Shams: Blazers investigating Olshey for misconduct

[bbalnation]

If anyone thinks these claims are dubious, go watch any of his press conferences. The guy is a raging narcissist, I'm surprised it took this long but at least this way they won't have to pay him when he gets sacked.

I dont think anyone is even denying these claims are legit. But being a raging narcissist isn't grounds for being fired for workplace misconduct.

I guess Im the only one that thinks this is pretty obvious what this is. Olshey sucks at his job, Portland's ownership group has come to the conclusion that Olshey sucks at his job. My guess is Olshey's salary is in the millions per year range. Portland's ownership group most likely is looking for a way to fire him where they wont still have to pay him after they fire him. Terminating his contract because of "workplace misconduct" is probably one way to do that.

We haven't even heard the allegations yet and youre already speculating as to why the ownership group has reason to terminate him?

And youre not even doing it adequate service. This news came a day or two after Robert Sarver story. Perhaps the person (or people) went to the ownership group at that point, perhaps the ownership group saw a potential PR disaster eap with the Billups thing last summer, or perhaps your theory stands out.

But... come on man. Let's hear what happened first before giving context like "the ownership group is most likely looking for a way to fire him". What? Thats the conclusion you come to hours after workplace misconduct for an organization in this context after this Sarver thing?????

Edit: this is by far one of the worse and most difficult ways for an owner to fire or terminate a GM (esp a female owner). There are easier ways to do it, esp for Neil, where there are basketball reasons.

[Sedale Threatt]

No but Im talking about reality though.

Yeah, and we should fix that, in part by holding (alleged) pricks like this accountable. Again, you don't have to behave like this. There are tons and tons of people who work in high-pressure, high-consequence fields, and to think that everybody abuses their employees is absolutely absurd. People made the same excuses for Jordan being a borderline sociopath. "He was just trying to win, hold his teammates accountable, blah blah blah." Sure, that's one way to do it. And then you have guys like Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan and Stephen Curry who somehow managed to win a ton without being complete jerkoffs.

Hell, I work in a small department in one of the largest media companies in the country, and by default the world. (Huge contracts with the NBA, NCAA, MLB, etc etc etc.) We are way, way down on the totem pole in the grand scheme of what we do. But when we F up, we definitely hear about it, and if we F'd up enough it would have really damaging impacts on our overall business. My boss is absolutely willing to call you on the carpet when you screw up. He also doesn't make it hell on earth to come into work. I've had that before, with much smaller stakes, and again, it f'ing sucks.

So it doesn't have anything to do with expectations, or pressure, or how much your business makes, or anything like that. If you're abusing your employees, it's because that's how you are choosing to treat people who work for you, and that's wrong.

I honestly dont have a problem if he is a prick or a narcissist. And as of right now, Im not seeing any kind of examples of behavior that I think crosses the line. So far the examples are

a media person wrote a negative article about him and he didnt like it. The media person asked him what was incorrect in the story and Olshey's reply was "F you".

A basketball operations staff member tried to circumvent Olshey and found out and cussed him out and said if he did it again he would never work in the league again.

These arent crazy examples to me. Wow he doesnt like the media. Someone under him tried to go around him and was caught and got chewed out. These arent extreme examples to me.

Yes, this is abundantly clear, and it's completely mind-boggling to me. Like I said, it's like some of you actually want to be treated like garbage. This is an independent investigation and if those are found to be isolated incidents not representative of how he operates on the regular, then sure. Everybody has bad days and loses their cool. Sh*t happens. If it is a pattern, however, I cannot even remotely fathom anybody being willing to tolerate or make excuses for that. Have some self respect and higher expectations for how you should be treated.

[monopoman]

There is no way the most severe this has been is him telling one reporter to **** off. No one gets fired for telling one random reporter to **** off.

I want to hear from those that are around him most of the day, his closest employees. They are the ones who will have the most information on what working for him is like.

[Moonbeam]

They only seen to go after the incompetent ones

Neil Olshey wasn't viewed as an incompetent GM until this year

That's not entirely true. There have been many Blazers fans who have been calling for his exit since the disastrous 2016 offseason. Olshey is a snake oil salesman, and I've never felt more uncomfortable rooting for Portland's success than I have over the past few seasons.

[Sedale Threatt]

There is no way the most severe this has been is him telling one reporter to **** off. No one gets fired for telling one random reporter to **** off.

I want to hear from those that are around him most of the day, his closest employees. They are the ones who will have the most information on what working for him is like.

