Can we please stop talking about Prichard and Allen?

[maxiep]

Beating a dead horse? Really? The draft and pritchard's firing finally came to an end one week ago after simmering for six months or so. Why is it beating a dead horse? Would we have stopped talking about the championship if we had won it? That was a whopping two weeks ago.

If you're tired of talking about a subject or hearing about a subject...avoid threads involving that subject.

Repped.

 

[OddEnormous]

When are we going to let this issue die? I do not know about the rest of you but all the talk about what happened and what did not happen is getting tiring. I say we all get it out in this thread and then let it go. Prichard may or may not have been fired because he deserved it. Allen may or may not be a meddling owner. From my perspective here is a list of what I think we do know. I recently had a chance to meet someone who works for the blazers and some of this information is from that person.

1) Prichard was not scheduled to be fired an hour before the draft. He specifically pushed the issue at that time and forced paul allen to do what he did.

2) The GM position is about relationships. Prichard apparently does not have good relationships with other GM's.

3) It would be nice if Paul Allen issued a statment that made all of us feel better, but he is a very private person who is not know for doing that type of thing.

4) Paul Allen can do what ever he wants.......he owns the team.

5) Allen decided to fire Tom Penn for reasons unknown. Prichard came out and backed Penn which in turn made it look like he was not backing Allen (which is part of his job) which probably pissed Allen off.

6) Something shady went on with LeGarie. He had a hand in this whole situation.

7) Prichard has probably taken credit for things that he did not do and not taken blame for things he did. I see the role as GM in part as one where you should deflect to others when positive things happen and take the blame when bad things happen.

8) We all loved Paul Allen up until the Penn firing. I find it hard to believe that all of the sudden he is a bad owner. I am sure like the rest of us, he desperately wants to win. he has done a lot for this team to help them win and get better. he has consistently put his money where his mouth is.

I know the title of this thread does not match the content. I am hoping we can all purge ourselves and move on with a more positive attitude. Once again, we are NEVER going to know the whole story. Either for legal reasons or otherwise.

Come on everyone let it out..........

Yes the best way to get people to stop talking about something is to start yet another thread about it and then write the longest write up EVER on the subject.

Fucking brilliant.

Oh perfect. I see 2 posts later you claim everyone else is beating a dead horse.

Another masterstroke.

Some of you kill me

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

you are my favorite poster. I hope you are the first person to sign up for my new board.

Of course, I am just joking.

And, of course, we are known around here for beating a dead horse, burying it, digging it up and beating it some more, but that is the nature of a message board. So long as people want to discuss it, it gets discussed.

 

[maxiep]

Pretty evenhanded take by the other KP, Kevin Pelton. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1172

June 30, 2010
Selling Hope
Kevin Pritchard's Tenure


by Kevin Pelton

During his time with the Toronto Raptors, USC coach Kevin O'Neill was fond of the phrase, "You're either selling wins or you're selling hope," which I happen to think is the pithiest way anyone has ever explained the concept of the success cycle.

When the Portland Trail Blazers fired Maurice Cheeks late in the 2004-05 season, they more or less declared their intention to begin rebuilding. It was only fitting that Cheeks was replaced on an interim basis by Kevin Pritchard, then the Blazers' obscure director of player personnel best known as the starting point guard for Kansas' 1988 NCAA champion team. Pritchard's role was always intended to be temporary, and that summer Portland made a splash by hiring Nate McMillan away from the rival Seattle SuperSonics with a lucrative contract while Pritchard returned to his scouting job.

The expectation was that McMillan would become the face of the new Blazers regime, especially with no player on the roster capable of filling that role. McMillan's character and steady hand provided a welcome change, but he never quite connected with fans. Portland would not entirely succeed in selling hope until Pritchard's role in the organization grew with the departure of general manager John Nash in May 2006. Though Pritchard wasn't promoted to general manager until a year later, when team president Steve Patterson followed Nash out the door, he got credit for the draft that landed Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge and turned the Blazers around.

With his penchant for completing trades on the night of the draft, Pritchard soon became a cult hero among Portland fans, who coined the term "Pritch-slap" to describe his seemingly one-sided deals and flooded the web with praise for the GM. The Blazers' growth lived up to the rising expectations, as the team became a .500 team by 2007-08 and returned to the playoffs the following season, the culmination of a long but effective rebuilding process that was at the time seen as a model for other clubs.

