Apocalypse Now: The Kevin Pritchard Era Ends In Portland

What a sad and strange day. Good luck in the future KP.

I feel for ya guys

But thanks for writing this as well as you did.

Thank you for writing this!

…but at this point, after all the hand-wringing and speculation and uncertainty and angst, I’m just glad it’s over.

Blazers fans, we just endured a helluva roller-coaster season. And frankly this KP drama was like stepping off the coaster, wobbling slightly down the exit ramp while desperately attempting to regain equilibrium, and inadvertently stumbling onto the main floor of the Tilt-a-Whirl. Enough, please. Have mercy on us. I just want to get a freakin elephant ear and go home, maybe puke, and then fall asleep watching Ferris Bueller or something. Is that so much to ask?

I’m a whole lotta confused about the whole situation, but now there’s a little more explanation of the Miller interview for those of us that didn’t get to hear it, I think it’s a little bit less ‘evil’ than was originally made out.

Make no mistake, Miller is still the fall guy for Allen, and was put in a situation that he wasn’t the best fit in. And he handled it poorly, but tried his best to do the right thing. From my perspective, anyways.

Good luck to Kevin Pritchard. I hope that wherever his journey takes him, he is successful. And of course, I’m still rooting for the Blazers, no matter what crazy journey we’re on.

Its still very eerie why everything is being kept a secret.

I am grateful that we had access to what you saw. Your support for Pritchard is clear and it looks like you put a lot into writing this. Very strongly stated.

One point of clarification: was Pritchard or someone in Pritchard’s camp the initial source of the report that he was fired? Maybe I missed that part in your narrative….

but it’s well written. thanks, ben.

i want closure in this situation, but that probably won’t happen until either allen or pritchard come clean about what happened. sadly, i don’t think that will ever happen. the worst part about all this isn’t KP getting fired. it isn’t Allen and the franchise taking a huge PR hit.

it’s the blazer roster that is currently heading straight into an important few weeks of free agency and trade period—- that can significantly affect its future success—- essentially rudderless.

BTW, note that, even in praising KP, Miller couldn’t help insisting that KP only changed the Blazers as part of a TEAM (including Larry Miller, of course).

It seems clear to me—and has all along—that Larry Miller shared (at least to some degree) Paul Allen’s jealousy & resentment towards the Blazers’ golden boy. I have to suspect that Larry Miller helped fuel the fire of Allen’s anger towards KP. At the least, I seriously doubt that Miller made any attempt to douse it.

Gad, what a dysfunctional group the Blazers’ brass appear to be—the hot-tempered, insecure rich-boy owner surrounded by his smarmy yes-men. Ughh! This team is in serious trouble going forward. I don’t think there’s any question about that anymore.

Lovely requiem, Ben.

I know it was a horrible day for you. Thanks for working so hard on your point of view of the day.

This has been a crazy chapter even for a franchise that is no stranger to silliness.

Since I have no idea why KP was fired, I can only hope that Paul Allen and Friends aren’t complete idiots and that we are able to find another good, smart, strong GM who embraces New-Wave stats and scouting methods… and not just some lame retread happy to cash a paycheck and do whatever the Vulcans tell him to do.

I dread the thought of another suit like Steve Patterson.

A few months ago, who woulda’ predicted this chain of events? Strange how quickly things can change.

Thanks for bringing the story to us, Ben.

Mortimer

“…To Kevin Pritchard’s credit, he turned in a typically solid draft-day performance, trading up to No. 16 to grab Nevada’s Luke Babbit and picking up Memphis guard Elliot Williams at No. 22.

He’s a better man than I am— if I were put in his situation, I would have traded Nicolas Batum to the Lakers for a second-round pick, traded LaMarcus Aldridge straight up for Eddy Curry, and offered the Wizards Brandon Roy and the next five unprotected first-round picks for the chance to have Gilbert Arenas’ contract taken off their hands.

The truth of the matter is that if Pritchard had actually done that, had sabotaged his finely-crafted team as a parting shot to Paul Allen and his Vulcan advisors, nobody in Portland would have held it against him. That’s how low an opinion the public here has of the Blazers’ ownership right now. And justifiably so…."

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/411176-nba-draft-grades-blazers-ownership-gets-an-f

Portland Trail Blazers: In the weirdest draft in the history of professional basketball, just-fired GM Kevin Pritchard managed to parlay Martell Webster (a small forward lost on Portland’s deep roster) into Luke Babbitt, a young potential stud at the same position, clearing a bit of salary in the process. With the final move of Pritchard’s Portland career, the Blazers took Nevada point guard Armon Johnson in the second round. Johnson has lots of competition for a roster spot but has the talent to win a job. Final Grade: A for Pritchard, F- for Paul Allen.

