BLAZERS STILL TRAIL FAR BEHIND.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Promises to the community and a management shakeup notwithstanding, the Portland Trail Blazers remain a rock-bottom franchise in their "bang for the buck" for fans, a study says.

A litany of misbehavior on and off the court has combined with the perception of an out-of-touch ownership to keep Oregon's only top-level pro sports franchise at the bottom of the respectability heap among North America's 121 professional basketball, baseball, football and hockey teams.

The Blazers ranked 115th in the 2004 Ultimate Standings, calculated by ESPN Magazine with help from MBA students at the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. That's down from Portland's 110th-place finish last year.

But it gets worse: The Trail Blazers, for the second year in a row, ranked dead-last in the categories of fan Relations (`ease of access to players, coaches and management') and players (`effort on the field; likability off it').

The Warsaw center sums it all up in business-school jargon: The Blazers provided a poor return on dollars invested by fans.

But, said Paul Swangard, director of the Warsaw school, the Blazers this year deserve an "asterisk."

"The sense we get looking forward is that fans feel steps are being made to improve the team," Swangard said. "But it's evolution, not revolution."

The Blazers last summer replaced Bob Whitsitt, their longtime president and general manager, with Steve Patterson as president and John Nash as GM. Patterson was concerned enough about his team's image that he sought help at the Warsaw center within weeks of his hiring.

"In the seven-odd years I believe Bob Whitsitt was involved, he never stepped foot on our campus," Swangard said.

Portland also traded away a couple players out of its core group of "Jail Blazers," notorious for on-court sullenness and off-court arrests.

But the Blazers still aren't the San Antonio Spurs, whose players are known for community service of the non-court-ordered variety - and perhaps not coincidentally, the team that ranked first overall in this year's Ultimate Standings. They replaced last year's first-place team, the Green Bay Packers, which slipped to third.

"There's a real sense of community pride around the (Spurs) franchise," Swangard said.

They also share a quality that's common among the top teams: a willingness to include fans in day-to-day goings-on.

Blazers owner Paul Allen and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban - whose team ranked second this year - provide a contrast in approachability. Both are billionaires who seem to operate their sports franchises as hobbies, but Cuban seeks a connection with fans, while Allen avoids it.

"Mark Cuban will put his e-mail (address) up on the scoreboard and ask fans to complain about anything," Swangard said. "Paul Allen is kind of a recluse.

"The fans think (Cuban) is one of them; I don't know if Portland fans would think Paul Allen is one of them."

The real head-scratcher for sports marketing-experts is how the Blazers dropped so far, so quickly. The team could do no wrong after winning a National Basketball Association championship in 1977, and its drawing power and fan loyalty remained strong through the early 1990s.

"It's almost a case study - Phase One is how do you lose all that brand equity so fast? And Phase Two is, can it be restored?" Swangard said.

The brightest spots in this year's Ultimate Standings for Portland is that the team finished just above the middle of the pack in the categories of Bang for the Buck (`Revenues directly from fans divided by wins in the past three years') and Coach/Manager ('Strong on-field leadership').

And there's also the consolation that the Blazers aren't the Chicago Blackhawks, who dropped to last place this year.

For more, visit sports.espn.go.com and search for Ultimate Rankings.

THE BEST ...

The top and bottom professional sports teams in the 2004 Ultimate Standings:

1: San Antonio Spurs

2: Dallas Mavericks

3: Green Bay Packers

4: Detroit Pistons

5: Kansas City Chiefs 

... AND THE WORST

116: New York 

Knicks

117: Atlanta Hawks

118: San Diego Chargers 

119: Arizona Cardinals

120: Chicago Blackhawks

CAPTION(S):

Rasheed Wallace has come to embody the Blazers' bad boy image. He once led the NBA in technical fouls, and in 2003 he was suspended for seven games for threatening a referee.