Blazers want to bring Pritchard back now?

Vance has no idea what he's talking about!

 

I thought we covered this last summer? The Legarrie-Pritch-Penn coup seems to be the predominant theory no?

 

On a serious note, from the looks of his tweet, lambasting sounds exactly like what he might say to Indiana. I have no idea if he did, or even if Vance said that because there is no link to prove it

 

The story they released, yes.

 

There is so much of this,"My inside source told me!" bullshit in the media. Gotta drop the story first type shit. Who knows, the way things are going around this place, Paul might just have done that.

 

I'm kind of inclined to agree, that somebody is leaking false info to Canzano for a purpose and it could be KP's agent, hoping to get someone interested in hiring KP. This could be why PA seems so angry in his tweet, feels like an agent of KP was trying to use the Blazers.

 

If I was Paul Allen, I'd shut up because he looks like an out of control billionaire egomaniac with little basketball IQ! His decision making for this team at the least shows he should be hiring a real basketball mind to run this team.

 

Why should I believe hearsay from 6 years ago?

 

I wish they had been successful in ousting Larry Miller. Unfortunately for those three, they didn't realize that they were dealing with an immature, irrational, and highly emotional owner who will always carry a grudge against those three for actually trying to help Paul Allen help himself get out of his own way.

Now, we get Larry Miller, who knows jackshit about NBA basketball, Bert Kolde, who knows jackshit about NBA basketball, Hat Guy, who knows jackshit about NBA basketball, Paul Allen, who knows jackshit about NBA basketball, and whoever the next Yes Man GM is, who will know basketball, but will be forced out by the incompetent fools I listed in this sentence. Fan-fucking-tastic. This team is going to get very old, very quick, and as far as I can tell, there is neither a short-term plan nor a long-term plan, other than which of the Yes Men will get to be The King's Hand next season.

 

Wow, PapaG, I think maybe you need a couple of sugars in your coffee this morning to ease the bitter taste. While there's a possibility that the very negative image you're painting is correct, I'd say it's pretty small. None of us have the inside information to assess the truth of the matter as to the KP and Cho firings. The only way that I can see to test whether PA & Co. are the incompetent meddling buffoons you're making them out to be is to wait and see who they hire as the new GM. If he's the yes-man type, then maybe you're right. OTH, if he's an experienced GM with a good track record, then I think we have to assume that there were legitimate issues with KP and Cho.

 

Were there also legitimate concerns with Bob Whitsitt, John Nash, and Steve Patterson? I wonder how much trash Paul Allen talked about those guys to other teams. I wasn't wild about the Cho hiring, but firing him for "communication" problems after 10 months is simply not a good enough reason, and now the team has the same guys who traded for Luke Babbit running this draft.

ETA - Does it really matter who gets hired for the job? I'll pat myself on the back for saying that Cho was inexperienced, and not what the team needed to get to the next level, when he was hired. I took a lot of hits for that stance, but I stand by those words to this day, and PA eventually agreed that, for whatever reason, Cho wasn't going to help this team win. If Paul Allen couldn't see that when he hired Cho, yet I could, why should I trust any hire he makes just because of the GM he hires? History shows he can sour on the guy in less than a year.

 

Let's assume KP and Cho were actually incompetent and therefore smart fires. At what point do you start evaluating Allen and his advisers as "incompetent buffoons" for hiring a succession of terrible GMs? It's fairly hard to reconcile constant GM turnover and a really, smart effective owner.

I guess I'm asking, what is your measure for bad ownership decisions? What would need to happen for you to feel Allen is just confused and flailing? If he hires a new GM and fires him in a year or two, would that suggest anything negative about Allen?

 

Whitsitt had his run and got caught trading character for a chance at a title. He's the fall guy for the Jail Blazers era.

Nash and Patterson were simply incompetent at handling the rebuild...which is why it took so long for us to see the playoffs again. Martell Webster over Chris Paul???

Luke Babbitt was KP's final parting gift, not Buchanan's.

I totally get the point you and Minstrel are making about PA & his cronies having either screwed up in hiring KP & Cho in the first place or in letting them go without sufficient cause. I don't think it really is a totally binary situation that it's one or the other. I think PA is on a tight timeline because of his health issues. We may not like it, but if he thinks his GM isn't going to get the job done in the time frame that he wants, I think it's his right to switch things up to get somebody he has confidence in. PA may be a crappy talent evaluator, or it could be that personality traits of the GM only get revealed through on the job situations. Frankly, I never had much confidence in Cho when he was hired so I'm not too surprised at his short tenure. I guess all I'm saying is that I still think that PA wants to win and is willing to do what he thinks it takes to accomplish that. If we end up with an upgrade at the GM spot as a result of all of this hullabaloo then I'm a happy camper.

 

PA has also hired Miller and has not fired him for several years. He has hired scouts that he has not fired in years. He has hired a coach he hasn't fired in years. Does that show good he is competent in decision making? Why only isolate the GM spot and point to that to show PA's competence?

I'm guessing with Miller and Nate the board rips on PA for not firing them but then also rips on PA for firing Cho and KP. Basically it doesn't matter what PA does, some haters on the board will quickly spin whatever move as incompetence on Allen's behalf.

 

I guess the NFL didn't get the cliffnotes from this board about PA the owner:

PA tweet: FoxSports.com http://tiny.cc/cqfo6 has great things to say about @Seahawks in new rankings of NFL organizations that puts us at No. 12.

 

I don't think anyone is saying it isn't his right to do whatever he wants within league rules. But this isn't a defense of the basketball merits of his actions. If you're correct, you're simply explaining why Allen is erratic and flailing. Which has it's own human interest side, but really isn't terribly good news for us as fans.

I completely agree with that. The same is absolutely, 100% true of Al Davis and he's run the Raiders into the ground for about two decades. I'm not saying that Allen is as bad as Davis, but an owner wanting to win and being willing to do what he thinks it takes is only good if he really does know what it takes.

I'm not necessarily saying I know what it takes, but I do think that at some point, he has to do his due diligence in selecting a GM and then, after doing that, give that GM leeway and time to make basketball decisions. No GM on Earth is an upgrade if Allen undercuts him and then fires him when he doesn't receive instant gratification.

 

Again, the bolded text is a huge assumption that you and other around here are making. I'm all for doing all of the due diligence necessary to get as much background on GM candidates as possible. But you can do due diligence until the cows come home and still find after making a hire that there are personality traits or actions taken (or not taken) that can cause you to decide that the person you so recently hired is not what you thought they were. Given all of the discussions on this board around the trade deadline about Cho's slowness in making moves (including giving the credit for finally making the Wallace deal to Jordan's buddy, Larry Miller) I just find it a bit comical how so many are coming down on PA as the bad guy here.

 

True, though I wasn't one of the people doing that with Cho. I didn't like Cho's trade of Bayless, but thought his deal for Wallace more than made up for it and placed him solidly on the positive side of the ledger for his first year.

In any case, I'm not saying it's fact that Allen is hiring and firing on whim, rather than a coherent vision, but I'm still curious as to what you feel is a good standard for evaluating Allen. Do you feel that as long as Allen wants to win and tries to win, he's automatically a good owner? (I'm not being snarky, I could see that being a legitimate measure by some.) If not, in light of the fact that we will never know what is going on behind the scenes, when would you consider it "fair" to criticize Allen, either for process or for results? I would honestly like your opinion that. I feel that I'm being fair (I am, at least, trying to be) but you clearly feel that Allen is not being given a fair shake and I sense that you include me in that.