There were rumors coming out of New York last week that Donnie Walsh would be resigning soon as the president of the Knicks and that Kevin Pritchard was seen as a possible successor.

Funny, though. Walsh is denying he’s retiring and also denying he’s even spoken to Pritchard, or his agent, Warren LeGarie, about Pritchard. The Knicks coach, Mike D’Antoni, is also represented by LeGarie.

There is now even a buzz within the league that LeGarie was trying to organize some sort of coup to get Pritchard into that job, in order to protect D’Antoni’s status as the team’s head coach.

It’s similar, of course, to that other rumor a few months ago out of New Jersey, that LeGarie tried to orchestrate a scenario that would slide Del Harris into the coaching job of the Nets and Kiki Vandeweghe off the bench and back into his general manager chair with the Nets.

Here’s a great little look at how LeGarie tried to manipulate Vandeweghe’s situation in Denver and how he conducts his business in the NBA:

Naturally, those who have dealt with the awfully fluent, commendably cunning LeGarie know better. He believes unconditionally that you have got to have at least two conflicts of interest to be successful. His cup runneth over in that regard.

Many of his coaching (Mike D’Antoni, the Thunder’s Scott Brooks, Kurt Rambis of the Timberwolves) and decision-making (Vandeweghe, Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, Sixers GM Ed Stefanski) customers are strewn throughout the NBA.

Some clients (Chris Wallace) hire other clients (Lionel Hollins) after another client (Marc Iavaroni) was paid to leave the Grizzlies.

Some clients (Kim Hughes and Neil Olshey) replace another client (Mike Dunleavy) in Clippers management, one job at a time, at least temporarily, as LeGarie queues other clients to succeed them, just in case.

“You’re right,” yet another client concurs. “Warren will campaign for Kim and Neil . . . unless he can get another client in there.”

That can be rewarding if you’re the client-of-the-day that LeGarie is selling. Or it can be detrimental to your career if he recklessly pushes his luck and bullies the wrong billionaire purely to show how slick he is and/or to test his juice quotient.

Hmmm. “recklessly pushes his luck and bullies the wrong billionaire…”??? Are we seeing a pattern emerge here?

Now, are you still having problems believing that LeGarie possibly tried to orchestrate a coup with the Trail Blazers that would have pushed Tom Penn into the president’s chair and Larry Miller out the door?

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I hate the fact that the NBA has a need to have a lottery to ensure its teams don’t tank games to get the top pick in the draft. Man, what that says about the integrity of the teams in the league, I’m not sure.

And I also hate the fact that New Jersey and Minnesota, two teams very nearly historically bad, had to move back two spots in the draft order for Washington and Philadelphia to choose in the 2010 draft. Ugh. Those teams don’t deserve to go ahead of the Nets and Wolves — particularly in what’s looking more and more like a two-man draft.

I know, you’ve gotten used to this whole lottery thing. But don’t you see my point a little bit? There’s just something kind of unseemly about a league that needs to protect itself from teams intentionally trying to lose games in order to finish with the worst record, right?

And yeah, don’t bore me with all the details of why… I know all about the impact one player can have. I just think you have a draft for one reason in the first place — to help the worst teams get better. Parity. And this lottery thing doesn’t always do that.

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A former Trail Blazer coach, after a rather narrow win over an inferior opponent, told me that he was feeling pretty down about the game for a little while.

“But I told myself before I ever took this job that you should never feel bad about winning a game,” he said. “So I try to feel good about every win.”

In this case, it may not have been easy. Watching a team with five total wins this season march down the Trail Blazer lane like hungry men steaming through a Taco Bell drive-through in pursuit of a chalupa, was a little depressing there in the second half. Portland’s defense, other than poor, outnumbered Nic Batum, was horrible.

By the way, all you people out there defending Nate for not starting Batum, what can you say now? So was Nate wrong? By the way, the only problem now is that the kid needs more minutes. Your only good defender needs to play more than 23 minutes on a night when one of the worst shooting teams in basketball is firing at a 49.3 percent clip.

By the way, McMillan said before the game that Batum would be the starter at small forward for the remainder of the season. Not sure why a coach would commit to something like that. There’s no reason. Most coaches would not paint themselves into such a corner.

And watching another center go down wasn’t pleasant, either. Folks, this whole thing about injured centers isn’t just a Portland thing. It’s seemingly harder and harder to keep the big guys healthy. Look around the league. It’s dangerous with all that traffic inside. (That said, this franchise is one historically unlucky place when it comes to centers).

And if your biggest shot of the night is a three-pointer from Andre Miller, you know that things reached desperate levels.

But on the other hand, seeing Brandon Roy out there very close to 100 percent is the best thing that could happen to this team. Without Roy, the playoffs are an impossible dream.

It will be interesting tonight to see what this team has left for a back-to-back.

