A fan was tossed in game 3 of the Lakers-Blazers series.Let's trade Whitsitt. ------------------ They couldn't stop him in the early 90s; now they can't stop him in the 21st century -- Bill Worell on Phoenix defense on Hakeem
Unfortunately, Trader Bob's job seems safe. Doesn't look extremely hot for Dunleavy. It's good that Whitsitt's taking responsibility for his actions. Check this out: President and general manager Bob Whitsitt said Monday that nothing has been decided, and took the blame for making a series of personnel moves that backfired. "The things that didn't work out, that's my responsibility," he said. "That's my fault. I'm in charge of everything that goes on in this organization, and I feel bad." Of course, it's easy to say that when your job's secure, as the article insinuates that Whitsitt's is. That's too bad. ------------------
I have a feeling that Kemp's contract will be bought out and that a number of the Trailblazer players will be on the block this summer. Pippen could very well be gone if Portland can find another team to take his contract off their hands. Wells seems ready to step into Pippen's starting SF role if all goes well with his rehab from knee surgery. Strickland will most likely not be returning. Could Wallace be trade bait this summer? Very doubtful, but Portland's front office could just blow this whole team up and start over. It will be very interesting. ------------------
The guy did an amazing job of putting so much talent together to put the organization in a position to win. It's the players' and coach's fault, not his. ------------------ "I fell off the toilet!" ---Estelle Costanza "I'll be gettin real drunk and making fun of everybody"
TheFreak, Didn't you have a recent thread in the Rockets Forum about chemistry? Mango ------------------ Get it right or just don't do it! Resistance is futile....you will be assimilated. [This message has been edited by Mango (edited May 01, 2001).]
If you take a can of gasoline, and left it near an open flame, wouldn't you expect trouble? Likewise, if you trade away the heart and soul of your team and add former All-Stars and ask them to play bench minutes, wouldn't you expect trouble? The players and coach must bear a great deal of the reposibility, but Whitsitt is also to blame. He made moves that an uneducated fan like me could see would eventually lead to trouble. ------------------ Founder and President of the Houston Homers Club(HHC) - Are you a homer? Join now! The Rockets will be NBA champions. Believe.
That whole Brian Grant thing looked to me like each side backed itself into a corner. It started off looking like a prearranged "Brian's going to opt out, and we're going to re-sign him for the max" deal. Then I guess Portland hedged a bit on paying the max, and so Grant and his agent decided to talk to other teams, just so they'd have some leverage. Then Cleveland swooped in with the Kemp idea, and Whitsitt got all dreamy about reviving the Kemp who'd played for him in Seattle. Before you knew it, both sides were accusing each other of disloyalty, and the Blazers had to make the Kemp trade so they wouldn't lose Grant for nothing. So I guess the moral is if you're going to show your loyalty by overpaying players, you have to commit to that strategy all they way. ------------------
Having a bad coach plus a group of players who half assed it out there most of the time is why the Blazers didn't live up to expectations. All the criticism should be directed towards the players/coach. ------------------
Why all the criticism? Isn't it possible that (1) a GM who pushed his team-chemistry experiment too far, (2) a mediocre coach, and (3) heartless, selfish players all combined to create the Blazer disaster? Who hired the coach and brought in the players, anyway? ------------------ [This message has been edited by Swopa (edited May 01, 2001).]
related article Fan says: 'An apology it was not' PORTLAND, Ore. – Bob Whitsitt, general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers, has offered an apology to a fan ejected from Sunday's game for refusing to give up a sign criticizing Whitsitt. Katherine Topaz, 34, attended the playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers with her 8-year-old stepson and held up a sign that read "Trade Whitsitt." The sign referred to the executive's series of questionable personnel moves that backfired this season. Topaz was sitting in the 10th row during Game 3, and her sign was in full view of Whitsitt, who was sitting next to owner Paul Allen on the other side of the Rose Garden. During halftime of the game, which the Blazers lost 99-86 to get swept from the best-of-five series, a security guard asked her not to show the sign. A second guard asked her to hand it over. When she refused, she and her stepson, Will Abeles, were escorted out by a group of guards. News of their ejection outraged some fans and began a national discussion about the Blazers' treatment of their fans. Whitsitt on Tuesday apologized to Topaz through a Blazers spokeswoman, offering to refund Topaz's ticket money. But Topaz said Tuesday that Whitsitt said he was sorry she had to miss the second half of the game and did not mention the ejection. "An apology it was not," she said. Blazers spokeswoman Sue Carpenter said Whitsitt "did apologize for her being ejected from the building ... and said that the building overreacted." ------------------ Anesthesia, Mona Lisa I've got a little gun here comes oblivion I never loved you, how did you find me? The cops will never prove complicity, now Annaaaaa Allllll goooood childreeeen go to Heaveeeeen
Why would you fire a GM for acquiring top-flight players at every position? Most people on this BBS love to play fantasy GM and list all-stars at every position that they acquired through impossible scenarios. Well, this guy does it for real. He made some great moves. Getting Steve Smith for JR Rider was amazing. If you want to fire him for signing Pippen, let's go ahead and fire Rudy/CD for the same thing then. Shawn Kemp was worth the gamble. If you don't have one of the best players in the league to build chemistry around, what do you do? Whitsitt acquired as many good players as he could. He did overpay for Stoudamire, though, although that's pure hindsight.
