As interim GM, Chad Buchanan might become the guy to bring some sense to the Blazers' front office. Photo courtesy of Oregonlive.

Training camp starts Friday, preseason is two weeks away. You know what that means? More press conferences. This time it wasn’t just Larry Miller flying solo in the face of the Portland media who no doubt is already over Cliff Harris, isn’t nearly as stoked about the Rose Bowl as they were about the National Championship game, and have a lot of important questions.

OK, let me rephrase that. They’ve got ONE important questions, and a lot of other, not so important questions. Flanked by Interim General Manager Chad Buchanan and Head Coach Nate McMillan, Miller confirmed one more time that yes, Brandon Roy would be in camp on Friday, and that no they didn’t have any immediate plans to use the new CBA’s Amnesty Clause on the face of their franchise. And then Buchanan concurred, and then Nate concurred, and then Miller concurred again, and then Nate concurred on Larry’s concurrence, ad nauseaum.

Of course they did give themselves an out, saying that what needs to happen now is for Brandon to play, and they’ll make a decision depending on how that goes. But for those of you that remember a presser at the end of last season when Nate talked about the future of the team and Brandon’s name never came up, one of the overriding sentiments from Monday’s press conference was that Brandon is for now a major part of the team, and will be for the foreseeable future.

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The Portland Trail Blazers have extended the contracts of Michael Born, Director of NBA Scouting, and Chad Buchanan, Director of College Scouting, it was announced today by General Manager Kevin Pritchard.

“Both Mike and Chad have done a tremendous job for us in their six years here,” said Pritchard. “They’re tireless workers who sleep, eat and drink basketball and have played a huge role in our success.”

Good for both of them. As for what this means for Pritchard, I couldn’t tell you. We knew the Blazers were trying to get their scouts locked up, and it’s been speculated that they wanted to do this to prevent Pritchard from taking them elsewhere. But by all accounts, these were well earned, and necessary extensions.