Wayback Wednesday: The Jail Blazers & Video Games
In this week's Wayback Wednesday, Andrew takes a look back at the Jail Blazers era in Portland, and its impact on basketball video games.
The post Wayback Wednesday: The Jail Blazers & Video Games appeared first on NLSC.
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the “Jail Blazers” era of the Portland Trail Blazers, and their presence in basketball video games.
When my cousin and I were looking to move on from our 1995 Season in NBA Live 95 PC and dive into the all new Franchise mode in NBA Live 2000, we obviously had to choose a team to play with cooperatively. In the interest of neutrality, we opted not to use either of our favourite teams (the Chicago Bulls and Seattle SuperSonics). After discussing it on the phone – this was the year 2000, after all – we ultimately went with the Portland Trail Blazers, and agreed on a few trades. I set everything up ready for his arrival in the school holidays, and we won the title playing a 28-game season.
It’s one of my favourite memories, both of basketball gaming and hanging out with my cousin as a teenager, but why the Portland Trail Blazers? Neither of us had an attachment to the club, and there were other teams that could’ve been just a fun. Well, while the off-court incidents that branded those early 2000s Trail Blazers the “Jail Blazers” may have caused a number of legal headaches and chemistry problems in real life, on the virtual hardwood, they had some deep rosters that were enjoyable to play with, as well as reshape with trades. Let’s take a look back…way back…
We’ll begin with those 2000 Portland Trail Blazers. After a series of first round exits following their 2-4 loss to Michael Jordan and the Bulls in 1992, the Blazers finally made it back to the Western Conference Finals in 1999. Though they were swept by the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs, it was clear that moves such as signing Brian Grant and trading for Damon Stoudamire had set them up for more success. They went all out in the offseason of 1999, trading six players to the Houston Rockets to acquire Scottie Pippen, and also swapped Isaiah Rider for Steve Smith. With a combination of young talent and proven veterans, they were primed for a serious run.
Unfortunately for Blazers fans, these efforts didn’t quite produce a happy ending. The 2000 team were a quarter away from making it to the NBA Finals – and who knows what would’ve happened against the Indiana Pacers if they had – but then Shaq, Kobe, and the Lakers erased a 15-point deficit to win Game 7, and the rest is history. As for Portland, they tried to shake things up over the next few seasons, but were bounced in the first round three consecutive years – twice at the hands of the Lakers – and then entered a postseason drought that lasted until 2009. There are so many What Ifs with the so-called Jail Blazers era, but they had some undeniably great video game teams.
The rosters in NBA Live 2000 PC were finalised before the Pippen trade, and from memory, I didn’t make it before we began that Franchise game and started tinkering with the roster under the restrictions of the salary cap and trade logic. However, we still had a roster that included Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace, Brian Grant, Detlef Schrempf, Steve Smith, Bonzi Wells, Jermaine O’Neal, Stacey Augmon, Walt Williams, Kelvin Cato, and Arvydas Sabonis. Even our memetic favourite Gary Grant was there! Making the Pippen deal first – which still saw Augmon return to Portland after being released by Houston – would’ve given us an even stronger core rotation.
Or indeed, a team stacked with talent, which makes it so much easier to don your virtual GM suit and start wheeling and dealing! While some of the players on those 2000 Blazers were either past their prime or still on the cusp of it, their ratings were high enough to facilitate some blockbusters. That’s how we came to have Shaquille O’Neal as our man in the middle, flanked by Kevin Garnett. It’s how we were able to snag rookie Baron Davis from the Charlotte Hornets, without giving up an arm and a leg. We held onto Sheed, but apart from that, we used the Trail Blazers’ deep roster to acquire players we wanted. In that respect, we weren’t actually using the Jail Blazers!
Of course, that’s a particularly extreme example of what can be done in a franchise mode when you select a team that’s already stacked; at least on paper. The talent on Portland’s roster during the Jail Blazers era made them formidable in games as-is, even as they fell short in real life. In the 2000 offseason, they acquired six-time All-Star Shawn Kemp, making them even stronger on the virtual hardwood. In reality, Kemp unfortunately battled weight and substance abuse issues, was relegated to the bench for the first time since his rookie season, and ended the year in rehab. Trading future All-Star Jermaine O’Neal for Dale Davis was a gamble they obviously lost.
