Fans hold plenty of cards in Blazers-Pritchard drama

[OSUBlazerfan]

http://www.nba.com/2010/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/03/26/blazers.roethlisberger/

We have a great, unfolding drama in Portland these days. Trail Blazers upper-upper management is in a full-frontal assault on general manager Kevin Pritchard, making for some real palace intrigue, for those into seeing a head paraded about town on a stick.



Letting Pritchard be portrayed as close to irrelevant -- that's what the ownership seems to be doing -- is just the undercard. In the real fight, Blazers bosses seem willing to take on Blazers fans. And we all know how that turned out last time.

Early Vegas line: Fans by 11.

Of all the strange developments in Portland this season -- the emotionless start to the season, Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla going down with knee injuries, Przybilla slipping in the shower and re-injuring that same knee, the Blazers mounting a prideful finish to make a stand for the playoffs -- nothing beats the backroom politics gone public. Tom Penn, Pritchard's top lieutenant, was fired last week in what was understandably viewed as a move to flank Pritchard. Now there's a good possibility that the highly successful GM could be shown the gate despite all he has done to right the franchise.

Pritchard is very popular in Portland, and if he goes and the team slides backward, you'll want to be somewhere else. All the hard work throughout the organization to turn the one-time Jail Blazers around again ... and here goes the corporate side, risking so many of the gains. That's the issue.

Executives clash with executives all the time, especially brash executives like Pritchard and double-especially when the other side, the guys at the top of the letterhead, may be looking at an eventual power vacuum creating a scramble for control. Sometimes it gets resolved and everyone moves forward as a happy family. Sometimes it doesn't.

The difference with Portland is that Blazermaniacs are not to be messed with. They are the kind of fan base every organization should want, a nonstop wave of energy that backs the team as a civic institution. And they are the kind of fan base every organization should fear.

Blazermaniacs didn't just get disgusted at the start of the millennium, those dark days when a police scanner, not a box score, was the best way to track the roster. They finally demanded a separation. Put a team on the court we can be proud of and we'll be back, they said, but not until then. Attendance plummeted.

Owner Paul Allen responded. He announced character would become a priority and that citizenship (and talent) should both matter. The Trail Blazers got good players who were also good guys, ramped up the club to 54 wins last season despite inexperience and this season is on pace for 49 victories despite so many woes. Keeping their end of the bargain, the people came back, pushing Portland all the way to third in attendance (as of Thursday).

Allen must be careful what he's risking. If Pritchard is gone, and the Blazers next season reclaim that contender-of-the-future role, the turnstiles will keep clicking. People don't pay to watch the GM.

But if he goes and it's years of unrealized potential, the suits just picked a fight with fans they can't win.

That is the only unavoidable fact in the evolving soap opera in which no one is blameless. Even counterparts around the league -- who credit Pritchard's work -- note his arrogance and how a dose of humility wouldn't hurt until the his team wins, oh, a playoff series. And that superiors went nearly four days without rebutting the bloodying story on Yahoo! Sports is a screaming statement that Allen's corporate side doesn't want Pritchard protected and doesn't care that he looks bad.

When the so-called backing did come Thursday, it smacked of damage control. A brief written statement in Allen's name released before the Trail Blazers beat the Mavericks said, "I support everyone who works for me, including Kevin Pritchard," but contained no commitment to retaining Pritchard for 2010-11, the final season of his contract. And he refused to expand or actually speak up on Pritchard's behalf when approached by the Oregonian.

Again: Fine. It's Portland's choice. But the team's standing with fans and their days of growth are both on the line. It will look real, real bad to force out the guy who contributed so much to the turnaround, after letting him twist in the wind and have his contributions minimized.

Pritchard has been painted as nothing more than a glorified scout, a strange framing for someone who had a major hand in acquiring Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum and Rudy Fernandez, among others. The criticism of Pritchard for drafting Oden over Kevin Durant -- when every other team would have done the same -- is ridiculous.

The corporate intrigue -- possibly fueled by Allen's ongoing bout with cancer and some possible front-office maneuvering because of his illness -- has engulfed this story. But either Pritchard is your guy or he isn't. If not, fire him or tell him to scout junior college tournaments in Siberia.

This is an ugliness that never needed to happen. Suddenly, the character of upper-upper management also matters to fans.

 

[hasoos]

Does Draft the Stash mean anything to you?

The fans have no say. Get over it.

 

[OSUBlazerfan]

Why so much anger today? holy shit....i just posted someones column

 

[Wheels]

Does Draft the Stash mean anything to you?

The fans have no say. Get over it.

Really? Lets see this team slip to mediocrity and Paul Allen still pay the Hefty contracts of Roy and LMA and other players.. lets see how he likes that without sales and attendance.

