Since the Portland Trail Blazers are to bad publicity what gravity is to rocks, it's hard to imagine Bob Whitsitt would want to see his other team, the NFL Seahawks, emulate the NBA unit.
But the strongman of Paul Allen's sports empire would beg to differ. At least a little.
"If we talk five years from now, I would hope that the Seahawks would have been in the playoffs at least three times, maybe four," Whitsitt said yesterday. "The Blazers have been in the playoffs 19 straight seasons, something we take pride in."
Though it is much easier to get into the NBA playoffs than the NFL playoffs -- usually, two pieces of ID will do -- it is not nearly as hard as the Seahawks have made it.
Earlier this month, they avoided the postseason for the 10th time in 11 seasons, prompting a federal investigation into a previously undetected change in the laws of statistical probability.
The Blazers, meanwhile, always seem to step over their own mess -- Enron executives, take note -- and show up for the postseason, whether or not anyone wants to see them there. Not only is 19 in a row the NBA record, another April appearance will tie the record for all sports set by the NHL St. Louis Blues.
Last night at KeyArena, Bob's Bad Boys took another step toward the record, beating the Sonics, 92-86, after the locals came out lifeless to start the second half.
After winning their 10th game in their past 12, the Blazers (23-20) appear back in a Western Conference race full of giant three-headed dogs. And if Rottweiler personalities are the requirement for success, the Blazers figure to have the edge over Seattle. They picked up four technical fouls last night, including two by the ejected Scottie Pippen, and it didn't matter.
As the sports world knows, when it comes to matters of behavior and character among his sporting employees, Whitsitt has never lost chunks of sleep. And with reason -- most fans don't much care either, as long as the team wins.
Still, even for one as iron-plated as Whitsitt, he's only now coming out of an industrial-strength cringe.
"The last 10 or 11 months, we've had a lot of image and PR issues, and a lot of changes," Whitsitt said, understating the case by a fathom or three. "We have to regroup after a three-year championship window.
"We crashed. It was such a disappointment. Now, we're working hard to rebuild."
It seems ages ago, but at one point last season the 40-18 Blazers led the West. But they finished out the season 10-14 and were flattened by the Lakers in the first round, an average of 14 points per defeat.
Despite the highest payroll in the NBA, the team was spectacularly dysfunctional. After a partial roster makeover and the firing of coach Mike Dunleavy, matters regressed in December, when a Sports Illustrated story featured a sullen outfit detached from its fan base and reality.
Since then, Whitsitt has issued fines and apologies, and the team has regained physical health and competitiveness, although regaining a reputation in Portland among thousands of disaffected fans figures to take years.
At least he's honest enough to admit the "championship window" is closed. Not that he had much choice.
"We're not talking championship anymore, but we can be good," he said. "We were up for three years, and now we're down. We succeeded well enough to raise the bar. My job is to break us down and rebuild while staying out of the lottery."
If that rings a vague bell, you must be a Seahawks fan, although the analogy is imperfect. It has been a decade since the football team had anything to break down.
"I feel pretty good about where we are," he said, switching to his football helmet. "There was a lot of shoulda-woulda-coulda about the playoffs, and I wouldn't expect otherwise. We had to take our lumps -- 6-10 (in 2000) was a big lump -- but I consider 9-7 a big improvement.
"We have 29 players with three years or less of experience, a good mix of veterans, and we're in great salary cap shape. And we have a good coach and a good system."
So much for the Mike Holmgren-bashers. Whitsitt is not nearly as exercised as many Seahawks fans about the coach's handling of quarterbacks Matt Hasselbeck and Trent Dilfer.
"If you talk to our personnel people, there's no one in our camp who doesn't like Trent," he said. "He played better than anyone thought he would, but if Matt hadn't been injured, we never would have known.
"We signed Trent a week into training camp when there wasn't one starting job in the NFL for him. His own team, which won the Super Bowl, didn't want him back."
That doesn't mean Whitsitt won't attempt to re-sign Dilfer, a free agent. But if he comes back, the Seahawks must seek out the real guy -- his four good games (and victories) as a Seahawks starter, or his previous eight years of NFL mediocrity.
"Did Trent get good overnight? Did the rest of the team just come together? Was it our system that allowed him to flourish? We have to figure that out, and we're going to want to have the chance.
"Matt's got to earn it, and Trent's got to earn it. It will be a lot easier to figure it out with both having experience in the system."
Of course, all this figuring out has allowed yet another Seahawks season to expire with little to show.
"We're asking people to be patient," he said, "because when we get into the new stadium, the goal is to be good not just for one year, but a number of years."
Asking the Seahawks fans to be patient is, of course, like asking rain to be wet. It has been so long since nature offered any alternative, they know nothing else.
Just don't ask them to accept Rasheed Wallace at wide receiver, unless he gets nothing but crossing routes over the middle.
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