Ok, we really don't know what KP allegedly did to get on the bad side of Vulcan and Mr. Allen but lets list some of his blunders: *Greg Oden over Kevin Durant The favorite argument is 'any GM would have taken Oden at #1.' When you consider his pre-draft physical, I disagree. It's quickly developing into the the franchises' second biggest blunder in this teams history after the Bowie/Jordan draft. *Josh McRoberts (#37) over Marc Gasol (#48) The second round is a crapshoot but McRoberts showed during his Soph. season that he should have went undrafted. He's just not an NBA player. *Joel Freeland over Paul Milsap Oops. *Offering Hedo Turkoglu a massive contract Even the Orlando Magic GM said we dodged a bullet. As good as Hedo was for the Magic they weren't willing to offer him anything close to what KP had on the table. *Spending millions of Allen's money for the rights to Sergio Rodriguez. *Taurean Green over Ramon Sessions. Am I missing any?
The only one you can really pin on him is the Oden over Durant pick. At 37 or 48, lots of GMs didn't pick those guys.
You can't go back through and say "We picked Josh McRoberts over Marc Gasol! What were we thinking!?" Revisionist history is fun, but it's stupid to blame someone for making that pick, or going through with a thread like this. The only legit comparison you can make is Oden and Durant because that was an actual debate at the time (although not much of one). Poor thread.
Boy, you think Minnesota and Boston may be kicking themselves about now... http://www.nba.com/blazers/news/Trail_Blazers_Land_Brandon_Roy-183312-1177.html
Only ones that make sense are Greg over Kevin and the Hedo contract. Everything else is bleh. McRoberts over Gasol - Pritchard had just drafted Oden and had Przy under contract for the next 4 years. Don't think he was looking at centers, not too mention faulting him for not taking Gasol in the 2nd round would be ridiculous anyways. Freeland over Millsap - 2nd round picks.... Took a chance on Sergio...just $...who cares, Allen has more than any owner in sports I believe. Not sure how much the Nets Russian owner is worth. Green over Sessions - 2nd round picks, plus I think Green might have been a McMillan guy. Had the same sort of game as Blake, aka stand in corner and be a 3pt shooter.
The only way you can call something a blunder is if someone thought it was a bad idea at the time. Nobody was saying anything about many of the blunders the OP presented. So here's some things that I would put in the blunder category... The Darius Miles medical retirement situation. Trading Zach Randolph for nothing. Drafting Durant over Oden. Drafting Victor Claver, Dante Cunningham and Jeff Pendergraph over Dejuan Blair.
+1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 Plus my own contribution to this thread: jesus fucking christ just give it fucking rest.
I agree with the Randolph trade pick. Whoever chose to send that Miles letter (no idea if it was Pritchard) made a PR blunder, though I doubt it has materially hurt the team. I don't think Oden over Durant (as I assume you meant) was a blunder. At the time, there was virtually no reason to make any other pick. No one really felt Oden was a health risk, he was considered the BPA and he filled a major need. He's shown, when he's played, that the talent evaluation was probably correct. Not predicting unpredictable injuries I don't think falls under "blunder." As for Blair vs. Claver or Cunningham or Pendergraph, well, I would have selected Blair at every one of those picks (as he kept tumbling), but I don't think the difference between what Portland got and Blair is enough to count as a blunder. Your mileage may vary, though. Blair's production is very nice, but his defense seems to be tremendously bad.
Let's cut to the chase. The issue isn't his signings, or whether he should be fired (like the irrelevant poll thread asks). The issue is, should Vulcan should cave in to Pritchard and give him the big extension and raise he has sought since last summer? Has his performance been to be the best GM in the NBA (trading, signing FAs, drafting, financial management, knowledge of the CBA, statistical knowledge, arena management, etc.)? Because that's how he wants to be paid. His agent has been pushing this since the summer, and is amping it up as revenge for his client Penn being fired. His agent would love to market the two as a duo to teams, but that won't happen.
