http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10711364/2014-nba-front-office-rankings-top-executives According to ESPN. Olshey ranks 7th among GMs and Allen 10th among owners. Given the team's recent track record, I'd call that rather generous. They obviously put great weight on this season, as opposed to history. Take it FWIW.
I'm surprised ESPN even mentioned the Blazers on any capacity. It's a first. I disagree with anyone who hasn't seen Olshey's impact on the team in only 2 seasons. I think he should get GM of the year and Paul Allen hired the guy giving him a win in the column. I'm not sure which history you're reffering to unless it's the injury ridden chapter with Roy and Oden going down before training camp. Tomorrow we in all probability notch 50 wins with 5 games to play. History says this is a great season and a process that's obviously working on a lot of levels.
Imagine what any other owner here would have "accomplished." Imagine the Buss family, expecting a giant market's revenues, with no talent injection in many years. Imagine the Spurs or Jazz owners, depending upon a lucky coaching hire lasting 20 years. See the Seattle SuperSonics for the alternative Blazer history without Paul Allen.
How many GMs has this team gone through since Trader Bob got his walking papers? The track record on coaches is nothing to brag about either. Sorry, but I consider Allen's history pretty damn bad.
Bucky built a great team and I have him ranked 1 of all time. BTW, I don't think Caravan was serious. Glickman never built a team. Allen is probably better than ten even with how blunderous his history is.
The sad part is, I originally put Bucky but looked it up in Wikipedia because I didn't trust my memory... read the wrong column, and edited the wrong name in. I did mean Bucky. 50 hail marys for me. And I was serious.
I think it is very generous as well. Drafting Damian, trading for Robin, and signing Mo would suggest such a high rating. Flip side would be that someone else made the drafting of Damian possible, the core of Batum, LA, and Wesley were already here, we do not have a second round pick until the year 2098, CJ and Leonard have shown little for where they were drafted, and the only bench player Stotts has felt comfortable giving regular minutes for the past two seasons is Mo. After seeing how KP got anointed a god for making a cake that never turned out, I am optimistically waiting for results before doing the same with Olshey.
