It has been some time since a Trail Blazers season has left such a bitter taste, and even longer since the end has been met with such relief.

But here we are today, long past the heartache of losing franchise pillars who crumbled to injury and long ago numbed to the ugly unprofessionalism these players showed to former coach Nate McMillan. But one question still begs answering:

How did the Blazers get here?

It was a combination of factors that formed a perfect storm: A rushed start to the season; a trio of setbacks on the first day of practice; a coach under pressure to produce big results; and a front office with limited resources to address the issues.

An epic failure prevailed. The front office whiffed on all of its offseason moves. The players were all talk, and little action, as their own agendas carried more weight than the team, resulting in the most underachieving set of Blazers in 11 years. And McMillan, who entered the season saying he felt he would be fired if he didn't get to the second round of the playoffs, became so tight and so rigid that by Valentine's Day his team no longer wanted to listen to him or play for him.

The wake of failure was widespread. McMillan was fired with 23 games remaining. Marcus Camby and Gerald Wallace were traded. And the era of the Big Three was over, seemingly before it ever started, as knee problems felled Brandon Roy and Greg Oden, causing Roy to retire and leading the team to eventually waive Oden. And

.

It was an abrupt and stunning turnabout for a proud franchise that had made the playoffs the past three seasons. It was a high-priced and experienced roster, and entering the season, the intrigue wasn't whether the team could reach the playoffs, it was whether the team could advance to the second round, or beyond. But even when the team raced to a 7-2 start, and found itself perched atop the Western Conference, all while garnering praise from Charles Barkley as one of the best teams in the West, McMillan never believed it.

Something was amiss. McMillan could feel it from the start.

***

It was the first week of training camp, and already the Trail Blazers were in crisis.

on the eve of training camp. That same night, the team learned that

. The next day, routine tests would show a recurring

. He would need a procedure, which would keep him out of the first two weeks of camp.

That Black Friday had a wide-ranging and long-term effect.

Before the first practice, McMillan had to scrap one of the biggest wrinkles he had planned: playing Nicolas Batum at shooting guard. With Aldridge unable to practice, Wallace moved over to power forward and Batum to small forward. After Aldridge returned shortly before the season, there were too few practices to implement Batum at shooting guard. As a result, Batum spent much of the first month lost in a haze of self-doubt and McMillan's stubbornness in curtailing his minutes.

Off the court, the Black Friday sent a wave of activity through the makeshift front office, which suddenly had to find scoring punch and big man depth, and find it quickly. That process was slowed as acting general manager Chad Buchanan -- the team's director of college scouting -- and president Larry Miller weighed the

. By waiving Roy, they could lower their salary and qualify for more free agent money.

Even after they waived Roy, the Blazers were working on the cheap.

They heavily pursued power forward Carl Landry, but could offer only $5 million. He signed with New Orleans for more than $8 million. They ended up signing forward Kurt Thomas, the oldest player in the NBA, to a two-year contract at the veteran's minimum, and journeyman forward Craig Smith for the veteran's minimum.

Unable to get Landry, the team turned to the next biggest free agent on the market: shooting guard Jamal Crawford. The team had been dabbling in free agent shooting guards, kicking the tires on Shannon Brown, Willie Green, Reggie Williams and Jerry Stackhouse, according to Buchanan. Brown had a promise from Phoenix that he would start, and the Blazers couldn't compete with that, so they turned their focus on Crawford, who was being pursued by Indiana, New York and Sacramento.

McMillan and Crawford had several conversations, and according to McMillan, none of them centered around the Blazers and the desire to win. Crawford instead wondered about himself: How much would he play, how many shots, what style of play? When McMillan told him he would have to play defense, Crawford blanched.

During this time, I was in frequent phone contact with Crawford. He had narrowed his choices to Portland and Sacramento, and greatly favored Sacramento's Paul Westphal, a coach noted for an open offense and little concern for defense. He voiced concerns about McMillan, and his controlling ways.

As training camp continued, and the internal conversations about signing Crawford heated up, McMillan had grown irritated. Entering his seventh season in Portland, McMillan had transformed the franchise from laughingstock to respectability by placing team above all. Nothing he was hearing from Crawford suggested he would be a team player. His gut told him not to endorse signing Crawford.

But as he looked at his practices, he grew wary. Roy, the three-time All-Star, was not there. The team needed scoring. The team needed shooting. And at the moment, he would be entering his make-or-break season with a rookie -- Nolan Smith -- as his backup point guard.