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/06/24/2010-nba-draft-grades/

You raised your game with this one. Outstanding.

if nothing was decided until yesterday why did we all know KP was going to be fired?

So I’ll know if this is the best post ever or the worst. It’s to early, and I’m getting confused

I have no idea how what percentage of Blazer fans get involved with BE, nor how many of them are upset about KP’s firing. So, this piece may or may not be reflective of the “majority” view. I do think it was well written, but also highly melodramatic. Ben must have been an avid reader of Greek tragedies as a kid.

It’s not surprising at all that Ben wrote this piece in the way he did. Just as it appeared inevitable that KP would be fired over the past few months, it also appeared that BE was building toward a big, messy eulogy, and that’s what we got.

I’m a Blazer fan and will remain so. I don’t think the organization is taking a step back at all. Not so sure about BE, though.

I prefer the account to be more objective to give me the chance to be subjective about it. So far that hasn’t really happened from any news source. A lot of people who have written about this, or broadcast about this have seemed to include their personal editorializing on the facts. I’m not saying people can’t do that kind of thing on a blog, and it’s pretty obvious that this post was not meant to be objective:

Pritchard, it became clear, had already left. So had owner Paul Allen, whose dark SUV lurked menacingly in front of the building, parked directly in front of the main entrance because billionaire owners need not bother with parking spaces.

But what did really happen is being somewhat muddied by the people who were there through inference and speculation, that it ends up having potentially the same value to me as a glib, stock press release being given out by the Trailblazers themselves. It seems more that it appeals to the emotion of the fans at this moment than it appeals to our need to understand anything about what truly took place. It paints the characters in broad strokes, clearly defining good and evil, friend and foe, but in the end without hard evidence this account leaves me no closer to the “truth” than I was before I read it. But maybe that’s not the point.

Yes, KP was a great GM and I’m sad to see him gone, but everyone’s acting like it’s the end of the world. I’m guessing that Paul and KP had different long term goals/different directions for the team and that KP was trying to go over Allen’s head by gaining the majority of media and fan praise and attention.

I think KP is great at evaluating talent and should definitely get another job soon. However, he might not be the guy to make the Blazers a championship team. No one can know this for certainty, but it might be a nice change to bring in someone new who has new relationships around the league. Maybe all the “pritch-slapping” came back to haunt him as no other GM’s wanted to make deals with him. Just a hunch.

This was a fantastic article ….the piece was written in the precise tenor to match what I have been feeling all evening (I could not bring myself to respond last night). I now sit here, at my computer, with an enormous sense of dread. The one thing that KP brought ….invariably…was a sense of confidence and direction…..that has been blown to crap by PA and his minions.

The Greeks were right……. The fish rots’ from the head down.

I’am recovering to…. he needs to buy a bike !

That’s because 99.99% of the fans have to work for someone else, don’t know what it’s like to be REALLY in charge, and seem to often resent the fact that Allen owns things and has the ability to tell people what to do. I think, overall, he’s been a great owner for Portland. Regardless, it’s truly a “he said / he said” issue and we can only guess what REALLY happened.

Perhaps KP was ticked that he was so popular while (only) making $800k and going into a lame duck year. I can see where KP would be embarrassed and furious that news had leaked that the Blazers were shopping for his replacement. He had a job to do and he executed it. Of course, leaking the info that he was fired right before the draft does seem like a diva move to me after his “take the high road” speech last week.

The bottom line is we all have to work for someone. Learning to get along with them is part of the job. They’re the boss. Allen has put together a great team of scouts and coaches over the last several years. KP did a fine job but someone else can step in and succeed, because of the hard work ownership and employees have put in. Basically, KP gets too much blame and too much credit.

but the PA hate has been there all along. He has an image issue because of several reasons, including the tiny market size of his team. Much of the media here has traditionally been eager to jump all over Allen. He doesn’t give them cute little quotes like KP, so most of them seem determined to chuck dirt clods at his black SUV any chance they can get, Ben included.

So yes, KP’s firing was crappy business. But it doesn’t erase what the other employees and players have done on the court. KP doesn’t deserve all of the credit for that.

again?

can contain a “poison pill” It might be something small and inconsequential, but it can kill your chances of winning if it falls outside of the law in some way. Your proposal can be well crafted, brilliant, logically consistent and the other party’s could suck. You still lose.

There is always the possibility that there is a poison pill out there that we will never hear about. I’m not saying there is, but I’m not going to spend time hating on people when I don’t have all the facts.

" A deep unshakable feeling that it didn’t have to end this way-That it shouldn’t of ended this way".

