TUALATIN, Ore., — On Tuesday, the Portland Trail Blazers officially got back to business in their regular office.
And owner Paul Allen was in the practice facility to watch his team on their brand-new practice court on Tuesday, excited for the start of a new season.
“It’s always exciting,” Allen said. “The new additions that (general manager Neil Olshey) brought on board this summer are going to make a big difference for us.”
It’s been a year of accomplishment for both of Allen’s franchises after the Blazers advanced past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in 14 years and the Seattle Seahawks won their first Super Bowl in dominating fashion.
When he was asked about the possibility of going into the luxury tax to keep the Blazers core group together, he reminisced of the teams that he had who almost wrote the book on paying the luxury tax.
“David Stern used to give me an extremely hard time about being as deep as we were in the luxury tax at one point,” he said. “It’s not something I’m looking to do at this point. But look at what we’re trying to do to be as competitive as we can in the future without causing ourselves as much problems down the road in going way over the cap.”
Allen, as would only be natural, made a connection to the Seahawks.
“It’s a very delicate balancing act to try and create yourself a championship window and then keep developing young players,” he said. “If you look, for instance, with the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl — that was with a very young team.”
But Allen was also measured when asked if he thinks that the Blazers have a championship window.
“There’s some great teams in the West,” he said. “And the Spurs, everybody is gong to look to see if they can dethrone the Spurs. There are other great teams, too. We just want to be in a position to hopefully compete in the playoffs and hopefully go through.”
Allen talked about going down to Los Angeles to meet personally with LaMarcus Aldridge to discuss his future with the team.
And pretty much everything else was back to normal for the Blazers.
“I feel like we’re in January right now,” Wesley Matthews said. “It’s a good feeling. We just added two pieces. They know basketball. Our guys have been in here all summer running the offense making sure the offense doesn’t go anywhere.”
“With 13 guys coming back we were able to move one thing to the next pretty seamlessly.”
The Blazers emphasized defense in their first practice, working again to try and improve after finishing 16th in the NBA in defensive rating last season.
And while the Blazers are working to become a mainstay among the league’s elite, Allen is excited about a combination of depth, youth and star power.
“There’s a great vibe around the team I think with the continuity, with the success we had last year. But I think we have more to prove,” he said.
