[Florida Today] Magic GM frustrated with his team's play

I'm glad he has to mess w/ Francis instead of us. Good luck, you Wiseass POS.

 

Tracy McGrady for Steve Francis, Doug Christie and Kelvin Cato.

Well done basketball genius.

 

Grant Hill's ALWAYS been like that.

Frank Johnson would be a great coach for Stevie.

 

No, it's T-Mac + Howard + Barry for Francis, Christie and Cato... boy I am happy!

 

Its easy to sit here in your fantasy world to say he should have gotten a superstar in return, but in the real basketball world he has to take what is available. If Lebron, Kobe, Garnett, or Nowitzki, players of T-Mac's caliber would have been available, I'm sure he would have made the trade. But the fact is he was forced to make a trade, there were no super stars available, so he got a star in return. And if Mobley is an average two, then Howard is a slightly below average four. And he got another starter in Cato, again hardly sexual assault.

 

exactly, it may have been stupid to antagonize tmac and essentially ensure that he left, but at that point, what more can he get in a trade. lebron, kobe, kg, duncan, shaq, and dirk are all untouchable. steve is in the next tier. cuttino is average to above average at sg and cato is a great backup C or semi-decent starting C. and even though he's been nice for us, they got rid of howard's very long running contract (make no mistake, we didn't take howard b/c we really wanted to), and just for kicks, made us take lue and gaines' sorry asses.


so the trade itself was probably about as good as he could get. now gooden for battie? yeah, gooden plays howard's position, was known as a black hole, and not the toughest player, but battie's toughness doesn't make up for the huge age and talent different. christie for mobley was also stupid. he's too full of himself and his ideas and it's costing him. bad for orlando and steve, but nice to see happen to weisbrod.

 

I think Nelson from the Simpsons says it best....ahem: Ha-haaa!

 

IIRC, the Clippers and Suns both had some very nice packages on the table.

mfclark made that very clear, remember?

 

That's why in the REAL world, you never try to piss off your superstars to the extent that they can no longer be traded at their normal value.

As for a better package than the Rockets', the Suns was widely rumored to have offered Marion, the #7 pick(turned out to be Luol Deng), and perhaps Joe Johnson or some other player. I know it's also reported that T-Mac rejected that trade, but that furthers shows how pissing off a star player is just bad for business.

 

Didn't the pissing him off stuff happen after the trade?

 

In retrospect, the Magic is probably better off taking Marion + Deng + Joe Johnson.

C: someone
PF: Howard
SF: Marion/Hill
SG: Deng/Johnson
PG: Nelson

That's a pretty good lineup and alot of trading assets.

Or, they might try to trade McGrady for Amare + filler straight up, and then draft Okafor with their pick. With Okafor and Amare inside, and Grant Hill on the wing and Nelson running the point, they'd contend for the East.

C: Okafor
PF: Stoudamire
SF: Hill
SG: someone
PG: Nelson


But now, they have Francis...

 

I'm pretty sure no team wanted to take on T-Mac unless he agreed to re-sign. Houston was the only place he gave that assurence.

 

yeah tracy had a lot of leverage and weisbrod pissed him off, in hindsight maybe the suns trade may have been better but who knows knowing that gm marion and deng would have been traded by now for god knows what. as much as i would to see stevie succeed i wanna see that smug b*stard and what he thinks now of mcgrady

 

And Pacers tried to get TMac for Ron Artest and Al Harrington. LOL, nice try, Larry Bird.