 

[Sug]

More clearly "The Fan" has all the power.

 

[illmatic99]

I don't buy it. With any other ownership group, our crowd could possibly influence decisions, but not Vulcan. They don't give a shit about public image.

 

[jlprk]

"Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988."

Who is this clown? Anyone who uses the bad J-word is no Blazer fan. Just another hater, trying to intimidate with false history. Attendance did not drop during what he calls the dark era (when we had a much more talented team than now). Attendance didn't even drop after Bob Whitsitt left, or while Sheed waited a year to be traded, or while the Oregonian was full of clown reporting like this. Attendance dropped only when the wins dropped, caused by the media forcing Patterson-Nash to give away the talented Whitsitt players for too little. Attendance returned only when it looked like wins were returning.

Attendance has been correlated with wins, not with some morality clown's version of history.

 

[Natebishop3]

I am scared to death that Paul Allen will die and the team will go to his sister or someone like that within the Vulcan organization. Anyone who is a fan of the 49ers can attest that losing your owner changes everything. The Niners have sucked ass since Eddie DeBartolo gave up control of that team. I don't want to see that happen to our Blazers.

 

[BlazerBenner]

Does Draft the Stash mean anything to you?

The fans have no say. Get over it.

Those were a small minority of stupid fans. The majority of fans wanted nothing to do with him.

Also, the majority of fans who left the Trailblazer fan base still have not come back. The fans the TrailBlazers have now are a new group of fans with some who've hung on and a small few who've come back.

The article is correct in everything that was written. The fans of the TrailBlazers dictated what direction the club took in it's efforts to put a product on the court. They'll do it again, unless they get undermined by the pantie-huggers that run City Hall, who are the only ones who could let Paul Allen out of his contract at the Rose Garden.

Chances are that there isn't enough of a story here to interest the majority of fans, though. Nobody cares who the G.M. is, as long as he isn't embarrassing the city.

If the residents can't get rid of a pedophile for a Mayor, they aren't going to do anything here. But, the people outside of Portland's city limits are different. They are much more passionate about their Blazers and are more willing to do something about it.

 

[barfo]

Those were a small minority of stupid fans. The majority of fans wanted nothing to do with him.

Seemed like quite a lot of stupid fans at the time.

But, the people outside of Portland's city limits are different. They are much more passionate about their Blazers and are more willing to do something about it.

I guess there could be a kernel of truth here - people who live in Bumfuck Oregon (not too much offense intended, I'm from there originally) don't have a whole lot of entertainment options once you exclude farm animals, so the Blazers might be a bigger part of their lives. But then again that might just be a stereotype.

barfo

 

[Wheels]

I guess there could be a kernel of truth here - people who live in Bumfuck Oregon (not too much offense intended, I'm from there originally) don't have a whole lot of entertainment options once you exclude farm animals, so the Blazers might be a bigger part of their lives. But then again that might just be a stereotype.

barfo

Hey jerk I am mad now! I guess it depends on what you are into though as a person. I live here in Hood River, and there is a pretty good abundance of things to do here. But Blazers, Ducks, and even Timbers take more of a portion of my life than, Hiking, windsurfing, snowboarding/skiing, biking, etc.

 

[oldguy]

Those were a small minority of stupid fans. The majority of fans wanted nothing to do with him.

Also, the majority of fans who left the Trailblazer fan base still have not come back. The fans the TrailBlazers have now are a new group of fans with some who've hung on and a small few who've come back.

The article is correct in everything that was written. The fans of the TrailBlazers dictated what direction the club took in it's efforts to put a product on the court. They'll do it again, unless they get undermined by the pantie-huggers that run City Hall, who are the only ones who could let Paul Allen out of his contract at the Rose Garden.

Chances are that there isn't enough of a story here to interest the majority of fans, though. Nobody cares who the G.M. is, as long as he isn't embarrassing the city.

If the residents can't get rid of a pedophile for a Mayor, they aren't going to do anything here. But, the people outside of Portland's city limits are different. They are much more passionate about their Blazers and are more willing to do something about it.

When Nash was here, there were a butt load of fans that cared about who the GM was.

If PA brings in another crappy GM, and the team takes a downturn from the current path, I'm done. I care enough that I'll wash my hands of the whole bunch.

Go Blazers

 

[Sug]

Those were a small minority of stupid fans. The majority of fans wanted nothing to do with him.

You mean like the 1 to 2% of fans that are getting all riled up over the KP thing. I saw a Facebook campaign that had 850 people joined up, that is a pretty low percentage of people that care. It is probably lower than the Draft the Stache group.