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Tom Dundon’s black Nike hoodie read “Portland” across the front in sharp white letters and could be found in the Trail Blazers’ team store. Purchase price: $89. He settled into a baseline seat, next to Paul Allen’s decades-long perch, for a first look at the team that will officially become his in the coming months. Purchase price: 47.8 million sweatshirts, give or take a sleeve. The next owner of the Trail Blazers, pending the NBA’s approval of the $4.25 billion sale, has kept a low profile since being identified as the Allen estate’s preferred buyer on August 13. Two months later, however, there was no shying from the spotlight. He was front and just right of center, next to general manager Joe Cronin and Jody Allen, for the Blazers’ season-opening 118-114 loss to Minnesota. It’s only a matter of time before he slides over into Paul’s old seat. Metaphorically — or not. “Obviously things are going to change around here,” coach Chauncey Billups said. “I hope he liked what he seen.” What Dundon saw was a committed defensive team creating a litany of problems for one of the Western Conference’s top contenders. Stories by Bill Oram The historic Seattle Mariners took me back in time and made me feel closer to my dad | Bill Oram Portland’s first WNBA head coach is 30, British and just might change basketball forever Panda Express founders pushed to remain part of winning Blazers bid He saw the love Portland has for Damian Lillard, giving the prodigal star a standing ovation just for walking onto the court in street clothes. He saw Donovan Clingan reject a dunk attempt by Rudy Gobert. And Toumani Camara knock down a pair of early 3s He saw rookie Yang Hansen set a screen so solid that it made Timberwolves’ guard Donte DiVincenzo look like a water balloon that had been thrown against a windowpane. He saw newcomer Blake Wesley torment the Wolves’ guards with 94 feet of defense, becoming one of four players with two or more steals. He saw Camara and Matisse Thybulle and Jrue Holiday hound and harass when Billups turned to his small lineups. And Deni Avdija repeatedly get to the line and the basket through sheer determination. He saw Jerami Grant, bumped out of the starting rotation, play like a man on a mission and score 29 points. A mission to get traded elsewhere, perhaps, but a mission nonetheless. He saw a team insistent on having a defensive identity will that identity to life one dive, skid, collision and contested dunk after the next. If he saw all that, he might have left feeling a bit like opposing superstar Anthony Edwards, who after being hounded by the Blazers’ battery of defenders for nearly 40 minutes, said, “I’m not gonna lie, I love their team.” Despite ending in a loss, the opener was, consistently, something of a marvel, particularly for those who — unlike Dundon, we can assume — have had to bear witness to this franchise’s shortcomings and flat-out failures over the past several years. It was a relief to many not to have to see Deandre Ayton lumbering up and down the court. Perhaps the greatest win of Cronin’s managerial tenure. Billups said the Blazers played their butts off, and it would be hard to argue. He said they deserved to win, and for most of the evening, they were indeed the better team. “I just want to create an environment when if you do beat us,” Billups said, “you’re going to have to go earn it.” Dundon, who attended the game with Sheel Tyle, the Portland-based CEO of Collective Global and a member of Dundon’s proposed ownership group, watched as the youthful Blazers, full of vim and verve, bullied one of the Western Conference’s most experienced lineups for 3½ quarters, only to come up with no answer in the end for one of the game’s greatest scorers. Edwards’ 20-footer with seven seconds remaining pushed Minnesota’s lead to four and gave the All-NBA guard 41 points. It was the dagger after the Blazers had led by as many as eight points in the final period. And so what Dundon saw, in the end, was the reality of this Trail Blazers’ season, one that starts with him on the edge of the owner’s seat and is expected to end with him sitting in it. The Western Conference is stacked with championship-caliber teams. Wins will be hard to come by and there will be more that are in the Blazers grasp, only to slip away. But like Dundon’s nascent leadership of Portland’s franchise, this team is young and at the very beginning of something. And so while it could be overly kind to brush aside a loss in a season where every win will be precious if Portland is serious about making a run for the postseason, even just the play-in round, it was hard not to leave feeling encouraged about the Blazers. “I’m happy as heck,” Billups said, “about the way we played.” You might expect the Blazers’ head coach to say that on the night the lights finally came on. The greatest endorsement of his team’s performance came from the cramped visitors’ locker room. “If you come to play Portland,” Edwards told reporters, “there ain’t no more nights off. There ain’t no more gimme wins against Portland, man.” After the first game with 81 more to go, that much was clear. It’s surely what Dundon saw, too.
