<table> </table> In many ways, it seems appropriate that the first NBA game at the Sprint Center involves Kevin Pritchard.</p><p>He won an NCAA championship with Kansas at Kemper Arena, not far from Kansas City&#8217;s shiny new facility. His coaching and front-office career in pro basketball began here, too.</p><p>From 2000 to the present, Pritchard has gone from coach of the ABA&#8217;s Kansas City Knights to a scout with the San Antonio Spurs to several positions with the Portland Trail Blazers: player personnel director, assistant general manager, interim head coach and, finally, general manager.</p><p>Pritchard returns to Kansas City on Friday night in his second year running the Trail Blazers, one of the most exciting young teams in the NBA. When his team takes on the Atlanta Hawks in an exhibition game, Pritchard has every right to lean back in a Sprint Center seat and feel satisfied by what he&#8217;s accomplished this decade.</p><p>But Pritchard didn&#8217;t get this far by sitting back.</p><p>The things he learned leading a minor-league team that struggled at times to draw 1,000 fans and get attention has propelled Pritchard to being a major decision-maker for an NBA team on the rise.</p><p>University of San Francisco coach Rex Walters, who is also a former Jayhawk and played for Pritchard in the Knights&#8217; first two seasons, isn&#8217;t surprised by the rapid climb.</p><p>&#8220;I also got a chance to briefly work for him with the Knights, and I was very impressed with him,&#8221; Walters said. &#8220;He&#8217;s a very good people person. He&#8217;s a good evaluator of talent. He was always working the phone, doing background checks on players.</p><p>&#8220;I knew one day he would be a great Division I basketball coach or work his way up in the NBA. With his intelligence, personal skills and work ethic, it was only a matter of time for him to be very successful.&#8221;</p><p>Pritchard will watch Friday&#8217;s game at the Sprint Center, possibly getting a look at how center Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft who missed last season with a knee injury, blends in with a talented young nucleus that includes guard Brandon Roy and forward LaMarcus Aldridge.</p><p>There might be a few distractions for Pritchard. Of course, some friends will call for tickets and just be happy to talk to him.</p><p>&#8220;Kansas City is where I started my career, and we won a championship there,&#8221; Pritchard said. &#8220;I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing all the people I haven&#8217;t seen in a while.&#8221;</p><p>So much more has changed for Pritchard in the eight years since he began his coaching career in the summer of 2000 for the Knights in the newly reformed ABA.</p><p>The Knights&#8217; first office was on one of the lower floors inside Municipal Auditorium. Even then, when his intentions were to work his way up the coaching ranks, Pritchard was already thinking like a general manager. The board in his office was always filled with players he was interested in and how they would fit on the team.</p><p>&#8220;I loved coaching,&#8221; Pritchard said. &#8220;It was really fun. But when I was putting teams together, I found myself enjoying that just as much.&#8221;</p><p>The Knights changed owners in the second season, and the combination of Pritchard and owner Jim Clark led the Knights to a 35-5 record and the 2001-02 ABA title.</p><p>For one of the playoff games in Las Vegas, R.C. Buford, the general manager of the San Antonio Spurs, was in the stands to support Pritchard. Buford was an assistant coach at KU during Pritchard&#8217;s first two seasons.</p><p>It&#8217;s a relationship that proved to be very beneficial when the ABA went through major struggles and had to shut down operations for a year. Pritchard stuck around that season, trying to find sponsorships and other avenues to make the league successful.