Links: NBA Friday VI

by Lang Whitaker

Time for NBA Friday, our weekly visit with the Official Illustrator of The Links, Joel Kimmel. Last week Joel drew up a dope Stephon Marbury picture. This week’s team is the Portland Trailblazers, and the drawing is Brandon Roy.

Joel writes, “I liked a lot of the suggestions from SLAMonline readers to somehow incorporate the team unity the Blazers have been playing with but I decided to go with just Brandon Roy. However, because of the way the Blazers play and especially because of how they’ve been playing lately, I still wanted to suggest the amount of support around him. I also wanted to show how far they’ve come as a team this season. I went with the idea of Portland being the City of Roses. At the bottom of the piece there are wilted and dead roses with fallen petals to represent the troubled Blazers of the past few years. From the ground up, they have bloomed into an exciting and fresh team with Brandon Roy as the centerpiece.”

Nice work as always, Joel.

Next week’s team is the Philly 76ers. Leave your suggestions in the comments section below. Personally, I would like to see Sam Dalembert drawn as a Philly cheese steak.