We Have A Take: A Portland Trail Blazers Fan Podcast

Brandon Goldner Mullen of We Like the Blazers and Blazer's Edge joined us to talk about what we are looking forward to for the rest of the season.

:24 Introduction with Brandon

2:00 Icebreaker: If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

10:00 Brandon's background and relationship to basketball

19:00 How he started writing and talking about the Blazers

28:00 Thoughts on season so far

31:00 Things we're looking forward to: Cling Kong

35:00 Weird lineups

38:00 Looking forward to a world where Portland was the team that did not trade Luka Doncic

43:00 Selling the franchise (some day)

51:00 Seeing young guys fail

1:00:00 WHAT Awards - there are lots of people in contention!

1:02:00 Question from Julio - What rivalries could we see in the future?

1:10:00 Jusuf Nurkic

1:16:00 Takes: Snow is good, Cooper Flagg has the opportunity to do the funniest thing, Donovan Clingan would be a great bobblehead

Join us on Discord! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. Kind of like Twitter but it's not. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! Or find us on BlueSky: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

The cutest intro/outro music by Eric Peterson (@shoozumoops)

It's Superb Owl Sunday and we’re talking trade memories, Blazer Cuties who were traded at the deadline, Blazers making no moves at the trade deadline and then ask ourselves, WHAT about the Development Express? 

All this and more including:

• Chocolate souffles
• Chandler Parsons Yoga mat
• Working definition of Blazer Cuties
• Deandre Ayton's chemistry with the guards

0:00 Superbowl Sunday plans

3:45 Arena anthems (ops if you are listening to us, drop us a DM)

8:30 Rip City Runs Deep revisited

10:00 Trades from the past that we remember: Batum for Noah Vonleh and Gerald Henderson, Will Barton, Victor Claver and Thomas Robinson for Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee, Mason Plumlee for Jusuf Nurkic and a first round pick. 

25:30 Update on Blazer Cuties who were traded and where they ended up

35:45 Trade deadline rumors were very low quality this season

41:45 Welcome Sidy Cissoko

42:30 It's hard to be mad about the trade deadline moves that didn’t happen when we don’t know what the possibilities are.

47:00 Hoping the Blazers don’t make the playoffs, otherwise will enjoy the ride

58:00 The destination is the same, we might just be taking a different route than we expected to Lottery Station.

1:11:00 What if Deandre Ayton is part of the future plans? 

1:15:00 Takes: A case for Gary Payton 2 to be nominated for Blazer Legend. Stop using letter grades on trades. 

We had a great time learning about Mike Richman's history of covering the Blazers. So many good stories from the Playoff series against the Spurs in 2014 to what Shaedon Sharpe said about the dunk contest on Tuesday night.

1:00 Icebreaker: What is your favorite arena food?

8:00 Get know Mike and his basketball story

11:30 Covering the team when there were multiple people on the Blazer beat

24:45 Transition into podcasting

28:30 Favorite tidbit that didn’t make it into the story

35:00 General thoughts on this season 

43:00 Surprise and confusion this season

50:00 WHAT Award ideas from Mike

1:00 Addition to the Playlist: Knight Rider - Original Show

2024-25 Season Playlist

Join us on Discord! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! You can find us on Blue Sky at these handles: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

The cutest intro/outro music by Eric Peterson (@shoozumoops)

Conor Bergin of Blazer’s Edge joined us to talk about his journey to covering the Blazers, how he’s adjusting to media access and the unique challenges of covering the team this season. He also adds two brilliant songs to the 2024-25 play list and gives us his thoughts on some potential WHAT award candidates. All this and more!

2:00 Icebreaker - if you could give the blazers a gift, what would it be?

