Nobody who works for the organization (that includes HCP). They're sunshine pumpers and company pitchmen.
And you find this to be unusual in professional sports that teams try to put an optimistic spin on their situations? I can just imagine in my mind the TV promos if they hired MM and Natebishop3 to do them. "Well folks, the Blazers suck and are going to continue to do so until Buchanan finally is canned and they hire a new GM that actually has a pair so that he'll fire McMillan's sorry ass. Oden's broken down again, as usual, and Roy should be renamed "The Shell", but hey, support your Blazers and buy a few tickets. I mean, hey, what else are you going to do? Watch soccer?"
Fan reaction: "I find your honesty really, really refreshing. Character matters more to me than winning or talent, so put me down for a season ticket package."
It's not the last day of June, so I'm not freaking my shit out... but it is starting to get a little warm in the kitchen.
Tonight or tomorrow for sure. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for them not to extend the offer.
It seems to me there are either one or two decisions that have to be made. The first is whether or not to extend GO a QO. If we don't, then there's something seriously, genetically and unrecoverably wrong with Oden. The second--if the answer is that we're going to extend a QO--is whether to extend the one year QO or the max QO. The max may not be such a ridiculous idea, if you have an idea that the new CBA is going to be more owner friendly. Right now it would be six years, but what if under the new CBA it were four years? What if there were an amnesty clause? What if salaries are significantly reduced?