STEVE PATTERSON IS SO FULL OF IT

lets not all start being bigger KP fans than we are Blazers fans people. If the team is doing good, and they provide entertainment on the court and don’t go to jail off the court isn’t that enough? After all, what we see in the teams milieu is tangible. We can watch the team play and make a decision about it. What’s happened in the management of the team and in inter-office relations is not. Everybody is just guessing about who made every decision that KP is credited with, based on what was leaked to the media, or what he as the face of the franchise said himself. I do agree with the statement by Patterson that as GM, it’s your job to take the bullets for mistakes by the organization, and give credit to the team when things go right. It’s about making the public image of the TEAM better, not giving people yet another reason to criticize things by alluding to rifts in the decision chain. KP had 900,000 reasons to put his ego aside and own decisions that he may not have made, and may not have agreed with, but he didn’t always do that. In the end he was a part of the team when things did ultimately get better, but that doesn’t mean he was the only reason. It’s like people think it was possible for him to unilaterally spend Paul Allens money without asking or explaining, and he was able to act autonomously in all decisions from free agency to the draft. It’s not realistic, and it’s not true. KP is a nice guy, but I would hope he learns some good lessons here and uses that in future jobs. He should also take a look at the people around him who have been a little looser with the lips than may have helped him in the end. The story about KP getting out an hour before the draft was not PA’s doing. That would make zero sense from a PR standpoint. I fully expect it was leaked by those around Pritchard to get one last jab in on PA and the TB’s, and it was a low class move. People think it was low class for him to be fired the day of the draft, but I really don’t believe they were trying to humiliate him. He asked whether he had a job and they told him they were letting him go. I’m sure they would have much rather had a press release the following day. Think people!

I think there was a breach of trust issue that started a long time ago, between KP and PA. I specifically remember KP saying picking Patty Mills over Ime Udoka, a hometown favorite, was not his decision. When he said that he threw PA under the bus, and made himself look better. That’s a bad thing to do to your boss. I also remember the Tom Penn situation when he was supposedly being courted by the Twolves. This resulted in a major promotion and raise for Penn, and it turned out later to be misleading. How would PA not feel screwed by that. Here’s a newsflash, rich people hate being scammed. I think that was the reason for Penns firing, and I think his and KP’s agent, Warren Legarrie, was right in the middle of it. So Penn gets fired, and Legarrie (Who may have been guilty of orchestrating a money grab under false pretenses for his client) then comes out and says “It’s a drive-by, KP is next.” In my opinion the only thing that KP could have done to save his job was to fire Legarrie. I could see how WL going public with that statement could be percieved by the Vulcans as him trying to manipulate their decision making, and financing once again. The public outcry immediately resulting was for KP to get an immediate extension, which played right into Legarrie’s hands. I think Paul Allen hung KP out to dry in order to turn the tables on Legarrie. The longer all of the speculation went on about what was happening, the more questions began to come up about ownership, but from their perspective the situation had not changed. They had an employee who’s agent was embarrassing them publicly, and trying to manipulate their right as an employer to expect someone to work for them in a trustworthy capacity. By the end if the Blazers, after all the speculation of their mistreatment of KP had been gone over by media and the fans ad nauseum, if they hadn’t let KP go, it would have set a precedent. It would have said publicly to the entire league, “KP can do no wrong.” And you simply can’t have that. You can’t have an employee that is bigger than the rest of the team. This was handled badly on both sides, but I hardly think this was the only outcome that may have been fated at the beginning, KP could have done more to save his job. He needed to realign himself with the team instead of the person that PA felt, took advantage of him and was continuing to try and do so. I think both sides showed a lack of class, but for PA the public opinion was already set, and the timing of the firing. (no doubt leaked by someone close to KP) only served to solidify peoples opinions even more. EVERYBODY LOSES.

It might have been forgotten with time, but at the time Oden was a guaranteed franchise center coming into a league w/ no competition at that spot. He was easily the best big man prospect since Duncan and hyped up more than anyone in the last decade other than Lebron. And again he was a franchise CENTER, if you’re a GM and pass that up for a small forward, you better pray that center has multiple knee injuries.

I honestly thought Webby was a PA move, and …. anyone pounding on anything but the telfair drum at the time was looking to have the disconcerning eye of paul watching them….