Sources close to me have confirmed that former Nike executive and Professional Bowlers Association CEO Steve Miller has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Portland Trail Blazers President job. Miller notified Vulcan Sports and Entertainment President Tod Leiweke late today.

Miller had been targeted for the team President position by the search committee, which includes Leiweke, Portland Trail Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard and Portland Trail Blazers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Mike Golub.

Miller, is currently a faculty member at the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon and he retired from Nike as director of global sports marketing relations in September 2000, after nine years with the company.

Miller reportedly grew increasingly frustrated with the process for hiring a new Trail Blazers President and he privately wondered if politics and micromanagement would restrict his level of autonomy if he took the President job.

As I wrote last week, Miller was asking for a certain level of autonomy and had certain items he wanted before agreeing to accept the President job. Ultimately, Miller didn't get what he needed in order to take the position.

This is definitely a setback in the team's search for a President in my opinion. Miller would have been a terrific person for the job and has just the engaging personality and skill set required to lead the Trail Blazers business side.

Here's the problem though. The Vulcans (Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen's investment company in Seattle) are complicating this process and are turning off candidates with their indecision and arrogance. Listen, the best and the brightest like Steve Miller don't NEED jobs. You've got to recruit them and convince them why they should join your organization. And make no mistake, this hire is the KEY hire for the Trail Blazers organization this summer.

The business operations for the Trail Blazers are improving under the leadership of Tod Leiweke and Mike Golub, but they still have a long way to go before getting back to the levels the team enjoyed a decade ago. With Allen reacquiring the Rose Garden again and the valuable land he owns around the Rose Quarter continuing to grow weeds, he needs a President who is well versed on a number of different levels. This type of person won't just drop on his lap. He needs to go out and find the best and the brightest.

If you look at the last two Presidents the Trail Blazers have had - Harry Hutt and Steve Patterson - both were thrilled to have the opportunity to come to Portland and lead the Trail Blazers. Hutt and Patterson also agreed to put up with the politics and micromanagment from Seattle as part of accepting the job. The RIGHT person for this job is not going to make the mistake that Hutt and Patterson did. He or she will demand a certain level of autonomy and if they don't get it, they'll move on down the road - just as Steve Miller did today.

So now what? Even though the NBA tells me that Scott O'Neil, currently the NBA's senior vice president of team marketing and business operations is "no longer a candidate", maybe now that the Trail Blazers didn't get their number one target, O'Neil quietly re-enters the conversation. I'm not sure. The other name that was mentioned to me today by a source was Larry Miller, who is the former President of the Jordan (as in Michael) Brand and is the new VP and GM of Basketball for Nike. Larry Miller was just promoted, so I'm not sure why he would leave his current position to take the Trail Blazers job. I'd actually be surprised if he was interested in the Trail Blazers job. Beyond those two, I honestly don't know who else the Vulcans and Trail Blazers are looking at for this job. Maybe Leiweke reconsiders taking the job in the interim until they find the RIGHT person, or maybe they hand the reigns to the more than capable Mike Golub for next season.

All I know is that they they'll need to do a better job recruiting the new President than they did with Steve Miller, who from what I am told, just wasn't sold that he'd have the tools he'd need to have to do this job successfully.

Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen has enjoyed some terrific PR as of late for reacquiring the Rose Garden and for naming Kevin Pritchard the GM of the Trail Blazers. One of the factors that will ultimately determine whether or not the Trail Blazers team and business operations turn things around, will be his ability to identify and hire the right President and then just get out of the way and let that person do his or her job (as he has done for the most part with his other team, the Seattle Seahawks).

So far in the search process for a new President for his basketball team, he's not off to a very good start. Let's hope he ultimately gets it right.