Nov 12th 2008 11:05PM by Brett Edwards (author feed)
Filed under: Suns, Trail BlazersSuns’ head coach Terry Porter is finally getting his Trail Blazers jersey retired, but he won’t be the only one honored with a ceremony involving Portland’s number 30 in December. That’s because the team has also decided to retire the jersey of Bobby Gross, who played for the Blazers’ 1977 championship team, and just happened to also wear the number 30.

On December 16, Porter will get his jersey raised to the rafters during a ceremony on a Suns’ night off when the Blazers face the Kings. Then, two nights later — against Porter’s Suns — the Blazers will again raise the number 30, this time to honor Gross. Before the Suns’ game against the Rockets, Porter was asked how he felt about sharing the honor with Gross. It was very clear that he thought it was strange, but laughed it off and refused to give any inflammatory quotes, just smiling and saying “no comment, ” then chuckling some more before saying, “Me and Bobby Gross.” Since Porter was too classy to say how silly the dual jersey retirement is, I’ll go ahead and do it for him.

Terry Porter played 10 seasons in Portland, is the franchise’s all-time assist leader with 5,319, and its second all-time leading scorer with 11,330 career points. Bobby Gross, on the other hand, played for the team seven seasons, and averaged nine points and less than five boards per game. Gross did raise his game considerably during the team’s one championship season, averaging 17.3 points for the series when the team beat the Sixers in the ‘77 NBA Finals.

Look, maybe Bobby Gross deserves to have his jersey retired, and maybe he doesn’t. But it’s just odd for the team to wait 30 years to do it, and then to do it two days from retiring Porter’s jersey of the same number. Gross will be the seventh member of that championship team to get his number retired. Funny, I thought that’s what banners were for.