Yeah, I didn't even flinch over that. I was a newspaper reporter for 20 years and, while I certainly appreciated it, nobody's under any obligation to be cool with you. Popovich was a dick to us every other session and that's just the way it goes. Employees and colleagues are a completely different galaxy.

[Synciere]

At least with Sarver the allegations were clear. This is too vague right now.

When Aaron Rodgers got caught in his vaccination lie someone said there are a bunch of players hoping this blows over quickly and should be worried. The timing of this makes it seem like teams are reviewing their executives’ behaviors to get out in front of any scandals.

[Synciere]

If you look deep enough, everyone has something they can be fired over. Literally everyone. This is heading down a dangerous path

You really believe every executive and owner in the league has a fireable incident their file somewhere? That’s disheartening.

[DusterBuster]

At least with Sarver the allegations were clear. This is too vague right now.

When Aaron Rodgers got caught in his vaccination lie someone said there are a bunch of players hoping this blows over quickly and should be worried. The timing of this makes it seem like teams are reviewing their executives’ behaviors to get out in front of any scandals.

The Oregonian is out with an article with very explicit details of his actions toward media members. So it’s not THAT vague. It’s not as scandalous as Sarver… nothing masochistic or racist (yet), just general a-holery.

I think you’re right tho, teams are wanting to get out ahead of these problems. I also think there may be a bit of the team wanting to move on from Olshey and maybe not want to have to pay him… he crapped the bed this off-season with moves, had a pretty disastrous coaching search and generally just mismanaged things as poorly as possible in a pretty crucial off-season. They’re already paying Stotts to not work for them, doubt they want to do that with Olshey when they have an off ramp to get rid of him and void his contract.

Could get ugly, but if it means a new vision for this stale version of the Blazers, I’m all for it.

[DusterBuster]

There is no way the most severe this has been is him telling one reporter to **** off. No one gets fired for telling one random reporter to **** off.

I want to hear from those that are around him most of the day, his closest employees. They are the ones who will have the most information on what working for him is like.

Agreed, but I think it’s a good glimpse into his personality. Isaac Ropp of 1080 The Fan had a similar experiences with Olshey, so it’s not like this was some one-off of him having a bad day, I’m fairly confident this is kinda who he is.

I’ve never really understood why he’s stayed as long as he has. By all reports, he’s hated Portland ever since he took the job. He and his family doesn’t like the city and has apparently made no problem of telling people around him of that fact.

[Cactus Jack]

There is no way the most severe this has been is him telling one reporter to **** off. No one gets fired for telling one random reporter to **** off.

I want to hear from those that are around him most of the day, his closest employees. They are the ones who will have the most information on what working for him is like.

Agreed, but I think it’s a good glimpse into his personality. Isaac Ropp of 1080 The Fan had a similar experiences with Olshey, so it’s not like this was some one-off of him having a bad day, I’m fairly confident this is kinda who he is.

I’ve never really understood why he’s stayed as long as he has. By all reports, he’s hated Portland ever since he took the job. He and his family doesn’t like the city and has apparently made no problem of telling people around him of that fact.

So he's not a fan of the weather? Understandable.

I don't know his background. But didn't he work in L.A. before he got the job?

[DusterBuster]

There is no way the most severe this has been is him telling one reporter to **** off. No one gets fired for telling one random reporter to **** off.

I want to hear from those that are around him most of the day, his closest employees. They are the ones who will have the most information on what working for him is like.

Agreed, but I think it’s a good glimpse into his personality. Isaac Ropp of 1080 The Fan had a similar experiences with Olshey, so it’s not like this was some one-off of him having a bad day, I’m fairly confident this is kinda who he is.

I’ve never really understood why he’s stayed as long as he has. By all reports, he’s hated Portland ever since he took the job. He and his family doesn’t like the city and has apparently made no problem of telling people around him of that fact.

So he's not a fan of the weather?

Weather and the city as a whole from what we’ve heard (truth be told, I can’t blame him). He’s an LA guy thru and thru. Wants a bigger city, bigger money contacts and better weather.

To your edit, yes, I think he was born and raised LA. He was on a soap opera before he even got into basketball for gods sake

[Cactus Jack]

Agreed, but I think it’s a good glimpse into his personality. Isaac Ropp of 1080 The Fan had a similar experiences with Olshey, so it’s not like this was some one-off of him having a bad day, I’m fairly confident this is kinda who he is.

