The Portland Trail Blazers have a lot to look forward to in the coming season, whenever that happens. They may have fallen short in the Bubble to a superior Lakers team that went on to win the title, but their run in Orlando through the seeding games was a reminder of just how dangerous a team they can be when at or near full strength.
That’s where they should find themselves when next season kicks off. Jusuf Nurkic still had some rust to shake off when he took the court during the restart after a nearly 18-month absence, but his presence was a huge difference-maker for a team that sorely needed some bullishness on the inside.
Earlier this week, the team announced their new City Edition jerseys that honor the state of Oregon’s bucolic landscape and its Native American heritage, and on Friday, they had a special unveiling of their new floor design for next season, featuring a scale model off the court in Portland’s Mills End Park, which according to the Guinness World Records is the world’s smallest park.
We unveiled the new @trailblazers court design at smallest park in the world and made the tiny replica version. My wish to do something with Mill Ends park finally came true. #keepportlandweird pic.twitter.com/khuVaWrd8k
— Mario Milošević (@marmil83) October 30, 2020
Mills End Park is two-feet in diameter and, of course, comes with a fantastical local legend. It involves a local newspaper columnist and a tongue-in-cheek leprechaun story, and was dedicated in 1976 as the “only leprechaun colony west of Ireland.” In any case, it’s the perfect venue for the Blazers to debut their miniature new court before we get the full-scale version of it when the season tips off.