Blazers bigger than Portland?

Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard on getting the top draft pick for NBA basketball (read it here):

"Huge. Unbelievably huge. Franchise-making," Pritchard said. "This is bigger than the Rose Garden, bigger than the organization, bigger than the city of Portland. The whole state and the whole area revolves around the Portland Trail Blazers... As we go, so does the city. This has a chance to change the organization and the city..."

Um, Kevin? It's just basketball. A game, a game played by some often very spoiled adults wearing shorts.

Tax reform; great schools; a non cyclical economic base; healthy Ponderosa forests on the east side, clean water on the west side; health insurance for all Oregon children; opportunity for all Oregon children: These are bigger than the City of Portland, these are the priorities around which the State of Oregon revolves, not the Blazers, not basketball.

Get some perspective, will ya? And talk that guy from Seattle into selling the team to a local consortium with some class.