It's time for Blazers to start from scratch
Memo to Paul Allen: You paid how much for this team? Don't you think it's about time you starting paying attention to what your GM is doing to your investment? Everyone else is taking notice, particularly the fans in Portland, who are abandoning your Trailblazers in droves.
In Memphis, Grizzlies management fired easygoing Sid Lowe and hired taskmaster Hubie Brown to let the youngsters know exactly what is expected of them.
In Chicago, Bill Cartwright is ignoring Jerry Krause's grand rebuilding plans and has benched the kiddies because, well, they don't know how to play.
In Boston, Jim O'Brien has altogether ignored the $86 million contract of Vin Baker and relegated him to 11 minutes a game off the bench -- maybe.
Around the league, we are seeing the owners take back the game of basketball, no longer deferring to the wanton needs of reckless youth simply because a sycophant-seeking spoiled brat says, "This is what I want. And do it now." The inmates, as it were, no longer are running the asylum.
Everywhere, that is, except that Westernly outpost in Oregon known no longer as the Rose City, but as Oz.
But the time has come to change things in Portland, where the basketball team has reached embarrassing lows, what with the arrests of three Blazers players in one week.
Message to Bob Whitsitt, the Blazers general manager who constructed this fine mess: It's time to blow the thing up.
I admire Whitsitt for what he tried to do, a sassy experiment of assembling the largest collection of talent he could find to stock a roster and see where it takes them. But the verdict is in: It doesn't work. Or, at the very least, this version does not seem to be working, and the act is getting archaic.
Not to mention the fact that the inmates really are running the asylum. Paul, it's time for Whitsitt to go. He is running your franchise into the ground. How about you just blow it up and start over again? Please? Speaking as a Traiblazer fan, I'm growing tired of writing about my team being referred to (justifiably) as the "Jailblazers". You're on the verge of losing this fan unless you make some changes. That's not a threat, just the reality. I have no interest in watching a group of overpaid, undermotivated thugs ruin a once-proud franchise.
It's your call....