There's a danger to the hype, however. Eventually, expectations became impossible to meet. That's what Pritchard discovered during this past season. Racked by injuries, Portland saw its development stall, losing in the first round of the playoffs for the second consecutive year. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder did the Blazers one better, reaching the postseason with an even younger roster and usurping Portland's role as the rising young power in the Western Conference.

Within the Blazers' organization, the question began to be asked whether Pritchard was the right leader to help the team take the next step in its development. Simultaneously, Pritchard took the wrong side in a complex battle for power within the front office, backing Tom Penn when his former right hand man was abruptly fired as assistant GM in March. It has also become clear that the over-the-top adoration Pritchard received from fans ultimately worked against him because of the feeling that he received a disproportionate share of the credit for turning the organization around.

When we take the critical step of removing the hype on both sides of the equation, what is left is a general manager who fell short of his public perception, but also one whose performance hardly merited dismissal.

Ultimately, Pritchard's greatest legacy will be showing the Portland front office a better way than the team had operated under his predecessors. As problematic as the final teams Bob Whitsitt assembled were off the floor, ultimately Whitsitt's biggest shortcoming was his inability to recognize how the luxury tax would change the equation for teams and reward flexibility. (There were few complaints about the risks Whitsitt took when the team was reaching the Western Conference Finals.) In fairness, overspending was common among wealthy teams at the time. The New York Knicks are only now recovering from their tendency to spend first and ask questions later, while Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had his share of early missteps as a tax payer.

Whitsitt's successor, Nash, cleaned up the team off the court and shed the "Jail Blazers" reputation but maintained a high payroll with hefty contracts for players like Darius Miles and Theo Ratliff. It was Pritchard who pointed the Blazers toward more sensible salary management, ultimately getting the team below the cap last summer.

One of Pritchard's key realizations was the value Portland could reap from young players on cost-controlled contracts. Understanding the concept of replacement level (part of his development into a stat geek, which saw the team embrace advanced analysis), Pritchard stopped overpaying for middling veterans and aggressively mined the draft for talent. He also realized that Allen's money was better spent not on salaries, since they could be taxed, but on buying additional first-round picks. The strategies ultimately netted the Blazers no fewer than seven rotation-quality players on their first contract last season. The upside is that the scouts responsible for many of those selections, Pritchard hires Mike Born and Chad Buchanan, recently signed contract extensions to stay with the team after his departure.

Of course, the Pritchard pick that ultimately received the most scrutiny was taking Greg Oden No. 1 overall after Portland won the lottery in 2007. Since No. 2 pick Kevin Durant has quickly developed into a generational talent while Oden tries to shake a series of injuries, revisionist historians have criticized Pritchard for the selection. Injury wasn't a legitimate concern at the time (Google News' archive reveals a grand total of one article calling Oden injury prone prior to the draft, published in the Salt Lake Community College Globe), so despite Durant's immense potential, nearly every team in the league (including the Sonics, who took Durant) would have chosen Oden.

I'll grant that criticism of Pritchard's ability to mold an elite team cannot be conclusively dismissed. The Blazers have been unable to pull of a major deal that would consolidate their talent dating back to the 2009 trade deadline, when the team was dangling Raef LaFrentz's expiring contract. Pritchard made a good deal for Marcus Camby before last year's deadline, but lucked out a bit with last year's other marquee addition, guard Andre Miller--the team's third choice in free agency after forward Hedo Turkoglu, who would have been an expensive mistake, and forward Paul Millsap.

At the same time, positioning the change at the helm as a matter of moving toward a championship sets a high standard for Pritchard's replacement. Short of luring Jerry West out of retirement, the Blazers will be hard-pressed to find a new general manager with that kind of proven track record of high-level success. Should the team fall short of expectations, fans won't soon forget the way Pritchard was cast aside.

Portland is now in the business of selling wins. The Blazers may discover that selling hope is often much less difficult.

Follow Kevin on Twitter at @kpelton.

Kevin Pelton is an author of Basketball Prospectus

 

[oldmangrouch]

Great article by Pelton.

This issue will be put to bed as soon as the Blazers bring in a new GM who is better than KP. If firing KP was the right decision, that should be easy.

 

[maxiep]

Great article by Pelton.

This issue will be put to bed as soon as the Blazers bring in a new GM who is better than KP. If firing KP was the right decision, that should be easy.

Yep. If the GM that replaces Pritchard is better than he is, I won't have much of a problem with it going forward. Tick tock, tick tock.

 

[the ob]

great article.

 

[the ob]

Of course, I am just joking.

And, of course, we are known around here for beating a dead horse, burying it, digging it up and beating it some more, but that is the nature of a message board. So long as people want to discuss it, it gets discussed.

I guess it is you who we should be consulting on every new thread. I am joking of course.

 

[hasoos]

I am just waiting for the KP-Tom Penn-Paul Allen love triangle thread.

 

[RoyToy]

Do we have a GM yet?

RISE WITH US

 

[Ed O]

Do we have a GM yet?

RISE WITH US

If we DID have a GM at this point, it would mean:

1. We rushed into hiring someone, or
2. We had someone lined up before KP was let go.

Either one of those would open the team (and Allen) up to more bashing. And yet you continue to bitch that we've gone almost a week (A WHOLE WEEK!) without a GM.

I find that amusing.

Ed O.

 

[RoyToy]

So you're saying the Blazers don't have a GM yet?

 

[Minstrel]

ultimately Whitsitt's biggest shortcoming was his inability to recognize how the luxury tax would change the equation for teams and reward flexibility.

Wow. Insight into why Whitsitt ultimately failed (after doing very good things) without it being a value judgment or references to "fantasy basketball." I think that's a fantastic point.

He didn't spend a lot of time on Whitsitt, but it was one of the fairest, most reasonable assessments of his reign that I've seen.

 

[crandc]

And for many of us, it's not quite so simple. But you keep on painting with two colors--black and white--it's working well for you.

Of course that's exactly the opposite of what I did do.

Do you read posts before "replying"?

 

[crandc]

When was Allen ever a hero?

To me he's always been an impatient nerd who has periodic meltdowns every 5-7 years, dragging the team down with him each time.

To me he's the billionaire who sucked the life out of many Portland small businesses by declaring "bankruptcy", who still has not repaid several million dollars of his local debts and has no intention of ever doing so.

To me he's the owner who insists on making the final decision, and some very idiotic ones from time to time, then publicly uses his GM for the ultimate scapegoat when those decisions don't work out so good.

Had he not been born into a wealthy family, I assume he'd be in jail for fraud, embezzlement, or some similar weasel-like crime.

But maybe I set my standard requirements for hero-worship too high?

You're an exception, Maris.

BTW Paul Allen did not come from a wealthy family. His parents were a teacher and a librarian. Educated working class.

 

[maxiep]

Of course that's exactly the opposite of what I did do.

Do you read posts before "replying"?

Here are your words:

That is what really bugs me. Everyone is either a hero or a villain. Either KP is a hero and PA a villain, or vice versa. And PA goes from being hero to villain apparently overnight. He's exactly the same person he was when KP sat by him.

That and the fact that no one knows the facts, but everyone is SURE their speculation is correct. As is any gossip columnist who happens to agree with their speculation.

You're claiming that we simplify the situation to make one person the "hero" and the other a "villan". You also happen to say that we're all "SURE" our speculation is correct.

If you're not telling people they lack nuance on this issue, what are you trying to say?

 

[crandc]

The Pelton article was good but I take exception to OKC is now the good young team instead of Portland. With tons of injuries, Portland was #5. With no significant injuries, OKC was #8. How did OKC supplant Portland? If next year they are #2 and Portland #7, both reasonably healthy, then I'll buy.

 

[Ed O]

The Pelton article was good but I take exception to OKC is now the good young team instead of Portland. With tons of injuries, Portland was #5. With no significant injuries, OKC was #8. How did OKC supplant Portland? If next year they are #2 and Portland #7, both reasonably healthy, then I'll buy.

I found that to be slightly off, as well. The most recent OKC team wasn't as good or as young as the Blazers were the previous year, and they weren't as good as the most recent Blazers team. And all of this in spite of remarkable good luck re: injuries for the Thunder and the exact opposite for Portland.

Things might change next year (as you point out) but "momentum" over the course of multiple seasons isn't worth much in my book.

Ed O.

 

[maxiep]

The Pelton article was good but I take exception to OKC is now the good young team instead of Portland. With tons of injuries, Portland was #5. With no significant injuries, OKC was #8. How did OKC supplant Portland? If next year they are #2 and Portland #7, both reasonably healthy, then I'll buy.

I agree completely. I don't understand how a team we beat 3-1 with tons of injuries when they had perfect health. If anything, to me it shows that they're a distant second.