BRANDON ROY - THE LEGEND GROWS

For his next trick, Brandon Roy will make it snow in Phoenix. After that, he’s going to part the Willamette River. Then, who knows?

Roy is legend.

First, I stood in the Trail Blazers locker room while Roy unwrapped both taped ankles after Portland’ 96-87 victory over Phoenix in Game 4 on Saturday. He also had a giant bag of ice wrapped around each knee. And when the Blazers guard walked across a small pool of water on the wet tile floor beyond his locker, I looked down at his feet.

You know, just to be sure they were actually touching the tiles.

Roy’s gritty and inspired performance eight days after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee is the stuff of legend.

Let’s see. The promise that he would try to play. The series of text-message pleas Roy made to his coach, and team trainer Jay Jensen. The "Rocky" theme music that blared from the public address system when he checked into the game. The clutch shots. The critical victory.

Every bit of it.

Legend.

Roy played 27 minutes, scored 10 points, and gave a city a collective case of the chills. He made the Suns account for him, and they paid dearly for it. Best of all, while it was obvious to anyone watching that he was not quite himself, Roy showed rare restraint for an NBA star and didn’t attempt to do a single thing that he wasn’t capable of pulling off.

Blazers assistant Dean Demopoulos said after the game, “He’s the best I’ve ever been around.” And owner Paul Allen, who was consulted pre-game on the decision, walked down the hallway and out of the arena with a delighted and wonderous look in his eye. And teammate Jerryd Bayless, whose locker is beside Roy’s, leaned in to me after the game so his star neighbor couldn’t hear him and said, “I told him before tipoff, ‘Brandon, I don’t know if you should do this.’

“Then, he went and ended up being huge for us.”

That fine moment when Roy checked into the game on Saturday undeniably lifted the Blazers. It raised a city to its feet. In fact, as Roy sauntered onto the scene, I scanned press row at the line of sourpuss media who have covered decades of basketball and think they’ve seen it all (myself included) and I saw something I’ve not ever seen before.

Smiles.

This was theater at its finest, baby.

In the recovery room, post-surgery, Roy shocked everyone when he held his leg up for all to see, bent it at the knee, and said, “Look, I have full range of motion already.” That evening, he walked up a flight of stairs at his house, pain-free. And within a couple of days, Roy was on the treadmill, had no swelling, and passed every strength test the team threw at him.

Then, he started begging to play.

You may already know Roy is tough. You may even know that Roy shocked everyone by coming back prematurely from a far more serious knee surgery his junior year at the University of Washington. That time, Roy popped into the second half of an upset of then-No. 12 North Carolina State just three weeks post-surgery and scored 10 points. But what you probably don’t know is that Roy refused all pain medication post-surgery.

Trainer Jensen said: “He took no medication.”

I know. I know.

We’re used to professional athletes playing it safe with their bodies. The world of athletics is filled with men who wouldn’t dare come back a day before anyone expected them to be present.

Roy isn’t afraid.

So maybe the Suns should be.

BRANDON ROY - 1ST TEAM ALL DEFENSE

Brandon Roy has received a challenge that he likes from his head coach Nate McMillan, to be 1st team All-NBA:

"You should make a goal to defend on a high level every night," Roy said McMillan told him. "Not only would it take us as a team to the next level, but it would take me to that next level as a player that I want to be at. This is just the next natural progression in my game. A lot of people may say I got my contract because of scoring. But I think I got my contract because I am all-around, I'm versatile, and I'm always looking for ways to improve my game."

Said coach Nate McMillan:

"All the good players who win big -- All-Stars who are not only All-Stars, but who win at a high level -- they all do that. We know that this was what he needed to do. He can do it. And he knows he can do it."

BRANDON ROY - GETTING TO THE FT LINE

Good thoughts from Portland all-star Brandon Roy on getting to the rim when his legs are tired. Portland played their 1st back to back games the other night which is very tough to do in the NBA. Said Roy:

"I'm maturing and learning the game and saying when you get leads you've got to try to build on them by getting to the free throw line. You don't have to always shoot jumpers."

"I was a little tired and I noticed it on my jump shot. I said, 'I've got to be aggressive to get to the basket.'

"They did a good job of trapping me in those pick and rolls and not leaving me, so I just started trying to get early breaks -- when we're bringing it up, just try to attack right away and try to get to the cup and try to draw some fouls and try to put some pressure on them."

BRANDON ROY

How good is Brandon Roy?

He's so good that Boston Celtic coach Doc Rivers has put together highlight videos of Roy that he gives to his sons to study.

"He's one of my favorite players in the league," says Coach Rivers. "He plays under control, he plays unselfishly, and he plays at gears that young players don't play at. Most young players play fast and out of control, and for them it's all about getting 'my shots.' But his whole attitude is based on team play."

As Ian Thomsen describes him in his story today on SI.com, "the 6'6" Roy plays like an aging vet who takes pride in outsmarting the rim-scrapers while conserving energy to extend his career. In fact, he is a 24-year-old blessed with a 41-inch vertical leap, which he uses only when necessary. He wears neither tattoos nor jewelry. In this era of unparalleled athleticism and style over substance, Brandon Roy is the NBA's curious version of Benjamin Button—a young body driven by an old-school mind."

Says Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard: "He absolutely changed the direction of our team."

So, asks Thomsen, "how does he make the spectacular look so effortless?"

The answer is fundamental: Roy can dribble so well that you can't tell which is his weak hand, and at 211 pounds he has the size to shield the ball as he reads the defense and waits for a play to develop. He has a coach's mind, an intuitive understanding of teammates and opponents swirling around him as if they were X's and O's diagrammed on a whiteboard.

Teammate Steve Blake contends that Roy is "always on balance, so if someone reaches in, he's able to spin and he's not falling over."

Portland coach Nate McMillan says Roy has "three moves that will get you... a crossover, a pump, a spin."

According to Chris Paul, it's a matter of angles and efficiency:

"He goes in straight lines. Anybody who knows basketball knows if you go around a guy, you need to go right by him. He takes a minimal amount of steps, and then he's at the rim."

To improve, Roy says he needs "to make some mistakes."

"I think that's where my potential lies — taking more risks, trying to play with more flair and having more fun out there."

BRANDON ROY

Six winters ago, Brandon Roy was ineligible and insecure, cleaning out containers in a shipyard.

Last night Brandon Roy became the second player in the 107-season history of basketball at Washington to have his jersey retired.

"I really can't put this into words," Roy said.

The kids were waiting for prime courtside seats to see Roy's UW jersey No. 3 hung in the arena's rafters. Roy chose the number at Washington to honor his older brother, who wore it as a high school star before troubles derailed his chance at college.

"One of two players in 100 years of basketball? That's amazing," Roy said.

Roy failed to get qualifying college entrance scores out of Seattle's Garfield High School in 2002. His scores improved so dramatically when he took the SAT a second time the disbelieving NCAA's clearinghouse rejected them as invalid. So he took it again -- and his scores were lost. Then they were found.

The NCAA cleared him for eligibility. UW did not, initially.

Months of what should have been his freshman year passed, darkly. The Huskies' season began and Roy was a confused teen, shut out of college and the arena in which he is now immortalized. He needed a purpose, a job.

So Roy scrubbed industrial spills out of the insides of shipping containers in the rugged, cold shipyards in downtown Seattle.

"The doubt definitely crept in my freshman year," Roy said, chuckling. "I thought, 'Man, I'll never have that chance to prove myself."

His family kept encouraging him, saying everyone's story is different "and this one is yours." Each day, his co-workers at the shipyard made sure Roy didn't see the docks as a dead end.

"That taught me a lot, sitting with those guys. They would say, 'When you get a chance to go to college, make the most of it,'" Roy said.

Romar remembers as if it was yesterday the January day in 2003 when he told Roy that Washington had declared him eligible. They hugged and held on for what Roy said had to be five minutes.

"That was probably the most special day of my life," Roy said.

He refused to redshirt because he was so eager to play. But for the next couple seasons, he quietly sat back and let teammate Nate Robinson, now with the New York Knicks, get the accolades as Washington soared into the nation's elite.

Washington needed Roy to rebound, so he led the Huskies in that.

Then Roy missed much of his junior season with a knee injury. He returned mainly as a sixth man, content to ease his way back in, to not disrupt the chemistry of a team that was on its way to another NCAA tournament.

He took over in his senior season, averaging 20.2 points and scoring the fourth-most points in a UW season. He passed. He rebounded. He shut down opponents' best scorers. The Huskies went 26-7 and reached another regional semifinal of the NCAA tournament.

"Brandon Roy separates himself from any era. You can't match what he did. Brandon's in a class by himself," he said.