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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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Kevin Pritchard, Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers, Tom Penn

I have no idea why he was let go. I’m not sure we ever will.

Look, if you’ve ever been in an office environment, you’ll know that there are many things that can get you fired in a hurry concerning your interactions with other employees, your overall conduct, your use or misuse of an expense account and so many other things. I wouldn’t pretend to have any idea what happened but it was a very surprising move.

There is talk that perhaps he was let go because he misrepresented that situation in Minnesota, saying he was offered that GM job when he wasn’t. I find that kind of funny, because that story is getting close to a year old. I wrote last May about this issue and I can’t imagine it took Blazer brass this long to react to it.

In fact, I’m really not sure if the Blazers ever bit as hard on that whole scenario as the media did. The whole “Tom Penn was offered the Minnesota job” story was printed so many times that it became fact without much investigation. I found that especially curious, given that Penn and Kevin Pritchard share the same agent, who probably had little trouble convincing Pritchard he needed to act quickly to keep Penn a Blazer.

The one thing I know about Penn is that a lot of people within the organization did not like him. What I heard most often was that Penn was impacting the culture in a negative way. He was apparently sensitive about things said in the media, by his own broadcasters and even others in the front office. There was a new brand of paranoia creeping in and a lot of people felt Penn was power hungry and eating away at Pritchard’s power base.

Whatever happened, it was a very short era in Trail Blazer history.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kevin Pritchard, Portland Trail Blazers, Tom Pritchard

Seriously, what did you give up to bring the second-leading rebounder in the league here? Not all that much. Camby is Joel Przybilla with a foul-line jumper.

You could now make a case that the Trail Blazers have a chance to make a little noise in the playoffs. Now don’t go thinking they’re going to win a title or something, but they could end up being a tough out.

Camby solves a real big problem on defense and the boards and if Brandon Roy is healthy, this team can win a series, depending on matchups. And it’s a team you couldn’t say that about prior to this deal. Basically, two teams traded players who don’t fit their long-term future — and Portland came away with a big advantage.

But what about the future? Well, it isn’t likely Camby will stay — just as it wasn’t likely Blake or Outlaw would be around next season. But let’s just say Camby fits real well here. That he becomes an overnight success.

Well, in that case, I wouldn’t be surprised — even though right now it seems a longshot — if Portland wouldn’t have the means (that means Paul Allen’s possible willingness to spend money) to keep him here. But that’s a question for a few months from now.

For right now, I think this deal provides an opportunity to be excited about the playoffs. I would caution fans not to fall in love with Camby, because odds are, he won’t be back next year. But in the short term, he ought to be just the ticket.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Joel Przybilla, Kevin Pritchard, Marcus Camby, Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers

We’re about a week away from the trade deadline and I think that this time around, the Trail Blazers are going to pull the trigger on something.

Two reasons:

First, the obvious — the team needs another big man. And make no mistake, this is a long-term need, not just a temporary fix. Last summer, Portland chased free-agent Paul Millsap — indicating the team felt then that there was a distinct need for another big body who could rebound, play defense and provide inside scoring.

Now, with Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla out for the season, that need is magnified. So there is a definite need for another “big.”

But on top of that, the more serious motivation for a deal is the pending logjam at the smaller positions as Travis Outlaw and Brandon Roy return to the lineup after the All-Star break. Already, there are too many players for the available minutes. We saw at the beginning of the season how hard it is to keep everyone happy with playing time.

It’s not fair to coach Nate McMillan to keep making him deal with those issues. And the team’s roster is seriously out of balance with way too many small players and not enough big ones.

And really, doesn’t this team know by now who it wants to keep and who it is willing to deal? I would certainly hope so. My guess is that Martell Webster, Outlaw, Steve Blake and Jerryd Bayless are all available.

Who will come back in a deal? Your guess is as good as mine. There are undoubtedly players out there available who we didn’t know about. Kevin Pritchard will find somebody. I would guess there’s a young big man, perhaps a little more untested than we’d like, out there who could grow with this young team.

With the deadline now less than a week away, it’s going to be a fun time.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Kevin Pritchard, Martell Webster, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Blake, trades, trading deadline, Travis Outlaw

I felt that that Portland home loss to the Lakers Saturday night — after nine straight wins here over the defending champs — seemed to really send some Trail Blazer fans over the edge. Now I realize for a lot of Blazer fans a Laker loss is traumatic, but be reasonable.

