Who or what is responsible for the Blazers draft picks in recent years? KP? or The organization as a whole?
I have to give KP credit, if the process works like I think it does. There are plenty of jobs where a team of people provide options based on trade studies, or customer feedback, etc....but there always is someone who pulls the trigger. Maybe Born and Buchanan and the guys line up the great deals and KP says "eenie, meenie, miney, mo" to pick...but regardless, there are dozens of options on how you can play the draft, and through good research, intel about other teams, and sacking up to make the move you want the guy at the top ultimately makes the call.
Regardless of how much credit KP has claimed or is due, I'm pretty certain that there is a healthy debate between KP, his scouts, the coaches and even Paul Allen. I would guess most organizations are this way; there are just too many players out there to evaluate for one person to do an adequate job alone.
Nash had KP and Warkentien to advise him, and still managed to ignore them to draft Telfair and Webster. No process is going to work if it is run by a doofus.
I think this is 100% correct. I would imagine that a good process can result in good drafts, while a great leader at the head of a good process can result in great drafts. A terrible leader at the head of a good process can result in terrible results. Not sure that a great leader could be in charge of a bad process... Ed O.
The Byzantine trade to get the Webster pick bears the fingerprints of Pritchard's style once he took over.
Not really. It was widely reported that KP was very upset by the deal - just as Warkentien was irate over the drafting of Telfair over Jefferson. The difference is, Wark was so PO'ed he went out and got another job. KP was ambitious enough to wait for Nash to be dumped. I'd say he made the right choice.
Who Pritchard really wanted was widely reported? A couple of years later I saw one mention from Quick that Pritchard had hinted to Quick of such. I have seen no wide reporting (though I've seen wide repeating on message boards). But even if you could find me some wide reporting, more important is to find any source other than our self-praising GM.
I think it is both. But no matter what, there is always a bit of the gut feeling that will determine fate at the end of the day.
I think it's a little premature to declare the Blazers recent draft picks as great success. Being in a spot to select Oden was total luck, the team should have been in a spot to pick Corey Brewer or Brandan Wright. Obviously in hindsight the team should have got Durant so you can argue that was a bad pick. Batum has a lot of upside but has a ways to go until he realizes it, right now he's a below average starter. I love Batum but it's not certain he'll be a near all-star, many of us thought Darius was going to be the same high level of player a few years ago. LaMarcus would only be the 4th or 5th best player on the championship teams this season, such as LA or Boston. Sergio and Rudy looked great after their rookie years but now appear pretty bad. Looking at the other picks in the Oden draft, the Blazers picked Rudy over Aaron Brooks and Tiago Splinter. They picked Koponen over Carl Landry and Glen Davis. They picked Josh McRoberts over Marc Gasol and Ramon Sessions. So the team has missed out on a ton of solid players. Roy was a great pick, but the others aren't slam dunks. Most of the Roy talk I heard of before the draft was Nate wanting him more than any other player, maybe Nate should get all the credit.
