Portland Trail Blazers: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 Media Day

5. Portland is incredibly underrated

The Portland Trail Blazers are a small-market team, and the city itself just doesn’t have the same allure as, let’s say, Los Angeles or New York. Nevertheless, they’ve made due by building through the draft, and needless to say — they’ve done rather well over the past five seasons.

But that’s just it: the Portland Trail Blazers have been incredibly successful the past few years, making four consecutive playoff appearances while having one of the youngest teams in the league. They’ve proven themselves to be consistent winners, and their young core has only continued to improve.

So why is it that high-level players looking for a change of scenery (i.e., Carmelo Anthony) refuse to take Portland seriously? Why did Anthony so easily write Portland off after extending his short list of preferred destinations to Oklahoma City and Cleveland?

And then there’s this whole thing about the NBA completely ruling Portland out of contention for an All-Star game for the next three years; what’s that about? Considering that Nike is now the face of NBA apparel, you would think the league would be smart enough to hold an All-Star game in Portland — just eight miles northeast of Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton.

I’m not sure exactly what Portland did to get one everyone’s sh*t list, but I sincerely hope that changes in the near future. The city, the fans and the players deserve better.