Portland’s push for a new arena deal is not exactly trending in the right direction.
The Trail Blazers and the city remain miles apart in talks over a new agreement for the franchise, whose current deal runs through 2030 and includes a team option for 2035. The Moda Center has been open since 1995, and the building needs upgrades to keep pace with the rest of the NBA. A vote is set for Aug. 12, but the latest reporting makes clear that the sides are nowhere near the same page.
That tension spilled into the open ahead of a city council meeting scheduled for Thursday, when Portland council president Jamie Dunphy invited the Blazers to come in and talk through what happens next.
“We have no substantive information about what they want, what they don’t want or what a successful partnership with the city, county and state would look like,” Dunphy said via The Athletic insider Jason Quick. “We heard through the press that they were dissatisfied with the term sheet, but got no feedback.
“It feels like they are either disinterested in transparency and accountability with public dollars, which is a nonstarter, or they are simply going through the motions to run out the clock and burn any remaining goodwill in the city and wait for the government to give them an excuse and move the team.
“I can make a guess which it is, but have no concrete details to tell me this. In life, I always try to assume the best and not assume malicious intent, but this doesn’t seem like incompetence. It seems intentional.”
Blazers president Dewayne Hankins pushed back on the tone of the public back-and-forth, saying he wants a deal to get done and would prefer the process be less combative.
“I’d like to turn the rhetoric down and not have these conversations in the media, to be honest,” Hankins said via Quick. “It’s not helpful.
It’s not effective. I just want to get a deal done and this is not the way for us to get a deal done.”
For now, an Aug. 12 resolution looks out of reach. The vote on a new 20-year lease can be pushed into December, but the gap between the parties still appears wide, and the relationship sounds chilly enough that it will take real progress to get things moving.
If the Blazers enter the season without a new arena agreement, the fallout could be felt well beyond the council chambers. Frustration is already building among fans, and some people are beginning to direct that anger toward new owner Tom Dundon.
It also adds another layer of noise around a team trying to climb out of the middle of the Western Conference. Portland finished seventh in the West last season and is adding Ja Morant and Damian Lillard to the mix, though both are coming off long-term injuries and the fit is not seamless on paper.
There’s also the transition to a new coach, Micah Nori, and that learning curve could make the whole thing even messier. The longer this drags on, the more it risks becoming a distraction for a Blazers team that needs as few of those as possible.
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