Deep in the bowels of the Rose Garden
Lays a mausoleum, a skeleton-less, mummy-free catacomb
Where memories and dreams are Laid to rest Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Brandon Roy, Greg Oden
Their starched jerseys stretched across the walls in black, red and white, permanent defiance
Paul Allen and the sons and daughters of Portland weep when they remember
Clyde and Rick Adelman and Jack Ramsey are helpless to ease their pain
But what if hope landed in PDX in a
Lithe, lean, young point guard from Oakland
What if he was stolen out from under the inquisitive eyes of the analysts, the
Noses of the scouts who know
Talent when they see it
A sequence of events as fruitfully unexpected as prior tragedies had been unfairly unfortunate
Damian Lillard, not the flashy teenage prodigy or the
Entitled one and done junior maestro whose destiny is interwoven within NBA
No.
Damian, Dame, with his boyishly angelic face barely sprouting whiskers
Psalm 37 inked down his left arm in an expression of his faith
Reflected in his discipline and patience to
Wait it out in Ogden (to work it out in Ogden) while his peers bounded towards riches (?), professionalism, fame and the
Trappings that have become cliché
Dame waited
And waited in Ogden at the feet of hills and mountains, a cultural antithesis from the haunts of Oakland
While Portland languished through the inconceivability that Brandon Roy’s knees were without
Cartilage, just bone grinding on bone until the inevitability that Brandon’s knees couldn’t
Ever hold up
But that’s past now
Wearing number zero, zed, O—for Ogden, O-for Oakland,
O for the emptiness Portland can leave behind
Lillard is here with his mature pick-and-roll game, a generously balanced blending of inside-outside-all-inclusive
involvement that breathes anticipation and excitement into Portland’s sons and daughters
And for today and tomorrow allows Paul Allen the
Respite to forget and lock up the gates that provide entry to the
Dark, dank cemetery of dreams that sits in quiet and peace deeply forgotten beneath the Rose Garden
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