Billionaire Paul Allen bought the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988, and it clicked right from the start.
The Blazers were a team with a strong nucleus of talent who had been on the verge of breaking out for several years. Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and company were an exciting bunch coached by newcomer Rick Adelman, but they were a team that had been in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference. They just needed a little something extra to put them over the top.
Enter Mr. Allen.
He had the deep pockets to purchase the talent that the team needed. He had the business savvy to make the right moves on the basketball and management side of things. And he had the passion and the knowledge to continue to push the organization toward new heights beyond its tiny northwest borders.
And immediately it paid off. The Blazers went to the NBA finals twice, and were one of the NBA's elite teams.
And Paul Allen was there along for the wild ride. He was a billionaire software developer, but there he was in the front row, sporting a blazer sweatshirt and hat, cheering his head off for his team.
He was a fan who had the money and the means to make his favorite team better.
In other words, the most powerful man in the room.
Somewhere along the line, that turned out not to be the case anymore.
The Paul Allen that runs the Trail Blazers now is a different man than the Paul Allen from years past. He still has the money, still has the courtside seat, still has the power, but his actions - and inactions - have made him seem like a shadow of his former self. And what he has been apart of over the past few months is the bitter climax of his downfall from the man he once was.
His sudden and bizarre treatment of Kevin Pritchard over the past few months have surprised and confused many, while offering solid answers to no one. Pritchard may soon be out of a job, and no one really seems to know why.
I'm not even sure if Paul Allen does.
For the past few days, speculation has run rampant that Kevin Pritchard will be fired as Blazers GM - surprising, considering what he has done for the team over the past few years.
When he was hired on as GM, Pritchard spent the next several years molding the team and the organization into something the city could be proud of. Through a series of shrewd moves that GM's across the league still envy, Pritchard was able to piece together a solid young roster of budding stars, while jettisoning horrible contracts and players with bad character. Through it all, Pritchard did it with amazing charisma, and did it with a complete openness toward the fans and the media. Nothing was off limits. Pritchard wanted people to see how this organization was being turned around from the inside.
In the metamorphosis from Jail Blazers to the "Rip City Uprise," Pritchard was the one who built the organization's chrysalis.
Now Paul Allen wants to fire that man.
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This is not the same Paul Allen that Portland has known. Through the years, he has always tried to build up the organization.
Sometimes he would make moves that were unpopular, but they were always for the best. When the Clyde Drexler-led teams of the early 90s started to show their age and slip into mediocrity, Allen blew the team up, in order to get some slight return and begin anew.
He loved his team, and wanted what was best for them.
At some point, something changed. Maybe his multiple business ventures began to be too much for him. Maybe being the owner of a basketball team no longer excited him. Maybe the rise of Apple drove him insane. Regardless, he was a changed man.
In the mid-2000s, he began making moves like a man who didn't know his organization anymore.
He hired two men in Steve Patterson and John Nash to clean up the franchise. They only succeeded in driving it further into the ground.
He handed out monstrous contracts to Zach Randolph (a ball-hog only concerned with himself), Theo Ratliff (an aging center who blocked a few shots in a contract year) and Darius Miles (a lazy head-case who berated his own coach).
And after all this, he tried to convince the city of Portland that the Blazers were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and needed to be bailed out, or else.
His disinterest was costing him the team he used to love so much.
That's when whatever was left of Paul-Allen-The-Fan woke up inside. He saw the mess he had created with his own team, and vowed that this was not the way things should be done.
Paul Allen was going to save the Portland Trail Blazers. And everyone would realize just how much he cared, after all.
So he went about building the team back up again. He brought in his own company, Vulcan Sports & Entertainment, to help him run the organization, which would show that he was willing to be hands-on with the team. He personally bought the Rose Garden Arena in 2007 to prevent it from being sold and to protect the "long-term health of the franchise."
And after the debacle that Patterson and Nash caused, Allen promoted an upstart employee named Kevin Pritchard to General Manager. Pritchard had proven his talent at scouting and immediately built the Blazers into a young, promising team on the rise.
All was finally well with the Portland Trail Blazers. And as Paul Allen finally rested, he basked in how he had saved the franchise. The fans, he thought, would embrace him as a hero.
But as Paul Allen sat in his ivory tower reflecting on his own ingenuity, the fans found their own hero in Kevin Pritchard.
He was the golden boy, the face of the franchise. And why not? It was his moves that netted the Blazers Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge in the same draft. It was his call to draft Greg Oden with the number 1 pick. And it was his skill that landed the team veteran influence with Andre Miller and Marcus Camby. The fans idolized Pritchard, chanted his name at rallies, and left messages on his office voice mail (Author's note: Guilty). Pritchard sat courtside with his pink good-luck-tie, pumped his fist, and cheered his team on.
The way Paul Allen used to.
And as this was happening, Allen and his Vulcan flunkies sat and stewed. "After everything I've done, why should Pritchard get all the admiration?" Allen wondered.
The Vulcan yes-men, brought in to run the company, only compounded these thoughts of egocentrism and self-pity, showering Allen with false priase as he sat isolated in Seattle. "Boss, you're the best owner there is. That's why we work for you. If anyone deserves the credit, it's you." Like Wormtongue whispering into a powerless Theoden's ear, the Vulcans fed Allen's ego, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.
Allen knew what he needed to do. He needed to take the reigns again. How dare Pritchard take credit for this? Allen was determined to do something.
He wanted to be the hero. Again.
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So shockingly, maddeningly, the rumors arose that Pritchard was on his way out. There were assistants fired. Rumors of massive egos and botched moves. Houses being sold. Headhunting organizations being hired.
Allen's jealousy is palpable. He doesn't just want Pritchard out, he wants to humiliate him. As the rumors continue to swirl, Allen will neither cut Pritchard lose, or give him his confidence.
And as he hangs his once-golden GM out to dry, Allen is putting his hands in his pockets and pretending his is innocent of the whole thing.
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We may never get a true answer from Allen as to why he is doing this.
Short of an Al Davis-like tirade about his fired employee, Allen looks like he wants to control the flow of information. Nothing will be allowed to come out that could be potentially damaging to Allen's image or ego.
But soon Pritchard will be gone, and everything he built along with it. And sometime in the future the team will begin another rebuilding effort aimed at convincing fans that the organization is committed to success.
And Allen will once again be at the top of it all, sitting at his desk with an empty smile, believing with all his heart that his actions have made him what he has always aspired to be.
A hero.
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