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Marc J. Spears: Tonight versus Denver, guard Scoot Henderson became the 1st Trail Blazers rookie with 30 points off the bench in a game since Geoff Petrie in 1970 vs the Warriors. He is the 1st Trail Blazers rookie with multiple 30-point games since Damian Lillard in 2012-13 (5). @ESPNStatsInfo pic.twitter.com/5TxsmojbjQ
The Portland Trail Blazers 50th Anniversary presented by your local Toyota dealers and Spirit Mountain Casino will fittingly tip off the 2019-20 NBA season with a retro-styled preseason game hosted at Veterans Memorial Coliseum – home of the Trail Blazers from 1970-1995 and where fans witnessed the team’s historic 1977 NBA championship. The Trail Blazers will face the Denver Nuggets on October 8, with game activations mirroring that of a game from the team’s earlier decades. In addition to the throwback game elements, the team will wear their new Classic Edition uniforms and play on the new 50th Anniversary court for the first time – both of which will be key features throughout the rest of the season. Celebrating the start of the 50th season and reminiscing on the start of the franchise, members of the original 1970-71 team including Geoff Petrie, Rolland Todd, Jim Barnett, Shaler Halimon and Bill Schonely will be in attendance to honor Portland’s first team and ambassadors.
Justin Kubatko: Damian Lillard finishes February with a scoring average of 31.4 points per game, the highest in a month in @Portland Trail Blazers history among players with at least 10 games played. The previous record of 30.4 was held by Geoff Petrie. #RipCity
Musselman, who never established much of a rapport with then-general manager Geoff Petrie, was fired after guiding a modestly talented club to a 33-49 record in 2006-07. With three additional years of salary guaranteed, he returned to the Bay Area and became a hoops version of the stay-at-home dad. Divorced, with shared custody of sons Matthew and Michael, he became a fixture at games, AAU tournaments, school functions, even the dreaded carpool lane. “I failed in Sacramento,” he said bluntly, “for a variety of reasons. That said, sitting out, after being let go, was the best thing to happen because I became a dad again. I always had horrible guilt for missing my kids’ games because I was coaching and traveling all the time. So I got that time back with my boys. I met my wife (Danyelle Sargent). Personally, it was the best three years of my life.”
Ranadive – who initiated the spat early last week by claiming, among other things, that none of the coaches or the general manager wanted to remain with the franchise he purchased from the Maloofs in May 2013 – contacted The Bee late Friday and offered what sounded like a combination act of contrition and concession speech. “I wanted to sincerely apologize to Geoff Petrie and his team,” the owner began, speaking softly. “I meant no disrespect. I have the utmost respect for what they have done for the franchise and what they have accomplished. I fully understand that it’s a huge privilege to own a basketball team, and as chairman of the ownership, the buck stops with me. I accept responsibility for everything. All the mistakes are my mistakes.”
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Petrie and his front office staffers stayed around during the chaotic, time-compressed ownership transition to scout players and help incoming coach Michael Malone work out prospects before the June 27 NBA draft. “When it comes to some of the representations about myself and Keith Smart, and the management group that was there at the time,” Petrie vented to Deadspin, “it was basically, totally untrue. I brought everybody together at different occasions and said, ‘Look, we’re going to be professional here. We’re going to continue to work like we would every other year, and ultimately we will assist any new people that may come in here and try and make them comfortable and get situated.’ ”
Geoff rarely goes off like that and in many points he made, he was spot on. I've talked to many folks who are no longer with the organization since Vivek took over and they all say all the issues start up top with him. Vivek hired Malone and then oversaw him being unfairly (in my opinion) fired. He hired Pete D'Alessandro to be the GM and then brought in Vlade and it wasn't even clear to Pete that Vlade was his boss. Vivek wanted George Karl, even though almost anyone in the league would have told you that was not going to work. So I'm with Petrie on that point.
Petrie wrote that Ranadivé’s interview was a “sophomoric attempt at revisionist history,” and that the “representations regarding Keith Smart, myself, and our professional staff” were in fact “an ugly lie.” Today we had a conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, in which we discussed Ranadivé’s interview, what it was like when he bought the team from Joe and Gavin Maloof, how the Kings became bad during the end of Petrie’s time in charge, and whether he has any interest in getting back into the league.
Do you know how many of those people were retained, or how they were treated, the people below the top people on the basketball side, the people most of us wouldn’t have ever heard of? Geoff Petrie: None of them ever really ... they basically slaughtered a high percentage of them without any discussion or ... a bunch of supplicants came in after Pete was hired, and they basically cleaned house. They kept a few people, but most of them were gone within a year. And the situation with Shareef [Abdur-Rahim] was, who happens to be one of the classiest people you’ll ever run across, was ... really deplorable.
The first I heard of it was in that interview, the situation with Shareef. It was portrayed as a common business disagreement or something, but you’re making it sound like it was more serious than that? Geoff Petrie: The way it came across in the article is like [Ranadivé] came in there and there was nobody there, nobody wanted to be there. Keith Smart wanted to be there! He had a year left on his contract. He didn’t get a discussion or an interview, he got a 90-second phone call in his car that they weren’t going to keep him. How do you arrive at a statement that he didn’t want to be there?
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Is that why you think Vivek said these things? Geoff Petrie: I only had about an 8 or 10 minute little meeting with him. I found him to be a very arrogant and dismissive little chap. He doesn’t seem to understand that he owns it. He was the one that came in with Basketball 3.0, and changing the culture, “I have the smartest guys in the room, they’re four steps ahead of everybody else, I have 80 gigs of data, nobody else has that.” Well, okay, you know?
Sam Amick: Kings addendum that needs to be noted: Vivek Ranadive's characterization of those early days in Sac - the "ghost town" narrative - is just not fair. Geoff Petrie knew he was done, yet made sure front office helped with transition via scouting/sharing intel (with Wayne Cooper at his side). Post ownership-transfer, Petrie even took a 3-day trip to Greece to scout Giannis Antetokounmpo (who he loved) & was preparing for the draft. As for then-coach Keith Smart, he was told very quickly (via phone) that he would be replaced. That part is what it is.
You are in Sacramento and I know Geoff Petrie is still out here somewhere. Have you talked to him and is he going to be here for your big night? He’s the guy who found you and took the gamble on you when everyone thought he should have taken John Wallace. Have you talked to Geoff? Predraj Stojakovic: Actually we did. He called me this morning. Geoff played a big part in my career. I told him this morning that if it wasn’t for his persistence, I would never have come to the NBA. He was so convincing at that time that I should just believe in myself and that I was worth coming to the NBA. Obviously, he’s the one who believed in me and supported me when I needed him the most in my early career. We are definitely going to see each other, if not tomorrow at the game, for lunch or dinner, because we still have a great relationship. Geoff has been in my corner from day one.
That experiment barely lasted 20 months. Petrie had long run one of the most hush-hush organizations in the NBA, priding itself on its unanimity and discretion. But by the 2009 draft — just seven months after Levien was hired — a rift had developed between Petrie and Levien. Worse, from Petrie’s point of view, was that the rift had hit the media, with reports surfacing that Petrie did not want to draft star Spanish guard Ricky Rubio, while other factions in the Sacramento front office (i.e., Levien) did.
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