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I don't write these kinds of posts very often, because this isn't a personal blog. But right now is a good time to give all of you, my subscribers, some updates on my plans for now and the future. Most of it is very exciting.
But first, some not-great news.
At the end of June, I got laid off by iHeart and am no longer the Trail Blazers insider for Rip City Radio. The company had a round of job cuts nationwide, as companies of that size tend to do every few months, and my position was one of the ones they decided they no longer needed. I had a great two years there and still like and think highly of everyone I worked with—Chad Doing, Chris Burkhardt, Mike Schacker and Brenden Slaughter at the station, and Rich Moore and Marshal Burgess at the corporate level. These things happen and those decisions are made several levels above any of them.
To answer the most pressing question, I'm fine. Like everyone else in my chosen business (and most other ones), I've been laid off multiple times before in my career. I wasn't too surprised this time around and I have plenty of experience dealing with it. I'm much more worried about many of the business-side staffers the new Blazers ownership group laid off in May than I am about myself. I don't have kids and the radio gig wasn't my entire source of income, or even the majority of it. This one is about a 4 out of 10 on the setback scale for me—I wish it hadn't happened, but I'll be OK.
Why am I so sure I'll be OK? Because most of my time, energy and resources for the past four years have gone into this site, and you. Every time something like this happens, to me or (too often) to friends in the business, I'm more thankful that I decided back in 2022 to own my own work. This part of it, the site and newsletter, is a job I'm not in danger of losing because some accounting person at a publicly traded corporation who has no idea who I am decides they aren't maximizing shareholder value enough. I can't lay myself off.
Owning my own work also gives me full control over what I do and don't decide to cover, which I like to think benefits you, too. I could get a lot more subscribers, traffic and social-media clout if I leaned into chasing trade rumors and weighing in on some of the more toxic parts of the discourse around the Blazers and the NBA, and I don't want to do that. If I wrote for a corporate media outlet, I'd probably have post-count and page-view quotas that would push me in that direction. But I'm a big believer in quality over quantity and don't like writing just to write. If there's a news cycle or story that I don't have anything to add to or don't think is productive to weigh in on, I'll just sit it out.
Some times are harder than others doing it this way, but I have no regrets at all about how I've approached the last four years and the work I've done in that time. I hope you all (or at least most of you) agree.
The main thing getting laid off from the radio station will change is that I may not be able to travel for Blazers road trips nearly as much as I did last season. I'm still figuring out how much I'll do next year, which will be easier when we know the 2026-27 regular-season schedule next month. I've been fortunate that the Blazers have opened the last two seasons at home, but if they open on the road, that game will be a must. Ja Morant's return to Memphis is also a game I'll prioritize, along with their road trips before and after the trade deadline. The playoffs are obviously non-negotiable, if they get there.
I ended up covering 18 of the team's road games during the 2025-26 season, plus the play-in game in Phoenix, all three road games in the first-round playoff series against San Antonio, All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles and the Board of Governors meetings in New York. Doing this was an investment of a lot of time and, quite frankly, a lot of money (especially over the past four months, when world events caused the price of jet fuel to skyrocket and along with it, airfare). But it was worth it because the more I'm around, the more players, coaches and other team staffers get used to seeing me, which is how you build trust and relationships that will eventually lead to better stories.
A large percentage of this job is just showing up, and showing up as much as I want to isn't cheap. I'd be lying if I said that losing the income stream from the radio gig doesn't hurt this. But it's as good an excuse as any to make the pitch that I don't really like making too regularly:
The more of you become paid subscribers, the more of this kind of travel I'll be able to do during the season. I'm as aware as anyone that money is tight for a lot of people right now, and everyone has subscription fatigue. Because of that, I'm immensely grateful for the subscribers I have, which—without getting into details—are enough to make a decent living off of. But a lot of that money also goes back into funding the work itself, which will lead to that work being even better and more worth what I think is a pretty reasonable cost.
