Anyone else remember those early-2000 Portland Trail Blazers teams who had players like Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells, Damon Stoudamire, Zach Randolph and a TON of other young stars? While they never won a title, they did develop quite the reputation, as the team became known as the “Jail Blazers” due to the crazy amounts of arrests they racked up while playing together—and, finally, they’re about to spill the beans on all the shit that went down.
According to Oregon Live, the story’s being put together by Wallace, Stoudamire and Wells, with NOTHING off-limits to talk about:
“We’ve convinced people who haven’t talked really about this before to partake in this,” Stoudamire said on Friday morning. “It will be the good and the bad… the bad arrest, players feuding with media, internal friction, we’re not gonna hold back.”
Stoudamire is aware that some might be uncomfortable with the project. He knows that it was a difficult time for the franchise, the city, and ownership.
“We’re not trying to tear the franchise down,” he said, “… we were a young team that ultimately had all the ingredients to be special… a lot of people to point the finger at during that time, but the bottom line is we just didn’t get it done…”
The project comes seven months after Stoudamire talked about how people in Portland treated those young teams unfairly, with this movie, hopefully, showing Oregonians that the team played hard every single night, despite all the arrests, per SB Nation:
Stoudamire feels Blazers fans hold players to too high a standard and need to “be able to forgive and forget.”
I’m like, man, ‘Why are you all on us like that when guys are human and guys make mistakes?’ Now, years later, marijuana is legalized in Portland. Oregon is one of those type of places.”
Just to refresh your memory, here’s a little sample of the shit that team got into, leading to the whole Jail Blazers mantra.
Shawn Kemp had issues with cocaine and alcohol abuse, ultimately going to rehab. Ruben Patterson inked a deal while going through a sexual assault case. Randolph was accused of sexually assaulting a stripper. Qyntel Woods got popped on animal abuse charges for dog fights and for pot posesseion. Wallace was suspended for threatening an official and for pot. Wells hit a ref, was suspended, and then cursed out his head coach, Maurice Cheeks.
There’s even more than just those transgressions, so I can’t wait to see what the movie has in store, because it’s going to be must-see TV.