Blazer Fans in Portland Are Growing Restless

This was to have been a team that could challenge the Los Angeles Lakers for supremacy in the West.

Fans of the Portland Trail Blazers were even talking about a National Basketball Assn. title again.

Instead, at least for now, this is a team that could have a hard time making the playoffs.

The fans who perennially pack Memorial Coliseum to support the team are growing restless. They remember, with some regret, the off-season decisions that brought Kiki Vandeweghe and Sam Bowie to Portland.

In the final stages of a recent loss to the Lakers, there were more than a few catcalls and boos, mostly aimed in the direction of Coach Jack Ramsay.

“People expect you to play hard,” Ramsay said, inferring that his team isn’t. “I think our fans will accept losing if you’re playing hard.”

Ramsay talks about the team’s lack of effort and consistency, its inability to play hard for 48 minutes in a row, let alone several games in a a row. But he doesn’t know why the team is playing the way it is.

Asked why the team is unable to come up with the kind of consistent effort he desires, the veteran coach said, “I don’t have an answer for that.”

“That’s the whole puzzle,” said team captain Jim Paxson, who didn’t land an all-star berth for the first time in three seasons. “It doesn’t seem we have a real sense of what we’re all supposed to do on the court.”

As a result, the team is losing confidence.

“If I could think of a single word that describes the team and the coaches at this stage it would be ‘frustration,”’ said General Manager Stu Inman. “I think the frustration level is so high that frustration breeds doubt.”

There is no single answer to what is wrong with this team.

Vandeweghe can’t get the ball enough to do the scoring that was expected of him. The Blazers aren’t running the offense thoroughly enough to get shots for either Vandeweghe or Paxson.

Vandeweghe scored 17 points in the first half against Los Angeles, but took just three shots in the second half and didn’t score at all. He is averaging 22 points per game, nearly eight fewer than last season, and is getting five fewer shots per game than he did in the 1983-84 campaign.

There have been problems blending the skills of sharpshooters like Paxson and Vandeweghe with the spectacular open-court play of Clyde Drexler. In close games, the team collapses. The Blazers, 19-26 overall, are 1-15 in games decided by seven or fewer points.

The team has had little front-line strength. In the last eight games, the Blazers have been outrebounded by an average of 10 per game. Mychal Thompson is the only reliable veteran “big man” on the team. There is little experience on the entire squad, with five rookies on the roster.

This is a team that plays best when it’s in a running, high-scoring game, such as last Sunday’s 128-127 loss at Boston. When the Blazers slow down and try to run Ramsay’s half-court offense, the results are often ugly, as in the 40-point second half of the homecourt blowout at the hands of the Lakers.

Ramsay and Inman had predicted the team would become a force in the league during the second half of the season. Inman isn’t saying that any more.

“There’s nothing to have seen up to this point that would give us any great expectation that we are going to be something special going down the stretch,” he said.

Meanwhile, fans and writers continue to talk and write about the Blazers’ bold--some would say foolish--off-season moves.

Portland could have drafted Michael Jordan as the second choice in the draft, but chose Bowie instead. Jordan is tearing up the league, averaging 27 points per game with the Chicago Bulls.

The Blazers gave up three players and two draft picks to Denver in exchange for Vandeweghe. The three--Calvin Natt, Wayne Cooper and Lafayette Lever--are starters for a Nugget team that leads the Midwest Division by 3 1/2 games.

Inman still stands behind the team’s personnel moves. He reminds people of the team’s problems late last season, when the Blazers crumbled down the stretch and were wiped out in the first round of the playoffs by Phoenix.

“I still think this team will emerge somewhere down the line as a very good team,” he said. “When this will happen I don’t know. It will probably be next year some time.”

Meanwhile, he pleads patience. Both Inman and Ramsay are pleased with the development of the 7-foot-1 Bowie, who is among the league leaders in blocked shots and is a strong rebounder. His problems have been on offense--where his lack of aggressiveness around the basket has been exploited--and with the officials. He consistently has been in foul trouble.

Still, Inman calls Bowie “one of the few bright spots” of the season.

The return of veteran Kenny Carr should toughen the Blazers inside. Carr, the player who made the Blazer brain trust feel Natt was expendable, has missed virtually the entire season due to a knee injury.

After a Thursday night game at Golden State, the Blazers play seven in a row at home. Fortunately for Portland, nobody else other than the Lakers is having a great season in the Pacific Division and second place is only 1 1/2 games above the Blazers’ current standing.

If there is a time for the team to make a move, it would appear to be now. But there is no great optimism in the Blazer camp.

“We just have to forget about the long-term,” Paxson said. “We’ve got to take them one game at a time. We’ve got to find a way to win.”

If the losses keep coming, the team’s worst front-office nightmare might come true. The Blazers might not make the playoffs and could wind up with the draft rights to Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing.

And, to the horror of the Blazer faithful, that pick would go to Denver as part of the Vandeweghe deal.