That streak had to end, whether Kobe Bryant played or not. The problem right now is that Los Angeles is the one team in the league that is just flat-out too big for the Blazers right now. With those centers on the injured list, Portland doesn’t have enough inside. And with Bryant out of the lineup, you had to know that the Lakers would come out with the express purpose of pounding the ball inside.

Which they did. Constantly.

And there’s too much length in there for Portland to handle. Way too much. As long as the Blazers shot the ball around 60 percent, they could stay in the game but the minute their shooting fell off, so did they. And when you get virtually no offensive rebounds, few fastbreak points, get pounded in the paint — you can’t possibly win.

One thing happened near the end of that game, when the Lakers’ Lamar Odom tried to dunk in the waning seconds. Blazer General Manager Kevin Pritchard, according to Kerry Eggers, got into a bit of a tiff with Odom about it, apparently thinking he was showing the Blazers up.

I had no problem with it. I never worry about the other team — just worry about your own team. I mean, you might try guarding him. For me, the worst thing in the waning moments of Trail Blazers losses lately has been Jerryd Bayless’s relentless pursuit of his own points.

You’ve seen it. Both teams are just playing the game out and that’s when he lowers his head, quits looking for teammates and just tries to steamroll to the basket to get his own points. No thought of looking for a teammate — just a seemingly selfish dash to grab cheap points.

It comes off a little cheesy.

AND ANOTHER THING I JUST THOUGHT OF:

There is one other thing the Trail Blazers do home game after home game that is not classy. Look, it’s fine to allow fans to bring and display signs in your arena that make fun of the visiting team. But to show them on the big screen is, in a way, sanctioning them. The one they showed Saturday on the screen comparing Pau Gasol to the Geico caveman was in poor taste for a franchise, if you ask me. And this sort of thing happens time after time.

It’s cheap and kind of embarrassing that a franchise would sanction signs that feature personal attacks on visiting players. It’s really not “making anything better.”

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kevin Pritchard, Lamar Odom, Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers

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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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Jason Quick, Kevin Pritchard, Portland Trail Blazers

Andre Miller and Nate McMillan got into a heated shouting match during Blazer practice today, according to Jason Quick.

I found Kevin Pritchard’s reaction interesting:

“I encourage open and honest dialogue, I think that is always good,” Pritchard said. “I think it can be (healthy). We have the ability to take it one of two ways and I believe in the character of this team, and you know, I think we can come together.’

Man, that’s some real nice spinning there. Turning this into a positive wasn’t easy. All I can say is that I hope they didn’t keep Miller around so long that they have ruined any trade value he may have. He’s going to have to go and now, after this, the team is surely going to be dealing from weakness, rather than strength.

It was obvious a month ago that the dislike for Miller, whether it originates from Brandon Roy, Nate McMillan, the entire team or whomever, is going to inhibit his ability to fit into this organization. At that point, there was no reason to delay his exit, once Dec. 15 came and went.

UPDATE FOR COMMENTERS: Folks, his trade value is not diminished because people will suddenly think he’s a bad guy. It’s diminished because everyone is going to know that the team now MUST trade him. When you’re trying to move a guy you have to move, you’re going to get low-balled. It’s a fact in any sport.

Now, of course, they’re going to say all is fine and they don’t have any plans of trading him. I doubt it and so will everyone else around the league.

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Tags: Andre Miller, Brandon Roy, Kevin Pritchard, Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers

Yes, I have to admit that Greg Oden was probably my biggest source of joy in watching the Trail Blazers this season. To see him improve on the floor right before our eyes was a delight. So with him out, what are we to watch?

Here are just a few things of interest:

– LaMarcus Aldridge. Will he now step up into that all-star class that he’s always talked about? The time is ripe. The team needs more from him now. He’s a key cog — he’s got to play like that consistently.

– Brandon Roy. Obviously, an all-star already. I’d like to see him take that next step and do more to get his teammates involved. Make sure that Martell Webster and Steve Blake not only get shots but get those shots from the spots where they can make them.

– Jerryd Bayless. OK, all the fans are on your side — as they always are for the young kid on the bench. You’re going to get time on the floor now. Make your shots. Show you can get the ball to other people. And quit being such a foul machine. Actually guard someone without hand-checking.

