Danny O’Neil throws shade at Trailblazers fans: ‘We don’t want your team’
Jun 20, 2016, 9:30 AM | Updated: 2:49 pm
UW alumni and former Trailblazer Brandon Roy is among the common basketball threads between Seattle and Portland. (Jessamyn McIntyre, 710 ESPN Seattle)
(Jessamyn McIntyre, 710 ESPN Seattle)
It may be the first day of summer, but Portland basketball fans are worried that winter is coming.
Former long-time Sonics play-by-play broadcaster Kevin Calabro is the newest Portland Trailblazer and it has some Portland basketball fans fearing a Seattle mutiny on their NBA throne.
Oregonian columnist John Canzano sparked the conversation Saturday night by noting all the ties in Trailblazers ownership to Seattle. It starts, of course, with Blazers owner Paul Allen, the Seattle native who also owns the Seahawks, and trickles down to other “curious” green-and-yellow hued moves, such as Allen bringing in former coaches and players with Washington ties to the team over the years.
710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny O’Neil tried to assuage Rose City residents during Seattle’s Morning News on Monday — in the way only a big brother can.
“Little brothers everywhere can sympathize with the sort of paranoia that’s going on in Portland,” he said. “Think about if your older brother decided that he wanted something of yours, how insecure you’d get. You can’t expect a lot of sophistication from a state where they don’t allow their citizens or trust their citizens to pump their own gas. So we should sort of spell it out: We don’t want your team.”
Related: Voice of Sonics: Seattle council decision sets back NBA 60 months
O’Neil explained that Seattle sports fans do profoundly miss the NBA in Emerald City because the Sonics were hijacked to Oklahoma City, but that they aren’t willing to stoop that low.
Why?
“Because it would be weird to take something like that from your next door neighbor,” O’Neil said. “It would be exceptionally strange. It’s kind of like stealing your best friend’s girl. It does happen and that doesn’t mean it’s right.”
O’Neil said Allen has been nothing but loyal to both Seattle and Portland. He has advice for nervous Portland fans.
“Instead of worrying about whether or not this means the Blazers should leave, all the pinheads in Oregon should realize they just got the best play-by-play announcer in the NBA,” he said. “And if Paul Allen was so hell bent on getting that team to Portland, why was he one of two owners to vote against the Sonics leaving – he and Mark Cuban were the only ones to do that – and he voted for the Kings relocating to Seattle. So if this was his long-term play, there is no way he would do this.”
So what is the next best bet for an NBA team?
“I think it is Khaleesi off of Game of Thrones. When she takes over the world,” he said. “We are a long way away from an NBA team. We’re closer to the NHL than the NBA.”
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