounder plus two new Second Rounders. Then inexplicably they chose a consensus project in 20 year old Chinese center Hansen Yang. Nicknamed (optimistically) the Chinese Joker in a nod to Denver All-Star Nikola Jokic.
All this leads to possible future activity but in the aftermath for myself and Blazer fans, find the biggest baddest bitterest Triple IPA you can find and hope that this is leading to something better.
Before my beloved and frustrating Trailblazers went on a big 8-1 winning streak in January and February things were looking dire. They were sitting at 13-28 and had suffered some serious blowout losses. It was looking like yet another season of waving the white flag in the hopes of getting a shot at drafting Cooper Flagg.
But now things are looking better and with continued good play we just might be the top of the non-playoff tier in the Western Conference. The next progressive step would be playoffs next year.
To do that there are two things that I hope the organization and head coach Billups do to evolve the team like the logo above…
First, we do need to trim the roster a bit and hopefully acquire some additional long term draft picks. The Time Lord Robert Williams III could fetch some attention as could Jabari Walker and Matisse Thybulle and as good as Jerami Grant has been as a Blazer, he could garner us some picks as well. The roster reduction will provide a flight path for more minutes for Clingan, Scoot and Dalano Banton.
Second, solidify a rotation and send in waves of fresh players. Being able to bring players who have started like Scoot, Shaedon, Dalano and Clingan off the bench allows us less of a productivity drop off so I would kindly suggest doing hockey like shifts and just tire other teams out.
For beer, I would suggest locating a new brewery and buying a few of their beers in a can taster flight of sorts. Wild Parrot Brewing in East Pasadena springs to mind as does ISM Brewing in Long Beach.
Blazer Glassware is back and you can get Sharpe, Scoot or Clingan to hold a Portland beer in style. Or use them for cocktails or cider. Anything you put in the glass will be better than yet another rebuilding season of NBA basketball.
Part of the NBA pre-season for me is seeing who The Portland Trail Blazers have teamed up with for a Blazer beer. This time it is Rogue Ales & Spirits bringing out the Rip City IPA.
Gonna have to send my mom to one of the Rogue pubs to get me a can so that I can root on our youngsters as they hopefully take the first steps towards a future NBA title.
The first bit of business to unpack is that my beloved Blazers sent Malcom Brogdon, the 14th pick (which became ) and future picks (a first and a pair of seconds) to the Washington Wizards for 23 year old Deni Avdija. A tall shooting forward (yeah) coming off a real good year. This move is good in two ways as it lowers the wage bill and it frees up space for our large group of youngsters to get playing time as we essentially free up two roster spots.
Now with just one pick in the lottery, it was just a matter of who would fall to #7 and wasn’t a 6’9″ forward. That person was NCAA Champ and second UConn Husky off the board, Donovan Clingan. A 7’2″ center with a strong all around game that could be a real strong piece for the Blazers. Might be considered a safe pick but a good start.
The newly split draft continued on Thursday and Portland kicked the 34th pick down the road for future picks, then cashed out on the 40th pick and during the wild and confusing ride that was the 2nd round trade-a-thon, also cashed out on pick 52. I would have liked to see them pick up Jamal Shead from Houston or Cam Spencer from UConn for backcourt hustle but it was not to be and now we see if we can trim a few veteran players off so that all of our young-ins can get some court time.
I guess I will need to find a Connecticut beer for Clingan and Israeli beer for Avdija.
The 2023/2024 season starts, for me, with the Portland Trailblazers and our three S’s (Simons, Sharpe and Scoot) vs the Los Angeles Clippers.
The pre-season finished at 1-3 with the only W coming against a team from New Zealand but that was to be expected with only two returning starters and an average age of just shy of 24. But this season should be fun for a few reasons:
Yes, this is not a beer-centric post but for years, I have kinda dreaded watching the Blazers knowing that the balance wasn’t right no matter the effort but now I can sit back and look for progress with a session beer or maybe a Widmer Hefeweizen and enjoy without getting tense. Plus, who knows, maybe Portland breweries are already concocting beers with Blazer themes for this new team.
It is NBA season and time for this beer blogger to root for my Portland Trailblazers, and to do so effectively I will be turning to this new podcast, The Brief Case…
These are bite sized, under twenty minute podcasts from long time Blazer writer Holdahl. It is a nice behind the scenes soundbite from players alongside some betting information which is a bit incongruous to me. The episodes that I have listened to thankfully do not veer in the rush to analyze each game as a momentous occasion that troubles some sports podcasts.
To pair with this podcast, I would recommend alighting upon a favorite brewery to match with your favorite team. Choose a starting line-up of core beers, then find a bench of five more beers and taste through them all to re-acquaint yourself with why that brewery is your favorite.