What if the best thing is no thing at all?

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Let's be clear, I'm not part of the "Kpee" crowd. In fact I thought he was an excellent talent evaluator and drafter, but I think he left a lot to be desired in terms of his ability to tweak and fine tune the roster when it came time to make deals and I think he overvalued his own players, which hindered his ability to construct deals with other teams. I'm not bashing the guy I'm just trying to inject a little bit of perspective.

 

Don't you think there was insufficient time to ascertain whether he was good or bad at "tweaking" the roster to win a title? This is the way I see it:

He was GM for four years.

He spent the first three years building the team from one of the worst to a 50-win team. If we agree that three years for that sort of turn-around is quite good, then we've accounted for his first three years on the job. During those three years, his main task was (as it should have been) building up the team's talent base, not "tweaking it" to maximize winning for any of those seasons.

After those three years, during which he effected a speedy turn-around, he's had exactly one season. That season had an abnormally high number of injuries, even if one accounts for Oden and even Roy being injury risks. This is also the season he traded Blake and Outlaw for Camby.

So, is it really "perspective" to say that after one, injury-plagued season (in which he pulled off an excellent and significant midseason trade), Pritchard has shown himself to be slow, unwilling or poor at taking the next step? Is one season really all a GM who successfully rebuilt the team should get to prove himself at taking the next step?

I think unwarranted skepticism is ruling the day here. Standards are absurdly high if a single season (and an unusual one at that) with a disappointing finish takes the shine off. Very, very few teams simply rocket up and up and up to a title with no seasons of stagnation or disappointment along the way.

I don't think Pritchard was flawless or a genius. His trade of Randolph disappointed me (not that he traded him, but the paltry return). The wooing of Turkoglu baffled me. Passing over Blair in last year's draft seemed like a mistake. But I think the bottom line results are tremendous: taking a team from arguably the worst in basketball to a back-to-back 50-win team...a team so talented that it could win 50 games despite a slew of injuries to some of the team's best players. Yes, the team isn't a title favourite yet...but Pritchard really wasn't given the chance to get the team there prior to being fired.

I'm not commenting on the wisdom of his firing. On basketball grounds, I think it would be beyond idiotic. But there may be factors beyond basketball and, not knowing what those are if they exist, I can't say whether he should or shouldn't have been fired. But I think his basketball legacy with Portland is being unreasonably marginalized.

 

KP was not the Michael Jordan of GM's, he may not have even been the Clyde Drexler, but the notion that he had *nothing* to do with the team's improvement is just silly.

Is it possible the team will find somebody better? Sure. Is it likely? Looking at the list of known candidates, I'd have to say "no." IMHO, that is more important than any speculation over his personality, or "other factors."

 

Now that that bum Pritchard has flown the coop, we are actually expecting something to happen this summer. Amazing. You mean you can make changes in the summer? How? You mean by trades and free agents? Wow. This is all new to Blazer fans.

We can resume using our biggest advantage, our owner's willingness to spend. What a waste of an asset, ever since Pritchard took over with his radical philosophy of inertia. Hopefully the Buddhist will move to a cave in Burma and meditate.

Pritchard lived his first 3 years on McMillan's talent at desperately holding up the fort, despite Pritchard's weak picks and nonexistent trades and FAs. In his 4th year, all he had was a pickup of Camby in the last minute of his game, in order to boost his reputation and cancel criticism that he had never traded for a veteran. Too late. Game already decided. You are outta here. Sterling was trying to dump Camby, and the only way Pritchard beat a couple of other teams was with his usual hackneyed trick of bribing Sterling with Allen's money. We'll see whether his next owner is as generous. It will have to be Dallas or New Jersey.

 

Now is the time IMO. Three reasons:

1. Paul Allen's health
2. Roy's health
3. Oden's health

in that order. There is not time like the present to go balls and and get a ring. The longer LeBron/Wade/Bosh/Stoudemire/Rose in whatever combination have time to gel in the East the harder it becomes for us to win.

Add to that the health of the three guys I mentioned and it's fucking G.O. time baby!

 

I absolutely agree with this. KP was a master draftsman. His scouting team and "golden gut" are amongst the best in the league. Only Presti's crew might be better and they had luck in 2007 and better draft position every year after. KP hasn't missed on many on draft day.

The criticism of KP has to lay in his ability to get a trade done. I don't blame him for not getting a big name FA to sign. That's a difficult task for anyone when Portland is the town wooing the FA. So I won't blame him on that one at all. It's the lack of trades. KP was like the anti-Whitsitt he was both infinitely better and much worse.

Whitsitt was the MASTER of the trade. Always bold and daring sometimes catastrophically wrong. Trader Bob got er done. And got us a few minutes and in my opinon was just a fairly reffed 7 minutes from the NBA finals in 2000.

KP often didn't make moves rather then make a mistake. He also clearly over valued our players and/or low balled other teams ruthlessly.

KP was the master of the draft no doubt about it and a genuinely likable guy. I'm sad to see him go, but getting a better trading GM in there might be what we need now. Wish it had been a coaching change first.

 

I don't think it has to, as though there's no question about that. As I said, he was only given a single season in "phase two"...consolidating talent into an earth-shaking/championship-winning move. Prior to this past season, he and the team were still in the first phase...building the talent base. So he had only one season and in that one season, made a significant and very good deal.

Would he have continued to? Answering yes or no to that would be complete speculation, but I see no reason why one should assume "no." And from the reports about the Paul deal that he put together that was "close," it appears the answer may well have been "yes." That would indeed have been the earth-shaking move.

Obviously, opinions will differ on this, but I don't think Pritchard established anything like a pattern when it came to trades. I don't think huge/significant deals should be expected at all points in the success cycle. In the early part of the success cycle (the "building for the future" part), one should be looking to largely add quantity of talent rather than trying to fit the Pareto Principle. Top-heavy teams are for later in the success cycle, when one is trying to maximize the present. Now is when the team should be trying to consolidate in a big way (and, perhaps, this past season...but the team was decimated by injury). But now is when we won't get to see what Pritchard would have done.

 

And how do you know that? You don't know what he offered or what he was offered. The only thing we've ever seen is rumors. So that is just assumptions.

 

But that's all we've ever heard, Mike. I can't recall ever reading about a deal where it was reported that Portland tried to get someone and didn't lowball the other team. At some point where there is smoke, there actually is fire.

 

In general, I think it's okay to hang back right now.

EXCEPT: I'm wondering about the Bulls. Suppose they whiff completely on the big FAs. Did they screw up by dumping Hinrich? I guess a lot of people will say he was overpaid (but really? Next to Channing Frye and compared to Joe Johnson?) but he was a key guy for them - they played a lot better with him than when he was out injured. And would they have given him (and their pick - OUR GUY Kevin Seraphin) for basically nothing if they knew they were just going to end up with cap space?

What this is all leading up to is: if we really can get Deng RIGHT NOW, and we want Deng (and I do) - then we need to jump on it before LeBron announces he's staying in Cleveland.