What Will Be Remembered During Jody Allen’s Time Running The Trail Blazers? | Dirt & Sprague

What Will Be Remembered During Jody Allen’s Time Running The Trail Blazers? | Dirt & Sprague

There was a story that came out. It was pretty nondescript. Didn’t really have a lot of buzz to it, but it was released on the Sports Business Journal website and it’s about the most unusual pro sports owner going right now. Steve Balmer. He’s pretty unusual. Developers, developers, developers. A guy who actually pays to build his own stadium with his own money. It’s not Steve Balmer. Not Steve Balmer. Huh. Who is more interesting than Steve Balmer? Well, the most unusual. usual. My apologies. Pro sports owner, according to Sports Business Journal, is the profile piece they did on Jody Allen. Hey, hey, did they get her to sit down for an interview? No. Oh. Uh, they get everybody else in her orbit. Okay. Cold’s quoted in this. John Schneider, Mike McDonald, Dwayne Henkins. How many words have we heard Jody Allen say as the owner of the Blazers? Hi, Shaden. I remember. Hi, Shaden. Have we heard any other words spoken by Jod Allen in the last seven years? There is a thing in this. There’s a blurb in this and I I it’s a a little lengthy of a read, but uh there’s a blurb in here that says she doesn’t do customary things the way sports owners do. Paul even did it. She only does the small announcements for the team. And I went, “No, she doesn’t. I’ve never seen her in front of a mic ever.” like announcements internally like in their team offices. The writer makes it seem like she does some things once in a blue moon. I’m like, “No, she doesn’t.” No, I’ve never seen her out. Um, anyways, it goes through. It’s a little bit of a fluff piece in the gives her a ton of credit behind the scenes. basically the backstory to how she became working for Paul outside of just being the sister, his personality type and how she is, which is kind of opposite in many ways. How they did Vulcan and started that up and what she was responsible for. He’s basically the rich guy who used to just be like, you know, be cool if this happened. Yeah, you go make it happen. And then she would have to be like, okay. And she would just have to go make it happen. Go run errands for me. The Music Experience Center in Seattle by Climate Pledge is one of these examples. Um, he wanted to do this and this and he wanted to integrate sci-fi into it and she’s like, “That doesn’t sound like a good idea. That is not smart.” Anyway, it’s just interesting to kind of go through because one, she’s been the owner for the Blazers since Paul passed and like pseudo owner, right? Yes. It mentions assumed to be condition of any sale is keeping the Blazers in Portland. Okay, that’s a pretty big deal. I really wish they’d go public with that, but I understand that they’re not going to. Yeah, you lose leverage when you do that, but it would be nice to calm everybody down. It would be uh even though I’m like at a 1.2 out of a 10 worried they’re going to leave. And it’s just when we look back and she does and they officially sell this thing, it’s going to be the weirdest era debatably of Blazer basketball without a doubt. I mean, she took over. We never really knew who was calling it. Well, we did, but it was never publicly known who was calling the shots. Well, that’s the thing about this dirt that you would probably get a kick out of of John Schneider. Paul’s an idea person. She’s the decision maker. She’s the go-getter. Adam Silver. There wasn’t everybody in the room with us that was as nice and loud as she was. Certainly not Paul. I wish it was loud and nice in public so we could hear what her thoughts are on the state of the franchise that we all love and root for. But, you know, that’s I guess too much to ask to do a press conference once a year and answer questions about what the overall plan is for the franchise. So, if she is much more about action, is she the one that fired Pete Carol? Uh, so they do talk about that in here. They don’t describe it as that. They describe it as she invited Pete in and they had a lengthy conversation. We agreed to separate. We agreed to go both ways. She is the one that created the advisor position so he wouldn’t have to be completely removed from the organization. Nice guy. Ah, or what a nice gal I should say. John Schneider, quote, she was very much in tune what was going on with both teams and also very much behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, look, I I can’t I can’t wait for this process to play out. I tend to agree with you that the fear and the concern is very minimal. Like, it’s there. You can’t say it’s a zero, but it’s very close to zero for me. You got to figure out the arena stuff, and that’s not going to be easy, but it seems like everybody’s on board. the NBA doesn’t want to lose another team uh from the Northwest and the optics of moving them to Seattle would just be horrible for the league and not something that I think that they want to go through. Doesn’t mean they won’t use Seattle as leverage to get done what they need to get done in Portland. I just I am eagerly awaiting. I understand that there’s no guarantee that this ends up being a positive thing in the long run. Maybe you get one of these cheap bad owners that, you know, strips it down to parts and you’re never competitive. Maybe we get the Pirates owner that buys the team, right? Like I have no idea how that’s going to play out. there just been a general frustration for me for seven years of one never hearing her speak, never having to be held accountable to the fans or to the media. Um the decision process that she has gone through. I mean I think it’s weird to remember how long she’s been owner and what that era has looked like. Like it started with a Western Conference Finals appearance and then slowly fell apart from there to the point where she allowed Neil O’Shea to talk her into just firing Terry St and keeping the rest of the roster intact and starting three guards for a year with Damen Lillard with Norman Pal and CJ around him. Like I just to me there are things that an invested and knowledgeable owner would not have let fly. And I think Paul is one of those guys. Like the way that things crumbled in that Denver playoff series, the way that Paul used to choke chop GMs, I have a really hard time seeing Neil O’Shea surviving that, but we kicked the can down the road a couple of more years. And Paul messed up with the Pelican series. He absolutely should have. And he he got too trigger happy when he was firing GMs every four months. Like every owner is going to have their faults and their weaknesses, but he at least was made available. And I never questioned his desire to want to win. At least that was the one thing that I’ll always give him credit for. You know the thing about her talking and not talking like I don’t even know if I want her to talk. Is she going to say anything interesting? Largely these people don’t. No, it’s more about just like hey what’s the plan? What’s the I mean now it doesn’t matter cuz she’s selling the damn team and she’s going to be out of the picture. But there were moments there like when we were going through the process of trading Damen Lillard the franchise guy like where are you at on this? Well according to this report she was behind the scenes every day talking to Dwayne Henkins and Joe Cronin about hey let’s give him his wishes but let’s take the best deal possible. That was a big deal for her. According to the Sports Business Journal, uh the other part I always kind of enjoy, there certainly is no guarantee the next owner’s good in any regard. Matt Ishbia owns your team, think you get excited, and then you see how it’s rolled out so far and you go, “Dude, what’s going on here?” Uh, but what’s your fear? Is it like not going to the playoffs for four straight years, 36 wins being considered a good year? Because that’s currently what’s happening right now. Now I just find the fear-mongering of like, you know, the next one could be bad. I’m like, has this been good? What about this has been good? Please, somebody enlighten me. What about the last seven years has been good? I anything. That’s just that’s what I have. Seven years you lost in the Western Conference Finals, so you could tout that. That was the year she took over. That was the year that Paul died. I’m not giving her credit for that. After that, it’s two first round losses and no playoffs. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know what am I missing here? It’s It’s a very interesting Yeah. I I bat heads with Blazer fans on this a lot of just this idea that you’re better than like you don’t have anything to really stand on. The last seven years have been a disaster, one of the worst runs in the history of your franchise. And so yeah, the fear-mongering about it could be a worse owner. How could it be worse than this? Uh other than the team moving cities, which sure that would be the worst thing possible, but outside of that, I don’t think you can find worse than this. Well, so it also cold in the story says and we kind of know this anyway, but uh as soon as they sell the Blazers, Seahawks are right up on deck. Yeah, that’s that’s the next one up. Um so it’s interesting read just cuz you you know you find some stuff out about her, but my only takeaway is it’s a little bit of a fluff piece about her, but there’s some indications in it that kind of hint at selling and keeping the team in Portland, which would be an absolute positive. Not quite sure what the purpose is of writing this. I don’t really need to know anything more about Jod Allen now that she’s on the way out. From a sports business uh perspective, I think you would have to acknowledge and you’re you’re kind of a big sports business guy. It is the most unusual sports like Adam Silver has been in the NBA two decades prior to being the commissioner. He’s never seen anything set up like this. The estate, the trust, who runs it, the stipulations of selling, but not having exact firm dates of it. It’s a weird gray timeline. It’s it’s it is very I from the sports business aspect, I get it. It’s very unusual and unique to sports. I guess part of the problem for me is that I just never really viewed her as the owner of the team. And I know that’s not fair. She was the owner of the team, but knowing that she had to sell at some point. She’s the head of the estate and the estate is technically in the estate owns the team and she’s running the estate. And we’ve also known the entire time that she has to sell the team. So there’s just we’ve been in this weird spot where I don’t really consider her the owner. And I know it, but everybody touts her as everybody touts her as the owner. She’s doing all this great stuff. Everything’s wonderful behind the scenes. Supposed to be smart as uh what is the saying they say? Smart as attack behind the scenes according to this report. I don’t know. Biden was doing great going into the last election. Where am I? Somebody text that she’s getting the Biden treatment right now. Sharp as attack. It’s like, dude, that is so spot on. No, there’s Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. I don’t know what you guys are so worried about. Why is this such a big story? She’s brilliant, dude. She got all these projects done. He’s never been smarter than right now. Never been sharper than he is right now. Sorry, I’m sick. I’m old. God, he looks so old at that debate. Very old, man. He was very old, dude.

A new article in the Sports Business Journal profiles Jody Allen and how she came to lead the Portland Trail Blazers. What will her tenure be remembered by?

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