Phoenix Suns v Memphis Grizzlies

Pete Pranica (right) with his color commentator, Brevin Knight (left) and Grizzlies player Quincy Pondexter.

(Joe Murphy/NBA/Courtesy Memphis Grizzlies)

When Pete Pranica arrives in town this week, he'll probably go through a few of the rituals he has when he returns to Portland.

The TV play-by-play announcer for Memphis worked for the Trail Blazers for five seasons, and there are things he likes to do when the Grizzlies play in Portland, as they will Friday.

If time allows, he might grab a meal at Jake's, or a slice at Pizzacato. He might indulge in something from Moonstruck Chocolate. And no matter what, he'll carve out time to see George Wasch, his old producer in Portland.

"We always sit down, and we always have coffee and talk about the old days," Pranica said.

Pranica has plenty of good memories from his Portland years, which included one season as a sideline reporter and studio host, then four years as the TV play-by-play announcer. They include the friendships he made – he, Wasch, current play-by-play man Mike Barrett and Nick Jones would play golf at Glendoveer every Saturday, rain or shine – as well as the quality of basketball he called, including the 1999-2000 team that reached the Western Conference Finals.

But Pranica's memories of Portland have a bitter side, too. In 2003, he knew his contract was up, but was told repeatedly that management was happy with the work he was doing with color commentator Steve Jones and would bring him back. But on July 8 – a date Pranica can instantly name – he and many other Blazers employees were told to report to their supervisors. For Pranica, that was Dick Vardanega.

"He was reading from something that had been prepared for him that said, 'You're position has been eliminated,'" Pranica recalled. "It was completely out of left field. I was totally blindsided."

Pranica's dismissal was part of a massive, 88-person layoff by the team, which was looking to trim costs.

"That day, you're walking through, your e-mail's been shut down, your phone's been shut down, you're trying to collect your belongings because you're supposed to get off campus as soon as possible," Pranica said. "You're running into your co-workers, many of them are crying because they've been let go, or a friend has been let go. It ranks up there with the death of my father and my grandfather as one of the worst days of my life."

Pranica landed on his feet in 2004, when he got opportunity with the Grizzlies, first as the play-by-play man on radio, then later, on TV. Pranica has become as established in Memphis as his Blazers successor, Barrett, has become in Portland. Recently, Pranica called his 1,000th NBA game.

And he's getting to call a team that is again belying expectations, with a 12-2 record that is the best in the Western Conference and tied for the best in the NBA. How unexpected has the start been? Pranica points out that after the Grizzlies played Oklahoma City earlier this month in a game televised by ESPN, they are not scheduled to be on national TV – ESPN or TNT -- the rest of this season.

Memphis has been a solid Western Conference team since 2010-11, when as the No. 8 seed, it knocked San Antonio out in the first round, and it got as far as the conference finals in 2012-13. But after losing in seven games to the Thunder in last season's first round, the Grizzlies seemed to become an afterthought coming into the season.

But when they gathered for training camp in San Diego, Pranica saw that the players were not ready to fade away.

"Everybody came to the training camp in really good shape," Pranica said. "It was very business-like, there was no goofing around. Usually in a training camp, you'll see that enthusiasm, and that attention to detail will wane, and it never really did with this group."

Although big men Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol have been All-Stars, Memphis remains a team that doesn't have a superstar-type player.

"What's nice about this team is, there are no agendas, pretty ego-less team, everybody gets along really well, and so there's no drama," Pranica said. "Their only focus is on playing winning basketball."

The Grizzlies have undergone several significant changes, with new ownership, front office turnover and the departure of coach Lionel Hollins. But they've kept a core group of players together in Randolph, Gasol and point guard Mike Conley, and the transitions to new people have gone far smoother than the changes Pranica saw in Portland. He was here at a time when the Blazers transitioned from the free-spending Bob Whitsitt years to the hatchet years under Steve Patterson.

All of that made Pranica's first game back in Portland with Memphis, on Nov. 17, 2004, a challenge.

"It was very, very emotional," Pranica said. "To come back, to circle PDX, to land, you're there as a visitor. The players on the Grizzlies at that time were aware of the circumstances, and they were like, 'We've got to get this for Pete.' And as I recall, they did win that game pretty handily."

Subsequent trips back have become easier for Pranica as he established routines; saw the familiar faces of ushers at, what for him, will always be the Rose Garden; and came in with very competitive teams.

"Everything happens for a reason," he said. "I had a good experience in Portland, made friends that are friends to this day. Things have turned out very well for me in Memphis. I'm very happy here. But it was a very, very difficult situation. You just don't forget somebody telling you that they don't want you anymore."

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News and notes:

• Saturday's 5 p.m. Civil War football game between Oregon and Oregon State will be on ABC (KATU/2). The same crew that called Oregon's victory at Utah, which included the wild 100-yard fumble recovery touchdown by the Ducks, will call the game, with Brad Nessler on play-by-play, Todd Blackledge on color and Holly Rowe the sideline reporter.

• Football won't be the only sport with a televised Civil War matchup. On Friday, the 14th-ranked Oregon volleyball team will play Oregon State at 3 p.m. in Corvallis, with the Pac-12 Networks televising the match. Brian Webber and Don Shaw will have the call.

• The Portland State men's basketball team makes its second cameo on Pac-12 Networks when it plays at Oregon at 5 p.m. Sunday. Rich Waltz and Kevin O'Neill have the call. The last time the Vikings appeared on the network, on Nov. 15, they won at USC.

• Fine lines: ESPN's Mark Jackson after the Trail Blazers' Wesley Matthews shoved Chicago's Mike Dunleavy after Dunleavy's flagrant foul on Damian Lillard: "That's not even a play on the basketball. That's unacceptable. You cannot do that, and I like what Wes Matthews did, go right to Mike Dunleavy and let him know: 'It ain't your fight, Damian Lillard. Let me handle this.'" ... Pac-12 Networks' Rick Neuheisel on Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota: "He did get a speeding ticket there recently, 80 miles [per hour]. They might have had a party for Jameis Winston if that's all he had."

• The Trail Blazers' hot start has given rise to two, I guess, tribute Twitter accounts. First we got @MLeonardsStache, named in honor of Meyers Leonard's mustache, which the third-year big man grew as a "No-Shave November" move to raise awareness of prostate cancer. Then this week we got "Shake N' Blake," a handle which is based on the two crossover moves made by reserve point guard Steve Blake against Boston on Monday.

• For the second week in a row, John Canzano's column on the victim of a 1998 sexual assault by Oregon State players was the most read sports story on this website. Andrew Grief's report on the aforementioned speeding ticket that Mariota got was the second most read.

•ESPN has hired Chael Sonnen, a former West Linn High School and University of Oregon wrestler, as a MMA analyst. The former UFC competitor retired this summer after he failed a drug test, and also was removed as a commentator by Fox. In a release, ESPN said Sonnen "will appear regularly on 'SportsCenter' and other network platforms, and he said he won't ignore his drug-tainted past while discussing the sport's future stars."

• Entercom Radio will take advantage of having a second AM all-sports station as it moves its high school football playoff coverage Friday to Sports 910. The station, which uses CBS Sports Radio shows and is the play-by-play home for the Seattle Mariners and Portland Pilots, will broadcast the two Class 6A semifinals from Hillsboro Stadium, West Salem versus Tigard at noon, and Sheldon against Central Catholic at 5 p.m. Entercom's high school coverage is usually on KFXX (1080).

Both 6A semifinals also will be streamed live on NFHS Network.

-- Mike Tokito | @mtokito