Still, that left them with a roster that was more than respectable on paper, and could reach even greater heights in video games. Even with some of them getting on in years and past their prime, a big man rotation of Sabonis, Sheed, Kemp, Davis, and Will Perdue could contend much better with Shaq on the virtual hardwood than in real life. Pip, Smith, Stoudamire, Wells, and Augmon gave them enough firepower to be fun to use in franchise modes and exhibition games alike. You could still get creative in reshaping the roster through trades with the talent at your disposal, though with all of those big contracts, it’d take some clever deals to be major a player in free agency.
Over the next couple of years, some of the names changed and the talent pool grew shallower, but the Blazers were still an intriguing team for basketball gamers. Pip was aging, but the ability to stage showdowns against Wizards Michael Jordan was an incentive to put them on the floor. Zach Randolph arrived in 2001, and although it took him a couple of seasons to break out in real life, his size and potential to develop made him an ideal piece to a rebuilding puzzle in franchise play. Sabonis returned for the 2003 campaign after sitting out the previous year, Sheed and Stoudamire were still around, and there were some solid role players on the final Jail Blazers era squads.
Although the snarky moniker was difficult to shake, the Jail Blazers era is generally regarded as coming to an end in 2003. Management embarked on a campaign to clean up the team’s image, shipping out players who were problematic or had otherwise worn out their welcome. These moves, while good for publicity, didn’t always have a positive impact on the court. Rasheed Wallace was traded while the team was on a hot streak, leading to them cooling off and missing the Playoffs for the first time since 1981 (and resulting in his infamous single game as a Hawk, before heading to Detroit where he won the 2004 Championship). Nevertheless, it began ushering in a new era.
These transitional era Blazers teams were lottery-bound in real life, but remained an interesting option in NBA Live’s Dynasty mode, and The Association in NBA 2K. They didn’t have their predecessors’ depth, so they were no longer ideal for virtual GMs who wanted to make big, bold moves right away. They could be fun underdog teams though, perfect for basketball gamers who preferred a challenge. With players like Darius Miles, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Sebastian Telfair, the aforementioned Zach Randolph, Travis Outlaw, and even some veteran stars like Nick Van Exel having brief stopovers, they were fun to use, and could be better than the sum of their parts.
Portland would continue to rebuild, and eventually be competitive again thanks to the addition of Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. The selection of Greg Oden in 2007 may have been a bust, and Roy’s knees prematurely ended his career, but the injury woes that plagued the Trail Blazers in real life didn’t have to be a factor on the virtual hardwood. The arrival of Damian Lillard in 2012 soon brought them back to the postseason following a couple of subpar years, and while has moved on to the Milwaukee Bucks as the team commits to another rebuild, they enjoyed eight years of being competitive in the West, including a Conference Finals appearance in 2019.
Their respectable success and Dame’s rankings on the team’s all-time leaders made his era a memorable one for Portland, and basically established him as Mr. Trail Blazer. As for other standout eras for the Blazers, the 70s saw Bill Walton lead them to their only NBA Championship, while the Clyde Drexler era boasts two appearances in the NBA Finals and a decade of relevance. Though it was brief and involved three first round exits, the Brandon Roy era included highly enjoyable Playoff performances in a return to the postseason, and two 50-win regular seasons. It’s been decades since the Blazers won a ring or were really close to it, but they’ve had some noteworthy teams.
However, for better or worse, those Jail Blazers teams remain the most notorious. The off-court problems that gave them their nickname obviously play a big role in that, but it could also be argued that top to bottom, they had some of the deepest rosters during the early 2000s. They were definitely stocking up on big men in an effort to counteract Shaq’s dominance, but they had talent at other positions as well. Sure, some of their key players such as Scottie Pippen, Detlef Schrempf, Steve Smith, and Arvydas Sabonis had peaked and were no longer in their prime, but they could still contribute. The 2000 Western Conference Finals will always remain a huge What If.
Of course, in the hands of gamers, they undoubtedly enjoyed far more success on the virtual hardwood. They were ready-made to compete, while also being set up for the wheeling and dealing that makes franchise modes a blast. Their attempts to stockpile talent didn’t pan out, but it gave us squads stacked with familiar names to play with in video games. The 2000 Trail Blazers are now a classic team in NBA 2K, and Steve Smith even appeared on the cover of Fox Sports NBA Basketball 2000 back in the day! The Jail Blazers years may be an era that the team and long-time Blazers fans would prefer to gloss over, but in video games, the results were far more positive.
The post Wayback Wednesday: The Jail Blazers & Video Games appeared first on NLSC.