January 23, 2008

Suck It Patterson, Part D'uh

The word that I've continued to ponder all season with this Blazers team, and have failed entirely to blog about, is "chemistry." As in Steve Patterson's famous aversion to team chemistry in favor of raw talent. His fan-like devotion to rotisserie-esque, stats-based team construction was usually reviled, but we were too-far removed from the trifecta of consummate teammates Clyde, Terry, Jerome and Buck to realize what was going wrong.

Juxtapose "I didn't major in chemistry" with this quote from KP, courtesy of Jason Quick's blog at Oregonlive today:
"We're not making any trades,'' Pritchard said Tuesday afternoon in New Orleans, where the team is preparing to play the Hornets tonight. "I mean, why? What
benefit is there? If I did a trade right now that didn't pan out, I would be
crucified. What would be my motivation to trade - we have a good young team that
likes each other and is playing well. . . Now, if Cleveland wanted to include
LeBron James, we would certainly listen. But, I like my team. We are the
youngest team in the NBA, we have a great young coach and we have a team that
likes each other and plays unselfishly. I don't want to do anything that would
be disruptive to what we have going on.''

That's refreshing, isn't it? Recognize what we have, that it works well together, and that there isn't internal dissent and bickering and cancer, and encourage the chemistry to take place, as opposed to snuffing it out. Just another reason why I say KP for president.

No comments: