Man, this city’s got a love affair with the guy.

Never mind the fact that the Hornets haven’t yet said they’d shop him — although Paul’s making it easy for them to justify it to their fans because he’s asking out (which makes it possible for the team to turn the player into the villain and make a deal with less criticism). And never mind there may be other teams on Paul’s list that could make better offers than the Trail Blazers.

Everybody wants Paul and they want him now, darn it!

But you have to give up something to get him. For just two years, too, quite possibly. I’m not at all convinced that he doesn’t have a plan to bolt wherever he is as soon as he can and head off to join pals in New York or Miami.

Anyway, would you surrender Greg Oden to get him? Would you give up Oden and Nic Batum? How about Brandon Roy?

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… Greg Oden sure gets around.

I mean, he couldn’t travel with the Trail Blazers to Phoenix in the playoffs. And he can’t sit on the bench with the guys at home games — just too uncomfortable, you know. But he has no trouble getting to Vegas to hang with his rapper pals at  a pool party in the Hard Rock Hotel — you can read about it in Norm Clarke’s column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

SIGHTINGS

Former President Bill Clinton and Democratic strategist James Carville, with a large group at Piero’s Italian Cuisine on Tuesday. … Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, dressed as Cher for a skit in Fator’s show Tuesday. Fator sang “I’ve Got You Babe” while dressed as Sonny. Huckabee is in town filming his Fox News shows at The Venetian. They will air starting June 5. … Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, serenading girlfriend model Anne V throughout the night at Lavo (Palazzo) on Tuesday. … At Rehab (Hard Rock Hotel) on Sunday: MTV’s newest reality stars, The Dudesons of “The Dudesons in America,” rapper Crunchy Black, the Three 6 Mafia band and Greg Oden of the Portland Trail Blazers. … World-class violinist Joshua Bell, playing blackjack at Rush Lounge in the Golden Nugget on Sunday. He was there to see Frankie Moreno of the Frankie Moreno Band, with whom he recently recorded a remake of “Eleanor Rigby.”

Yeah, well at least he’s in good company. And ironic name for that club, huh? “Rehab.” I guess the kid is working hard on getting back — “Rehabbing” at all hours of the day and night, probably.

Man, if this team isn’t worried about this guy it better be.

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Ben has the transcript of the latest Greg Oden show on 95.5 The Game. I find it interesting that he seems so disconnected from his team right now. When I asked where he was a while back and people assumed he was around the team, just not sitting out on the bench. But he’s not been in town, even. He plans on being in the Rose Garden for Game 6 Thursday, but he’s had remarkably little contact with his teammates lately and doesn’t appear to have made a lot of progress in his recovery.

I do not understand players not being around their teams in the playoffs. I believe it should be mandatory. Oh yeah, people say he can’t sit on the bench because it’s painful, right? But it’s fine to get on an airplane and fly back and forth to Indiana? Sorry, but they could make allowances for him in the Rose Garden. They could find him room if he wanted to be there, trust me.

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OK, I’m just asking, all right? But I heard Greg Oden a month ago saying he was looking forward to trying to travel with the team during the playoffs. I also expected to see him on the sideline during the home games.

He’d been all over Portland, talking about his rehab, taping segments for his online series and just being Greg Oden. But then he went home and nobody’s really seen much of him lately. I’ve asked several people if they saw him last night and have yet to find anyone who did. Well, I’m sure he must have at least been in the back, right? Wouldn’t you think?

I’m just asking — is something up with him?

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A lot of people are comparing the Trail Blazers giving Marcus Camby this contract extension — $25 million including the incentives — with the ones handed out to Darius Miles, Theo Ratliff and Zach Randolph.

I would disagree. Not just because Camby, the person he is, the position he plays and his veteran leadership make him a better investment, either. The big thing in this contract is the number of years. A two-year deal is really nowhere close to the anchor Portland got stuck with on those other contracts. Anymore, a two-year contract is not a problem if you can just get one more productive season from the player in question.

During the second year, he’s carrying an expiring contract — in this case a sizeable one — which makes his trade value extremely high to teams looking to shed salary. I’m not at all afraid of the Camby contract. It doesn’t run long enough to get you into any major trouble.

