Maybe you spent Wednesday absorbing the news that frustrated Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy stood before his teammates and apologized for calling them out earlier this week. Maybe you wondered if they still believe in the face of the franchise.



Me?



I thought about Arvydas Sabonis.



In the summer of 2003, with $5 million at stake, faced with the idea of playing another season in Portland alongside Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells and Ruben Patterson, Sabonis decided it wasn't worth the trouble.



He went home and never came back.



Sabonis saw the end of a failed era before any of us. He recognized that a window was closing. And right now what the Blazers need is to stop clutching to this era out of fear and get real about what the next era of Blazers basketball wants to be.



The cover of Portland's media guide this season features Roy, Greg Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge. And that's a giant 66.7 percent question mark today. We can spend an inordinate amount of time dissecting Roy's passive-aggressive statement and his subsequent apology. But I'm not sure it solves much of anything.



Moving on would.



I've advocated for a bold move from the front office. And as I'm shouting into the halls at One Center Court, what I hear in response is a mostly empty echo. Feels a lot like the big moves and major decisions are Seattle-driven and out of the hands of general manager Rich Cho. And so it's again incumbent upon owner Paul Allen to make a shift and redirect the franchise, as he did in giving up on his Jail Blazers Era.



End this Frail Blazers era.



The priority needs to be on collecting reliable players with healthy knees and keeping them that way. The longer the Blazers cling to the current roster, the longer they insist this can be salvaged by waiting it out, the longer they lean on wishing and not on sound basketball business, the longer it will take Portland to escape itself.



The Blazers are better than any sports organization at victimizing themselves. They've done it now for two solid decades. And without another shift in philosophy and a willingness to make a bold trade, we're left with an organization headed nowhere in particular.



There are few professional sports franchises that pander to the fan base as much as the Blazers. It's probably why they're selling out with a mediocre product. Ultimately, though, when fans have had enough the Blazers won't have a choice but to make another dramatic shift.



Those who have spent any time in business dealings with Allen say he'd make a tortoise impatient.



They describe the billionaire as methodical, dilatory, and say he's paralyzed by the analysis that he pays the people around him to gather. And so maybe what we're really talking about is an owner's willingness to understand that what's happening right now with the basketball team isn't working. It's time to close the books on a disappointing era of Blazers basketball and move on.



I doubt Allen would have stopped drafting bad actors if the seats had remained full. I doubt he cared much that fans were embarrassed. But what the Blazers owner fears is being the only guy sitting in the arena.



I believe he's headed there if nothing changes. I hear the frustration from fans. I see the season-ticket renewal deadline looming late in the season. And I wonder if the fear that the Blazers will get slammed by a protest of their season-ticket holders will be the reason they decide to start over again.



Some of that frustration bubbled over Wednesday in the voice of Jerome Kersey, a fixture on Blazers teams of the past -- teams that went deeper into the playoffs than Roy's have.



"You're supposed to be the man," he said before Roy apologized for throwing his teammates under the bus for a second time this season. "You got the contract. Point the finger at yourself first."



Do the Blazers need to bring Sabonis back -- let him see the injuries, the lack of direction from ownership and the way the team is now built around the wrong players -- then watch him run back to Europe to know this era is toast, too?



If so, offer the big guy $5 million, get him on the next plane and let's get this going.



Portland hasn't thrown a towel in the faces of fans like Wallace did to Sabonis. But this is an organization that disrespects hardworking, loyal, passionate fans by passing off what's currently going on as the best it can do. If the organization billed you at the end of a sporting event rather than the beginning, would you feel good about paying full price watching this half-baked roster compete?



The Blazers use the motto: "Make it Better" to brand their community relations efforts.



It's time for just that. So go on, make it better.



-- John Canzano; follow him on Twitter

-- Catch him on the radio on "The Bald-Faced Truth," 3-6 p.m. weekdays on KXTG (95.5).