COMMENTARY : Portland in Six by the Process of Elimination

Picking a winner in the NBA Finals is no easy trick. Picking a loser, though, that’s simple.

Reminds you of the presidential race, doesn’t it?

Here goes:

The Portland Trail Blazers can’t win. Too dumb. Too immature.

And the Chicago Bulls. can’t win. Too much bickering. Too little commitment.

That said, I can’t wait for these finals to start Wednesday. This lose-lose proposition is no loser if you like pro basketball the way I like it -- which is with a minimum of takedowns (in the New York-Detroit style) and a maximum of takeoffs (in the NASA-Michael Jordan-Clyde Drexler style). This is a made-for-VCR series.

The Portland Trail Blazers (a.k.a. Portland Dumb Guys) are grace with an attitude. If you painted them, they’d be big, bright splotches of color on a 94-foot canvas. Drexler is my favorite player to watch in the non-Jordan category. He isn’t as pretty as Jordan, but he might be as explosive. He will take the odd bad shot (Dumb Guys, remember?), and he will sometimes seem slightly out of control, but that’s part of what makes him exciting. He’s dangerous, in a good way.

Many of the Blazers are. You know, they’re not dumb individually, but they are team-dumb. Their problem is that they’ve got all this talent with no one to direct. They need Magic Johnson or John Stockton. They need Isiah Thomas or Martin Scorcese. The point guard is Terry Porter, a wonderful shooting guard who can take over a game, but only for himself. Drexler can take over a game for an entire team, but only in stretches. When it counts, who does take control? That’s the Blazers’ main flaw, other than the whining business.

But let’s not get carried away on the whining. The biggest whiners used to be the Detroit Pistons, who did OK. No. 1 on the all-time personal whining list was Rick Barry, and he did OK, too, until he became a whiny broadcaster. As long as the Blazers can keep the technical fouls under, let’s say, three a game, they should be all right.

Which brings us to the Bulls. And to the question of the day: Does Scottie Pippen have a headache?

You’d need some aspirin, too, if you were Pippen.

You want headaches? The Knicks made the Bulls ache all over. The Cavaliers just scared them. And, now, they are asking themselves what’s going on.

Should we start with Jordan? He’s only the greatest player who ever lived. Just ask him. Jordan will go humble on this. “Gosh, gee whiz, hmm, well, you’re right.” The problem is Jordan realizes how much better he is than everyone else, which must be why he repeatedly calls him teammates his “supporting cast.” Now, some of those teammates are upset. B.J. Armstrong and Cliff Levingston got angry because Jordan ripped the bench. Horace Grant is always wondering about how much respect he gets from Jordan.

You read the book, didn’t you? It was called “The Jordan Rules,” which detailed how Jordan plays by his own set. It’s gotten worse. He was discovered having written checks to a dead guy who was being investigated by a long list of law-enforcement agencies.

And yet, we all want to be like Mike. That includes Pippen, whose problem is that he’s a very good player, but not quite as good as everyone thinks he is. He seems this good because he plays with Michael Jordan, who generally attracts 80 percent of the available defenders. Pippen is to Jordan as James Worthy was to Magic Johnson. Pippen isn’t going to carry the team. He’s going to get migraines. And he’s going to feel, occasionally, as if Jordan is shutting him out, and so he yells at the coach in frustration.

All I know is that when that much bickering goes public, as it has with the Bulls, it’s safe to guess there’s a lot more that never comes out. Like the British royal family, this seems to be a group of people who plain don’t like each other. I guess it can be hard to be Jordan’s teammate. Of course, if you ask around the league, it might be harder not to be.

Jordan has taken the Bulls this far simply by being Jordan (and also playing smothering defense). But I think being Jordan might not be enough.

The Trail Blazers are as talented as the Bulls. Jerome Kersey, who’s also a little mercurial, is a great matchup for Pippen. Neither team is much in the middle, which can’t hurt Portland. Buck Williams is a big-time player who will negate Grant. Portland has an edge coming off the bench. And the Blazers probably want it more.

Both teams can claim to have hurt feelings. But the difference is that the Blazers can blame somebody else, whereas the Bulls can blame only themselves. Which is why I say Portland in six.