But of course I’ve advocated all along carrying three centers as long as Joel Przybilla and/or Greg Oden are the others at that position. As we’ve found since Camby came here to fill the hole in the middle of Portland’s defensive doughnut, we’ve seen how important it is to have a quality center. On a 15-man roster, there certainly should be room for three centers.

If you’re worried about what will happen if all three are healthy at the same time, well, congratulations — I think you may be the most optimistic person I’ve met this month! It may not ever happen. If it does, no problem — Przybilla and Camby can play power forward, too. LaMarcus Aldridge can probably also play small forward against some teams — opening the possibility of a huge front line, which incidentally, is the best chance of matching up with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Did they overpay Camby? Yes. But in order to keep him off the market in a free-agent summer where a lot of teams are going to have more money to spend than there are decent players in the pool, it was necessary.

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No, it’s not just an NBA general manager, either. All of them. They’re second-guessed constantly. Every decision can turn into one that could cost you your job. It’s a big part of why a lot of them are paid a million bucks a year.

Is Kevin Pritchard in jeopardy of being fired? I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s imminent. But it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s the subject of a ton of second guessing. Heck, you’ve seen it constantly in the comment section of this blog. The toughest part of KP’s job is that nobody is 100 percent perfect when it comes to drafting players. There is always something there for the critics.

You can go back and find all kinds of miserable draft-day mistakes on the resume of Jerry West, Geoff Petrie, Jerry Krause, Donnie Walsh — any of them. It’s the nature of the beast.

And I can also tell you that any general manager who passes over the likes of Michael Jordan, or Larry Bird, or, yes Kevin Durant, is going to have to live with that for a long, long time — no matter the circumstances.

You think Pritchard himself isn’t tormented by that draft? Sure, at the time, most people would have done the same thing he did. Greg Oden was the right pick for this team. I would have done it and just about all of the league’s other GMs would have done it. But Pritchard is probably lying awake nights wondering if he couldn’t have had just a little better medical insight, or have taken a little more time, or talked to a few more people before making that pick. I have always assumed that he got Paul Allen’s buy-in before making that pick, and if he didn’t it was a huge mistake.

That was Bob Whitsitt’s genius, I understand. He always got Allen to buy in before a major move. Then if it backfired, you turn around and say, “Hey, too bad — WE made a mistake.” But never, “I made a mistake.” In the case of Oden vs. Durant, I’d have been tempted to make sure Allen — ever a draft nut — saw every workout in person or on tape and then invite him to make the choice.

As fans, a lot of you are uncomfortable seeing Durant become a great player. But you think it bothers you? I can’t imagine what it’s doing to KP. I mean, that Oklahoma City box score popping up three or four times a week with Durant scoring 35 points must drive Pritchard crazy — just as he knows the guy is going to be one of the best three or four players in the league for the next decade.

He knows, too, he’d have been better served by making some use of Raef LaFrentz’s expiring contract last season, too. And not have gone so all-in publicly on Hedo Turkoglu last summer. And every GM worth his salt cares so much about doing a good job that when things don’t go right, he tortures himself.

And then, of course, he has to watch his right-hand man, Tom Penn, get the pink slip at a very odd time. Was that firing a message to Pritchard? Honestly, I still don’t think so. There are indications that Penn’s dismissal had more to do with HR issues — the kind of things that happen in any office. If that’s the case, I feel bad for Penn. I hope the story never gets out as to what really happened and I wish him all the luck in the world finding his way back in the league.

I think Pritchard’s issues are his own. And I think it’s really not unlike what every GM faces. Man, it’s a tough job. And the alligators in suits are nipping at your toes constantly, ready to second-guess everything you do. Often, they’re guys who have no clue what you do.

At the same time, they’re always falling in love with some wizard on the business side who they’re crediting for all the financial success of the franchise. I’ve seen it for years.

But you know what, you can have all your little two-for-one hot dog nights, all your little bobblehead promotions, all the civic contributions and all those little charity deals you want… until your team is winning basketball games, guys, you got nothing. Zip. And that’s what matters to a franchise.

At this point, Paul Allen ought to have connected those dots. He knows that. But you just never know in that organization. Strange things happen — and sometimes without warning.

