<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">PHILADELPHIA -- Ruben Patterson on Tuesday said that he is prepared to spend the rest of the season on the inactive list unless the Trail Blazers find a way to play him 25 minutes a game. Patterson, who was suspended last week for two games, then placed on the inactive list for complaining about his playing time, is scheduled to meet in Portland with Blazers general manager John Nash and coach Nate McMillan either Thursday or Friday. Nash and McMillan on Tuesday said the meeting will be to determine whether Patterson can accept a reserve role in which he plays limited minutes behind Darius Miles and Zach Randolph. Patterson averaged 19.3 minutes in the first eight games this season -- down from the 28 minutes he averaged last season -- which included an average of 16.3 minutes in his past three games. Nash said if Patterson can accept the role that McMillan envisions, he will be reinstated to the active list. But Patterson on Tuesday said he is not willing to continue to get fill-in minutes while the team continues its youth movement. "I don't think my role of playing 13 or 15 minutes a game is acceptable," Patterson said from his home in Columbus, Ohio. "I deserve to play 25-plus minutes, but if they want me to play 12 minutes (like he did in his last game against New York), then they can just put me on the inactive list. I mean, those are rookie minutes." McMillan said he can't foresee Patterson getting 25 minutes a game. "I think those are starter minutes," McMillan said. "I don't know how you can give someone off the bench 25 minutes. I mean, he's at a position that Miles (38.5 minutes a game) and Zach (37.8 minutes) are playing." </div> Source
He is such a baby. Put him on the inactive list and it won't matter at all. I don't see him bringing that much to the team anyway. Portland will have a hard time trading him if he demands 25 mins from everytime. What team would want him?
Forget the inactive list, put him on the suspended without pay list. He better watch out, ZBo might snap and bust his eye open again. I love how these athletes sign long term deals for ridiculous money, and when their careers are coming to an end they start complaining and ask to be traded. Yet they fail to realize the overpaid contract the team was foolish enough to give them makes it impossible to trade, and complaining and lashing out scares off any takers.
Funny how he did get that whole rape situation while playing for the Sonics (with Nate as coach). Either way I agree; this guy isn't needed in the league the way he's been acting lately..
Wow that's a tuffy. Let's see, they don't want to play you already so you threaten not to play. Sounds like he is doing them a favor.
Suspend him and give Travis Outlaw and Martell Webster his minutes. Patterson isn't a part of the Blazers' future and he doesn't realize that the team would trade him if they could. These guys who have big egos but are actually scrubs are the ones who are the jokes of the NBA.
What they need is his defense. Portland is going for a youth movement, sure, but the fine people of the city need some wins, and to get those wins, they need Patterson to shut down players that get hot. He is thier best defender. The ultimatum he has givin is a lose lose situation. He loses, but the team loses as well, no matter what a whiner, loser, rapist, sick wasted sperm cell he is.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">As expected, Ruben Patterson returned to the team and went through a full practice. During the time we watched (about the last half hour), he seemed subdued, but only by Ruben Patterson standards. He made a quick exit and declined, through a team spokesman, to speak to us, but did say he would speak to reporters Sunday at the team's game against Utah. Coach Nate McMillan did say he would activate and play Patterson tomorrow. </div> Got it off hoopshype.
