Portland Trail Blazers fired general manager Kevin Pritchard before the NBA draft
After months of speculation, the Portland Trail Blazers fired general manager Kevin Pritchard just hours before the NBA draft.
Paul Allen, the team’s billionaire owner, said in a statement after the draft the move was important for the team, and suggested it had been a long time in coming.
"This process was more public and took longer than any of us would have liked, but that was indicative of how critical a decision this was for the franchise," Allen said in a statement. "We want to thank and acknowledge Kevin for his solid work in getting us to where we are today. Parting ways with a popular general manager is not something we take lightly. In the end, we decided to make a change."
The reference to Pritchard’s popularity is perhaps an acknowledgement that the team knows the move would be unpopular amongst the team’s fans, many of whom signed petitions or formed support groups for Pritchard in the run-up to his firing, which was widely expected after Tom Penn, the Trail Blazers’ vice-president of basketball operations. Allen had publicly announced that the team would be considering firing Pritchard at the end of the season, and Penn was a close partner of Pritchard’s, instrumental in freeing up cap space that Pritchard needed to make moves and signings.
A well-respected GM
Pritchard was fairly well respected by his peers and by basketball pundits for his ability to work trades that benefited his team exclusively.
It’s fitting he was able to complete the draft as his last act on behalf of his team, as the draft defined his career with the Trail Blazers. He aggressively bought up other draft picks from cash-strapped teams, and engineered two major draft-day trades in 2007, picking up James Jones, Steve Francis and Channing Frye. At the 2010 NBA draft, while knowing he’d been fired, he traded Martell Webster to Minnesota in exchange for Ryan Gomes and Luke Babbitt.
He earned the praise of Trail Blazers’ coach Nate McMillan as well, who talked to media after the draft about Pritchard.
“It's been a great relationship, it's been a great partnership, and I respect what he's done with this team," McMillan said.
In the three years he’d been with the Blazers, he was instrumental in cleaning up the team’s image. The team had been nicknamed the Jail Blazers because of their off-court legal issues, but Pritchard helped clean up the team and turn its fortunes around. When he was promoted to general manager in 2007, the team had just undergone a 32-50 season. In three years he managed to reverse that record, with the team posting a 50-32 record in the 2009-2010 season, although injuries hampered their post-season chances, and the team was given a first round exit by the Phoenix Suns.
A bad end to a long process
Since Penn’s abrupt firing, Pritchard’s position has long been the subject of speculation. Pritchard’s agent was vocal in saying he thought Penn’s firing was meant as a deliberate warning to the GM. Rumours also emerged about his relationship with owner Allen.
While the firing surprises nobody, the timing of it is questionable, as a process of many months culminated with the news leaking just before the draft that he was being fired. The awkward timing of the firing put Pritchard in an strange position, but he got praise from the president of the Minnesota Timberwolves, David Kahn, for the way in which he comported himself throughout the draft, despite having been told he was being fired just hours before it.
"I admire the professionalism he exhibited tonight. He deserves a lot of kudos. He ran the draft," Kahn told the Associated Press. "I just think that he deserves to be commended for acting that way. You would have never known from dealing with him on the phone tonight that this is a guy who that happened to. And he must be a pretty special guy to be able to withstand that. I admire him greatly."
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