Being a general manager anywhere in any sport is difficult. And being a general manager for the Trail Blazers is one of sport’s toughest jobs.

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Remember all those high expectations at the start of the season? Back when everyone was saying the Trail Blazers would be one of the top teams in the West? When they’d be battling the Lakers for the conference championship?

Well, wake up Portland. Whatever you thought of your team then, I’m wondering where those expectations went. The team the Blazers are putting on the floor right now is just about as talented as the one you thought you’d have before all those injuries struck.

Look, other than Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden, all the injured players are back playing. And playing well. And in place of the injured centers is Marcus Camby, who is certainly more talented than Przybilla and would also be thought by some as being as talented as Oden at the defensive end.

So why not expect big things from now on this season? Those injuries cast such a major pall over Portland for much of the season, I don’t think a lot of people have awakened to the concept that what the Blazers are putting out on the floor now is pretty good.

And pretty darned close to what we thought we’d see at the beginning of the season. Sure, the depth isn’t as good at center — but this team is talented enough to play with a smaller lineup and all that time when the young players got big minutes has paid off with many of those players now being capable of reliable contributions off the bench.

So don’t totally give this team a pass the rest of the way. Don’t feel sorry for them. There’s a lot of talent on the floor right now in Portland.

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Kid took a tough situation and made the best he could of it. Loved his honesty and willingness to admit his mistake. So many people told me they listened to him talk about it and liked him more afterward than they did before.

His poise was extremely impressive.

Keep your jokes out of the comments please, but if you’d like to talk about how you feel about Greg Oden now, compared to when you first heard about this, feel free.

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I’m hearing from all over that this may be Nate McMillan’s best coaching job. You know with the injuries and all that maybe he ought to be the Coach of the Year. But there are those who disagree and it seems many of them comment on this blog.

And I can kind of see where they’re going with their arguments. I mean, at the start of the season, this team had two big tasks — to integrate Greg Oden into the offense, thus moving to more of an inside-outside attack AND to somehow decide on a proper player rotation with all the talent on this roster.

I’m not sure either problem was ever appropriately dealt with. And in fact, the injuries eliminated them as problems. Rather than go inside-outside or really change their style of play at all, the Trail Blazers are now back to playing the way they’ve always played.

You could also make the case that McMillan’s stubbornness in regard to starting Andre Miller hurt the effort early in the season. In fact, the thing that seemed to get Miller straightened out was confronting the coach. I mean, if Miller doesn’t go off on McMillan, does that thing ever really going to get straightened out?

So you give McMillan credit for that?

Again, I’m not sure. You could say that in the face of all the injuries, he kept the team together, but really? Really? It seems to me that if you say that, you’re saying that the character of this team somehow was so weak that these guys wouldn’t have played hard if not for the coach. I don’t buy that.

I think it’s more the case that even though Portland has been hurt by an absolute avalanche of injuries, what’s left is still pretty good. In fact, it’s real good. And by lowering expectations, thus the pressure, they’ve prospered in an environment where they knew they had guaranteed minutes.

Martell Webster, for instance. This is a guy whose minutes always seemed to be jerked around. Often, when he made a mistake or two he was pulled out of the game in a hurry. Now, given the situation, he’s playing no matter what — because they have nobody else. And he’s been sensational.

It’s been one interesting season. And any coaching evaluations would probably be best delayed until the end. Let’s see how it all works out.

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Jason Quick of The Oregonian made a great point this morning on the Morning Sports Page on 95.5 The Game.

We were talking about a potential Portland trade for a big man, someone who could play power forward or center. I think, by the way, such a deal is essential for the future — an insurance policy against the questions about Greg Oden’s long-term health and just another big body to bring the roster into better balance.

Quick mentioned that he thought Kevin Pritchard was out there trying to make something happen but that a deal like that probably will mean a painful parting from the Portland roster. “It’s going to hurt,” he said.

And he is so right.

Obviously, to get something you have to give up something. Nobody is going to hand you a quality player in exchange for your garbage. At least one and maybe two very talented players are going to have to leave. And the organization and its fans are particularly attached to this group.

It’s going to hurt, Blazer fans — whether that deal happens before the trading deadline this season or sometime in the distant future. A tear or two will be shed.

And I hope the front office is willing to deal with that, too.

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