Kevin Pritchard On The Dire Injury Situation In Portland: “Part of me likes
it. We’ve said this in the past going through some tough times. I don’t
want to do it all the time, but I want this to sort of cement our team, bring
them closer together…”
December 10, 2009 – 4:35 am by Bunk
If you’re a Portland Trail Blazers fan, you just hope that this avalanche of
bad luck early on in the 2009-2010 NBA season will be balanced out somewhere
down the similarly fortuitous breaks. The Blazers are as banged up injury
wise as any team in the league. Rudy Fernandez is shelved four four to six
weeks after undergoing back surgery; swingman Travis Outlaw is out with a
broken foot; and two of their rookies, Patrick Mills and Jeff Pendergraph,
are sidelined. Hell, the Blazers are even without their coach! Nate McMillan
had to undergo surgery for a ruptured Achilles! Then there’s of course
former #1 overall draft pick Greg Oden, who was lost for the season with yet
another knee injury. Poor guy. But I can’t say I feel too bad for the
franchise for passing up on Kevin Durant - a kid that’s every bit as likable
as Oden. Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard joined The Bald Face Truth on 95.5 The
Game in Portland to talk about the team is doing a good job thus far adapting
to their terrible circumstances, how other guys are going to have to step up
and contribute significantly, how the organization won’t mortgage the future
in order to try to salvage anything this season, and how Greg Oden seems to
be in a better place mentally this time around despite being devastated and
feeling like he’s let his teammates down.
On if he’s wanted to just scream and vent his frustration about just how
unfortunate the Blazers have been injury-wise thus far:
“Curl up with a book and some nice candlelight? No, no. You know, I’ve been
through some tough times, we all have. And I believe this is where your
character comes out. I’ve not been a part of this John, this has been
something I’ve never quite been a part of, but this organization has a lot
of great people. We want to continually work hard at what we do. We enjoy
working with each other and we want to see us come out better on the other
side. And I think that’s the key for me. You know, we have some injuries, it
’s not the end of the world. Our hearts go out to Mr. Allen and Maurice
Lucas more than anything, every single day. But we’ve had some injuries and
we have to get over it. Part of me likes it. We’ve said this in the past
going through some tough times. I don’t want to do it all the time, but I
want this to sort of cement our team, bring them closer together, then just
go out and overachieve, just go out and compete our tails off and the rest
will take care of itself. But it has been challenging, no doubt about it.”
On how the organization will proceed from here and how he and the other front
brass of Portland will go about making sure they don’t make a mistake in
their proceedings:
“Well, the one thing I know for sure is this is a predatory league. The one
thing that people will try to do is look at roster and say what can we get
off it, and try to make ourselves better. We’re not going to sacrifice
anything in the future for today. Never have, we never will. Does that mean a
trade can’t happen? It sure can. You never know. I don’t have one right
now, we don’t have one. Right now, the last couple days John, I’ve really
tried to stay positive, I’ve tried to help Dean and Monty and our coaching
staff as much as I can. And then - we always talk about this and I’m a big
believer - through the tough times, we stay in calm waters. We try to stay
pretty steadfast in the way we have put this team together. We still have a
lot of confidence. Jared Bayless is coming in and he’s playing pretty well.
Dante Cunningham’s going to be used a lot more. And you know, we’re going
to have to overachieve. That’s what we’re focused on. There’s no quick
fixes in this business, there’s not.”
On what it would mean if the Blazers were still somehow able to make the
playoffs with all the injuries they’re dealing with:“I think it’d be huge
and a complete testament to the character of this team. We’ve challenged
them with that. There’s something to be said that if you can get in to the
playoffs year in year out through adversity. Everybody has injuries, what you
don’t expect is this much. I remember at the start of the season, everybody
said our depth was a problem. Well, now it’s not. And we believe in putting
a lot of good players on the team that are good people, and compete like
crazy and try to win every single game. And Brandon has put the team on his
back in the last game against Houston. We’re going to need that a lot. Him
and LaMarcus are going to have to really step u and even develop their
leadership skills even more than they are right now.”
On who he thinks on the team needs to and will step up as the Blazers try to
get through this tough time:
“Well, I think Joel Pryzbilla has been a starter. He’s been on a team that’
s been very successful and he’ll do it. He’s just got to get his body ready
to play the 35 minutes that he’s going to play. I have no doubt about that.
The one I’m probably more excited about than anything is Jared [Bayless].
Jared works his tail off. He’s come in every single night. He’s absolutely
obsessive about his workouts. So we need him to step up, I have a lot of
faith in him because he’s prepared himself. Then Dante Cunningham, another
rookie but he’s going to get some minutes. I liked what I saw out of him in
the game against New York; in the last few games. He’s a lot of energy and
he makes a lot of hustle plays. And I kind of feel like that’s what we
need. We need a guy that go out on the floor that doesn’t have to make
plays, can be very simple in his offense. But goes gets extra rebounds, goes
and dives on the loose ball; and he can do that.”
On if other teams are calling Portland trying to ‘poach’ given their dire
circumstances:
“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s poaching. We’re having dialogue with a lot of
teams and we’ll continue. You know, it starts to ramp up around the 15th of
December because then you can start trading some of the guys that were signed
in the summer. And so everybody that’s kind one of the watermarks where
teams look to make moves. Then it slows down, and then it picks up around the
training deadline again. So it’s just the natural course that is starting to
ramp up.”
On where Greg Oden’s head is at after his latest setback:
“Well when I came back in the building the second half of the game he got
hurt, I mean it was like all the life had got sucked out of it, then we got
back in the game and it started getting better. But he stuck around, he
high-fived his teammates, I talked to him after the surgery - I saw him right
after the surgery. It feels different than the time before in that he went in
to a pretty dark place. He’s not like that right now. He knows what he’s
got ahead of him and he wants to get back out there as soon as he can. You
know, he’s a human being. He’s a young kid and he feels like he’s let this
team down which we’ve talked about in the past - that’s what makes him
special. Thats why he is a Portland Trail Blazer - because he cares about the
team . And as you saw him going off, I think you saw him tell a couple of
players on the court that he was sorry. And he means it. That’s not fake.
That’s not anything but Greg Oden wanting to be the best possible teammate
he can be.”
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