When the Portland Trail Blazers traded for Frye last year, it was a finishing nail in the coffin of the old “Jail Blazers” image. Gone were all the bad-character guys who had soured the small-town love between the franchise and the biggest city in America with just one major-league sports team. And now, 18 months later, the Blazers are winning with a roster packed with good-character players. Yet Frye, just three years removed from being a promising, 6-foot-11 rookie standout, has hardly played this season.
None of which is particularly unusual in a league where players come and go faster than Allen Iverson can break your ankles with a crossover. But Frye, through his offbeat sense of humor and evangelistic love for his new home city, has quickly become a part of Portland’s fabric in a way very few pro athletes ever accomplish.
He is, for fans more concerned with local art and cuisine than with Brandon Roy dropping 52 on Phoenix last week, the face of the Blazers. He’s the guy they see regularly cracking jokes in the Portland press, eating with his bulldogs Milton (also known as “Fat Boy”) and Lily at the Tin Shed on Northeast Alberta Street, or hanging out in the Pearl on First Thursday.
And the love is mutual. “This is where I want to spend the rest of my life,” Frye says. “But, at the same time, if you ask me the question, ‘Do I think this is the place for me in the next five or six years?’ I’m saying definitely not.”
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