u/AceMcStace

A few other interesting quotes is that he said he is “still getting to know” the Portland fanbase, and his intention is to “Bring a championship to Portland”.

I’ve attached screenshots of the entire email here.

I’ve never seen more confused and chaotic drivers anywhere else in the city.

The third version having Dunphys response. Link again to article here

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7473883/2026/07/27/trail-blazers-portland-arena-lease-negotiations/?unlocked\_article\_code=1.01A.KSuP.gcql5pDrq56d&source=emp\_shared\_article&smid=ta-ios-share

Trail Blazers president responds to reports the team has rejected an invite to the July 30th Portland city council session.

“We were just talking to the city administrator’s staff, figuring out the best way to move forward and show up on Thursday,” Hankins said.

He would go on to add:

“I’d like to turn the rhetoric down and not have these conversations in the media, to be honest,” Hankins said. “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.”

It seems as if the Blazers have made an immediate about face on their radio silence policy within the span of an hour of Quick’s original report.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7473883/2026/07/27/trail-blazers-portland-arena-lease-negotiations/?unlocked\_article\_code=1.01A.KSuP.gcql5pDrq56d&source=athletic\_user\_shared\_gift\_article\_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

As someone who spent way too much time watching this today, there were plenty of heated moments and a lot of passionate testimony from members of the city, state, business community & regular people.

While this still fits the timeline to stay on track for the cities 8/12 vote it does add mounting pressure on the city council to vote on a term sheet, where they now have to consider what type of asks the county would like to see as well. There is also the possibility the county rejects the funding proposal. The temperature continues to rise on Moda Center funding negotiations in general.

Second image is statement by Mult. Co Chair Vega Pederson in response.

Edit: Just for clarity sake the County had in principle committed around 88 Million, the amendments by the 2 councilors aim to decrease this amount by over a “third”. It is not yet clear what their reasoning is for this last second challenge.

More good reporting from Wright over at KATU. Below is a copy of the term sheet proposal the city is sending over to officially kick off negotiations. Some of these asks seem very reasonable to me, it’ll be interesting to see how Dundon responds.

Source: https://katu.com/sports/trail-blazers/portland-to-send-first-term-sheet-to-trail-blazers-this-week-as-talks-heat-up-nba-basketball-business-city-council-negotiation-renovation-moda-center-local-sports-community-economy

It seems the team has pushed back a bit, but mostly just emphasized that it would like to maintain the framework of the SB 1501 bill, noting that “The City has more information than state leaders had during the legislative session” which is an…interesting counterargument.

Unfortunately, it appears the evidence suggests that the team and Tom Dundon are not operating in good faith at the moment, I’m assuming this is what Silver was referring to yesterday.

I guess this means we pretty much have our top options all available? (If they are still interested in the job of course)

Ultimate professional throughout. Good luck in Chicago!

Whole situation blows but it’s not uncommon unfortunately when ownership changes