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Kiki has been the general manager in New Jersey. It is believed he’ll bring Del Harris to the bench as his top assistant. Man, Kiki’s way too nice of a guy to be in the business of coaching for very long.

Careful, Kiki, that job will eat you alive!

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I did three hours this morning on the MSP over 95.5 The Game. Now at work at a consulting job I’ve been doing during the day. Then to the Blazer game, followed by a live episode of “Talkin’ Ball.”

So, be patient with me. Not as many posts lately. I will blog when I can over the next few days but time is an issue sometimes. Sorry — but what the hell, it didn’t cost you anything to come here, did it?

Chew on this stuff:

– New Jersey Nets are 0-14 and coming in on the second of a back-to-back after losing at Denver last night. Man, the Blazers are going to pay later in the season for all these easy games to open the year.

– Who is going to get the Portland State football job? And does anyone care?

– How are the Beavers going to stop the Ducks’ spread option?

– Are the Ducks going to stop the Beavers’ fly sweep?

– Isn’t it great that we’re this geeked up about the Civil War more than a week away from the game?

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A win is a win, I guess. But the Trail Blazers are struggling a bit right now, perhaps as much mentally as physically. And when Brandon Roy is off his game to the degree he was in the first three quarters Friday night, it’s going to be a rough night for the Trail Blazers.

It’s looking lately as if Roy is wearing down some. He carries such a big load and these are games, against the lesser teams of the league, when the Blazers shouldn’t have to ride him so hard.

Nic Batum was really, REALLY good in this game. His defense was solid and his offense was off the charts. I was in the media room with just a few seconds remaining in the game with Kiki Vandeweghe, who is now in the Nets’ front office. I asked him if he thought Batum, at 19 years old, was better than Vandeweghe thought he would be.

“I saw him in France and it was obvious he had a lot of talent,” the former Blazer forward said. “But he just coasted. The night I saw him, he scored three or four points. I had no idea he would be this good this fast.”

By the way, I would expect a lot of teams on this next Portland road trip to follow the recent strategy of Jersey and Dallas — pack the defense in and keep the Blazers away from the basket. And continue to pound away at the other end with pick-and-roll offense — which is still bringing all kinds of unfavorable matchups for the Blazers.

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That’s the latest report, that the Nets really are willing to practically give him away. That’s how anxious New Jersey is to get out from under his contract. What I’ve heard from two sources this morning is that Portland is in a staredown with the Nets — the Blazers will take Carter but want New Jersey to throw in an upcoming first-round pick that originally belonged to Golden State.

Remember, this is all just talk. Speculation. The kind of stuff that’s always out there on trade-deadline days.

I’ve also heard that Portland is still talking to the Chicago Bulls about Kirk Hinrich. Adding Hinrich and Carter on the same day would change the face of a franchise, wouldn’t it?

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Two lackluster defensive teams matched up Thursday night in New Jersey and the Blazers, down the stretch, made more shots, got better penetration and out-talented the Nets. It was a win the Blazers needed — badly.

And — hey, my bad on this one — Jerryd Bayless had a terrific night. He got into the paint and all the way to the basket all night against the Nets, who defend even worse than the Blazers. He was ridiculously good. So good, that I’d be worried he’s going to think it’s going to be this easy for him every night. It’s not. But give him a lot of credit — he recovered from some horrendous shooting in previous games to step up when the team needed him most.

His ability to penetrate, if he can do it on a consistent basis, is a welcome addition — particularly if he can get the hang of laying the ball off to the big men when he draws the extra defender.

Brandon Roy played through obvious pain and did so very well and LaMarcus Aldridge did a nice job, too. The Blazers were very good on offense down the stretch of this game — as they often are when Roy is controlling things.

That was the good from the Nets game — and I guess I can’t blame Trail Blazer fans if that’s all they want to hear. But the fact was, this was another night in which Portland seemed totally overwhelmed by the pick-and-roll. At some point during the game, I got this e-mail from a long-time Blazer fan who now lives in California:

 Hi Mr. Jaynes,

Watching this Nets game….what is going on with the Blazers trying to defend the pick and roll???? The guard doesn’t even try and get over, under, or through the pick…they just simply switch. I’ve never seen such poor defense in all my playing or viewing years. Help me understand this please.

Morgan

Well, Morgan, I can’t help you. I don’t get it, either. But I do know one thing — it’s going to be mighty hard to ever win a playoff series simply switching every pick and roll. Good teams dream about feasting off these sorts of mismatches. And it’s just one more thing that takes the Blazer big men and puts them in a vulnerable position. But that doesn’t seem to matter much. With all the minutes Travis Outlaw gets at power forward, with Rudy’s big minutes off the bench, this is on its way to turning into a very small-ball team. A very guard-oriented team, if Bayless begins to get more minutes, because he’s going to have the ball in his hands a lot when Roy doesn’t have it.

It will be interesting to see how that works out.

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