Speaking of travel, here are my plans for the rest of the summer:
This morning, I'm flying to Las Vegas for Summer League, for the 14th year in a row. I haven't missed one since Damian Lillard's rookie year in 2012, except for 2020 when the pandemic knocked out the event entirely. This isn't the most high-intrigue year for the Blazers on that front, since they didn't have a draft pick this year. But Yang Hansen is expected to play at least the first couple of games, and the organization is still very invested in him as a long-term project, so there will be worthwhile stories there.
Summer League will also be my first opportunity to spend some real time with Micah Nori get to know him on a personal level ahead of his first season as the Blazers' head coach. I've heard great things about him from friends of mine who cover the Timberwolves, so I'm excited to start building that relationship. The same goes for Morant, who is expected to meet the team in Las Vegas and do his first media availability there. Adam Silver will also be speaking after the annual summer Board of Governors meeting during Summer League, and there plenty of Blazers-related things to touch on there.
Even though the Blazers' Summer League team doesn't have much intrigue beyond year two of Yang, there's more going on with the franchise right now than there has been in years. And I'm going to be one of, if not the only Portland-based media member at the event.
After Summer League, I'm flying from Las Vegas to Chicago for a trip that's roughly half vacation and half work.
I've had this trip booked since last October, when my favorite band, Rush, announced a reunion tour that nobody thought would ever happen after the death of their drummer, Neil Peart (one of my all-time personal heroes for many reasons), six years ago. They're playing four nights at the United Center in mid-July, and I'm going to all four of them. I've been militant about avoiding any kind of spoilers about the setlist or the shows since the tour started about a month ago, so I'm going in basically blind. I cannot remember the last time I've looked forward to something this much.
I'm not proud to admit this, but this will be the first time in my entire career (about 15 years) that I've taken that much time to travel somewhere that isn't primarily to cover an NBA event. I'm going to do everything in my power to not think about work at all for that week, so unless there's urgent breaking news, things will be quiet on here.
But even this trip isn't going to be entirely personal. As luck would have it, the WNBA is holding All-Star Weekend in Chicago the weekend following the shows I was already going there for, so I'm extending the trip out a few extra days to cover that, too.
As of now, the Fire have no representatives, with the reserves being announced yesterday. Kelsey Plum will probably still be injured by the day of the All-Star Game, so there's a decent chance either Bridget Carleton or Carla Leite could be in consideration for the replacement spot. I could also see those two being in the mix for some of the Friday night events, either the three-point contest (Carleton) or the skills contest (Leite).
But even if there are no Fire players present for All-Star, it's still an event that I consider important to go to. I've been covering the NBA for more than 10 years and know most of the important people to know in that league. I'm still new to covering the WNBA and don't know nearly as much, or nearly as many people, as my colleagues who have been covering it for years, With this being the first season I've had a team to cover, these kinds of league events are invaluable for that relationship-building work. As I said earlier, a big part of this job is just showing up.
Once I get back from Chicago, my focus is going to be solely on the Fire for the rest of the WNBA season, which ends in mid-September, a week before Blazers training camp starts up again. The last two months have been a bit of a feeling-out process for me as I get used to the different rhythms of covering the WNBA versus the NBA. Maybe after the season I'll get into more detail about some of the pros and cons of each from my vantage point, but it's been an adjustment.
(Side note: the Fire's schedule worked out amazingly well for me this year that they're on the road for most of July. Tomorrow's game against the Aces and the July 22 game against the Wings are the only two home games I'm going to miss all season.)
The post-All-Star stretch of the Fire's inaugural season is going to be eventful. The trade deadline is happening on Aug. 2. Later that month, the Bhathals are finally going to open their new Fire and Thorns joint practice facility in Hillsboro, and the team will start practicing there instead of on the Portland State campus. I'm also planning on driving up to Vancouver next month for the Fire's game there against the Toronto Tempo (who are playing games in other parts of Canada to build their fanbase across the whole country), which I'm greatly looking forward to.
That's all for now. Much more to come over the next few weeks and beyond.
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