How Valuable Is Kevin Pritchard To The Blazers? (Dime Mag)

FWIW............

http://dimemag.com/2010/06/how-valuable-is-kevin-pritchard-to-the-blazers/

 

The Keep KP side won.

 

LOL. Yeah the other guy did not exactly win me over. Not sure he even believed what he wrote. Reminded me of a High School debate class when you are forced to take the side no one wants.

 

Fuckin' A.

KP maybe a fucking prick for all I know. He may be a 100% bona fide douche. But guess what? It's pro-fucking-sports! 90% of anyone earning over a million bucks are douches. (50% earning under that are pricks too.) He may have hung his bosses out to dry on the Penn fiasco. Whatever. Fuck it. You live with all the crappy stupid dumbass things these pampered idiots do because finding elite performers is pretty goddamned hard.

And it's goddamned impossible to argue that Pritchard isn't an elite performer among GM's. Don't agree? Try replacing Roy, Aldridge and Batum with fucking Randy Foye, Tyrus Thomas and Joey Fucking Dorsey. "Oh, poor us, we're stuck at 50 wins." Guess what, fuckers? With those three wastes of oxygen we'd have a 25 GODDAMNED WIN TEAM this year! Yeeha! We're the Clippers Northwest! (Oh wait--the Clips won 29 games this year. I guess we'd be hoping to become the Clippers Northwest.)

It's utterly asinine that firing Pritchard is even a rumor.

Jesus.

Fuck.

 

Pundits saying firing Pritchard would be crazy, fans give him a 94% approval rating after this season. Why are they dragging this out? Keep him or cut him. Preferably, keep him. But Jesus, this kind of suspense is sadistic.

 

Fuck KP

 

Fuck that!

 

I think in the end, whether or not he's here, Pritchard will have won. Because if he stays, he wins. If he goes, someone is going to give him a nice contract, and he wins.

 

The let KP go side of the argument was TERRIBLE.

Cracking lame jokes. Blaming KP for picking Oden. Complaining that the Andre Miller contract is too much, when it is in-fact an excellent value per year, and only a 2 year committment.

Garbage.

If you want a better dump KP argument (that still pulls its punches) see my posts in the Presti thread.

 

I was just pulling your chain. But don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.

 

lol. Yeah, I know.

Still, fuck that!

 

Who are you arguing against? This is mostly a strawman.

I guess it comes up from time to time, but KP being a prick is not a central issue in any argument as to why he is on the outs, and maybe shouldn't be considered a Golden Boy. It is based on his performance. Or lack thereof.

Not if this was a "last straw" type action, which I think it may have been. Paul Allen was in a trial separation with KP at the time of the Penn situation. Either the marriage gets repaired or you head to Divorce Court. What does KP do? Let's a pitbull run loose (his agent) and takes no responsibility for the crap everywhere. Bad move if you ask me. Not a "fuck it" and move on situation.

True. Which is why the trial separation. Which is why the Blazers tried to make this a smooth transition.

Sure, if we still had Nash we might have that roster. But, otherwise a pretty silly argument.

Another way to look at it: KP was ASSISTANT GM during the 2006 draft. So we already have Roy and Aldridge by the time KP at a very young age got promoted to GM. What has he done as GM? Based on his poor performance during the Roy and Aldridge contract negotiations, and during the Miles disaster and during the wooing of David Lee and then Hedo, I can see pretty clearly that this very young GM, is in fact, very young and needs more experience. He was in over his head.

He can't help now.

This may be all you have.

 

Having a tourettes day? Not that I disagree with the sentiment.

 

I don't know about that. If the big deal with him is that he doesn't get along with other NBA types he might have a rough go of it. After all, it is other NBA types that hire GMs.

 

I don't consider KP an "elite" GM.....but how many of those are there, and which of them is available?

Why dump a competent employee unless you know someone better is available?

 

Ex-ac-a-lack-ally.

 

LOL. Time to cut back on the late night pro wraslin' Mr. Barfo.

 

I think we just fundamentally disagree on this. Yes, a myriad of people are involved in the current Blazers roster. Just like a lot of people were involved in the Bush administration, Google or the Dharma Initiative. But at some point you have to buy into the idea that leadership matters most.

You are the only person I can remember reading who minimizes Pritchard's impact on the signature draft of the current Blazers (going through all sorts of contortions to pluck Roy and Aldridge out of all the crappy other options). Yes, he was the "assistant GM". But I've never heard the "real GM" (who was fired soon after) claim it was really his draft. Pretty much everybody besides you (as far as I know) thinks of that draft as Pritchard's finest hour. Show me some links that demonstrate it wasn't. I really think the burden of proof (beyond pointing at Pritchard's title at that time) is on you on that one.

Now let's talk about Batum. I noticed you didn't mention him. Is he the sort of typical random chance good luck that happens to all teams with a 25th pick? Because it seems like a ton of teams whiff on that kind of a pick every year.

Or what about Bayless. Do you think we should take a time machine and go back to the glory days of Jarret Jack instead? Because Jack is 26, and Bayless is 21, and they are basically the same caliber of player. Except that Bayless is 2 years into the NBA, getting quality minutes on a 50 win team, nearly doubling his PER from year 1 to 2, and Jack is 5 years into the league, seen small incremental growth in PER, and still has never seen a playoff game.

Are Batum and Bayless the sort of acquisitions that are no-brainers for practically any team? If so, how did we get them? Because when I look at both deals, I see heists.

Pritchard has had his failings. I thought his pursuit of Turkoglu was idiocy at the time, and I was delighted to see him screw that up. I still can't begin to understand why we gave up Zach Randolph for essentially nothing.

But those guys really aren't the core. GM's are remembered for signature moves. That's Roy, Aldridge and Batum. You seem to think it'd be some monumentally ridiculous bad luck to have Foye, Thomas and Dorsey instead of Roy, Aldridge and Batum. But when I look at the maneuvers we actually had to do to make those guys our guys, it looks to me like the odds were much more likely that FTD was our future instead of RAB.