Programming Notes: Rip City Radio, Summer Journey Plans, Fire Protection and Extra

I do not write these sorts of posts fairly often, as a result of this is not a private weblog. But proper now is an effective time to offer all of you, my subscribers, some updates on my plans for now and the long run. Most of it is rather thrilling.

But first, some not-great information.

At the tip of June, I bought laid off by iHeart and am not the Trail Blazers insider for Rip City Radio. The firm had a spherical of job cuts nationwide, as corporations of that dimension are likely to do each few months, and my place was one of many ones they determined they not wanted. I had an ideal two years there and nonetheless like and suppose extremely of everybody I labored with—Chad Doing, Chris Burkhardt, Mike Schacker and Brenden Slaughter on the station, and Rich Moore and Marshal Burgess on the company degree. These issues occur and people choices are made a number of ranges above any of them.

To reply essentially the most urgent query, I’m high quality. Like everybody else in my chosen enterprise (and most different ones), I’ve been laid off a number of occasions earlier than in my profession. I wasn’t too stunned this time round and I’ve loads of expertise coping with it. I’m far more anxious about most of the business-side staffers the brand new Blazers possession group laid off in May than I’m about myself. I haven’t got children and the radio gig wasn’t my whole supply of earnings, and even nearly all of it. This one is a few 4 out of 10 on the setback scale for me—I want it hadn’t occurred, however I’ll be OK.

Why am I so positive I’ll be OK? Because most of my time, power and assets for the previous 4 years have gone into this website, and also you. Every time one thing like this occurs, to me or (too typically) to associates within the enterprise, I’m extra grateful that I made a decision again in 2022 to personal my very own work. This a part of it, the positioning and publication, is a job I’m not in peril of shedding as a result of some accounting particular person at a publicly traded company who has no thought who I’m decides they don’t seem to be maximizing shareholder worth sufficient. I am unable to lay myself off.

Owning my very own work additionally offers me full management over what I do and do not resolve to cowl, which I prefer to suppose advantages you, too. I might get much more subscribers, site visitors and social-media clout if I leaned into chasing commerce rumors and weighing in on among the extra poisonous components of the discourse across the Blazers and the NBA, and I do not need to do this. If I wrote for a company media outlet, I’d most likely have post-count and page-view quotas that may push me in that course. But I’m a giant believer in high quality over amount and don’t love writing simply to jot down. If there is a information cycle or story that I haven’t got something so as to add to or do not suppose is productive to weigh in on, I’ll simply sit it out.

Some occasions are tougher than others doing it this fashion, however I’ve no regrets in any respect about how I’ve approached the final 4 years and the work I’ve performed in that point. I hope you all (or not less than most of you) agree.

The fundamental factor getting laid off from the radio station will change is that I’ll not be capable to journey for Blazers street journeys almost as a lot as I did final season. I’m nonetheless determining how a lot I’ll do subsequent yr, which might be simpler after we know the 2026-27 regular-season schedule subsequent month. I’ve been lucky that the Blazers have opened the final two seasons at dwelling, but when they open on the street, that recreation might be a should. Ja Morant’s return to Memphis can be a recreation I’ll prioritize, together with their street journeys earlier than and after the commerce deadline. The playoffs are clearly non-negotiable, in the event that they get there.

I ended up masking 18 of the group’s street video games in the course of the 2025-26 season, plus the play-in recreation in Phoenix, all three street video games within the first-round playoff sequence in opposition to San Antonio, All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles and the Board of Governors conferences in New York. Doing this was an funding of a variety of time and, fairly frankly, some huge cash (particularly over the previous 4 months, when world occasions prompted the value of jet gas to skyrocket and together with it, airfare). But it was value it as a result of the extra I’m round, the extra gamers, coaches and different group staffers get used to seeing me, which is the way you construct belief and relationships that may finally result in higher tales.

A big share of this job is simply displaying up, and displaying up as a lot as I need to is not low-cost. I’d be mendacity if I stated that shedding the earnings stream from the radio gig would not damage this. But it is nearly as good an excuse as any to make the pitch that I do not actually like making too usually:

The extra of you develop into paid subscribers, the extra of this type of journey I’ll be capable to do in the course of the season. I’m as conscious as anybody that cash is tight for lots of people proper now, and everybody has subscription fatigue. Because of that, I’m immensely grateful for the subscribers I’ve, which—with out entering into particulars—are sufficient to make an honest dwelling off of. But a variety of that cash additionally goes again into funding the work itself, which is able to result in that work being even higher and extra value what I feel is a fairly cheap value.

