This is the one subject on this board that actually pisses me off. KP has done an amazing job with the Blazers. Paul Allen bought the Blazers and thought it was his team. From the beginning there has been conflict because in fact the Blazers have always been Portland's and the fans' team. If Allen and Vulcan and Warkentein fuck this team up AGAIN this franchise will crumble and move out of town. I NEVER abandonned this team in the past (and I've been a fan since conception) but if they shit-can KP over some petulant Paul Allen fit and start making trades like this is some rotisserie league I don't know if I can take it.
I just wonder how many of us will still root for them when they move to Seattle. Leases are created to be broken. Ask Sonic fans...
Totally. I'm seriously worried simply because I finally have made it to a point in my life where I could afford full season tickets. I have them for the 2010-11 season, but if that season is highlighted by the dismantling of this team, I will be severely pissed off.
Not knowing the full story, I'm not big on the idea of KP getting fired. However, I'm more worried about someone other than Paul Allen owning this team, because I'm afraid they'll be playing in another city or even in a best case scenario, a team that operates on a serious budget.
Really though, the only reason at all that this season isn't an overwhelmingly positive experience is because of this front office drama. Well, that and the "Roy stinks", the "Nate Sucks", and the "kpee is a dumdum", stuff, but that's only because I chose to read and participate in this board. 50 wins in a year like this, and we get the owner kicking his GM out of his little social clique for reasons that we can only speculate about. It does make me wonder about Paul Allen's competence. It's like he buys his friends, and then finds reasons to hate on them eventually. Kind of like what the NFL media did to Matt Leinhart and Tim Tebow. Ah, you were great last year, but now let's pick apart your flaws!
Why would this team play in another city? Hell, Allen fucked some of this up. Half the state can't even watch the games. Luckily I have Comcast.
Let's just say that KP is fired/quits/goes somewhere else this summer. Is there anyone in here thinking "why can't we have a team put together like the Denver Nuggets?" I mean, it's not like this is Popovich or Presti or Jerry West that you're talking about bringing in...Mark Effing Warkentien? Aside from the mutual hand-job association he has with Adrian Wojna$*)%(, what is he bringing to the table, exactly? Have the Nuggets been catching talent with low draft picks like crazy? Have they been bringing in top-flight FA's? Or did they build a team around guys (Birdman, JR Smith, KMart, even "No Snitch" Melo) that'd you'd throw up if you had to root for here? Someone help me out with the Mark W. love?
I believe he traded Andre Miller for Iverson, realized it was a terrible idea, got lucky Joe Dumars decided to trade him Billups for Iverson. Take away Billups and they're not contending. Hard to tell though, I think there's another GM type person there, w/e his name is, don't remember. Chapman, I think. If he's brought in he'll be on the hot seat from day 1. He'll have no room for error. Oregonian will eat him alive, especially since they've already been spreading that Warkenstein is behind all of this. True or not, they'll pin it on him and basically ride him until he is gone.
Warkentien was smart enough to know that Al Jefferson would be a better draft pick than Telfair. That really wasn't that hard to figure out though...
Al Jefferson was never featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated before the draft. Telfair was, obviously that makes him the better draft choice.
I'm not sure it's far to characterize the Billups deal as "lucky" (most great deals can otherwise be characterized as lucky that the other GM screwed up), but if Warkentien is the next Blazers GM, I am a little worried that his resume is a bit lacking outside the Billups move (and I agree that trading Miller for Iverson in the first place was almost as negative as trading Iverson for Billups was inspired). I'll give him credit for acquiring Birdman. That was an under-the-radar player that's been valuable for Denver. But he also dumped Camby for nothing. So his best moves are almost entirely canceled out by his worst. Most of the rest of their core (Anthony, Nene, Martin) was in place when he got there. Warkentien doesn't seem like a bad GM (so, at least, he wouldn't be a reprise of the PatterNash debacle)...but that seems to be about the best one can say about him. I think Pritchard, so far, has been a very good GM. Unless Pritchard has done something truly outrageous, I'd lose a lot of respect for the franchise dumping him without a clearly superior GM ready and willing to be hired. Warkentien ain't it.
I remember Nash would answer people's emails. The peeps at the Oregonlive Blazer forum would send him the dumbest questions and he would always take the time to answer them back. Seems like he spent more time emailing fans then he did scouting and doing the job he was hired to do.
I really think he was hired to answer dumb e-mails and "reconnect with fans"; the shitty drafting and trades were just a bonus.
I was really getting worried about the Draft The Stache campaign. I just never bought into the "He's the next Larry Bird" bullshit. I thought for sure that Canzano's and The Fan's never ending Stache love was going to end with us drafting him. Thank you god!
Link? The 1st half of this thread was about some of you guys ripping Raging Bull for using Quick's reporting as a source of Pritchard rumors, and the 2nd half was about the same guys speculating, using your own imaginations as sources. YOU GAVE IN?? YOU OF ALL PEOPLE?? You were the board's most bitter critic of Comcast over this issue!! I had noticed that you stopped posting about it and wondered why!! How come you forgot to tell us you gave in?
Wark was Whitsitt's top assistant and left in mystery like Penn did. Wark was highly thought of around the league while with the Blazers, enough to immediately become GM in Cleveland, I think it was, and then VP in Denver. In Denver, he has a normal, cheap owner, while Pritchard has an owner who spoils him with no budget constraints. You can't compare Wark being ordered to give away Camby to Pritchard's unlimited money to sign him. And Birdman wasn't under the radar. He ranked hight in league rebounding per 48 in Dallas, I think it was (there were articles about him), before Stern suspended him due to what should be legalized. He was hired to dismantle the team and he did so. He pleased the Oregonian greatly, but they were still in their Destruct-O mode and tore him and Patterson apart for doing their bidding.
I have posted before that when Quick gives Pritchard all the credit (e.g. not mentioning McMillan, Allen's overpayment for signings and trades), Pritchard glows with pride and in his answer he takes all the credit. His unproven low draft picks are always treated as future stars by his fan club (if a pick fails, it was someone else who made him draft the guy). When his moves are questioned, he answers about how he has faith in the golden future, deflecting it from himself. In other words, he absorbs the positive, but reflects away the negative. That's why I say he belongs in Marketing, because he's been so good at marketing himself, as his adoring fan club proves.
Back to the original post. Why doesn't Pritchard just sit behind Allen and hoot at him? Then Allen could retaliate by sitting behind Pritchard and throwing spitballs at him. Then Pritchard could move behind Allen and bring an entourage and they could lead crowd cheers on their own behalf. Then Allen could sit behind Pritchard and have the ushers beat the hell out of anyone cheering Pritchard.
