Person of Interest: Rasheed Wallace

Allen Iverson will always be the league’s “hip-hop” (whatever that means) antihero, but his consistent excellence and the grim, machine-like style with which he played kept his fans at arm’s length. You didn’t love Allen Iverson as much as you appreciated him, respected him, or feared him. Rasheed, despite his troubles, was always more accessible, more open to discussion. This, in part, came from that aforementioned potential. With Iverson, there was never any doubt that he was playing at the height of his talents. However you might feel about his demeanor on the court, you recognized it as a necessary evil. Rasheed always left himself open to the frustrations of a public who continually fantasizes about how a tweak in “attitude” or “lifestyle” can lead to 25-point scoring averages, enhanced teamwork, and championships.

Portland didn’t help. Rasheed was arguably the best player on seven playoff teams for the Trail Blazers, including the 1999-2000 team that choked away Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. But like Chapel Hill, Portland is a city where basketball matters way too much. It’s unfair and simplistic to blankly state that race was the only factor in the Jail Blazers’ problems with their host city — Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter are still heroes in Portland. Kevin Duckworth had a port named after him. According to Ben Golliver, a Portland native who writes about the team at blazersedge.com, Rasheed’s problems with the city arose from a litany of very specific incongruities. “When you put Rasheed Wallace in Portland,” Golliver explained, “every player in Portland is under great scrutiny, for better or for worse. If you act like Clyde Drexler and shake everyone’s hand and talk to kids, you’ll be a god in this city. If you come in and don’t really care about that sort of stuff and have some minor baggage, you’ll get lambasted by fans who expect you to be a perfect gentleman.”

In the early aughts, Rasheed tried to reach out to the Blazer fan base by hosting a radio show on Jammin’ 95.5, Portland’s only hip-hop station. Wallace and a friend mostly played underground Philly hip-hop and spat freestyles over instrumental tracks. “There was a younger generation of Blazer fans who loved Rasheed and really wanted to get to know him,” Golliver said, “but how many people in Oregon really know how to process that? He’d try to find outlets to express who he was, but unfortunately, we’re just not the type of city to accommodate that sort of guy.”

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