In his five years with the Portland Trail Blazers, Bonzi Wells was one of the most colorful personalities on a roster full of them. From 1998-2003 Wells was a regular fixture in the local media – Both for positive and negative reasons.
Although he was a regular part of the sports media back in late 90s and early 2000s, hardly a peep has been heard from Wells since he was traded from the Blazers back in 2003.
But on Wednesday, Wells joined Afternoons with Fletch and Chop to talk about his time in Portland, some of the mistakes he made along the way and his plans to one day return to Rip City.
When asked about his time in Portland, Wells insists, he loved his time with the Blazers.
“It was the best time I ever had. People ask me about my NBA days, I always start with Portland. Portland gave me a chance obviously to be a pro. The whole atmosphere every single day was crazy. You’d go into an arena and you have 20,000 crazy, screaming fans, you go to these different malls around Portland – The fans were just showing so much love. It was really, really crazy.”
Wells also talked about his biggest regret from his time in Portland.
“My number one regret is that we didn’t bring a championship there because I always visualize that parade that we were going to have there.”
Wells also made it clear, he wants to make a return trip to Rip City.
“I miss Portland. I haven’t been to Portland in so long. Honestly, I’ve been wanting to come to games and do stuff, but I just didn’t really know how I would be received…I just want to get back into the Portland family some how, some way.
This is only scratching the surface of the conversation, so be sure to check out the rest of the fantastic conversation with Wells below.