Whoever says Trader Bob or Microsoft Allen should not take blame for that debacle of a team, I hope you're being ironic. A classic case of, "I spent the most, that means I should have the best; if I spend even more, I'll be even better." Bobby-boy made bone-headed moves. If Whitsitt had done any homework at all, someone should have whispered to him that the reason Shawn Kemp looks big enough to guard Shaq is because he's a head case who fills the empty hole in his life with food, booze, women, and coke. Tragic, yes; but why subsidize the tragedy? Of course, Trader Bob couldn't let Brian Grant walk without getting value in return. This means bring in experienced players to hack-a-Shaq. Hence Shawn Kemp. Hence All-Star Dale Davis, now relegated to b**** minutes. How about telling Damon Stoudamire (let alone Greg Anthony) how much he sucks by signing Rod Strickland (another head case) so that yet another player can be hoarded from contending teams. Meanwhile, Jermaine O'Neal lives up to his self-promotion of "one of the best power forwards in the league" by becoming just that. For the Pacers. Quitten got what he deserved so we'll leave him out. Rasheed Wallace. Eighty four million dollar contract. Eighty four cent head. I'll blame the players along with Trader Bob but not Mike Dunleavy. He should just resign, even if he loves the Portland community. He should not have to shoulder the blame for that team. It isn't as if he won't have another job soon. ------------------
"Why would you fire a GM for acquiring top-flight players at every position? Most people on this BBS love to play fantasy GM and list all-stars at every position that they acquired through impossible scenarios. Well, this guy does it for real. He made some great moves. Getting Steve Smith for JR Rider was amazing. If you want to fire him for signing Pippen, let's go ahead and fire Rudy/CD for the same thing then. Shawn Kemp was worth the gamble. If you don't have one of the best players in the league to build chemistry around, what do you do? Whitsitt acquired as many good players as he could. He did overpay for Stoudamire, though, although that's pure hindsight." First of all he acquired most of these all-stars well past their prime and never acquired a leader. He hasd a ton of guys who aren't true team leaders. Smith was the closest and he led a poor Atlenata team. Kemp was good in Seattle but that was Payton's team. Pip was good in Chicago as Mike's jock-handler, Sabonis was well past his prime. Wallace is their only legitimite star right now and he is a major headcase. Talent does not equal championships. Also look at their roster now. Old players with not alot of value any more and big contracts. Not exactly a team that I expect to see in the finals in the next 5 years. Also it's Paul Allen's money he was spending and he knew with all that cash that he should have won last year and this year. Next they were rolling along this year when he went out and signed strickland. Why? Only thing I can figure is to prevent LA from getting him, but the last thing LA would have done was to add another ego to the Shaq-Kobe fuel a the time. He did a good job of getting ex-all stars, who aren't leaders. But he had the highest PR in the league and didn't win.
If Les Alexander decided to trade some players for Scottie Pippen for next season, and he played like crap and had a bad attitude (like we all know he would), would it be Rudy's fault for not keeping his talent under control? It would be Les's fault for trading for such a volatile talent. Whitsitt put a bunch of players on a team that could never have co-existed, and it is not Dunleavy's fault that the inevitable happened. ------------------ Give me ambiguity or give me something else. Sign up for season 2 of the CC.net NBA Sim League! http://bbs.clutchcity.net/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000328.html
I didn't know building could react! ------------------ Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
RunninRaven, Actually it WOULD be Rudy's fault, because he has final say on ALL trade proposals. ------------------
The team was at the brink of the Finals last year. Whitsitt brings in Kemp and Davis to try to get them over the hump, and now they're out in the first round. This is somehow Whitsitt's fault? Mmkay. Mike Dunleavy is a bad coach. Outside of ruining the Bucks, what has he done?
Yes, Whitsitt must share some of the blame for two huge mistakes. 1) The Brian Grant and Jermain O'Neal deals - Everyone on the Blazers roster admitted that Grant was the Heart and Soul of that team. He was scrappy, he played good defense(when not playing out of position) and he was good for the community. He traded him for Shawn Kemp. Jermaine O'Neal was young and talented and got traded for Dale Davis. When you take two former All-Stars and ask them to become bench scrubs, you shoild be prepared for the consequences - namely that they would have a problem with no playing time. 2) Rod Strickland - Portland had the best record in the West before this deal. The ramifications of this were that Stoudamire went into a funk over his diminished role, which affected Wallace because Wallace is at his best when feeding off of the energy Damon provided. It also removed Greg Anthony from the lineup, and Anthony is one of their better defenders. After that, Portland played sub-.500 ball and lost like 8 straight(including the playoffs) to end the season. Dunleavey is a bad coach, the players are not clutch, but Whitsitt ****ed up, and should shoulder some of the responsibility. ------------------ Founder and President of the Houston Homers Club(HHC) - Are you a homer? Join now! The Rockets will be NBA champions. Believe. [This message has been edited by Puedlfor (edited May 02, 2001).]
Is this the case with Dunleavy in Portland? ------------------ Give me ambiguity or give me something else. Sign up for season 2 of the CC.net NBA Sim League! http://bbs.clutchcity.net/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000328.html
No, but he could have done ALOT better with the talent he had. You can make up alot of excuses about how they acquired stars on the downside of their careers, but they still could have done alot better with the team they had. Dunleavy is a bad coach. He couldn't motivate that team at all. No player on that team had respect for him. Have you ever watched the Blazers offensive scheme? Are you trying to tell me that other coaches couldn't have done a better job with the Blazers? I could understand it if you're trying to say that people overestimated how good the Blazers really were, but that team still underachieved in a big way. ------------------ [This message has been edited by tacoma park legend (edited May 02, 2001).]
