Jermaine O’Neal has elected to leave the decision of his return to an NBA team out of his hands. He has a couple options on the table. The Los Angeles Clippers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks have all expressed interest in bringing the veteran big man to their respective teams.
There is one new team though that has thrown their hat in the running. It’s a team that’s had O’neal on their roster before, the Portland Trail Blazers.
From Marc Stein of ESPN.com:
The Portland Trail Blazers have joined the race to try to convince former All-Star center Jermaine O’Neal to play one more NBA season at age 36, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN.com that the Blazers, who drafted O’Neal out of high school in 1996 and employed him for his first four NBA seasons before a career-changing trade to Indiana, have made overtures to O’Neal about returning to the Pacific Northwest to bolster their hobbled front line in the wake of recent injuries suffered by Robin Lopez (hand) and Joel Freeland (shoulder).
The Blazers need for O’neal is real, so if they sign him it might be a cool career return to the team he was originally drafted him. It might not be the same as his ‘jailblazers’ team, but it’s definitely a team on the rise and ready to make some noise in the West.
