Blazers announce their new owner, Bert Kolde

[DusterBuster]

Tongue in cheek title aside, the truth everyone quietly knew came to pretty clear light with the post-season conferences. While Jodie might be the "owner", all decisions at this point on the basketball side are Bert and Bert's only. He's doing the media interviews a "owner" would be doing. Jodie is leaving all decisions to Bert and is his blank check.

With Paul's passing and Bert's history with the team, this should come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone who's followed the Blazers for the past 30+ years since Paul bought the team.

Not really sure what there is to discuss in this thread, but yeah... buckle in Blazer fans. Anyone waiting for that mythical day Jodie sells the team should just give up on it. All the media members pining for this should just give it up. They aren't here waiting for the expansion to sell at the highest price. Jodie, probably out of respect for her brother, is keeping this team and letting his best friend who was by his side from the beginning, run the team. Looking at the situation objectively and with history in mind should be able to see that there is no plans to sell this team anytime soon. Jodie doesn't care and wants to honor her brothers vision and love for the TrailBlazers, Bert was his right hand man throughout it all. Cronin confirmed Bert has weekly meetings with the team to provide his "thoughts" for everything about the roster of the team.

For those who know the history of the Blazers, having Bert essentially now being Paul's replacement is not good.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Yup. Jody isn't a basketball expert and kept the same folks around that worked with Paul presuming that they know what they are doing. Pretty evident, and there are worse owners to have than one that pays the bills and gets out of the way (there are also much better owners FWIW, Jody needs to sell to someone with a competitive spirit in them).

Problem is, Bert and Vulcan are money managers. They care more about a steady stream of profits than competitive basketball. It's why we keep going with this two timelines junk. They want to sell the team being a playoff team and they want to sell the team being young and having potential. They want to sell sell sell anything they can. Have their cake and eat it too. They aren't interested in the lean times and lower profits and fewer fans at games that go hand in hand with a real rebuild. Treadmilling and steady profits are better for their management firm year in/year out reports.

The only person who can stand up to the money managers and bean counters is an owner willing to take on tough times. But I doubt that is the advice she is being given by the people with a vested interest in avoiding that situation. And I certainly am not ruling out that steady profits is what she wants as well, maybe that is her marching orders to them.

[PDXKnight]

Bert, from dungeons and dragons master to owning an nba franchise

[Case2012]

Yeah, it was real evident that they weren't going anywhere when the presser immediately shut down when asked about a sale.

Interesting take about Jody respecting PA's wishes by letting his buddy run his team into the dirt while never being willing to put a real team around Dame or spend a dime of luxury tax.

Pretty sure he wanted the team sold for charity. I have no idea how much Jody pays herself as executer of her late brothers estate, but it's probably hundreds of millions of dollars- a year. I think that has more to do with it than letting some jack ass play fantasy sports with a real team.

It's as clear as my pearl apartment view of Mt.Hood that that Joe is a little ***** yes man with no plan, because Bert is calling the shots. If it wasn't for Nico Vulture Face Harrison, he would be the worst GM in the league. You could argue Joe is actually worse since Nico got them to the finals last year.

I can't really blame Joe, he's got a good job and he's paid well to be the little ***** he is, so good for him i guess.

[mighty_duck]

We're in one of the worst possible situations - ownership-wise.
Jody collect ~100 million a year as long as she holds on to the team. She doesn't gain any benefit if the team does well.
She gets nothing if the teams gets sold.

That leaves her unmotivated to do anything that will rock the boat, or ever seriously entertain selling.
And it goes completely against the wishes of her brother. The NBA board should really step in here.

[JasonStern]

Eh. Uncle Phil and that Dodgers owner would have been fun. But at least we know what we have. And we've drafted decently. Problem is, even if the Blazers got a contending core together, I doubt that they'd pay the luxury tax to keep it together. If they weren't willing to for Dame/Mathews/Batum/Aldridge/Lopez, why would they for some Scoot/Sharpe/Deni/???/Clingan team? Especially when the ??? part needs to be a player good enough to get paid.

[PDXKnight]

We're in one of the worst possible situations - ownership-wise.
Jody collect ~100 million a year as long as she holds on to the team. She doesn't gain any benefit if the team does well.
She gets nothing if the teams gets sold.

That leaves her unmotivated to do anything that will rock the boat, or ever seriously entertain selling.
And it goes completely against the wishes of her brother. The NBA board should really step in here.

Add to that the fact that Jody Allen is allegedly not so great of a person with sexual harassment claims coming from 5 of her security guards in the past along with Jody having a habit of collecting body parts from poached animals. Pretty sure if any of those allegations got the attention they deserved the nba would run her out pretty quickly.