You may remember the Portland Jailblazers. Nutjobs, knuckleheads, ne'er do wells. A rogue's gallery of the poster boys for too much, too soon, an embarrassment of rich young men who left good sense and good standing at the door when they arrived to pick up a NBA pay-cheque.
Like Zach Randolph, who attracted trouble like Calum Best attracts blondes. Or Ruben Patterson, the registered sex offender who once absconded with a team-mate's luggage. Or Sebastian Telfair, who thought it would be OK to carry a gun on to a plane. Or Rasheed Wallace's threats to punch out journalists. Or … well, even on the internet there's only so much time and space.
Easy to forgive, hard to forget, they say. But the Portland Trailblazers are doing all they can to banish the memories of their infamous predecessors. Wins, not whining, full stat sheets, not filled-out rap sheets, lock-down defence rather than locked-up for offences, theirs is the feel-good story of the season so far. And, if karma can issue its own pardon, for many seasons yet to come.
You have a third-year All-Star in Brandon Roy, who has accepted the responsibility of leading with little fuss, using his voice to gently urge his colleagues to push themselves forward rather than tout for a mega-contract 18 months before it's due (take note, LeBron James).
You have LaMarcus Aldridge, swatting away the critics with 15.8 and 6.7 rebounds per game, selflessly giving up some of his numbers from last year to create space inside for the reinforcements.
You've the current favourite for Rookie of the Year. No, not Greg Oden. Rudy Fernandez, who has made a seamless transition from ACB to NBA as the latest off Spain's never-ending production line.
And then there's Oden himself, who after a season recovering from surgery, has already provided enough evidence to illustrate that the gamble on taking him first in the 2007 Draft may yet pay handsome dividends.
They even listen to their coach, Nate McMillan, when he preaches defence-first. "We drill it, we drill it, we drill it, we drill it, we drill it," he revealed. "Then we talk about it, we drill it, we talk about it, we drill it."
Most importantly, each, to a man, is a good guy. And that makes it even easier to root for them to advance.
Portland has always had rabid fans. Devoid of any other major league sport, the Rose Garden is the city's lone mecca and in the era of Clyde Drexler, when the Blazers twice went all the way to the Finals, there was nowhere better to be. Small cities value their successes more. And they savoured each and every win like it was a ladle of caviar.
When the joy was arrested, and more often than not subsequently charged, they stayed away. Now a team which is in possession of the fourth seed in the West (12-6), has the sixth-best defence, and who has five players in double-figure scoring, is winning hearts and minds anew. Last year, they won 41 games. This time, it's about shooting for 50. Sure, they may need an upgrade at point guard and a little more depth. Given that owner Paul Allen cashed in his Microsoft stock long before the market crashed, there should be no problem in acquiring suitable reinforcements.
I asked Roy midway through last season how he felt about having Oden pitch up, 12 months later than expected, to bolster what was already a promising crew. "He's sitting, he's learning, he's doing all he can to be ready," he said. "And let's see what happens when he gets out there with us."
All good, so far. And you can't help but hope the prognosis continues to be positive, that Oden does not suffer the ill-starred fate of prior Portland centres like Bill Walton and Arvydas Sabonis and see his potential limited by injury. That his team-mates don't get swayed by the bright lights or offers to move to warmer climes. That the cops have no cause for action.
Any opponent who's met them so far will attest to how good they already are. You can bet they'll remember the Trailblazers. So should you.
Offensive Rebounds
• Chatting this week with a good source of gossip within the NBA, there was much talk of the impact of the credit crunch. "A lot of teams are losing money." No shock there. But what solutions? "One of the things they'll look at is folding the WNBA," he speculated.
The NBA's problematic younger sister has never turned a profit in 13 years, and although many of its franchises are now independently-owned, it would seem an obvious target for economising. Coincidence or not, it was announced on Monday that the Houston Comets, its most successful team, is to disband after no one stepped forward to buy it once its previous owner withdrew.
Women's sport, on both sides of the Atlantic, gets a raw deal at the best of times. But it would a chronic shame if, in these tough times, the idyll of a women's league had become a bankrupt concept.
• British Basketball chiefs have warned that they may be forced to compete in next summer's Eurobasket finals without Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng, if their financial support is cut by UK Sport.
Without significant sponsorship or a television deal, the governing body was forced to draw down around £200,000 of next year's funding to pay the costs of insuring Deng for September's qualification matches. And its chairman, Bill McInnes, admits any funding reduction could put the NBA star beyond their reach in the future.
"The insurance we had to pay for Luol Deng this year was not to our liking. FIBA is reviewing that part of their agreement with the NBA," he said. "There's a meeting in January that will look at that separately because there are other countries than us who have suffered from the high premium. But it certainly caught us out this year and without funding, we'd struggle to pay that kind of sum again."
