. The sixth GM in Trail Blazers history, Nash oversees the day-to-day basketball operations and is responsible for all player personnel decisions.
“We are very pleased to announce that John Nash will continue to be the General Manager of the Trail Blazers organization,” said team President Steve Patterson . “In his role, John is the chief architect of our club. We recognize that this is a very important offseason for our franchise and John gives us the continuity that will help us achieve the vision for our basketball team.
We are excited about the young core of our team and they achieved tremendous growth and gained invaluable experience this past season. As we evaluate every possible opportunity to complement what we have started, I am confident that John’s leadership on the basketball operations side of our organization will allow us to successfully turn our team around.”
While with the Trail Blazers, Nash engineered the trade with Atlanta for Theo Ratliff and Shareef Abdur-Rahim and a draft-night deal with New Jersey that netted Viktor Khryapa. He was instrumental in drafting Sebastian Telfair, Sergei Monia and Ha Seung Jin in 2004, and was also responsible for the free agent signing of center Joel Przybilla, who finished the season as the NBA’s 7th leading shot blocker.
“Under the ownership of Paul Allen and the leadership of President Steve Patterson, I am very confident that we will achieve our organizational goals of assembling a winning franchise and putting a team on the floor that the people of Portland can be proud of each and every night,” said Nash. “I am excited to finish what we have started the past two seasons and we will explore every opportunity to return the Trail Blazers to the playoffs.”
Before coming to Portland in 2003, Nash served as a color analyst for Comcast sports for two years. Prior to his stint at Comcast, Nash spent 15 years as a general manager in the NBA. During his almost two decades in the front office, Nash garnered a reputation as a knowledgeable and trusted talent evaluator when acquiring players. Nash most recently held the general manager post for the New Jersey Nets from 1996 - 2001. During that time he made four major multi-player trades and also added power forward Kenyon Martin in an attempt to bolster the Nets roster.
Prior to the Nets, Nash spent six seasons with the Washington Bullets/Wizards. Nash showed why he is well regarded as a talent evaluator in the league by plucking future NBA All-Stars Juwan Howard, Rasheed Wallace, Calbert Cheaney and Tom Gugliotta from the NBA draft and trading for Chris Webber and Hersey Hawkins. Nash got his start as a GM during a nine-year stint with the Philadelphia 76ers that was highlighted by a World Championship in 1983.
**** The Crying Game
Neil Jordan's story of an IRA terrorist
(Stephen Rea) is a remarkably well-written
piece of work that at first seems to follow its
protagonist in aimless yet intriguing direc-
tions, but eventually reveals itself to be a per-
fectly structured look at violence, race, love,
and sexuality. Rea is ordered to guard a kid-
napped British officer (Forest Whitaker), but
he begins to care for the hostage and later
flees to London, where he meets the officer's
girlfriend (Jaye Davidson). The two halves of
the film, which contain some completely
unpredictable plot twists, become mirrors of
one another, reflecting how understanding and
compassion may be a means of salvation.
-CR. Loews Harvard Square
