Imagining Portland Trail Blazers players as Disney+ characters
Pixar
Anfernee Simons – Forky, Toy Story 4
For those of you that have gotten the chance to see Toy Story 4, you know that Forky is the new guy on the block. After only playing a total of 141 minutes, Anfernee Simons is Portland’s best kept secret and has captured the affection of management of fans alike — sort of like how Bonnie can’t stop obsessing over her new friend Forky.
Forky feels out of place in this new world, and who could blame him? He’s basically a kid-friendly version of a Doctor Frankenstein trash monster. He has to learn how to accept a new role with his new family of toys to keep Bonnie happy. On the same note, Simons is attempting to make the jump from natural scoring guard to backup ball handler behind Lillard. Let’s hope he proves to be a toy worth keeping forever rather than a brief novelty to capture our attention.
Hassan Whiteside – Carl Fredricksen, Up
The story of Carl Fredricksen is a truly tragic one, and possibly responsible for more adult tears than any Pixar movie ever made. If you take into account the fact many basketball players consider themselves “married to the game”, Carl’s story oddly lines up in a similar fashion to that of Hassan Whiteside.
After being drafted in the second round of the 2010 NBA Draft, Hassan was cut after just 19 games with the Kings. He spent the next two years bouncing around the D-League, Lebanon and Chinese. Much like a marriage, basketball became a full-time job where Whiteside had to invest all of his free time to finally make the NBA. And when he finally did, that was his wedding day. Unfortunately, the sunshine rainbows would eventually pass and the spark that made this marriage once so special would die out.
Whiteside was seen as the root of the problem. Much like Mr. Fredricksen, he could no longer bring himself to care about a life he no longer had interest in. While the circumstances were significantly different, their attitudes were certainly comparable. That was until a bright and energetic presence was introduced to his life that changed his life forever. Whiteside has already happily embraced the Portland life style and things are finally starting to look “Up” for him after all.
Mario Hezonja – Bing Bong, Inside Out
When Bing Bong was first conceived, he meant everything in the world to Riley as she tried to usher in a new stage of her life. She spent a lot of time with good ol’ Bing Bong, but eventually moved on to bigger and better things with her life, leaving Bing Bong as a forgotten relic of the past. Sounds a lot like how the Orlando Magic and New York Knicks have treated Mario Hezonja, huh?
Drafted No. 5 overall back in 2015, Hezonja seemed like one of the most important new things in the basketball world. Now he’s scraping by just to survive in our memories, just like Bing Bong. However, he will have one last chance to prove all that perceived talent wasn’t “imaginary” after all as he gets the chance to go out in one last flash of blazing glory, helping push the Portland Trail Blazers towards their title aspirations.