Speaking of journey, listed below are my plans for the remainder of the summer season:

This morning, I’m flying to Las Vegas for Summer League, for the 14th yr in a row. I have not missed one since Damian Lillard’s rookie yr in 2012, apart from 2020 when the pandemic knocked out the occasion solely. This is not essentially the most high-intrigue yr for the Blazers on that entrance, since they did not have a draft decide this yr. But Yang Hansen is predicted to play not less than the primary couple of video games, and the group continues to be very invested in him as a long-term undertaking, so there might be worthwhile tales there.

Summer League will even be my first alternative to spend some actual time with Micah Nori get to know him on a private degree forward of his first season because the Blazers’ head coach. I’ve heard nice issues about him from associates of mine who cowl the Timberwolves, so I’m excited to start out constructing that relationship. The identical goes for Morant, who is predicted to satisfy the group in Las Vegas and do his first media availability there. Adam Silver will even be talking after the annual summer season Board of Governors assembly throughout Summer League, and there loads of Blazers-related issues to the touch on there.

Even although the Blazers’ Summer League group would not have a lot intrigue past yr two of Yang, there’s extra happening with the franchise proper now than there was in years. And I’m going to be one in every of, if not the one Portland-based media member on the occasion.

After Summer League, I’m flying from Las Vegas to Chicago for a visit that is roughly half trip and half work.

I’ve had this journey booked since final October, when my favourite band, Rush, introduced a reunion tour that no person thought would ever occur after the demise of their drummer, Neil Peart (one in every of my all-time private heroes for a lot of causes), six years in the past. They’re taking part in 4 nights on the United Center in mid-July, and I’m going to all 4 of them. I’ve been militant about avoiding any type of spoilers concerning the setlist or the reveals for the reason that tour began a few month in the past, so I’m getting in mainly blind. I can’t bear in mind the final time I’ve regarded ahead to one thing this a lot.

I’m not proud to confess this, however this would be the first time in my whole profession (about 15 years) that I’ve taken that a lot time to journey someplace that is not primarily to cowl an NBA occasion. I’m going to do all the things in my energy to not take into consideration work in any respect for that week, so except there’s pressing breaking information, issues might be quiet on right here.

But even this journey is not going to be solely private. As luck would have it, the WNBA is holding All-Star Weekend in Chicago the weekend following the reveals I used to be already going there for, so I’m extending the journey out a number of additional days to cowl that, too.

As of now, the Fire don’t have any representatives, with the reserves being introduced yesterday. Kelsey Plum will most likely nonetheless be injured by the day of the All-Star Game, so there is a respectable probability both Bridget Carleton or Carla Leite could possibly be in consideration for the substitute spot. I might additionally see these two being within the combine for among the Friday evening occasions, both the three-point contest (Carleton) or the abilities contest (Leite).

But even when there are not any Fire gamers current for All-Star, it is nonetheless an occasion that I contemplate vital to go to. I’ve been masking the NBA for greater than 10 years and know many of the vital folks to know in that league. I’m nonetheless new to masking the WNBA and do not know almost as a lot, or almost as many individuals, as my colleagues who’ve been masking it for years, With this being the primary season I’ve had a group to cowl, these sorts of league occasions are invaluable for that relationship-building work. As I stated earlier, a giant a part of this job is simply displaying up.

Once I get again from Chicago, my focus goes to be solely on the Fire for the remainder of the WNBA season, which ends in mid-September, per week earlier than Blazers coaching camp begins up once more. The final two months have been a little bit of a feeling-out course of for me as I get used to the completely different rhythms of masking the WNBA versus the NBA. Maybe after the season I’ll get into extra element about among the professionals and cons of every from my vantage level, nevertheless it’s been an adjustment.

(Side notice: the Fire’s schedule labored out amazingly effectively for me this yr that they are on the street for many of July. Tomorrow’s recreation in opposition to the Aces and the July 22 recreation in opposition to the Wings are the one two dwelling video games I’m going to overlook all season.)

The post-All-Star stretch of the Fire’s inaugural season goes to be eventful. The commerce deadline is going on on Aug. 2. Later that month, the Bhathals are lastly going to open their new Fire and Thorns joint apply facility in Hillsboro, and the group will begin practising there as an alternative of on the Portland State campus. I’m additionally planning on driving as much as Vancouver subsequent month for the Fire’s recreation there in opposition to the Toronto Tempo (who’re taking part in video games in different components of Canada to construct their fanbase throughout the entire nation), which I’m enormously wanting ahead to.

That’s all for now. Much extra to return over the following few weeks and past.