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It seems like just a year ago in this very space we debated the positives and negatives of the vacant Portland Trail Blazers’ general manager job and how the position is treated by the organization. Oh wait, we did.

One year later, with Rich Cho out of the picture, there is a lot of talk that being the general manager of the NBA’s richest owner may not be all it’s cracked up to be. The question for prospective candidates now becomes this: Is the GM title worth it?

Every general manager has to deal with all sorts of things on a daily basis, including the media, player agents, coaches, upper brass, and ownership. Is it really that much different in Portland? To answer that question, let’s look at why Kevin Pritchard and Rich Cho were let go by owner Paul Allen.

Pritchard, supposedly, became too much of a public figure. As the story goes he took credit for decisions that were made by consensus and repeatedly used “I” and “my” in conversations with the media about such decisions. There was a big riff that developed during the negotiations of Brandon Roy’s contract extension back in the summer of 2009; ownership wanted to give Roy his max contract while Pritchard wanted to play hardball. At the time the damage to Roy’s knees wasn’t publicly known, but the Blazers’ brass knew and how to approach the negotiations with that knowledge damaged the relationship with Pritchard.

With Cho it was a little different. Because of the experience with Pritchard the Blazers went to a personality on the opposite end of the spectrum. Cho came from the new wave of basketball minds steeped in analytics, which they thought they wanted. The problem that seemed to develop over the course of 10 months is Cho spoke a different language than the rest of the brass. He didn’t use his knowledge and expertise in numbers to create a vision in basketball terms everyone could get behind. His personality may have not been forceful enough or he just didn’t do a good job of advocating the whys and hows of his plans in the right language the non-numbers members of the inner circle could understand.

All this says is Portland may want to spend some time looking for a candidate to replace Cho who can fill many holes. They will need to be able to use numbers to come up with ideas and plans that can be discussed in basketball terms. They will need an understanding that transactions cannot be made regardless of chemistry impacts just because the numbers look good.

In short, as in many things, the answer for the Trail Blazers is finding a candidate who fits the middle ground.

Much has been made of this “inner circle” of Paul Allen’s. Does it exist? In some form it does. Bert Kolde has been on the inside with Allen for a long time, with some even calling him the “de facto” GM, despite his current title of “Director of the Board.” He has Allen’s ear. By all indications, so does President Larry Miller. The general manager should be part of that group, and if he’s not that’s a problem, even if it because of some kind of communication gap.

{AUTHOR_BOX}But guess what – all teams have an “inner circle.” General manager have the limited abilities to make decisions on their own and most all decisions a team makes come as the result of consensus. A GM’s job is to do research and bring the inner circle options.

Is the inner circle just the owner on some teams? Or just the owner and president? Sure it is. Allen having another confidante in the mix doesn’t make Portland’s situation better or worse, just different. It does not mean prospective candidates are crossing Portland off their lists; otherwise people like Randy Pfund and Danny Ferry – who have had some success as NBA GMs – wouldn’t be interested in hearing more about the job. Someone trying to break into the GM biz like Terry Porter wouldn’t be pleased to hear their name thrown in to the ring.

There’s still a lot to like about being the general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers. Unless the team the next collective bargaining agreement comes with a hard cap, a new GM will know they have an owner willing to spend whatever is necessary to build a winner. They know they will never have to worry about good young talents leaving because they were made a better offer somewhere else. They know ownership will buy additional draft picks if necessary. They know ownership will spend the money needed on scouting to find a diamond in the draft. They know ownership has a long history in this league and knows what it takes to build a winner.

And now they also know, courtesy of the examples of Pritchard and Cho, which the upper levels of the team expect. They expect a GM to present themselves publicly with modesty, to share credit when necessary (though, probably, to also accept failures – part of the job title). They expect a clear vision, clear goals, and a strategy to reach those goals that can be clearly communicated and understood by all members of the group. They expect ideas – and alternatives – to be shared by the GM and the GM to accept suggestions, and they expect lively debate about ideas on both sides to be accepted.

When you think about it, that’s not altogether different than many other types of business relationships. The opening is for one spot in a team of decision makers, and all teams have different group dynamics. No one will be going into an interview for this job with any delusions of how much power they will or won’t have – the writing on the wall has already made that pretty clear.

General Manager of the Portland Trail Blazers is still one of only 30 such roles in the NBA. It still pays very well. It may not appeal to every possible candidate, but the ones who don’t find it the right fit wouldn’t work out well for Portland anyway.

Is the Portland GM job still desirable? Leave your thoughts in the comments below! Follow Jason Fleming on Twitter and hit him up during his weekly chat, Mondays at 8pm Eastern.