I’ve never really understood why he’s stayed as long as he has. By all reports, he’s hated Portland ever since he took the job. He and his family doesn’t like the city and has apparently made no problem of telling people around him of that fact.

So he's not a fan of the weather?

Weather and the city as a whole from what we’ve heard (truth be told, I can’t blame him). He’s an LA guy thru and thru. Wants a bigger city, bigger money contacts and better weather.

To your edit, yes, I think he was born and raised LA. He was on a soap opera before he even got into basketball for gods sake

So then why did he take the job? Odd.

[J_T]

Is it really that hard to keep your hands, mouth, and junk to yourself while at work?

He hasn't been accused of that yet. The accusations in the articles are that he was an ****, created a toxic work environment, and ran employees off by being ****:

Trail Blazers staff members have allegedly been "subjected to intimidation and profanity-laced tirades, among other bullying tactics" under Olshey, according to Haynes. Multiple employees have reportedly taken issue with Olshey's treatment of staffers.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/neil-olshey-allegations-trail-blazers-investigation/f5xglb34fco71qr73pqxtqnie

Which is like of course still grounds to lose your job

You are not serious. How is that enough to fire somebody? If that's true, at least 80% of RealGM posters would be unemployed. Oh wait... well, maybe you are right.

[DusterBuster]

So he's not a fan of the weather?

Weather and the city as a whole from what we’ve heard (truth be told, I can’t blame him). He’s an LA guy thru and thru. Wants a bigger city, bigger money contacts and better weather.

To your edit, yes, I think he was born and raised LA. He was on a soap opera before he even got into basketball for gods sake

So then why did he take the job? Odd.

I think… if I remember the timing right… he was jumping ship before all the stuff with Donald Sterling went down. Sterling - notorious racist and cheapskate that he was - never had a full time GM. Olshey was basically their GM but without the title so Sarver didn’t have to pay him as much money. In fact, I don’t think he had a contract with the Clippers, he was just year to year. Once it was getting clear that Sterling was going down and Paul Allen opened his checkbook with a shiny title he wanted, it was worth it even if it was a job in a city he didn’t want to be in.

[monopoman]

Yeah Olshey took this job in Portland for a more secure working environment, more money, and an owner who was known as one of the richest in the league that would spend on the right team without question.

Outside of living in Portland this job had everything he wanted.

He also might have viewed Portland as a stepping stone to a bigger franchise later, that maybe the Lakers or something would come calling someday. Plenty take a job in a city they aren't as happy in just because it can help their career down the line.

[Slurpin]

Dame has his excuse to get out now

[JRoy]

One more reason to can Olshey, not that we needed one.

[Adopt_Me_Masai]

I mean if there's evidence so be it. My concern is this stuff is happening without a lot of evidence. That's all.

Well, I mean that's the point of the investigation. There's been a fairly serious allegation made, there will be an investigation and evidence either will be found or won't be found. My criticism more is that this investigation is now public, because there's still reputational harm to Olshey even in the event the allegations are not substantiated.

Having said that, I highly doubt Portland would go public with a hot button investigation (and one that could embarrass the franchise itself and not just Olshey) if the allegations weren't damning/extremely credible. But will wait before I pre-judge, but just my hunch.

[DusterBuster]

I mean if there's evidence so be it. My concern is this stuff is happening without a lot of evidence. That's all.

Well, I mean that's the point of the investigation. There's been a fairly serious allegation made, there will be an investigation and evidence either will be found or won't be found. My criticism more is that this investigation is now public, because there's still reputational harm to Olshey even in the event the allegations are not substantiated.

Having said that, I highly doubt Portland would go public with a hot button investigation (and one that could embarrass the franchise itself and not just Olshey) if the allegations weren't damning/extremely credible. But will wait before I pre-judge, but just my hunch.

This is fair, however, the fact Olshey is kinda a self absorbed controlling egomaniac ahole is not really new news around here. It’s been a fairly well known quiet fact in the area by those who follow the team. Hell, it’s been a running joke on one of the most popular mid-day sports radio shows in the area for like half a decade now.

[azcatz11]

If you look deep enough, everyone has something they can be fired over. Literally everyone. This is heading down a dangerous path

You really believe every executive and owner in the league has a fireable incident their file somewhere? That’s disheartening.

Absolutely. If you look hard enough at anyone something is going to come from it. I'm sure Riley or Masai have cursed someone out and made them want to cry. Calling that a toxic workplace is just stupid