APRIL. 18, 2011; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers president Larry Miller (left), owner Paul Allen (center) and Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll look on during the third quarter of the game between the Utah Jazz and the Portland Trail Blazers the game at the Rose Garden. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

Blazers owner, Paul Allen, sold a 1953 Barnett Newman for how much?! For some perspective, $44 million is more than LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews, J.J. Hickson, Damian Lillard, Joel Freeland, and Eric Maynor were paid for this season combined. Barnett Newman’s “Onement VI” features a solid blue canvas, separated by a thin white line; that’s it.

I’d say claiming more prodigious artistic talent would be tooting my own horn, but truly anyone with a paint supply and the good sense to find a canvas could do about the same. I know, I know, everyone experiences art differently, the eye of the beholder, blah blah blah, but come on. There are better ways to spend that money; like feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or paying sports writers.

I guess, if nothing else, this serves as a reminder of how rich Paul Allen really is. While the Hansen-Ballmer group has just upped the ante to $625 million in the battle for the Sacramento Kings, Allen has just sold a painting from his collection for 1/14^th of that entire amount. If he wanted to, he could buy the Kings outright, himself. One of the perks of being worth $15 billion, and I’m not even speaking hyperbolically.

Let’s look at a few things that painting could finance:

• The first 4 years of Kobe Bryant’s first contract extension ($42,755,000)

• All 6 seasons Chris Paul played for New Orleans ($43,355,202)

• All 6 seasons Brandon Roy played for Portland ($42,112,700)

• 5 years of NBA Commissioner, David Stern’s, salary (EST $40,000,000)

• 75% of the current NBA team salary cap ($58,044,000)

Take your pick. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of scratch. If I ever find myself weeks from death, I’m going to dabble in abstract expressionism, because it looks like one hell of a way to capitalize on croaking. A yellow canvas should be bold enough for my heirs to rake in $80 million, no? Accounting for inflation and some imaginary math, we’ll just round up to 100.

At any rate, Paul Allen has added another bundle of cash to his cartoonishly Scrooge-esque money pile, and I’m not complaining. It’s relieving to see the man who holds the Blazers’ fate in his hands doing well in other business ventures, ludicrous as they may be. But if the enormity of his wealth still leads you to question your life choices, just try to relax. Maybe take in some art?

@davidmackaypdx | @ripcityproject | davidmackaypdx@gmail.com

This is not something we'll see on the Blazers' sidelines ever again. Photo courtesy of OregonLive.

With the 24-hour news cycle being what it is, and with the NBA getting close to winnowing itself down to the best of the best, we might have one or two more days with the firing of Rich Cho dominating the headlines.

Writers both national and local have weighed in on the situation, mostly agreeing that dismissing Cho is not only a bad idea, but is also an indication that this franchise is closer than some might think to having the wheels fall off completely. In fact, it seems that the only voices not bemoaning the most recent premature exit of Portland’s general manager are those whose checks are signed by the very same guy that told Cho to kick rocks.

Which leads to maybe the central figure in this whole ordeal: Paul Allen. Blazer fans like me, those born in the 80’s and developed into die-hard fans in the middle 90’s, only know this team as being owned by Paul Allen, and because of that we are left with something of an identity crisis on our hands. Many people have chimed in with their opinions on Mr. Allen, and his relative mental well being, and the consensus seems to be that Paul Allen, for what it’s worth, is losing it.

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New personnel changes

Well I think the draft, that’s always interesting to bring in new players and see how they’re going to contribute. I think we’ve got some players in Luke [Babbitt} and Elliot [Williams] who hopefully can make a good contribution this year. It was a really challenging draft process but we got through it and found some good players. I’ve been hearing some good things about them and their potential to develop.

Then, of course, we signed Wes Matthews to a very substantial offer sheet which wasn’t matched. That was a bit nerve-wracking and we all speculated about whether it would happen or not. But he was the player that we targeted and really wanted to get. We talked to all the basketball staff, [Blazers President] Larry [Miller] was a key part of that decision too, we all put our heads together and concluded that he was the player that could really help us next year. I’m really excited to see… I watched him just a tiny bit on practice tape and I’m excited to see preseason get started as I always am.

A couple interesting tidbits from Mr. Allen here. The ‘easy’ thing to talk about is Mr. Allen not talking about the KP incident, the fallout and all that (he never actually mentions his name during the interview). To be honest, I liked it and I respected him for just letting that die in the past. The easy way out would have been to push his side of the story and what not, instead by not talking about it we should be talking about the task at hand: the product on the court. I may be on the minority, but I liked him actually talking about the prospects. Very interesting that Mr. Allen said Luke Babbitt and Eliot Williams could contribute this year, I personally have the same exepectations for them as I did for the rookies last year: whatever they add is a bonus.

Also interesting was how high he and the organization was on Wesley Matthews. All signs point to the fact that Blazers really think that he’s the guy that can take this team to the next level. I’d say at this point, this is one of the few times where I get a feeling that Blazer management has higher expectations for a player than fans. I still don’t know what to make of Matthews and what to expect from him and I’ll reserve any judgment until I see him in regular season action. Was he a product of the Jazz system, or was he held back a little bit? Only time will tell, but very interesting to see how badly Portland wanted him when you recall how many guys they were attached to early in the off-season.

Expectations

Because of all the injuries we’re recovering from it’s really hard to pin down. We would love to get a great contribution from Greg this year. He’s gone more than the extra mile to get in shape and get ready to go. You’ve got Joel who is also rehabilitating. Of course Brandon [Roy] had a few issues there at the end of the season too. It’s going to be very interesting to see how they come back. So far I’m hearing very encouraging things. It would be so great to see them back out there playing 100%.

If everything clicks, and you haven’t touched on it yet but it’s probably your next question, we have some new assistant coaches too, a little change with the basketball staff, we have some guys coming back and hopefully being 100% healthy, this could be a great year. Given the challenges of last year you have to keep an eye out for that and make sure everybody stays healthy. We’re doing the best we can there and bringing the guys along slowly.

I agree with Mr. Allen on the fact that it’s not easy to really put solid expectations on the Blazers this year. And it’s odd because you usually don’t say that when a team has won 50+ times the past two seasons. Especially when that team is returning a ton of their cast AND are seemingly healthy after a miserable year in that category. Are the Blazers purposely lowering expectations, after two years of hype? Who knows, but I think it’s an interesting question. The support for Greg Oden also needs to be highlighted, not only because this is the last year of his contract but because he’s a major key to this team’s success.