10:00 Getting to know Conor Bergin of Blazers Edge

19:45 Conor’s earliest piece about the Trail Blazers

23:00 High School and college writing experience

32:00 Challenges of covering the Trail Blazers this season

50:00 Conor’s additions to the 2024-25 play list

1:00:00 Ideas for WHAT awards

1:11:11 Takes: Jerami not the best dressed Blazer? Fan bases who have won in the last 20 years need to shut up, is Scoot Henderson getting Jaden Ivey’d? 

Join us on Discord! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! You can find us on Blue Sky at these handles: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

This week’s podcast features highlights from the Season Ticket Holder event earlier this week. We gloss over some rough games and take questions about the trade deadline, definitive things we want to know, the future faces of the franchise and Kris Murray nicknames. If you liked the questions, we’ll do it again via Blue Sky. Thank you Jason (Hecubus01), Linssenp, Keanu_reevebooks, 20000thorns!

Then Tara shared what she learned about Donovan Clingan with a special side quest to share more about his wonderful mother, Stacey Clingan, who sadly died when he was in 8th grade. 

Note: in the podcast Tara says that Jojo Siwa’s father was part of an NIL Collective that worked with Donovan Clingan when in fact it was Charli Demilo’s father.

:30 Season Ticket Holder event recap

6:00 This week’s game

9:27 Questions

10:00 1. What will happen at the trade deadline? 

19:00 2. Number one thing to say definitively at the end of the season

25:30 3. On a scale of 1-10 how strongly do we feel that Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe are the face of the franchise

33:16 4. Kris Murray nicknames (list of nicknames provided at the sign-making station in the arena shared by @alexctam.bsky.social)

40:00 Norman Powell. Why are we still talking about Norman Powell??

43:00 We have a talk about Donovan Clingan

46:00 Stacey Clingan (Bristol Sports Hall of Fame acceptance video)

49:00 Cooper Flagg connection

1:00:00 The Golden Age of NIL (Cling Kong is here to slam-dunk your hunger)

1:12:00 Unretire some jerseys for goodness sakes

1:30: Takes: toxic positivity and Unrivaled basketball league

More sources for Donovan Clingan

Donovan Clingan has become a homegrown star for UConn men’s basketball

Top 10 men's college basketball On3 NIL Valuations entering 2023 season   

Join us on Discord! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! You can find us on Blue Sky at these handles: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

The cutest intro/outro music by Eric Peterson (@shoozumoops)

Life got in the way this week but we didn't want to short our Rip City friends an episode. Here's a deep-dive episode we did in March 2024 where we got to know more about Ryan Rupert and Kris Murray.

Who knows what's around the corner for this team? But if the second half of the season bring lots of minutes for these two, you'll know a little bit more about them.

We'll be back next week with another deep dive!

Its our first deep dive of the season! Rose shares what she learned about Deni Avdija - his journey to the NBA, rookie year, being an international player, playing for his national team.

Plus:

2:00 Recap the last few weeks

9:17 Thoughts and prayers for Miami

11:00 Teams we forget about

15:49 WHAT about Deni Avdija

22:00 Early sports, early success

32:00 Predraft concerns - free throws and turnovers

35:00 Rookie year, getting robbed and losing his bag

43:00 2020 Draft

52:00 International players journeys

1:08:00 Ice baths

1:201:00 Takes! Winning isn’t everything and we’re watching people’s dreams come true.

References

Deni on Thanalysis Podcast:

https://youtu.be/KRWmO7inmj4?si=EhA69ew1utqonVPZ

Bleacher Report: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2861981-weve-never-had-a-talent-like-him

Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharycohen/2020/04/16/israeli-phenom-deni-avdija-officially-enters-2020-nba-draft/

USA Today:

https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/nba-draft-deni-avdija-scouting-report-measurements-israel-history

Jewish-Herald Voice:

https://jhvonline.com/israeli-teen-deni-avdija-goes-to-washington-wizards-with-th-pick-of-nba-dr-p28394-256.htm

YouTube Draft Night: https://youtu.be/wUZbEv16ZX4?si=k8ZnuJHRVDKk3yX3

YouTube Draft Night Interview: https://youtu.be/kUKsYqWdjQg?si=JnNeuhkGs8rakKWL

Join us on ⁠Discord⁠! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. Kind of like Twitter but it's not. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! You can also still find us on BlueSky: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

The cutest intro/outro music by Eric Peterson (⁠@shoozumoops⁠)

After basking in the glow of a two game winning streak (the Blazers will never lose again, we're certain) we go over some of the things that we manifested for the team at the beginning of the season. We might be making progress!

Plus, Scoot's game winner in front of his biggest fan, Greg Oden returns to Moda Center, Matisse might live at Moda Center and will the Blazers be able to make any trades?

1:00 Scoot makes children’s dreams come true - an eyewitness report on Scoot’s game winner 

19:45 Early Nate Bjorkgren era thoughts

28:00 Ways that Deandre Ayton could be impactful with the younger players

36:00 Revisiting some of the things we said we were going to manifest this season: 

Greg Oden being as big man coach (a bit of background on his journey)

44:00 Backwards dunks for Donovan Clingan

45:15 Anfernee trash talking

47:50 Scoot slowing down on offense

54:00 Jabari Walker’s uniform on the website, health and playing time for Shaedon Sharpe and Robert Williams

55:00 Matisse Thybulle making the Moda Center his home home. 

Ryan Rupert handle and reduced reliance on Eurostep

59:55 Jermai Grant topic of discussion for his play rather than his fashion. Will the Blazers be able to trade him this season? 

1:05 Outlet passes

1:14:00 Takes

Our friend and G-League correspondent Cat joined us to catch up on how we're feeling and start part 1 of the 2024-25 Season Playlist

1:00 How is your spirit? 

12:00 Deni Avjia chaos agent

17:30 WHAT is up with Deandre Ayton? 

19:00 Bosses vs Teachers

22:00 Chanucy Billups is literally on the court

23:30 A close up view of bench celebrations 

25:00 Is Robert Williams III the leader this team needs and how long will he be here?

38:00 Report on what it's like to sit in court side seats 

41:00 G League report

1:00:00 2024-25 Playlist Part 1

Rose: All these things that I’ve done by The Killers (plus Mr Brightside)

Tara: What’s up? By Four Non-blonds

Cat: Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow

Rose: Still Life by RM with Anderson .Paak

Tara: Drivin’ my life away by Eddie Rabbit

Cat: I’m Still Standing, Elton John

(Side note: why did Chris Paul get himself ejected so early?)

(Bonus: Movin’ right along by the Muppets)

1:18:00 Tara revisits a previous not-fully-baked take with a not-fully-baked update

1:22:00 Ready for a new coach

1:25:00 Puffy hair take

1:28:00 Outro

Join us on this journey! Also, what we’re thankful for!

1:00 Cars that match the trees they parked under

2:45 Houston series takeaways

7:00 Early take from Tara: The Blazers are a good team to measure how serious other teams are.

17:30 What we’re thankful for

18:00 …transition defense

20:00 … Donovan Clingan’s intensity

23:30 … bench celebrations - bring back Bench Celebrator Man of the Year Award!

28:00 … Delano Banton got the final roster spot

31:00 … we got to see Anfernee Simons look happy getting into a physical altercation

35:00 … two hands

40:30 … being wrong about the coach losing the locker room.

49:00 Takes: Rebranding Tanking to Lottery bound!

52:00 Jerami has an impeccable ponytail. 

56:00 Homework: do any of the Blazer players have a noticeable free throw ritual? 

WHAT are we thankful for?

Join us on Discord! It's a place where we can share our love for the Blazers, talk about games, and get to know other Blazer fans. Kind of like Twitter but it's not. There are different channels with different topics and you can join in where you want, and ignore the stuff you don't want to see. Give it a try! You can also still find us on Twitter: @wehaveatake, @tcbbiggs @roselharding

The cutest intro/outro music by Eric Peterson (@shoozumoops)