What's going on?

Oregonian sports writer John Canzano has been writing columns about Paul Allen and his ownership of the Portland Trailblazers for years now. Some have been positive but most are overwhelmingly negative. I must admit that things have been frustrating these past few years. The firing of Richard Cho, Tom Penn, and Kevin Pritchard, the lack of a GM for almost a year, and the lack of contact with the general public have been questionable decisions and Canzano hasn't let the opportunity slip to write up his opinion. Allen is a shrewd businessman. The days of treating the Portland Trailblazers as his toy seem to be over. It's about dollars and cents now. Canzano keeps implying that Allen should sell the team to an owner who is a bit more hands on. I say be careful what you wish for. I was on the fence for a while on whether I wanted Allen out or not. On the one hand he is, in my opinion, the sole reason why Portland doesn't have an National Hockey League franchise. He's toyed with the idea in the past, but if he wanted to bring a team here he'd of done it by now. I've never had anything against Allen in the past. He has been more than generous with his money in order to put a good product on the court in the past. I believe he'll do it again. The franchise is at a crossroads, and it is because of this that Canzano wants Allen to sell the team so he has something to write about. He wanted a statement from Allen regarding his stance on the Trailblazers. What he got was this. Thank you Mr. Allen.You do what you gotta do. I trust you. Just one thing though, bring back the beard. Zing!

Disillusion

Some of my fellow Blazer fans crack me up. Whenever a disgruntled player is rumored to be on the trading block, the crazies come out in force to throw out a trade to have said player come to Portland. Just go to the blazer forum at oregonlive. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back. It won't take long to find out what I'm talking about.
"Let's trade Kurt Thomas, Luke Babbitt, and a second round pick for Dwight Howard".

"I hear Tom Thibodeau's contract is up with Chicago, next Blazers coach?"

I suppose we've been spoiled with a free spending owner. But the reality is we don't have a gm, free agents don't like our small market (Turkoglu?), and our players aren't worth as much as the fans think. I keep hearing how valuable Batum is as a tradeable piece. Really? He's inconsistent. Maybe we're used to the consistency of laMarcus, but he's about the only consistent thing on this team. I remember people saying we shouldn't trade Rudy because of his upside. But how many more seasons do we have to wait for Batum's upside to reach its potential. I think we've seen it. He's not going to magically turn into Kevin Durant. You don't think the other gms around the league don't see that? He's not worth that much. It's his contract year and he still can't step up night in night out. My point is that I don't want to see us avoid drafting a great young small forward because we have Nic. I don't want to see us draft one and not play him because of Nic either. I say trade him and get what we can for him. And when the cry goes out because we couldn't get Kobe or Wade for him I'm going to laugh.