(This post has been updated on Saturday afternoon).
I’ve been trying not to blog on weekends so much, a part of trying to rest up after all the long hours of work during the week. But some things absolutely drive me to the keyboard. Today, for instance, when I read Henry Abbott’s True Hoop overview of the Tom Penn and Kevin Pritchard stuff, I just couldn’t resist.
It included this quote from Warren LeGarie, the agent for Penn and Pritchard:
I’ve been a Blazer fan from early on. I’ve been involved in some way with the team for many many years. I want them to be successful.
Sorry, but I almost lost my breakfast over that one. See, I go back a ways with LeGarie. I co-wrote Rick Adelman’s chronicle of the 1990 Trail Blazer season called, “The Long Hot Winter.” In that book, Adelman — and I can remember how emotional he was about this part when we talked about it at the time — scorched LeGarie for his role in helping push Drazen Petrovic out of Portland.
Early in November of 1990, the Blazers were off to a 6-0 start and all was well. It was obvious they would have one of the best teams in the league. Petrovic, still early in his career, wasn’t going to play much behind Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Danny Ainge and Danny Young, but the Blazers loved him and knew he’d someday be a very good player. But Petro, one of my all-time favorite Blazers, was going to have to be patient and wait his turn.
But LeGarie was his agent and just couldn’t wait. He wanted minutes for his client and he wanted them immediately. So he had Drazen tell the press that if he didn’t play more he wanted a trade or he’d go back to Europe. The team knew it wasn’t coming from Petrovic — it was his agent, stirring up stuff on a winning team.
“The one thing I resented more than anything was that his agent, Warren LeGarie, told Drazen to make that statement, thinking he could force us to trade him or play him,” Adelman said in the book. “He was saying things about our team and about me, saying I was lying. He said I didn’t like Drazen and it was totally untrue. And this was a guy, this agent, whom I hadn’t talked to in two years about Drazen.
“He never once talked to me about his client — which was OK, because I probably wouldn’t have talked to him anyway. I don’t make a habit of talking to agents about playing time for their players. I will talk to them if the players are upset and they just want to know where he’s at. But LeGarie never had the courage to even ask me about it. He went through other people, and to the papers and the talk shows. He said a lot of things that were totally unfounded, and all he did in the long run was hurt Drazen. That’s all he did. Drazen had always been everybody’s favorite and he put him in a bad situation. And I think he did him a disservice.”
Yeah, Warren LeGarie — Blazer fan.
Look, I understand the role of an agent. His one and only responsibility is to do what’s best for HIS CLIENT. Not any team or any fan base. I totally understand that and it shouldn’t be any other way. If I’m paying an agent, I want him to do the same thing. But please, folks, when you’re listening to this character rant and rave and talk about “drive-bys” and all the rest, remember where he’s coming from. He’d like to get the attention yanked away from Penn and he’d like to get Pritchard a contract extension. That’s his job.
A lot of the “facts” we’re getting about the Pritchard-Penn situation are coming from people with a real axe to grind — and I’m not talking about Henry Abbott, who did a great job, as he always does, of compiling an awful lot of information here. But just keep that in mind that a lot of people who are involved in this story, locally and nationally, have a stake in it in some way.
And also understand that when Larry Miller is asked why Penn was fired and he says he cannot say, understand that HE CANNOT SAY. Some things like that happen in business — and when asked about specifics, they have no choice to but deny anything that could lead to an interpretation of what really happened. Often, when it comes to sudden dismissals like that one, there are serious legal repercussions if word gets out. Rather than to try to assign reasons to it, it might be better to just accept it and move on.
And really? Riots if Kevin Pritchard is fired? Really? Look, if it’s true that Pritchard and Penn were somehow trying to steal power from THE OWNER, man, that’s about as crazy a thing to do as I’ve ever heard. I mean, it’s Paul Allen’s team. And he wants to have a hand in operating it — he always has.
And I think it’s unwise of Pritchard to challenge that in any way. I even thought it was a little over the edge during training camp to go so public with the Patty Mills situation. You know what I’m talking about — he just about threw the owner under the bus when he made it known that Mills was Allen’s choice to make the roster rather than Ime Udoka. That’s getting into an area a lot of GMs wouldn’t go.
Is Pritchard having a little trouble getting a contract extension? I’m sure he is. So did Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. It seems to be the way this team operates. If you’re KP, you better just accept that or move on.
To try and mess with Allen’s control of the team is so dumb a man would deserve to be fired. And I just don’t think KP is that sort of guy. Or that dumb. And I’d be real careful about giving too much credence to listening to someone who has something to gain by Pritchard’s demise here. I’d listen to their gossip just about as intently as I’d listen to Warren LeGarie, Blazermaniac.
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