It’s been a week since it was announced that the sale of the Trail Blazers was officially underway.

And while the impending transaction was inevitable due to such being mandated by former owner Paul Allen’s will upon his death, the formal announcement should be for the most part music to the ears of the team’s fans who’ve been lulled to sleep by a franchise stuck in neutral since Allen passed away seven years ago.

I’m not sure how you’d define boring, but the Blazers’ existence over the past five years would fall squarely beneath it.

The team hasn’t posted a winning season since 2020-21, hasn’t made the playoffs in that same span, and more importantly, hasn’t seemed all that interested in doing either in the process.

There have been mostly mediocre draft picks, equally unexciting transactions, and as the coup de grace, the franchise traded away it and the city’s favorite son, Damian Lillard, two seasons ago in an effort to appease the aging superstar, along with re-set a team spinning its wheels.

There’s been little excitement, even less hope, and the future seemed as unclear as the plan was nonexistent.

But now, after seven years witnessing what could easily be described as a rudderless ship, fans can at the least rekindle their championship dreams as the result of an owner-to-be-named later looking to turn that ship in a championship direction.

Jody Allen, the de facto owner of the team since her brother’s passing, has been little more than a name and face of an organization desperate for more. She lacked a real stake in the game, and inarguably the passion that any business needs from its captain in order to excel in a competitive environment.

Say what you will about Paul Allen, but he loved owning the team, aimed to win at the highest level, and wasn’t afraid to put his money where his mouth was when it came to his endeavor to bring a championship to Portland.

He spent money; chased free agents; took risks; and all with one thing in mind — winning.

We’ve missed that mindset in Rip City during the Jody Allen regime, and the hope is that with a new owner, too comes the return of a vision for a championship future, along with the passion necessary to get there.

But who will it be?

Phil Knight, who was interested a couple of years ago, has withdrawn his name from consideration.

RAJ Sports, who own the Portland Thorns and Portland’s new and yet-to-be-named WNBA franchise, are ineligible due to their co-ownership of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

Merritt Paulson, the Portland Timbers owner who a handful of years ago was considered a prospective future Blazer owner, cooked his own goose with the 2022 scandal involving his soccer clubs.

And there has been talk of Columbia Sportswear owner Tim Boyle and/or Dutch Bros proprietor Travis Boersma getting involved, but they’d likely need additional investors which has been known to muddle the process.

That leaves a bevy of tech billionaires including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, all of whom have been down the sports team ownership road prior to no avail.

All would be interesting, which is something the Blazers simply haven’t been since their former tech billionaire owner was no more.

That’s exciting, and fans should be excited for it. Change isn’t always good, but it is something, and that’s better than the nothing we’ve been experiencing for far too long.