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Is Tom Dundon the Villain Portland Trail Blazers Fans Need?

· Yahoo Sports

In the Rip City Rising Ownership Group’s introductory press conference, majority owner Tom Dundon said, in reference to rumors about him moving the team, “You’re welcome to write what you want because if we get attention for the Portland Trail Blazers, I appreciate it.”

Dundon must be extremely grateful then for all the headlines his antics have generated since taking over the team.

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The list of spending-related cuts Tom Dundon has amassed in less than a month, since he took over the Blazers, is lengthy, to say the least. NBA fans typically pay no mind to hotel checkouts, masseuses, or even whether or not two-way players are on the bench during the playoffs.

But because he enacted multiple of these frugal measures at once, while the team is in the middle of a dream playoff appearance — its first in five seasons — Dundon has created a perfect media storm of disgrace.

Not only are news stories rampant, but the jokes are top-of-the-line as well.

Through this mess, Dundon has turned himself into an early villain. Blazer fans’ disdain for his shenanigans is running rampant in chats and comment sections.

Thankfully, as the team keeps winning, that disdain has not spilled out onto the court. In fact, it’s actually united the Blazers fanbase in a way.

Portland Gear Appeases Tom Dundon’s T-Shirt Travesty

Of the list of cost-cutting measures, nothing has irked sports fans, not just Blazer fans, more than when President Dewayne Hankins came out publicly and said that the team would not be providing attendees free t-shirts for Game 3 of their series against the Spurs.

In response to the vitriol on Twitter, minority owner Sheel Tyle, perceived in the early stages of ownership as the “good cop” to Dundon’s “bad cop”, alluded to a different giveaway that fans will receive.

Friday night will determine whether or not the new gift will live up to the mighty standard of a t-shirt. However, one company has decided it would not stand idle and watch a cohort of excited Blazer fans be deprived of a t-shirt.

Portland Gear, a now-national brand founded by Portland native Marcus Harvey, has taken on the challenge of providing fans who can show proof of a ticket to Game 3 with a free shirt. 

“I love Portland,” said Harvey when asked why he wanted to enact this giveaway. “I’ve just been a Blazer fan and a Rip City fan my whole life and, I don’t know, [it’s] a little moment to show some love to the city that helped make us.”

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While Harvey could only make a few hundred shirts, not enough for the nearly 20,000 people who will be in attendance, his ability to capitalize on the opportunity Blazers ownership opened was met with resounding praise and admiration.

Fans lined up outside the Portland Gear store in downtown Portland as early as 7:30 am to be one of the 200 to receive a shirt.

“They Love Me, They Love Me Not” – Tiago Splitter

Despite being thrown into the fire from the second game of the season on, bringing Portland to the playoffs and now into a tied series against the Spurs, Tom Dundon has reportedly been searching the market for potential head coaches, including ones who would take abnormally minuscule salaries.

While the news reports have caused a frenzy in media circles, what Dundon is doing is exactly what Blazer fans were begging for not even two months ago. 

Blazer fans did not regard Tiago Splitter as a good head coach over the course of this year. All over social media, they blamed him for several losses and asked for the Blazers to move on from him at the end of the season.

Now, it’s blasphemous to think that he hasn’t earned an opportunity to coach the team moving forward.

The Blazers’ end-of-season success has obviously been the biggest help to his credibility, but by undermining this playoff run, Dundon has galvanized the Blazers’ fanbase into Splitter’s good graces. 

The thought of trading Splitter in for a less experienced coach on a pennies-on-the-dollar salary is ludicrous. Whether it’s through purposeful positioning or accidental ignorance, Dundon has made Splitter the de facto best option for next season, and Blazer fans are now behind the Brazilian through and through.

Splitter has dispelled any notion that Dundon’s antics have crept into the locker room. If anything, it’s likely strengthened their bond. The players have dedicated themselves to each other and to Splitter all season. There is very little doubt that they won’t fight tooth and nail to keep him with the team next season.

If Tom Dundon is the villain in this story, Tiago Splitter can become the hero.

Blazer Fans Wanted Jody Allen Gone and Got Their Wish

The only thing that Blazer fans agreed on when it came to the team’s previous owner, Jody Allen, who took over for her brother Paul Allen and ran the team for seven years, was the fact that she lived in the shadows.

Her lethargy spilled over into the fanbase. In a stretch of years mired by purposeful tanking and the pushing out of franchise pillar Damian Lillard, culminating in an FBI raid at the house of Chauncey Billups, no one really knew what to think about the Blazers. 

Four years of tanking had left the franchise in a boring state. The casual Blazer fan didn’t really exist. The only ones consistently watching the team were diehards.

In comes Tom Dundon, and a wave of excitement pours over the fanbase.

“We finally have an owner who CARES,” some said. “This guy wants to WIN,” said others. “Look at how good the Carolina Hurricanes are,” everyone noted.

Now, just a few short weeks later, fans are seeing the dark side of Dundon’s no-waste ways. While few fans want to see their billionaire owner slash spending on the margins, what’s undeniable is that everyone is talking about him.

The Portland Trail Blazers have been a part of very few headlines the past four years. It’s always an uphill battle to keep the lone team in the Pacific Northwest relevant, and their standing in the league had done them no favors on that front. 

Now? They’re a hot commodity in the headlines and on podcasts. It isn’t for the right reasons, but just ask Tom Dundon — he’ll tell you that doesn’t matter. What matters is winning, and right now the Blazers are doing that too.

We Are All Allies in the Fight Against Tom Dundon

Thanks to Tom Dundon, Blazer fans, for the first time in a long time, have things they can all agree on.

We all want t-shirts. We all want Tiago Splitter (if the alternative is the Saint Louis University coach). We all want Caleb Love on the bench. We all want late checkouts.

If the team shows Dundon on the jumbotron during Game 3, fans will likely boo him. Less than four weeks into his tenure, that’s the reality Dundon has created.

But unlike the murmuring boos that Chauncey Billups received throughout his career, these will be fun, fresh, laughable boos. Boos everyone will understand. Boos that everyone can get behind.

Dundon has made it clear in his stints as an owner, with both Portland and Carolina, that winning trumps everything. He said in his introductory press conference that he cares about being liked, but that it’s “lower on the list of things he cares about.”

If Tom Dundon ends up being the scapegoat that galvanizes Rip City and re-ignites this fanbase, which has been dormant for half a decade, so long as the team is winning, my guess is he’ll wear that badge with pride.

The post Is Tom Dundon the Villain Portland Trail Blazers Fans Need? appeared first on The Lead.

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