Tom Penn

Well, it has been a few weeks since the Blazers "relieved" Tom Penn of his duties as the Vice President of the Portland Trail Blazers. Rumors continue to circulate that Kevin Pritchard (KP), the Blazers current GM, may be on the hot seat and could potentially be fired after the season. I think KP has done a good job of removing the "Jail Blazer" culture from the Portland Trail Blazers. He has drafted some good young talent and generally had done a fine job of bringing back the Portland fan base. However, with the Blazers being the only professional sports team in town, it really shouldn't be that difficult to have fans come back. If Portland had a pro baseball team and a pro hockey team, then maybe the fans would not have been so quick to return to the Blazers. Its hard to say. But what is not hard to say is that so far, KP has not shown that he can make the Blazers a championship contender. He has been the Blazers GM since 2006 and has only won two playoff games. That's just not good enough. The Blazers have key talent such as Roy, Alridge, Miller, Camby, Webster, Oden, Pryzbilla, Bayless, Batum, and Rudy. I would have to say the Blazers are 10 deep. Yes, they have had injuries this year. But it seems with the Blazers it is some sort of excuse every year. The Lakers have had Bynum and Walton out a bunch this season and yet have retained the number 1 seed in the Western Conference. All teams deal with injuries. The problem is that Oden is always injured. 2007 was his "rookie year" and he never played. 2008 he played parts of the season and truly struggled in a bunch of games. he had 2 point games and games where he fouled out and the like. In 2009, he once again missed the majority of the season with an injury. So, to date, Greg Oden has really done nothing for the Portland Trail Blazers. Kevin Durant was the right pick. Why? Because he can score 30 a night and will be a star in 2-3 years. The one two punch of Durant and Roy would have been 55 points a night. But regardless, the Blazers really should be better than the 8 seed this year. I mean, Oklahoma City doesn't have much of a team at all and yet they are about to lock up the 6th seed. The Spurs are a dead team with old tired players and are still ahead of the Blazers. And the Jazz and Suns? Same old teams, just avoided the heavy injuries this year. I want to believe that the Blazers get healthy next year and finally lock down a 2 or 3 seed and make a playoff run, but the chances of Oden playing the whole season are slim. And what if next year it is Roy or Aldridge doing down for a bunch of the season. Not sure what the answer is, but it just seems the Blazers never can quite get over that "average" hump year after year. They start with alot of promise and potential, but in the end, they fizzle. If they meet the Lakers in the playoffs here in a few weeks, it will likely be 4-1 or 4-2 with the Lakers winning. Roy is coming up on 26 and he needs to start experiencing some playoff series wins and getting to the Western Conference finals and the like. As of now, that seems years away. Especially with Kobe and Gasol just signing three year extensions with the Lakers.