Nah. I see potential, but the potential is pretty uncertain. As a fan, I have hope, but the hope I feel as a fan doesn't equate to accomplishment that another franchise would bank on. Ed O.
I'm not impressed with Danny Ferry, either, and I don't anticipate him getting a job as a GM any time soon, either. 50 win teams are commonplace. I don't think that building a young team that can't make it out of the first round is something that other team will see as much of an accomplishment. Ed O.
Having an extremely bad team with numerous high lottery picks makes rebuilding easier, not harder. You talk about Cleveland lucking into the #1 pick and Denver getting lucky with the #3, well our Blazers had the same luck in jumping up in a position to draft Durant where they should have been slotted to take Corey Brewer. I think KP has done an above average job and should get a chance to continue, but the team had a collection of assets and draft picks that any competent GM could have used to greatly improve the roster.
I think you are underestimating how hard it is to get players to come to Portland. There have been many, many rumors over the years of players getting really mad about even the possibility of being traded here. Seriously, if you were a young, wealthy african american male, would Portland be even your 20th choice in places to live? Not a chance. As for winning a title, you go to LA to have the best chance at that. That team has been to the finals 33 fucking times, compared to 3 for Portland. The sad fact is KP got the best players he could.
Ed, do you really think this is a run-of-the-mill 50 win team? With all the injuries and the integration problems? I put the early season stumble out of the game on Nate, because of his inflexibility and his refusal to call out Roy for not sublimating his game for the good of the team. I also put at least half of our resilience on KP for building such a deep team (the other half goes to Nate for not accepting excuses). And I put 100% of the credit for trading for Camby. I knock KP for being fooled by Hedo, but give him real credit for switching on the fly and finding Miller. Let's say we make zero changes between today and next year, no draft, no free agents, expiring contracts re-signed for one more year, etc.--in other words, the exact same team, but healthy. I think we're top two in the WC and perhaps the top seed, not some commonplace 50-win team. KP has to receive some, if not the lion's share of the credit for that development from the days of Bassy, Viktor, Charles Smith, Sergei and Ha Seung-Jin.
The issue with your analysis, is that GO has been injured so often that he's actually been less useful than Corey Brewer to this point (although certainly not in the future). He's played 82 games in his career, or 1/3 of his potential games. And those games have seen him trying to integrate himself into the lineup, get himself into basketball shape and learning the NBA game. Worse yet, this team has built much of its future around him, so without him, we're playing with one hand tied behind our back. If we would have drafted Corey Brewer, we could have used RLEC for a specific role, because we'd know what we had in the cupboard. Believe me, I'm a huge GO fan and expect his bad luck with injuries to be over. Furthermore, I expect him to start dominating the pivot and show everyone why he was worthy of the #1 pick. But to this point, his presence has almost been a detriment for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph. If we would have had the impact of a healthy GO these past three years, this team would be playing the Celtics right now.
This is not a top 2 team in the WC healthy MaxieP...Not with the offensive shortcomings this team has... This whole "Blazers would have been a top team, if it weren't for thier injuries" mantra that some fans keep spewing is fool's gold....Need to look no further than Cleveland or Atlanta to see that....If LeBron couldn't overcome CLE inept offense, there is no way in hell Roy can... That being said, I find Allen & Miller's behavior in regards to KP spineless at best...Larry Miller is a buffoon...strut around like a peacock and shine your shoes a little more Larry....what an idiot... and Paul Allen is a gutless wonder, have some balls Paul, settle this thing one way or another...Never seena billionaire so afraid of his own daqmm shadow...and he wonders why his business ventures suck? KP is gone, besides the no backing from mgmt, KP's house for sale, backchannel inquiries into a GM (can you be more seedy as an orginization?) etc....the most telling sign for me has been that it has been Buchanan's face in front of the media discussing the draft and not Pritchard...
