Rockets haven't done anything since the Grizzlies have been in Memphis and other than tanking to get Akeem haven't done squat historically. You lucked into one of the greatest of all time, congrats, otherwise your franchise history would be nondescript and that is with 5 #1 overall picks, the Grizz have never had the luckxury Save your sorrow for your own team...
what sucks about this most is that if you watch the grizzlies lately you realize that the grizzlies no longer have a go to player, who is used to being a goto player, on the team. So the grizzlies are just running around trying to find an open spot on the floor to shot from. It's pretty sad. Maybe Gasol can start to become that. Hell, at this point, I'd welcome Micheal Beasley to the team, if we could get him. Somebody that is willing to score and has length to get a shot off.
I don't get it, armchair John Hollingers. Is Rudy Gay an inefficient chucker or isn't he? Are the Grizzlies worse without him or not? It sure seems to me that a player who can draw the focus of defenses, and earn double-teams and hedges from opponents, and yet can still score even under those circumstances, is probably going to help his team a lot more than "PER" and "TS%" stats could ever tell us. No wonder Lionel Hollins was furious to learn Gay had been traded.
Memphis was bleeding cash. Pau was a salary dump. memphis took back an expiring contract and marc. it was a business/financial decision. i'm tired of laker haters complaining. the owner of the memphis team isn't going to let his basketball team drive him to bankruptcy. if you don't understand these financial moves please don't post about them. as far as gay is concerned, the little birdie is free to fly
Memphis didn't have to give Paul away for trash come on And this amid kobes whining and Jerry west in Memphis before he bolted Too many variables, and that guy sold the team anyway
they weren't trying to get players, they were trying to dump salary and the lakers had a max contract expiring. IT WAS A FINANCIAL DECISION
The question at the time was that just about all NBA GMs never saw it coming. Meaning they weren't really in on the discussions. Basically it seemed like the owner told West to dump Gasol, he called the Lakers, had a deal, and went with it. Rather than doing the typical thing and calling 29 other teams and ask what they would offer.
Since 1996, the Grizzlies have had eleven top 6 picks. The Rockets have had ten top 6 picks in their entire franchise history. Since moving to Memphis, the Grizzlies have had five top 6 picks. In that span, we'd had one (Yao) who had an injury-shortened career. Don't tell me about "luckxury". You guys haven't taken sufficient advantage of your draft position.
I'm not going to keep repeating it. just tell me what other team had a kwame brown contract at the time
Well, they did make one finals appearance before Olajuwon. Teams that won NBA championships in the past 20 years with their own #1 overall pick: Rockets: 1994, 1995 Spurs: 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 14 other seasons where teams won a title without getting the top pick.
It isn't about Laker hating, from any way you look at it Pau Gasol was worth more than Kwame Brown's expiring contract and Marc Gasol, who didn't exactly have high trade value at the time. Not only that Memphis' GM at the time was Jerry West, rumors were after the owner said to trade Pau to save $$$ he went straight to LA without talking to the other teams to listen to their offers. You can scream FINANCIAL DECISION till you're blue in the face but the fact is other teams made trades for financial decisions too which didn't rape them in the process: 1) Shaq trade -Caron Butler -Lamar Odom -first round pick 2) KG trade -Al Jefferson -top 5 lottery pick -top 3 protected pick -Ryan Gomes,Telfair, Green (young guys with potential) 3) James Harden trade -Kevin Martin -guaranteed lottery pick -Jermy Lamb If you think about it the assets LA got for a 30+ year old Shaq was still better than Kwame Brown and Marc Gasol. The only trade package I think is comparable is the absolute pile of **** Orlando got for DH. Like I said, Memphis just isn't mad because Gasol blew up and became really good. But even LA didn't think he would be that good, if they did then they would have traded Bynum instead and just had a Gasol/Gasol frontcourt.
We know what it was Highway robbery to help the Lakers....don't ignore the other circumstances Memphis was not anymore special than any other team that loses money but you don't see other teams getting gift trades at majorly convinient times They tried it again with Chris Paul and tried to dump their salary on NO but the NBA rejected that crap this time and wallah Its not a surprise to be honest, and you can pimp the salary dump all day long, but it was far more behind it than that. We all saw what happened
You didn't have to have a Kwame Brown contract, other teams like the Mavs were willing to take the tax hit and give up more stuff for Gasol. Not only that, while Kwame Brown was the SINGLE biggest expiring contract that year at only 9M his contract wasn't exactly that big. I bet other teams could have given Memphis comparable total expirings if they could combine player salaries in the trade. It was a rigged trade, plain and simple even if memphis' only focus was on the $$$ they could have saved the same but got more in return by trading with other teams.
Wow ... I didn't know Rudy Gay had a PER of below 15 this year ... How is that possible for a guy on Durant's level?
