tlongII
05-24-2011, 09:11 PM
http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2011/05/the_rich_cho_firing_despite_ci.html
http://media.oregonlive.com/blazers_impact/photo/9610500-large.jpg
Former Trail Blazers general manager Bob Whitsitt, left, works in the teams draft war room alongside owner Paul Allen. Despite Allen's reputation for hands-own involvement in personnel matters, Whitsitt says Blazers GM is a good job.
When the Trail Blazers stunningly fired Rich Cho Monday afternoon and the revolving door of Rip City general managers opened yet again, talk radio and internet message boards erupted with a common refrain:
Nobody in their right mind would want the Blazers' vacant GM job in the wake of two controversial firings over a 10-month span.
But NBA insiders insist the job remains desirable despite its volatile history and potential pitfalls. That Blazers President Larry Miller on Tuesday heard from "three or four" people asking for the job only reinforces this view.
"It's a coveted job and it should be a coveted job," former Blazers GM Bob Whitsitt said. "In my mind, it's one of the best jobs you can get right now."
Whitsitt lasted nine years as GM — the second-longest run in franchise history behind Harry Glickman, the Blazers' first to hold the job — and for a significant portion of that tenure, Whitsitt was more popular with team owner Paul Allen than with the fans.
That equation has changed with the last two general managers.
Kevin Pritchard, once heralded as the saving grace of a battered franchise and so beloved by a passionate fan base his moves were dubbed "Pritch-Slaps," was ousted in cutthroat fashion. Pritchard was fired an hour before the 2010 NBA Draft, marking an unceremonious and impersonal split between an owner and GM who once seemed to have a strong bond.
Then Cho didn't even make it a year before Allen decided to sever ties because of "chemistry" issues. Weeks after selling his home in Oklahoma City in a buyer's market and purchasing a new one in Oregon, Cho was ousted in a move that blindsided him and most in the organization. It was like the movie Groundhog Day, with Cho and Pritchard alternating in the role of Bill Murray's character.
It would seem only natural that general manager candidates would think twice about joining an organization so combustible and taking on a job that seems so volatile.
"There's some instability there that is hard to explain," said Steve Kerr, an NBA analyst with TNT who played in the league for 15 seasons, including one with the Blazers, and served as general manager for the Phoenix Suns for three seasons. "The last couple of years have just been kind of strange."
But, despite all of this, Kerr and others insist that the vacant GM job remains attractive.
"There's legitimate cause for concern," Kerr said. "But to say that job isn't coveted is the convenient thing to say right now. If someone was interested in a GM job, Portland still stands out. It's still desirable.
"They have to sort some things out and whoever is in that GM position has to learn everything they can about the job and the structure of the management. But you look at most jobs in the league and they still don't have what Portland has in terms of talent, fan support and financial backing of ownership. That's a tough combination to find."
The consensus is that the right person with the right personality and right basketball acumen could inherit a golden gig.
The Blazers not only feature one of the most passionate and loyal fan bases in professional sports, but also an owner who -- while controversially meddlesome -- is determined to build a winner and willing to empty his deep pockets to make it happen. The combination of a lush practice facility and an electric arena -- remember Game 4 of the first-round of the Western Conference playoffs? -- is the envy of many organizations around the league.
And while there are flaws with the roster, the team features enough top-to-bottom talent and assets to field a winner for years to come. Nevermind the fact that the franchise has won 152 games and reached the playoffs three consecutive seasons.
"I think any NBA GM job is desirable and sought after. There will be no shortage of people wanting any of those jobs -- especially Portland," Whitsitt said. "Portland has showed it has a tremendous fan base, a great team to put together, tremendous support and an owner who wants to win
Few can speak to both the rigors and rewards of being a Blazers GM better than Whitsitt, who oversaw one of the most successful but controversial tenures in franchise history. His name will always be associated with "Jail Blazers" and his famously humorous quote that he "never studied chemistry in college" summarized his aversion to factoring in team camaraderie when building a roster.
But he also steered the franchise to three 50-win seasons, nine playoff appearances and two conference finals in his nine years as Blazers GM -- the second-longest tenure in franchise history.
"I can't speak for what's happened since I left," Whitsitt said. "But I loved my time there. I enjoyed it. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Whitsitt was unwilling to share any advice he might offer to potential GM suitors and he was reluctant to speak about his relationship with Allen, except to say "I thought it was great." But he was effusive in praise for his controversial former boss.
"It's a great job for a couple main reasons," Whitsitt said. "And it starts with an owner that wants to win and is committed to winning. That doesn't just mean that he won't hesitate to spend money on players and buy all kinds of extra draft picks. He's also always been positive, committed to winning and he's engaged. It's important for an owner to be engaged."
