Last year, we called Bob Whitsitt, 41, "the most hated man in Portland" (WW, Nov. 20, 1996). With the Trail Blazers off to one of the best starts in the league, the team's general manager may be on his way to becoming more popular. Willamette Week: You must have known you were going to be eaten alive in the local press for letting Kersey, Williams and Drexler go the way of other local heroes such as Petrie and Adelman. The glory days of these players in this city weren't so long ago. Why not let some of that popularity rub off on a new GM by keeping them around? Were you tempted? Bob Whitsitt: The short answer is we all want to be popular, but I really focus first on trying to do my job. If you build a good basketball team, that's what people are paying money to see and what they care most about. The reality is, that great team--and it was a great team in '90, '91 and '92--by the time I got here had already been sliding dramatically. It was down to 47 wins and couldn't get out of the first round of the playoffs. I think those players, individually, still had some time left where they could contribute, but as a group their run was over. There's nothing wrong with that. They were together 10, 11, 12 years and it was a great run. To be real honest, they probably should have been broken up before I got here. They could have gotten value for those players. What I saw was a team well over the salary cap. Our heroes are always better when they're gone, you know what I mean? But when they were here, people weren't knocking the doors down to buy tickets. They're all players who should always be remembered as Blazers, and they're guys I feel good about, and we helped them all get into situations that they're still benefiting in today, and that's the nature of this business. Guys hardly ever retire any more. If you can wheel them out there, they'll play, because they make so much money. I came down here to be part of rebuilding a team without making it get real bad. I think, for the most part, we've done that. Nobody wants to make the tough decisions and do those things, and that's what I get to do. The NBA is about to lose a generation of great basketball players who have reached their mid-30s. I have a list of players who make up the majority of the starters in the NBA finals in the last five years in New York, Houston, Chicago, Seattle and Utah, all of whom are at least 32. How has this rapidly approaching "passing of the torch" affected what you have been doing to build a team in Portland? When you're trying to build a team to win a championship, you know whenever you get there that you're still only going to be one of three or four teams in your conference with a chance to win the whole thing. It's cycles. And, hopefully, when our team gets to that cycle, Utah has come down, Houston has come down and Seattle has come down. Some of those teams with the players you were talking about, Mother Nature will have caught up with. But there will be other teams who are either there now or will be there with you, like the Lakers. You're never going to get a free ride. You're always going to have a tough road. So we're trying to build a team with a core group who can learn and know how to play with each other, and can go through the ups and downs and the bumps and bruises. Then when they get there they'll be a little more tested and a little more seasoned. And, hopefully, they'll be in the prime of their playing ability. If you look at our roster with all of the 19- to 24-year-olds--I don't know when a guy hits his physical prime, but a lot of people think it's between 28 and 32, and if that's the case, we have a lot of years left. After letting go of Chris Dudley and Clifford Robinson, who turn 32 and 31 this season, you will be second-guessed if the Blazers have fewer than last season's
49 wins. Chris and Clifford still seem to have most of their
abilities left. Did their respective ages enter into your decision making? I think it's two factors. Certainly age is one of them, and I agree with you that both of them still have some very good basketball left. But probably more importantly, it was a matter of salary-cap management. If we sign both those players to large, long-term contracts, we're not able to make another move in the next three or four years. Probably the way the team was built last year, if we did nothing to it, it was not going to go win a championship. So we felt it was better to make the commitment to players like Rasheed Wallace and Brian Grant, guys that are young, good players now but young enough where we think they'll continue to improve and have a chance to be even better players than they are now. Is Isaiah Rider worth all the trouble? When Clyde Drexler blew off some practices, it didn't seem to reflect badly on him. Kenny Anderson missed one because his alarm didn't go off and it doesn't even get mentioned. JR misses one and it's like a world event. It's like there's a different standard for JR. Shaq decks a guy. Barkley gets told by the league to take bodyguards when he goes out, and we won't even talk about Dennis Rodman. JR is not a bad guy. He doesn't hurt people. He's really never done anything truly bad to anybody. I'm not saying he has never made mistakes. He clearly has. But he's not punching people out or throwing them through bar windows. Nor has he been accused of raping women, which two players were before I got here. I think you have to consider intent. When Clyde says, "I'm not going to practice," that's received differently than someone who [accidentally] goes to the wrong place, who wants to be at practice. You know, guys miss a couple of practices a year in this league, and that's typical. Some guys don't show up because they have a tummy ache. JR doesn't do that. If you're not willing to help young guys mature and grow, you belong in another business. What did you think of the media stories about the "Jail Blazers" last year? I never liked them. I don't like to see that label. I think it sends a very negative message, a very wrong message. [The term "Jail Blazers"] is people trying to have fun. We've had some guys who have made mistakes. I would definitely agree with that. But to just blow them up, and make them a lot bigger and worse than they are, makes it harder to try to help these guys get on the track they need to get on. You know, sometimes in the past these same kinds of mistakes were made, even here in Portland, and not a word was written about them, which is probably also unfair. When mistakes are made, they need to be reported, and they need to be reported accurately. I don't think they should be hidden. But if I had my choice, I don't think they should get blown up out of proportion, either. It's not something that anyone in the organization is proud of, to see that kind of a label. It's something we're working very hard to improve upon. Hopefully, that label goes away. Can you give me an example of where you have seen things blown out of proportion? Yes, let's talk about a recent case. JR missed practice. He went to the wrong place and said, "I blew it." It was a headline story across the top of the sports page the next day. So, fine, report it. We acknowledged it. But guys in this league miss a couple of practices a year, and it doesn't deserve headlines. Then, two days later, they write a whole 'nother article about it. So JR misses the practice on Monday, there's the game on Tuesday and then there's a whole 'nother article on Wednesday. The game was a great game. There were a thousand other things to write about on Wednesday. JR bought 25 season tickets to give to underprivileged kids and there's one little line in the paper. Clyde Drexler never bought one ticket here to give to a kid. I'm frankly amazed at all of the negative coverage you, the players and the Blazer organization have been getting since you came. You know, in other cities I've been in, they had beat writers who really like the game and really knew about the game. Here the beat writers are afraid to ask me questions, are afraid to ask the players. I'd say to them, spend a little time and develop your sources, which is something they don't do. Maybe they'd get a story first through some hard work. And how about writing about the game? Ask about a strategy and write about maybe it worked and maybe it didn't. You don't see that here. I'd say to them, learn a little more about the game. They say I'm never available. You know, they've called me maybe four times in four years, and I talked to them all four times. Don't act like I'm not available when I am. Many NBA players come out of the black ghettos of big-city America. They have escaped a life of poverty and crime through basketball. How should we judge their off-court behavior? Is it fair to use the standards of white suburban America? All of our players, whether they like it or not, have a higher standard because of their visibility. It's not just young players. I see guys in the league in their mid-30s. There's a guy with the Houston Rockets the other night who threw somebody through a pane-glass window, allegedly. Whatever pro athletes do, [they're] going to get tremendous media attention--just because there's a lot more media today, and it's instant. So we constantly have to make our people aware that [there's] a different standard out there. Whatever you do, you're going to get attention. Sometimes you're into the pro-sports scene overnight, and you're literally overwhelmed by the attention you get when you were never used to getting it. My standard is, we want you to carry yourself in a way that we can be proud of, and abide by the laws and use common sense and respect people. And, wherever [they] are on that standards ladder, what I try to do is to get each of the players to improve each year, to grow, to become better. I've had guys who, early on in their careers, you wouldn't want in your house. I couldn't keep them with my team. I had to trade them because they were bad characters, if you will. But as their careers wind down, I'm proud of them. They did mature. They did grow. And they are guys I feel good about in society. It's no different than other professions, doctors or lawyers or the media. Sometimes in gaining access to a profession, there are a lot of things you have to learn and take responsibility for. So, my big thing is that wherever they are on that standards ladder, I expect them to get better each year, and we have a responsibility to them to help in that process. Who were the players who matured? I'd rather not call them out. Coaching is critical. Why Mike Dunleavy instead of PJ Carlesimo? I guess I would say different philosophies, different personalities, and most of all a belief in trying to do some things that are more suited to the athletic ability of this team. Was one of the problems you had with PJ his inability to relate to some of the players? The Clifford Robinson incident last year, when Clifford swore at PJ coming off the floor, comes to mind. I think Mike just comes to us down a different road. He played in the NBA for more than 10 years on three different teams. He was an NBA assistant coach. He was an NBA head coach with two teams. He has a tremendous amount of experience as a player and a coach. And that's experience in the 90 to 100 games we play a year, not the 30 to 35 games they play in college. Yes, it's easier for Mike to relate to the players because of this experience. How is Portland
different from Seattle, other than the obvious size difference? Probably the biggest difference is that we don't have professional football in Portland. We don't have professional baseball at the major-league level. We don't have a major university right in town. So, in terms of sports, the Blazers are the pro sports team. Because of that, we probably have a little bit more of a microscope put on us, which I think is actually a positive, because it allows us to try to get out and do some more things. Professional sports in America has become stained in the eyes of the public because of the money involved--money paid to athletes for salaries and endorsements, and the relation of that to ticket prices. Cynical fans see the paid commercials on your big screen, the laser light shows at player intros, the aided applause, the announcer who hypes the Blazers before every foul shot, as part of this big-business, over-hyped approach to professional sports. The product, NBA basketball, is great. Why don't the Blazers let the product speak for itself more? We do a lot of marketing research. That's what the fans, particularly the new fans, tell us they want. They see it as part of the overall entertainment value. It would be a lot easier and less expensive for us, and a lot more fun for the real basketball fan, to do what you want, but that's not what our research tells us people want. In this vein, I am very concerned about where our ticket prices have ended up. I don't want us to price the average fan out. We're really trying to do something about that this year. You cite marketing research. But I don't know anyone who doesn't complain about the noise and isn't thinking about, or using, ear plugs. Was your research of season-ticket
holders? You're not our demographic. And your friends can't possibly be representative. We typically have more than 20,000 people in the arena, and no two are alike. You can't please them all. The music is just not going to please everyone. The stuff we do is liked by younger fans, women and kids. That's what our research shows. Me, I just tune it out. The older season-ticket holders may not like it. I know the older you get, the less you like the noise. I mean, my 11-year-old loves it. But we have people whose job it is to make these decisions about entertainment value, and I don't think what we do is much different than what you'll find in other NBA and sports arenas. The main point I'd make is that we still want it to be a basketball game with ancillary entertainment, not the other way around. |
