With millions in state funding at stake, stalled negotiations and "non-starter" proposals leave Portland and the Blazers racing to bridge a deepening divide before crucial deadlines expire.
The Portland Trail Blazers and the city have until Aug. 12 to reach common ground on a funding package for the proposed Moda Center renovation ... but what happens if they don't?
The immediate answer is less dramatic than relocation.
Portland's City Council is scheduled to vote Aug. 12 on the proposed package, but the state's $365 million funding commitment doesn't expire until Dec. 31. Missing the August decision point wouldn't automatically eliminate the public money or send the Blazers elsewhere.
It would, however, leave both sides with fewer than five months to rescue a framework they don't currently appear close to accepting.
The city submitted its initial term sheet last week, proposing payments in lieu of property taxes, union-labor requirements and additional community benefits. An anonymous team official later described most major provisions as non-starters and questioned why Portland submitted an offer it should've known the organization would reject.
City officials maintain they negotiated in good faith.
Now, according to KGW's Evan Watson, Council President Jamie Dunphy has invited the Blazers to a public work session next week to explain what ownership wants and establish a path toward an agreement.
That invitation matters because Dunphy says meaningful negotiations have barely occurred.
"It's been really hard for us to negotiate at all because the Blazers are simply not showing up," Dunphy told KGW. "It's because we're negotiating against nothing."
City leaders told Watson that the Blazers haven't responded to negotiators' requests since April. The organization has maintained it already provided sufficient information, but it didn't answer KGW's questions about whether it accepted Dunphy's invitation.
If the Blazers attend, the work session could provide the first public indication that the sides are prepared to move beyond dueling statements and negotiate substantive changes.
If they don't, reaching an agreement by Aug. 12 becomes increasingly difficult.
Missing that date would place even more importance on the Dec. 31 deadline. It could also strengthen ownership's argument for resetting negotiations entirely, potentially abandoning the framework connected to the state's $365 million commitment.
That wouldn't guarantee relocation, either. The organization continues to insist remaining in Portland is its preferred outcome.
But a reset would consume valuable time while forcing the city, state and franchise to determine whether the existing public-funding arrangement can survive.
Aug. 12 isn't the date the Trail Blazers leave Portland.
It may be the date the most realistic path toward keeping them there becomes significantly more complicated.
