Sep 23

Jerryd Bayless started blogging for the same reason most do: he had some thoughts he just had to get off his chest. In fact, he said as much in his introductory post.

"Writing has always been a way for me to get things off my chest," Bayless wrote in his first post in November of 2009. "Growing up English would be the one class I looked forward to because it would allow me to share my thoughts about things that I had kept inside. This is exactly why I have decided to do this blog."

Which he did, to a certain extent, but the topics that Bayless was feeling the most pent-up frustration over, things like playing time and the perception he was a malcontent, went unaddressed. He, unlike many bloggers, was wise enough to realize that some things are better left unwritten.

"Before I was kind of wrapped up tight and I wanted to put my thoughts up (on the blog)," said Bayless. "I never even did that really. I never put it out there, a lot of things that sometimes I was thinking through the season or what was really going on. It was being caught up in the moment with that. It was one thing but it's totally changed into a different thing."

What it's turned into is a place where Bayless can shed some light on his life outside of basketball, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. You can watch Bayless play and get a pretty good sense of who he is as a basketball player, but the general public has few chances to find out who Bayless is off the court. So by glossing over most of his work life and focusing his blog more on his world outside of hoops, Bayless' blog becomes more useful to both he and his readers.

"At first I was looking to do it for a different reason," said Bayless. "That's when I think my head was in a different place with a lot of different things. Now, I try to stay away from basketball most of the time.  Here and there I may say one thing. I talked about being ready for this upcoming season for a little bit, but then I went to to talking about a friend who is starting up a clothing thing. Basketball is the thing I try to stay away from the most in the blog. I do it now to talk about different world situations. I talked about the anniversary of Katrina the other day. It's whatever is on my mind."

He doesn't blog enough to garner a huge following (hint, hint), which is fine considering he's not in it for the page views or the brand recognition. Nevertheless, Bayless still finds that despite very little promotion (he posts links on his twitter page and that's about it) the blog is often a topic of conversation with fans in and outside of Portland.

"People around the country read this blog," said Bayless, "so when we go to different cities when we're signing autographs, people ask me about the blog more than the game. It's definitely done well, a lot better than I ever would have thought."