– Steve Blake. Make a few shots, OK?

– Andre Miller. Keep doing your thing. I know you’re not used to coming off the bench but try not to stink it up in the first five minutes you’re out there. Take the shots you can make. Only.

– Kevin Pritchard. I know you don’t want to make a deal now. And I’m not advocating you deal from weakness just to make a short-term  impact. But if this thing doesn’t get better soon, you’re going to have to do SOMETHING.

– Nate McMillan. If your front office can’t turn one of those guards into a big player, you might have to use all those guards at one time and play some small ball. That means fast breaks, spreading the floor, getting to the basket. Repeat — fast breaks. Play fast. If you need some help with this, pull out that Golden State tape from a few weeks ago.

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Tags: Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Kevin Pritchard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Martell Webster, Nate McMillan, Steve Blake

I don’t think there’s any question Portland needs another big man, preferably a power forward but possibly a backup center. And to get one, you have to give up something.

Multiple sources in the NBA have told me that Jerryd Bayless seems to be the most available player on Portland’s roster. A couple of sources indicated over the weekend that Bayless has asked the team to trade him, because of his lack of playing time. I wouldn’t blame him — young players want, and need, to play. And if he wants out, the team should try to accommodate him.

Bayless has begun to see more action lately, but you have to wonder — is that being done to help teams get a better look at him? A showcase? I mean, how can you ask a lot for Bayless when he’s not even playing significant minutes for you? If I’m sitting in another NBA office and the Trail Blazers are asking me if I want Bayless, I’m going to have to answer, “Why would I want somebody you don’t think is good enough to play for you guys?”

Even with Bayless as bait, I’m not sure what the Blazers could get in return. On Dec. 15, Andre Miller can be traded and I think he would be a better trade piece. Miller is more respected around the league than he seems to be in Portland. Somebody might be willing to bite on him.

But you wouldn’t likely deal both Miller and Bayless. More likely, it will be Miller OR Bayless. Man, the decision to keep Patty Mills around is really beginning to hurt. Ime Udoka would be a pretty handy fellow to have around right now, quite obviously.

The Blazers, during the Kevin Pritchard era, have not been anxious to make trades in mid-season. I’m afraid, though, that philosophy is going to have to be abandoned right now. This situation screams for some sort of deal — and to be fair, it has all along, even before the injuries.

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Tags: Andre Miller, Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Kevin Pritchard, Portland Trail Blazers

Geesh, enough about the 15th roster spot. Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan got to pick the first 14 players, isn’t it OK if Paul Allen, who is picking up the tab for all this frivolity, is allowed to choose No. 15?

The more I think about it, keeping Patty Mills is the better long-term play anyway. A year from now, he may have some value — either as a player or as a trade piece. A whole lot of people I respect a lot believe the kid can play. And given the roster logjam, it doesn’t hurt to have a guy around who isn’t ready to play.

It’s kind of funny, though, I thought it was Minnesota that was supposed to have the obsession with point guards?

I mentioned yesterday that I thought having so many players is hurting Portland’s preparation for the upcoming season. I firmly believe that to be true.

But I wouldn’t want that to be construed as thinking the Blazers won’t eventually find themselves. I believe they will but it may be quite a few games into the regular season.

I’ve seen good teams muddle through the exhibition season and then take off as soon as the real games start. It’s hard to motivate veteran players for exhibition games. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for this bunch. There are too many young players trying to figure out where they belong in the league.

But it’s going to happen for them. It might take a month — maybe even two. It might take an injury or two to thin the roster down. But there is too much talent here to expect the team to struggle for more than about 25 games.

And while it’s so easy to look at the offense and find fault, it’s still the defense that’s the most troubling. The Blazers so far have not improved at all from last season on the defensive end of the floor. And to get anywhere, they’ve got to tighten up — a lot. What we’ve seen so far just isn’t anywhere close to as good as they’ll need to get past the first round of the playoffs.

That’s why I expect Nic Batum and Greg Oden in the starting lineup when the season starts. They’re solid at the defensive end. And if that happens, the real intrigue will be as Oden introduces the New Greg to the real referees, assuming they’re back by then. He needs to start getting respect from those guys. If he does, the Blazers will be changed a great deal.

For the better.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Ime Udoka, Jarron Collins, Kevin Pritchard, Nate McMillan, Patty Mills, Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers