Is it July 1st? I am will to bet that he is not fired, but simply not renewed. That way you keep his knowledge out of this draft, and basically make it hard to hire him because it would be too late to put him in place to be a part of the FA shuffle this summer.
I suspect that whenever KP gets canned he'll probably be out of basketball for a little while, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a team like the Knicks or the Nets bring him in as an assistant GM in the next 6 months with the idea that he'll assume the title of full GM when either Walsh or Thorn step down; neither are getting any younger.
Next time around, Pritchard needs to find his own Wojo in order to leak negative stories about other GMs. Enough of trying to be Mr. Positive.
Whatever A-Woj's reasons for disliking KP so much, I think it's pretty clear that there's a fair amount of resentment towards KP around the league, amongst his colleagues (whether deserved or not). Maybe KP needs to work on his people skills instead?
"Around the league" = Mark Warkentien Also, I don't want my GM to win Ms. Congeniality. I want him to assemble a young roster that can contend.
No. Wojo's way off-base. When he was reporting things about KP at the height of Pritchard's popularity, clearly it was all just made up. Nothing negative has happened to KP lately, so the Wojo haters must be right. Right? Ed O.
The way I look at it, according to the press, Vinnie Del Negro was supposed to be supposedly fired 2 months into the season. He made it all the way through the season, and the playoffs before the axe finally fell, and it might not have fell if not for the issue where Paxon tried to fight him. So you can believe the press bullshavick if you want. I don't buy a bit of it until something actually happens. IMO the press spends more time trying to create stories than actually tell real stories.
Didn't Wojo once write about how the letter to Memphis re: Darius Miles was a major reason Pritchard was viewed in a negative light? Also, what happened to Miles? I thought he was a good player again.
No one ever said he was a good player (I, personally, rarely said that before he got injured, even). All that matters is that he could play in the NBA. How good he was is irrelevant. Where's that lawsuit the Blazers should bring against the Grizzlies and the NBA? Haha. Ed O.
Huh? No clue about that, but what does it have to do with Wojo blaming Pritchard for an email sent by Larry Miller?
The negative stuff I recall is from A-Woj or just unsubstantiated rumors from undisclosed 'sources'. I'd like some actual evidence that he's disliked around the league before claiming that "it's pretty clear".
I specifically remember hearing Daryl Morey praise KP on Simmons's podcast. And he usually speaks pretty freely with him (earned him a fine not long ago), so I doubt it was PC bullshit.
Agents dealing with him say he’s toned down his verbiage, no longer making bold proclamations about his ability to buy draft picks and move up to snare their clients Well apparently this is the impresssion agents get when talking to Pritchard. So other GMs must know that KP goes around talking about his ability to buy draft picks . . . probably rubs some GMs the wrong way. Basically given everything we know and read about Pritcahrd (which is a lot for most die hard Blazer fans on this site) . . . I don't think it is a stretch to believe he isn't well liked among various GMs out there. Not that I care much, but again it doesn't sound like that allegation is completely out of thin air.
For some reason you edited out the two words right before that quote.. They are, "Wojnarowski writes:" So again, it's all from that guy.. and again, I can replace unsubstantiated rumors from undisclosed 'sources', with unsubstantiated rumors from undisclosed 'agents'. I need a little more than that personally. I don't believe everything I read, especially when the source clearly has an agenda on this particular topic.
The only reason I said KP maybe ought to focus on his people skills was in response to BGrantFan's somewhat silly assertion that KP needs to get his own media hatchet man to cut down a rival ... the suggestion being that A-Woj has done nothing but make up stuff about Pritchard at the behest of Mark Warkentien. Because the most likely scenario is that a columnist with a national column is on the payroll for a single team executive and 'whacks' people when that exec wants it done, and not that KP has come across as arrogant or entitled in his dealings with other teams and it's merely being reported. For what it's worth, I could give two shits how other GMs perceive KP, so long as that perception doesn't impede his ability to get deals done and make the team better ... that said, I have wondered if this supposed negative perception has made it tougher for him to consummate trades (after all, despite the cutthroat "all business" nature of the NBA, human nature is still human nature, and when people don't like someone they tend not to want to do them many favors).
Wojnarowski is the most prominent and frequent KP detractor, but he's not the only writer that has discovered that KP might not exactly be beloved by his colleagues around the league (Vescey, Sam Smith, and Jaynes have all reported as much at one time or another).
I got the impression everyone else was basically rehashing Wojnarowski's rumors and that they all originated from him, but I could be wrong. When there's a lot of smoke, there's probably some fire, so I'm not totally discounting the possibility that there's some truth in this. But Wojnarowski clearly has an agenda which makes me take everything he says with a grain of salt. And I can't tell if there's just some jelousy/competitiveness that comes naturally when there's a young upstart GM with a habit of "Pritch-slapping" his competition (with the help of a rich owner), or if there's genuine, universal dislike for him.
