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Berger: Source Says Blazers 'Don't Care How They Treat People'

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Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reacts to the firing of Portland Trail Blazers GM Rich Cho... ---------------------- Cho was an independent thinker who wanted what any GM in the NBA should have as long as his business card bears that title: autonomy. The Blazers do not believe in autonomy, unless your name is Paul Allen or you are employed by Allen’s Seattle-based Vulcan Inc. The "Vulcanites," as NBA front office insiders call them, ran Pritchard and assistant GM Tom Penn out of Portland and now someone has run out their replacement. Cho probably doesn’t feel this way now, but he’s better off. Or at least that’s what his colleagues in the GM profession hope. "Rich is such a nice guy, such a good, gentle guy, and this could destroy him," one of Cho’s colleagues said Monday. "He may never get another job as a GM because people will say, ‘How weird is it that you got fired after only 10 months on the job?’ But they don’t care about that stuff. They don’t care how they treat people." ... But Portland? This is ownership run wild. This is an organization that deserves to have no one – and I mean no one – even agree to interview for the job that was unfathomably vacated for the second time in less than a year. ---------------------- -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter