A theory about how Pritch makes/spins picks (bayless content)

we´ll be able to say more about Bayless.
I´m not a big fan of westbrook, but Bayless hasn´t shown anything yet.

while Westbrook may of been the target, Bayless was rated higher on his board. In this draft I would have Rubio ranked #1 on my list, but a more reasonable choice would be Collison. However even if I was dead set on Collison, if a Rubio chance presented itself, you take it.

As KP has said lately, in this draft you need to be able to call an audible if things happen that are unexpected, and that is probably how he plays all drafts.

There’s no particular reason to think that Bayless was KP’s #1 option.

there’s no way to no either way. All we have is speculatoin.

Westbrook was KP’s guy, and I’m sure he was both annoyed and disappointed that he was off the board so quickly. I believe last year’s draft was the first one where he didn’t get “his guy”, though with the team’s record improving, it’ll be increasingly difficult for him to make waves in the draft.

As GMs go, so far we really have nothing to complain about. He took a team that was 21-61 and had the worst record in the league and made changes to personnel that resulted in 32-50, then 41-41, now 54-28 in just three years, based entirely on discharging unproductive and self-centered players and building through the draft. I’d argue in terms of a long term strategy, no one has done better in such a brief time.

The Blazers are so loaded with talent and good contracts it’s hard to trade with them – in order to get anything done the Blazers need to give up either young guys with a ton of upside or critical contributors to the team’s success (or both). Very few loose leaves to shake free for trades.

All that said, I think this year will be his biggest challenge to get results through the draft and free agency. Everyone is wise to him now, and though we have desirable assets, no GM is going to get taken advantage of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjnD4AKVxw

I don’t even think the Blazers had a deal “Bayless and Diogu for Jack and Rush and McBob” in place with Indiana. Just a deal that they should take the last of those 3 point guards should one of them drop, then trade him.

What I do believe is that the Blazer had Bayless somewhere high on their board. Every mock draft had Bayless going to Seattle for a long long time as the best guard after Rose and Mayo. Westbrook was seen rather as a defensive specialist. Riley had Bayless and Mayo come in at the last second to find out if they would maybe trade down and let another team take Beasley. So it’s not like KP created the mythology that teams were high on Bayless after the fact.

Corner’s and Norsktrolls excellent observations I would like to ask one question.

Assuming for the moment that Westbrook was the guy at the top of Portland’s wish list, how can you claim that Pritchard made a “mistake” if the reason we didn’t land him was because a team with a higher pick snagged him first? And not just a higher pick, but one considerably higher.

It sounds pretty far fetched to me to believe that Seattle, with the #4 pick, decided to go with Westbrook primarily due to what they were hearing about him from Pritchard. That’s a bit akin to buying that huge new house in Gresham, rather than the one you initially planned on getting in Lake Oswego based on some real estate agent talking about how fantastic it is.

Portland already had the trade with Pacers in place thinking that at least one of those point guards would drop to them. Of those three (bayless, westbrook, augustin), the most likely to drop would have been Westbrook, so Seattle decided to try and screw Portland over by taking Westbrook first thinking that Bayless, and Augustin would never drop to the Pacers at 11, which would have left Portland scrambling for a point guard since the next few prospects were all forwards and centers.