But is he too engaged? There's a fine line between protecting your interest and meddling, and it seems Allen at the very least straddles this line
Glickman, the Blazers' founding vice president and general manager, worked under Allen for seven years in other executive positions after he purchased the franchise from Larry Weinberg in 1988. Glickman says he "never had any real problems" with Allen and that the owner never overturned a roster move Glickman wanted to make. But, he added, it was obvious from Day One that Allen would be intimately involved.
"He made it clear right at the outset that he wanted to be involved in every basketball decision," Glickman said.
At the beginning of Pritchard's final season with the Blazers, he and coach Nate McMillan wanted to keep veteran Ime Udoka on the regular season roster for insurance, but Allen overruled them both because he liked the potential of rookie point guard Patty Mills.
Would such micromanaging might scare off GM candidates.
"No GM can do whatever he wants," said Mychal Thompson, a former Blazers No. 1 overall draft pick and current radio analyst for the Los Angeles Lakers. "He always has to answer to someone. (Lakers GM) Mitch Kupchak has to answer to (Lakers owner) Mr. (Jerry) Buss. Nobody has carte blanch to do whatever they want.
"Everyone is accountable to somebody above them. Paul Allen, Mark Cuban, George Steinbrenner, Jerry Jones; it's their business, they can run it the way they want to run it. That's how it works in the other business world, why not sports?"
Of course, the curious dismissals of Pritchard and Cho -- and the fact that Allen has employed four GMs in the last eight years -- offer cause for concern. Kerr says any potential candidate almost certainly will ask for specific details about Cho's firing, among a host of other things, when going through the interview process.
"If you're a potential GM, you have to know the hierarchy, the dynamics of the front office, who you're reporting to, what's expected of you," Kerr said. "If you know all of that stuff and connect on a human level with the owner and are given enough authority, I think you can be really, really successful in Portland. Those are all things you have to explore when you're going down that path."
At the very least, any GM would have to gain -- and somehow keep -- the trust of an owner that has cooled on two highly regarded, mostly successful GMs in less than one year. And while it may not seem like an overly desirable position, there are only 30 such jobs in the world.
"If I were interested in getting back into the management side of things -- which I'm not -- but if I were at a point in my life to do that, I would absolutely listen and explore the opportunity," Kerr said.
http://media.oregonlive.com/blazers_impact/photo/9610500-large.jpg
Former Trail Blazers general manager Bob Whitsitt, left, works in the teams draft war room alongside owner Paul Allen. Despite Allen's reputation for hands-own involvement in personnel matters, Whitsitt says Blazers GM is a good job.
When the Trail Blazers stunningly fired Rich Cho Monday afternoon and the revolving door of Rip City general managers opened yet again, talk radio and internet message boards erupted with a common refrain:
Nobody in their right mind would want the Blazers' vacant GM job in the wake of two controversial firings over a 10-month span.
But NBA insiders insist the job remains desirable despite its volatile history and potential pitfalls. That Blazers President Larry Miller on Tuesday heard from "three or four" people asking for the job only reinforces this view.
"It's a coveted job and it should be a coveted job," former Blazers GM Bob Whitsitt said. "In my mind, it's one of the best jobs you can get right now."
Whitsitt lasted nine years as GM — the second-longest run in franchise history behind Harry Glickman, the Blazers' first to hold the job — and for a significant portion of that tenure, Whitsitt was more popular with team owner Paul Allen than with the fans.
That equation has changed with the last two general managers.
Kevin Pritchard, once heralded as the saving grace of a battered franchise and so beloved by a passionate fan base his moves were dubbed "Pritch-Slaps," was ousted in cutthroat fashion. Pritchard was fired an hour before the 2010 NBA Draft, marking an unceremonious and impersonal split between an owner and GM who once seemed to have a strong bond.
Then Cho didn't even make it a year before Allen decided to sever ties because of "chemistry" issues. Weeks after selling his home in Oklahoma City in a buyer's market and purchasing a new one in Oregon, Cho was ousted in a move that blindsided him and most in the organization. It was like the movie Groundhog Day, with Cho and Pritchard alternating in the role of Bill Murray's character.
It would seem only natural that general manager candidates would think twice about joining an organization so combustible and taking on a job that seems so volatile.
"There's some instability there that is hard to explain," said Steve Kerr, an NBA analyst with TNT who played in the league for 15 seasons, including one with the Blazers, and served as general manager for the Phoenix Suns for three seasons. "The last couple of years have just been kind of strange."
