I just got done reading another book.
Shortly after the pandemic hit I bundled a few books together and ordered them all on Amazon.
I saved this one for last, figuring it would be the best of them all. It had over 500 pages on a subject matter that I really liked so I thought that was a safe bet.
Turned out it was my least favorite of all the books I ordered.
Jail Blazers is about the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team from the ’90s through 2006. Jail Blazers is a nickname given to the Portland teams from that era because of numerous run-ins many of its players had with the law.
I remembered Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells, Scottie Pippen, Isiah ‘J.R.’ Rider, Damon Stoudamire, Darius Miles, and Zach Randolph, among many others. from some of those teams before reading the book.
I also remember where I was when watching game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals between the Blazers and Lakers. The infamous game Portland blew a 15-point 4th quarter lead to Kobe, Shaq, and Company.
There was plenty of material in the book, but it honestly could have been 100 pages long. 80% of it was meaningless game logs and flat-out uninteresting, while 20% of it garnered mild interest.
Even some stories I had vague recollection of before reading were barely touched on in the book. I was disappointed with that obviously. I was looking for my mere recollection of the moment to be filled in with details, but that rarely happened.
The author, Kerry Eggers, didn’t go into a ton of detail on any of the legal incidents with the players. It was mostly just police reports and bland organizational statements.
Very disappointing.
This book gets a non-recommendation from me.
If you are interested in these teams I suggestion merely googling the rosters and the individual players. I’m sure you’ll probably end up with equal or better stories on Wikipedia, and it won’t take as much time as 500 pages did for me.
