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Even with miss, GM’s average remains high

The Columbian
Published: December 13, 2009, 12:00am

We come here today not to bury Kevin Pritchard, but to praise him.

Not that the Trail Blazers’ general manager needs me to defend him. It’s just that some national pundits have suggested the 2007 NBA Draft will be Pritchard’s legacy with the Blazers, that selecting an injury-addled Greg Oden will be his epitaph. But those who actually follow the team know that Pritchard’s legacy was secured the previous year.

Let’s start with the debatable portion of the issue: The Blazers botched the 2007 Draft, when they selected Oden ahead of Kevin Durant.

At least, that’s my opinion.

I think, and I thought prior to the draft, that Durant is going to be one of the all-time great players and that Portland would be foolish to bypass him. I have never seen a 6-foot-9 player with arms that long who looks so smooth and can beat people off the dribble.

Certainly, nothing has transpired since then to alter that opinion. The thought of Portland with Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Durant is spine-tingling. That would be a championship contender right now.

Consider this: Durant spent his first 1¼ NBA seasons playing out of position and having P.J. Carlesimo for a coach. That would be enough to break a mere mortal, leaving him curled up in the fetal position and crying out for his mommy.

But if P.J. Carlesimo doesn’t kill your career, it will only make you stronger. Now Durant is headed for his first All-Star berth just months after turning 21.

There were, however, reasonable people who thought differently going into that 2007 draft.

Conventional wisdom at the time insisted that a franchise center is crucial to building a championship team. There might be some truth to this, although the starting centers on the most recent champions have been Andrew Bynum and Kendrick Perkins.

For the sake of Blazer fans who are sick of hearing jokes about Sam Oden or Greg Bowie, we’ll pretend that Kendrick Perkins never was the starting center for a championship team.

But that’s where Pritchard comes in. I happen to think the Blazers botched the 2007 Draft, even if Oden had remained healthy; you might think differently. But I believe we can agree that only simpletons will regard that as Pritchard’s legacy.

Because on Draft Day in 2006, Pritchard traded Randy Foye for Roy. And he essentially traded Tyrus Thomas for Aldridge.

In the following year’s draft, he picked up Oden, traded for the rights to Rudy Fernandez, and performed addition by subtraction by somehow unloading Zach Randolph. That’s like trading a cow for magic beans.

Pritchard became Portland’s director of player personnel prior to the 2004-05 season. Since then, he has turned a team that recently won 48 games over two seasons into a club that won 54 games last year. If you aren’t sure how difficult that is, just ask the New York Knicks.

And along the way, Pritchard has earned a reputation for fleecing other general managers, to the point where other teams are loath to deal with him out of fear of embarrassment. “Kevin Pritchard wants to make a trade. What does he know that we don’t?”

Being a general manager can be a thankless proposition. Everybody’s a critic, and it’s human nature for fans and the media to focus on your mistakes. Even if 90 percent of your deals work out to perfection.

Such is the conundrum facing Pritchard. His most visible acquisition — the No. 1 pick in the draft — is building a reputation as an injury-riddled flop.

But Pritchard’s true legacy with the Blazers is the fact that the franchise is relevant once again, with or without Oden.

Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or by e-mail at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/section/GregJayne

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