I think Nash was also hamstrung with the financial situation we were in to make basketball moves. Wasn't there something about him wanting to land Vince Carter, but the deal was nixed by Vulcan? He still screwed up the drafts big time, but he was put in a bad situation trying to cut costs while trying to field a competitive team. At least his one saving grace was bringing in Przybilla.
Ever read any inteviews with the guy? He was Stephon Marbury before Stephon Marbury in more than the flashy-PG-from-NY sense. Didn't he complain about having to sell one of his cars once? There was a reason he was readily available on the FA market. As I recall, he was left on the shelf that year after all the other actually good FAs were snapped up.
And Blake. Nash wasn't good at his job, but he was brought in to be the hatchet man. And at the time, he didn't have much power. There were a ton of checks--Patterson, PA, Vulcan--on him.
I honestly never really cared whether it was Nash himself, Patterson, Vulcan, Paul Allen or some amalgam of all of them. Nash is the only one of them I've ever communicated to personally, so I guess I'd prefer to think he was given a raw deal. But he's a symbol of management in that era, a management I really hated.
To me, Patterson was more the symbol than Nash. I viewed Nash as harmless, happy he had a job at all. I viewed Patterson as one of those guys who isn't all that bright but has the arrogance of someone who believes himself to be a genius.
After reading this thread, it's amazing that so many folks stuck with this team. The 76-93 era did engender a reason to have real loyalty to this club. It blows my mind to think this era could be the best one yet.
Anyone remember when Charles Smith was our starting 2-guard during the 21 win season? Dark dark days...
I have blocked that season from my mind and refuse to remember who was on that fucking horrific team. Doesn't anyone remember Gary Trent? I seem to recall he beat the shit out of some dude in a bar fight in NE Portland. Dontonio Wingfield is currently in prison for assulting an off-duty police woman. JR Rider is in jail for drugs and kidnapping. Compared to those clowns Wallace and company were angels. Except Woods. That dude was a total loser. I remember watching his interview right after he was drafted and thinking to myself "There is no damn way that guy can read.". And Patterson. Not too keen on having a registered sex offender on the team. I actually got into a shouting match with someone at a picnic over whether or not Ruben should have been on the team.
Holy shit. Dontonio Wingfield & Gary Trent. Man, I'm bookmarking this thread, it's like a walk down memory hell. People can say all they want about the media maybe overblowing the jailblazers, but I think the label was earned many times over and completely justified. The amount of problems those teams had seems to be 2nd to none (in the nba). And then I leave this thread and realize where the team is at now, it blows me away.
Following nearly every move Nash made I'd be hoping that there was some reasoning to his action that I wasn't yet seeing... but there never was. Then I'd come here and the board would be doing high fives like we just pulled one over on the league. Coming to the conclusion that the guy guiding the ship was clueless and the team wouldn't get better until someone else took over was an empty feeling. The lowest two individual points for me was passing on Chris Paul (who I was sure was going to be great... I'm a Wake fan) and trading Rasheed for a bag of rocks when other much better options were clearly available. STOMP
There's the worst moment. I actually did like Telfair, but I still thought that "core" was rather pitiful. The Patternash era was one long, awful moment.
I was drinking the Telfair kool-aid after the end of the 05 season when he was racking up the points and assists like crazy. I truly thought he was our PG of the future. I still can't believe how bad he turned out to be.
Yes it was. But I must, yet again, insist that it was not as bad as some people made it. After all - Seung-Jin put the Ha in the Hall of Fame. For the record - it was so bad that when we drafted Webster (as much as I liked us to take Deron) - I still thought we plugged a big hole in the SG position. Yes, he has, so far, been a below-average starter in this league - but he still is a huge upgrade over Bassy, the Famers and the Russian mafia.
Yup. Webster is an NBA player. That places him above the others, except Tel-flair. Not a ton of credit to Nash for drafting someone who can manage to remain in the NBA, but I guess we should be thankful for small miracles. I did think Webster would be a good player, too. But then, I hold people who get paid to do this to a higher standard than my own evaluations. Paul and Williams seemed like much bigger talents even at the time.
I'll never forget the time Rashweed Wallace had a temper tantrum while lying on the court. The ref had call a foul on him, and he just started thrashing around like a fish on the beach, his arms and legs flying every which way. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was having an epileptic seizure. Either that, or he was a 6-year-old . . . The guy was a total idiot. Thank goodness he's not our problem anymore.
Yes. Donaghy was not just a bad ref who had a grudge... he was cheating. Rasheed was an asshole on the floor towards almost every ref, but not taking into account who Rasheed went after when he did that strikes me as odd. Ed O.
The "financial defense" doesn't work for me. Theo Ratliff EXTENDED? Darius Miles EXTENDED? Zach Randolph EXTENDED? Why? No Blazers management team before or since extended so many players... extensions are usually a losing proposition, especially with guys who have had consistency and/or injury problems. Further, the Blazers traded Rasheed and took on TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars in salary with SAR and Theo (which was then exacerbated by the ridiculous extension of Theo)... the team might have been hamstrung after that move, but BECAUSE of that move, too. Who's to blame between Nash/Patterson/Vulcan/Allen? I dunno. Nash is the one who was responsible, as far as I'm concerned, for managing the roster and the salary cap... and he failed at almost every turn. Fortunately KP was able to move those peieces one way or the other, actually getting value for some of it. Ed O.
