PA will if they let their agent bad mouth the organization without getting fired. KP learned the lesson that General McChrystal learned this week when he broke the chain of command. If you, or people that work for you openly deride your boss publicly, you are probably going to get canned.
There may be some truth to what you say. However, add this- Vulcan sees to it every management person gets canned. I have to wonder if this is due to their jealous hatchet mentality. They was as much control as they can garner and Blazer management people are simply in their way.
It was reported by Brian T. Smith that Ferry, Buford and Presti had been contacted, so no, I wouldn't say they've been interviewed.
It's obvious that Pritchard agreed with his agent's words. Otherwise, he would have distanced himself from the comments. I find it incredibly naive to think that if Pritchard had fired LaGarie, he'd still be GM. He didn't fire LaGarie because he agreed with LaGarie. Also, you obviously are unclear about what role an agent plays regarding their client, as are some others on this board. some of you would make great Yes Men/Women.
I'm kind of surprised there's so much love for the idea of adding Petrie. He's made some great moves over the years, but really, look at the Kings now versus eight years ago. After Webber started falling apart, the team took a slow steady dump down the toilet. There was a time when they were better than the Lakers and would've won the championship if the refs hadn't been crooked, and now look at them. After all the years of rebuilding they've got Tyreke Evans (awesome!) and, uh, hmm. They even got rid of Adelman, who proved in Houston that he was definitely not the problem. I guess it goes to show the dearth of great options that the GM of a team that has steadily spiraled down from .720 to .305 over 8 years is considered a real "get."
Ummm ... I'm looking at the Kings and I see a carbon copy of the 06-07 Blazers. The're super young now, they've got a helluva lot of potential and they are way under the cap. The Kings are still about 2 or 3 years away, but Geoff has put together a great young nucleus.
With all due respect, the two big things the Kings have for them are Evans and Cousins - both were picked where the Kings had their picks originally. What this tells you is that he is competent, but not necessarily active. He capitalized on the mistakes of the people that drafted before him, which is good, but the entire idea that he would come and be a more active drafter/trader than KP does not really seem very promising.
And who was the GM when the Kings got so bad that they resembled the Blazers of 05-06? The really good GM's don't allow their teams to get that bad for long. The Jazz lost Stockton and Malone, took a one year dump, and were back and running. Ditto with the Lakers. The Whitsitt Blazers never even fell out of the playoffs in the transition from Drexler to Rider to Pippen. In 22 seasons, the Spurs have had a sub-47 win team exactly twice. Like I said, I'm OK with Petrie. He seems, um, adequate. But I'm not expecting great things out of him. He assembled a fantastic Kings team very comparable to those Jazz/Lakers/Spurs/Blazers squads, which is to his credit. But he hasn't shown much capacity for sustained greatness. Which is what I think a team featuring Batum, Oden, Aldridge and Roy could become. To be fair, I don't think Pritchard showed that capacity either. But I'd say the jury was still out on him.
I'd go for hiring someone who isn't established really. Established GM's usually go out of their way to prove their worth once they're hired and make some...less than stellar moves.
I think most GMs tend to come in to situations where the previous regime has blundered and made a lot of missteps, which usually means a house cleaning is order ... that doesn't look like the case here. Some tweaks are certainly in order, and there's a whole of youth and redundancy with two guaranteed first round picks and another high second, but I get the feeling that Paul isn't going to want to do a complete tear down and rebuild and he ultimately has to sign off on any trade.
I hope not. My biggest fear is trading Oden and/or Batum and having them blow up to multiple time All-Stars. I hope the new GM uses a light touch and doesn't even think about tradin Roy, Oden or Batum. Obvious exceptions to this would be a trade for LeBron, Wade or CP3.
If the Blazers don't make any major moves and win big, the new GM will have to hear that he won with Pritchard's team. Have fun with that. I have a feeling Pritchard's name will be around for a long time.
Petrie (or was it the Maloofs?) tried to hang on too long, trying to stay competitive by reaching for mid level targets like Udrih and trading for Ron-Ron. No GM is perfect, but in Petrie's time in the league he helped build two really strong teams (first with the Blazers and then those Webber, Divac, Peja teams), has endured a down period and with the Maloofs no longer meddling in basketball ops he's been able to shed a lot of salary, acquire some very promising young players and they look to be poised for being a very, very competitive team in another couple years when some of these youngsters get some experience. Really though, I think the chances of Petrie coming back to Portland are somewhere south of 1%, so none of this speculation about him coming back much matters.
It's now being reported that Rod Thorn will step down from his job with the Nets on July 15th. Take that FWIW.
