Sonics fans may look to Portland

TUALATIN, Ore. — In the most basic way, Nate McMillan is still a man divided between loyalties.

It has been three years since he left Seattle to coach the Portland Trail Blazers, while his wife, Michelle, stayed behind to allow their teenaged children to finish high school in a familiar setting. Their son, Jamelle, graduated from O'Dea High last year and their daughter, Brittany, is a junior at Seattle Prep.

McMillan said it was "a difficult family decision" to remain apart, but he covers the distance with frequent phone calls to his family and occasionally drives his Range Rover along Interstate 5 to Seattle.

"Michelle likes to fly, but I can't do that," he said. "I drive. I make one or two phone calls and I'm home in 2 ½ hours."

He uses the word "home" often during a Sunday morning conversation inside his impeccably clean office, which overlooks two basketball courts at the Blazers' practice facility.

When he talks about his family and his previous life, home is Seattle. When he talks about his team and his future, home is Portland.

McMillan, the man they used to call Mr. Sonic, advises NBA fans in Seattle who are missing the Sonics to make the journey south as he did several years ago and jump on the Trail Blazers bandwagon.

"What's going to end up happening, I think, is Sonics fans are going to connect here with what we're doing," McMillan said. "Over a period of time, it will supersede any rivalry that was once there because you can connect quicker with us than you can with any other team."

After receiving permission from the NBA, the Trail Blazers are slowly venturing into the Seattle-area market.

"Portland is going to be vying for the affection of fans in an adjacent state," commissioner David Stern said last week during his preseason address.

Comcast Sports Net will offer 55 televised Blazers games during the regular season (Ch. 179, Comcast preferred package). A Blazers front-office source said the team is considering playing an exhibition game in Seattle next year, possibly at Edmundson Pavilion or a local high school.

"If you're a Sonics fan, that was an unfortunate situation, but it opened the door for us," Comcast executive producer David Kamens said. "There are hungry NBA fans out there. I'd expect one out of two NBA fans would tune in."

McMillan said he believes it's shortsighted to believe the Blazers are simply targeting Seattle.

"I don't worry about whether we're the Northwest team," he said. "If we win and do things right, play the right way and give a good brand of basketball, we're going to get the Northwest. But more we're also going to get the entire country. People want to be associated with winners."

Since taking over in 2005, McMillan has yet to carve out a winning season, but he has made the Trail Blazers relevant again.

Portland, which opens the season tonight at Staples Center against the defending Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers, is picked to end a five-year postseason drought and make a deep push into the playoffs.

McMillan turned around a program by discarding the malcontents that inspired all of those Jail Blazers jokes and made Portland the laughingstock of the NBA. In his first year, the leading scorers were Zach Randolph, Darius Miles, Juan Dixon, Ruben Patterson and Sebastian Telfair. None of them are with the team now.

"My first 1 ½ years, it was like every day I was putting out fires," McMillan said. "People weren't agreeing with what was going on, on court and off the court. There were certain ways we were going to do things. We were going to work, and we were going to play together, and we were going to be on time. It's what a business is supposed to do. Do it right. Come in, be on time and work, and don't embarrass the name. It's simple."

After posting a 21-61 record his first season, McMillan's team made an 11-game improvement the next season (32-50), and a nine-game improvement the following season (41-41). This year, 50 wins seems a reasonable goal.

These are exciting times in Rip City. Every game at the Rose Garden is sold out, and expectations are soaring as high as the team's television ratings.

"The excitement is the potential," McMillan said. "But we need to remember, we haven't done anything yet."

Still, Portland's marquee players — guard Brandon Roy from Garfield and the University of Washington, forward LaMarcus Aldridge and center Greg Oden — are plastered on billboards across the city and grace the cover of team's media guide above three little words: Rise With Us.

While the defending champion Boston Celtics, Lakers, Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks engaged in a flurry of trades and an unprecedented buildup last season, general manager Kevin Pritchard stayed the course he and McMillan mapped out years earlier.

They assembled the Blazers through the draft and were lucky enough to nab the No. 1 pick in 2007 and select Oden, a once-in-a-generation 7-foot center who missed last season because of knee surgeries.

The Blazers are so deep, rookie guard Jerryd Bayless, the No. 11 pick in the draft, isn't yet in the rotation, and starting small forward Martell Webster, the former Seattle Prep standout who is out because of a left-foot stress fracture, won't be missed.

"What we're doing feels very similar to when I was at the U-Dub, because you can see the expectations building from where we're no longer playing teams tough to a point where we're trying to beat these good teams," said Roy. "It's no longer sneaking up anybody, but we're here to win."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com