  True. That’s been the problem all along. Always the feeling that this was being handled wrong. Badly. Not so much the actual reality that an owner and a popular GM had unpoken conflicts and a franchise was moving to replace that GM, it was the denial that it was happening. It was the gap between outward statements of respect and actual mechanizations happening and being reported that allowed everyone to know that at the same time numerous people within the organization were applauding Kevin Pritchard and the work he has done, that same organization was trying to almost covertly replace him.

  Instead of focusing on Basketball, The Draft and this franchise’s immediate future, we were just witness to the one of the weirdest, strangest soap opera transistions of management I have ever witnessed in my life.

  I’m upset at how this was handled. But like Larry Miller, I’ll break into a smile. This has been handled so badly at almost every concievable step that as horrible as it has been maybe it IS oddly fitting that it played out the way it did. It was like having to amputate a leg and the surgeon deciding to not use anesthesia, choose a rusty butterknife and close the wound using chewing gum and used dental floss. I was shocked at the timing of the announcement. But once the shock wore off I said to myself….unfortunately it all kind of fits.

   I have an admission. I’ve been very critical of Larry Miller. It’s easy to paint him as the Villain or Villains assistant since he is burdened with being Team President and having to make some type of declaration. But I think he tried last night. He obviously is being limited as to what he is allowed to say, and he is following a script. Well unless you think Buchanan, Born, and also Nate McMillan should all flush their contracts and walk away from their employment than I’m not going to fault Miller for his performance last night. This whole process has been one big performance, and not a good one, but I thought Miller was doing his best to make a sincere statement albeit limited and scripted.

  I’ve always respected Paul Allen and his desire or natural tendency to remain as private as possible. I also respect him as a great owner. Not a perfect owner, but a great owner who has done more than you could expect or imagine to keep not only the franchise viable in Portland, but also to improve it. It’s strange that as this has played out, he has just spent millions of dollars on a draft that he could not even make a statement about, because he simulataneously created a situation that has upset the fanbase.

  That’s what bothered me too last night. I thought everyone Larry Miller included tried to do their best in a very difficult situation but the person that I think the fans deserved more from, was Paul Allen. To slip away into the darkness leaving the fans with only a press release statement was disappointing. He has always had every right to fire Kevin Pritchard, but as the owner of The Blazers I thought he owed the fans more last night. I thought he owed his own organization more last night. If you are going to give a (he admits) popular GM his walking papers, hours before the draft after a strange and lengthy process…I think you should be present and look the fans in the eyes. Don’t make the personal decision for whatever reason to fire Pritchard and then leave your own employees to deal with the fall out alone. If The Blazers are a team effort, and it’s Paul Allens team, then this was a situation where he needed to push his desired envelope of privacy and own up…to being the owner.

  I thought it interesting that the post draft press conference had little or no mention of Paul Allen. In the past Kevin Pritchard or someone would always credit Paul Allen for his support. Last night, even Paul Allens remaining employees seemed unwilling to do that, and given the mess he was making them try to clean up, can you blame them?

  I’m still in fandom shock. But I think eventually we all need to decide as fans what we want to do. Do people today decide they have had enough?

  This team is so beloved by it’s fanbase. To me the franchise has to be bigger than any one person. It’s got to be bigger than Paul Allen, it’s got to be bigger than Kevin Pritchard, Nate McMillan or Greg Oden…it’s all of us.

  So I can’t walk away. As much as my instincts say something stinks. I’d be lying if I said I’m going to turn my back. I was here when this team whimpered with a roster that was relying on Telfair, Ha Seung Jin and a whole host of other mediocre players. I was here last night, I’ll be here tomorrow. So am I that different from Larry Miller, McMillan, Buchanan or any other Blazer employee? To a degree as a fan I’ve been bought. The Blazers are the team I watched as a kid, the rosters and players I memorized and imagined playing with as a 12 year old in the driveway. No I can’t just walk away. It’s been a horrible soap opera, but a gloriously horrible soap opera. Now my hope is we get back to being a franchise and a team…and just “normal” entertainment.

  It’s been handled horribly. I said it before. But I guess I’m relieved from the standpoint that now that Kevin Pritchard has been released? It’s over. It can’t be handled any worse, no more mistakes can be made in relationship to Kevin Pritchard Blazer GM. (We can and will debate/discuss replacements on a different day).

  I don’t really know Kevin Pritchard, I don’t really know Paul Allen or Larry Miller, or Nate McMillan. In arc welding light of the Portland Media we are made to think we do. The only thing I know today? I can be mad, disappointed, frustrated…I can even say, I’m taking a break from the whole thing….but I can’t walk away from The Blazers. It’s my fellow fans that I take the most comfort from, up down or indifferent, we are fans NOT being paid by Paul Allen, not signed to contracts or confidentiality agreements, and WE are bigger than Paul Allen, Kevin Pritchard or Larry Miller.