I've seen it all. You guys hate the franchise so much now you are believing Charles Barkley. There's another part of this story. "yeah, we just gonna give you 8 million", is a weird way to end a story. Wasn't Barkley hurt his last year in Houston?
He's just a(n) ... ex basketball player who talks a lot and has been proven over and over to say incredibly stupid things ... with great inconsistency.[/QUOTE]
yeah, I'm sure their explanation is a little more nuanced then that. Perhaps the $12M in their eyes wasn't as guaranteed as Barkley thought, or perhaps there were mitigating circumstances that they explained to him that caused them to renege on the deal. I wonder if the Rockets could still get punished if they admit there was an under the table deal. I really wish I could hear their take on it.
Yeah... the numbers floated by Barkley has now been $5,000,0000.....$3,000,000.... and $4,000,000. If the Rockets were really concerned about getting in trouble, I doubt their owner would have complained directly to the commissioner last year over all the negativity by Barkley against the organization, which resulted in a televised Barkley apology. Also, the idea that the only time Barkley was out of shape was his final season is absurd. Hell, he purposely made himself fat in an attempt to prevent the Sixers from drafting him because they had less money. Barkley played hard most of the time on the court, sometimes very hard. However he always tried to take shortcuts off the court and sometimes on the court and it made a difference. Barkley is a hall of famer and one of my favorite players to watch, an amazing player.... and the Rockets may have lied to him to some degree, but there is probably more to the story than what he is saying.
Interesting. That play where Stockton beat us in the playoffs with a buzzard beater, it looked like Barkley purposely left him. I always felt weird every time I watched that play. Could Barkley had been throwing games?
I'd ask what our cap situation was going into that year.... I could see something being said the year before like 'we need you to take a paycut so we can sign Scottie, but next year we'll pay you whatever cap room we have left - which could be as much as 12M...' just speaking hypothetically... but sounds more plausible than the Rox just saying screw you we're not paying you - and then he still signs the contract... I gotta believe there's some nuance that Charles is glossing over... what was his market value at the time?
Why did he sign the contract if it was for [insert whatever amount Barkley is claiming now] less than what he expected?
I wish i could see Horry, Cassell Rockets jerseys hanging in our rafters. Chucky Brown and Mark Bryant were also nice role players to have. We would have been better off keeping Hakeem/Horry/Elie/Drexler/Cassell starting lineup and adding better bench players so Hakeem and Drexler didn't have to play 38-40 minutes every night. Cassell could have had higher usage and been a 20 and 10 pg for us for many years going toe to toe with Stockton and Payton.
same owner and organization... if you have a beef with Cuban, yer gonna hate the Mavs - regardless of what players come and go...
I'm using basketball reference to help me get this straight. So Barkley agreed to be paid $1m so that Pippen could be brought on for $11m. (98-99) But Barkley surmises that he was promised he would get a $12m paycheck the following year if he did that. Basketball reference show it as $9m for him the next year. (99-00) While Barkley is getting $1m that 98-99 season, we have Brent Price getting $2.24m that year, more than double Barkley. Brent Price. We had Michael Dickerson making $949,600. Michael who? Barkley is getting Michael Dickerson money. Hall of Famer Charles Chuck Barkley. Also this was the time when the NBA started really paying these legends of the game towards the end of their career. This was HOFers chance to see half of the type of money scrub forgettables now get paid. This was right around the time Jordan got that 1 year $33m (97-98). So the next year they pay Barkley $9m. I guess it was that instead of the allegedly promised $12m so that they could have some extra to pay Kelvin Cato $1.3m and Matt Maloney $2.1m. I can see why Barkley would be still be pissed.
He was not exactly in a position to get $12 million somewhere else, it was likely he was going to get $9 million with Houston or less somewhere else. The problem with back room, wink wink deals is, they are nearly impossible to enforce. He was relying on Les to do what he said he would do, and had no recourse when it didn't happen.
If he got paid 9M and he's sayin he got 8M... that already makes me question his account... again, it sounds like he's glossing over something... like we agreed to pay him whatever caproom we had left... he ASSUMED that Scottie's 11M would be available - without taking into account other signings...
For perspective, Charles Oakley was paid 5.4m more than Charles Barkley in that span of 2 seasons, 98-00. I don't think he ASSUMED anything. He was trying to chase a ring and trusted assurances that obviously meant to take advantage of his desire to win....which is dirty as hell, to exploit a man's desire to win a 'ship not only for himself but for your team. And to throw salt on the wound, Pippen came here not giving af, coasting, illegal handgun holdin', DUI'ng, demanding to be traded.
Then he shouldn't have agreed to any 'wink wink' deal. And, of course, we are only getting his side of the story. Barkley has never been one to shy away from controversy or a good story. We are only hearing what Barkley claims Alexander said he was going to do. I have my doubts that Alexander said "We will definitely, positively, absolutely give you 12 million next season if you sign for 1 million this season", probably more like (if anything), "you take care of us, we'll take care of you" which Barkley assumed meant 12 million dollars.
Also, why would Barkley say this: "Les Alexander treated me great when I was in Houston. So I just want to apologize to those three guys." Out of all the Rockets' current personnel, Alexander is far and away the most culpable in the contract issue.
Barkley brought a lot of media attention the Rockets when he joined, our appearances on national tv seemed like it doubled. What Barkley did, sign for $1 mill so we get Pippen, was the most selfless act in Rockets history. Would other big players we got do that? Harden? McGrady? Francis?