Time was wasting and the pressure was mounting. Had he more job security, or more time to teach, he could have stayed true to his beliefs.

Instead,

.

***

If one thing proved true this season, it was the Blazers could talk a good game.

Problem is, they rarely backed it up.

The players raved about their chemistry, but never did it show on the court. After a loss at Atlanta, players held a private meeting and promised to hold one another accountable. But the same issues -- help defense, boxing out and setting good screens -- persisted.

No one failed to back up his talk more than Felton. On

, Felton professed that his weight is "down to where I want it" and that his conditioning was "great." However, it quickly became apparent he was out of shape and unable to keep up his push-the-tempo style. Later in the season, long after his shooting and ball-handling struggles had been exposed, he changed course, saying he had to use much of the season to get into shape.

It wouldn't be the last time Felton would backtrack. On Jan. 24, Felton was interviewed about what makes a good coach in the NBA. Washington's Flip Saunders had just been fired amid player unrest, and Felton was probed on what players look for in a coach.

"That's one thing I hate is when players try to say 'This coach ain't doing this, this coach ain't doin' that.' It ain't the coach's fault," Felton said. "I'm one player who will honestly say that, that I don't blame nothing on a coach. I don't believe in that because we are the ones on the court. The coaches put us through practice, drill us, show us plays, but we have to go out there and execute it. So you can't blame them."

Yet 23 days later, Felton directly blamed McMillan for his poor play, telling CSNNW.com "It's hard to perform the way you know how when you know they don't have confidence in you. Never in my days playing basketball have I felt like a coach wasn't confident in my abilities. It's hard to play knowing that. Coming in and out of games is throwing my rhythm off ..."

At the time of his complaints, Felton was averaging 33.5 minutes a game.

Meanwhile, Crawford spent much of the season stumping in front of microphones that the team would right its course, and that he was willing to do whatever the team needed. But away from the spotlight, Crawford brooded, complaining that he didn't want to play point guard and saying that he didn't know whether to be a scorer or a distributor. By the end of the season, Crawford would be more prolific on Twitter than he was with his shot, and his slumped shoulders and expressionless face made him look more consumed with his own deteriorating game than the plight of the team. He vehemently disputed the claim of self-centeredness, saying he should be allowed to be upset at himself for poor play.

By mid-February, it became clear that the locker room was hollow. Players spouted cliches and said what people wanted to hear, but there was little substance or follow-through behind it.

But it wasn't until March when we found out just how hollow and just how far this team had frayed.

There were signs that McMillan was losing his team as early as January.

In Detroit on Jan. 21, Buchanan, trainer Jay Jensen and McMillan all decided to hold out Wallace because of an injured finger. An irritated Wallace threw his coach under the bus, repeatedly referring questions about his not playing to McMillan when he could have just said the team was holding him out because of injury.

That night,

. The Blazers started the season 1-9 in games decided by five points or less.

Throughout the close losses, the players felt like McMillan never had their back, never absorbed blame, instead choosing to point out that the plays were there to be made, but the players weren't making them.

"Sometimes (as a coach), if you take the blame for it, it makes the team feel like you are with them," said Aldridge, a co-captain. "But if you are always 'This is y'all, this is y'all, this is y'all' -- and I love Nate -- but I think that was one of the things that made guys stop listening."

Soon, it became obvious there was a disconnect between the locker room and McMillan. Again, the team was saying the right things -- that it wasn't on McMillan, but rather themselves -- but they were showing otherwise with lifeless performances. By March, there was little doubt that the team had quit on McMillan, and there was no strong voice in the locker room to stop it, in part because the dissension was so widespread.

Predictably, Aldridge and Crawford said they never quit on McMillan, a claim both

. But then again, few if any players this season owned up to anything. After the string of embarrassing losses, which included

and

, for the players to say they didn't quit on McMillan is either an insult to the intelligence of the fans or an indictment of their talent.

***

As quickly as this team was thrown together in December, it figures to be dismantled just as swiftly this summer.

Portland could have two lottery picks in a very strong draft, and the Blazers will be among the teams with the most money to lure free agents this summer. There could be as many as seven new players next season to add to a core that should include Aldridge, Batum and Wesley Matthews, as well as Elliot Williams, a budding prospect.

As chief operating officer Sarah Mensah mentioned the other day, look at it as the dawn of a new era in Blazers basketball.

Let's hope the new era doesn't leave such a bitter taste.

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