But, despite all of this, Kerr and others insist that the vacant GM job remains attractive.
"There's legitimate cause for concern," Kerr said. "But to say that job isn't coveted is the convenient thing to say right now. If someone was interested in a GM job, Portland still stands out. It's still desirable.
"They have to sort some things out and whoever is in that GM position has to learn everything they can about the job and the structure of the management. But you look at most jobs in the league and they still don't have what Portland has in terms of talent, fan support and financial backing of ownership. That's a tough combination to find."
The consensus is that the right person with the right personality and right basketball acumen could inherit a golden gig.
The Blazers not only feature one of the most passionate and loyal fan bases in professional sports, but also an owner who -- while controversially meddlesome -- is determined to build a winner and willing to empty his deep pockets to make it happen. The combination of a lush practice facility and an electric arena -- remember Game 4 of the first-round of the Western Conference playoffs? -- is the envy of many organizations around the league.
And while there are flaws with the roster, the team features enough top-to-bottom talent and assets to field a winner for years to come. Nevermind the fact that the franchise has won 152 games and reached the playoffs three consecutive seasons.
"I think any NBA GM job is desirable and sought after. There will be no shortage of people wanting any of those jobs -- especially Portland," Whitsitt said. "Portland has showed it has a tremendous fan base, a great team to put together, tremendous support and an owner who wants to win
Few can speak to both the rigors and rewards of being a Blazers GM better than Whitsitt, who oversaw one of the most successful but controversial tenures in franchise history. His name will always be associated with "Jail Blazers" and his famously humorous quote that he "never studied chemistry in college" summarized his aversion to factoring in team camaraderie when building a roster.
But he also steered the franchise to three 50-win seasons, nine playoff appearances and two conference finals in his nine years as Blazers GM -- the second-longest tenure in franchise history.
"I can't speak for what's happened since I left," Whitsitt said. "But I loved my time there. I enjoyed it. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Whitsitt was unwilling to share any advice he might offer to potential GM suitors and he was reluctant to speak about his relationship with Allen, except to say "I thought it was great." But he was effusive in praise for his controversial former boss.
"It's a great job for a couple main reasons," Whitsitt said. "And it starts with an owner that wants to win and is committed to winning. That doesn't just mean that he won't hesitate to spend money on players and buy all kinds of extra draft picks. He's also always been positive, committed to winning and he's engaged. It's important for an owner to be engaged."
But is he too engaged? There's a fine line between protecting your interest and meddling, and it seems Allen at the very least straddles this line
Glickman, the Blazers' founding vice president and general manager, worked under Allen for seven years in other executive positions after he purchased the franchise from Larry Weinberg in 1988. Glickman says he "never had any real problems" with Allen and that the owner never overturned a roster move Glickman wanted to make. But, he added, it was obvious from Day One that Allen would be intimately involved.
"He made it clear right at the outset that he wanted to be involved in every basketball decision," Glickman said.
At the beginning of Pritchard's final season with the Blazers, he and coach Nate McMillan wanted to keep veteran Ime Udoka on the regular season roster for insurance, but Allen overruled them both because he liked the potential of rookie point guard Patty Mills.
Would such micromanaging might scare off GM candidates.
"No GM can do whatever he wants," said Mychal Thompson, a former Blazers No. 1 overall draft pick and current radio analyst for the Los Angeles Lakers. "He always has to answer to someone. (Lakers GM) Mitch Kupchak has to answer to (Lakers owner) Mr. (Jerry) Buss. Nobody has carte blanch to do whatever they want.
"Everyone is accountable to somebody above them. Paul Allen, Mark Cuban, George Steinbrenner, Jerry Jones; it's their business, they can run it the way they want to run it. That's how it works in the other business world, why not sports?"
Of course, the curious dismissals of Pritchard and Cho -- and the fact that Allen has employed four GMs in the last eight years -- offer cause for concern. Kerr says any potential candidate almost certainly will ask for specific details about Cho's firing, among a host of other things, when going through the interview process.
"If you're a potential GM, you have to know the hierarchy, the dynamics of the front office, who you're reporting to, what's expected of you," Kerr said. "If you know all of that stuff and connect on a human level with the owner and are given enough authority, I think you can be really, really successful in Portland. Those are all things you have to explore when you're going down that path."
At the very least, any GM would have to gain -- and somehow keep -- the trust of an owner that has cooled on two highly regarded, mostly successful GMs in less than one year. And while it may not seem like an overly desirable position, there are only 30 such jobs in the world.
"If I were interested in getting back into the management side of things -- which I'm not -- but if I were at a point in my life to do that, I would absolutely listen and explore the opportunity," Kerr said.