<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">We should be giddy.
Because it wasn't so long ago that former coach Maurice Cheeks lobbied management for a stiff player-suspension for insubordinate behavior and promptly was cut off at the knees. And if this Patterson blowup and the punishment that followed indicate anything, it's that McMillan is operating with autonomy not seen around here in some time.
This is a good thing.
To fully understand, you'll need to know how terrified the Blazers are of bad publicity. In fact, in the golden hours after the troubling incidents in recent years, the team seemed more interested in how a player's apology "played" than if it really was genuine and authentic.
The franchise paralyzed itself worrying about public perception. It focused on outcome, not process. And it operated for some time with those priorities lying around as inside-out as a dirty tube sock.
On several occasions last season, some high-ranking employees commented to me that they could do everything right -- market the team, play well, have fresh popcorn at the arena -- but were always "at the mercy" of the players on the roster. And I always thought, "Well, you're the ones who handed them the crown and the throne, bub."
So when the Blazers hired McMillan, launching this great experiment in training camp, we were told this was his team. And that management was willing to go to the mattresses for him.
It sounded good. We all nodded. But we were operating with no proof until this week's incident.
This move was a change in company procedure all the way. And it has McMillan's fingerprints all over it. But really, sending a player home is the type of maneuver that would have been greeted in the past by management with, "Well, let's not be hasty here, coach," while they sat around the office weighing the cost of another destructive headline.
T he sad part about this blow-up is that it's a pretty strong indication that the experiment, and the rebuilding, won't progress as rapidly as some (me included) hoped it might.
Patterson tested McMillan's authority. And other players ignored McMillan's 11 p.m. New York City curfew on Saturday. Which is only a reminder to me, and maybe you, too, that predicting that this team isn't nearly as bad as it looks on paper just means that we're ahead of ourselves and forgetting one of the fundamental rules of human behavior:
The most accurate predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Cats will act like cats. Dogs will act like dogs. And if the devil bit you before, he might bite you again.
In time, those who tested the old boss probably will test McMillan, too. And Patterson, fresh off this emotional outburst, demanded a trade after Sunday's game and renewed the request Monday.
What this means for the experiment, and in particular, Darius Miles and Zach Randolph, we'll find out soon enough. Pay close attention to this portion of the sociological experiment, because if we've learned anything here, it's that drifters probably will act like drifters at some point.
Wins and losses?
That feels incidental again. And maybe that will pass. But this experiment feels like it's just heating up. </div>
Source
