a) Memphis is not concerned about the rest of the league vs LA Lakers b) Memphis was going no where with Pau c) they were bleeding cash and wanted to dump salary, not get younger, not get better d) they ended up with a better team now than they would have and they fill up their stadium e) IT WAS A FINANCIAL DECISION
You are really going to compare the rockets picks with the grizzlies picks? Gimme a break. It can be argued that the Rockets have had the number 1 over all pick in some of the most IMPORTANT drafts ever in the history of the league. You also got a top 2 pick gifted to you when Steve Francis forced a trade, which ultimately landed you tmac. Cry me a river about Yao's shortened career. DREAM SAMPSON MCCRAY LUCAS YAO FRANCIS yeah, you guys have had it ROUGH
LOL you just keep saying the same stuff without answering any of the points other posters say. Your A-E points can all be done at the same time, Memphis could have dumped Pau Gasol while still getting younger and getting better. Again, while LA had the largest expiring contracts at only 9M it's not like other teams couldn't have come up with the same value. A 6M expiring contract+a rookie would have given the same 9M savings but given Memphis much better players. Look, if you won't listen to me, why don't you look at what the Grizz owner had to say: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-heisleygasol060308 Now if all he cared about was the $$$ and he didn't care about getting players and picks along with cap relief why would he question if they got the most value? LOL the problem with your argument is NO OWNER doesn't care about getting ripped off. Sure you have guys like Sterling who sold a lottery pick for cash and expiring, but even then he sold it for the best price available, he doesn't go to a random team and give away his lottery pick for 1M when other teams would have given him 12M. What you're saying is totally illogical and goes against human reason.
You're looking at players picked instead of the picks given. We had a number 1 pick? LOL well so what you had a number 2 pick, it's not our fault we used our number 1 pick to get Hakeem and you used your 2nd pick on Hasheem Thabeet You know who you could have gotten? James Harden
they ended up with marc gasol. they got a huge a expiring contract and a foundation to their currently fourth best team in the west. what's a better deal than that?
Marc Gasol wasn't very highly rated at the time, you're using hindsight to say the trade was very good. Whether Gasol became very good or very bad is irrelevant to the trade, what's important is what everyone knew at the time the trade was made. It's also interesting that you put that fourth best comment in there, didn't you also say Memphis was bleeding money and needed to dump Gasol without worrying about getting good players in return? If they needed money so much why did they give Rudy Gay a max contract, Marc Gasol a max contract, Z-Bo a near max contract and Conley Jr a 9M contract? The best part is none of those has anything to do with Pau Gasol trade so really your argument about Heisley wanting to burn the franchise into the ground because of financial gain doesn't make any sense.
The point is other teams could have given him the same $$$ while giving him players to win, but you're still arguing with no arguments. You're just being an idiot, why don't you eat crow and admit you have no idea what you were talking about?
i am asking you what these other options are and how are they better than marc gasol and the kwame's contract. i can't debate hypotheticals. name some names are stfu. tia
Instead of keeping Kevin Love, you guys traded him for OJ Mayo. Instead of drafting James Harden, you guy drafted Hasheem Thabeet. That is two all-star players in consecutive drafts that you guys missed out. That is the 2nd and 5th pick wasted I wish the Rockets had that many draft picks to throw around.
they were bleeding cash because they had a sorry ass team with pau as the highest paid player and weren't filling up the stands. with gay/zbo/gasol that isn't the issue. now they are winning. if a small market team isn't winning they need to blow it up. i'm tired of having this debate, memphis was last or second to last in attendance the years leading up to that trade. they are a small maket team with small market tv contract i'm sure.
No, I'm looking at the # of the pick. You think that the grizzlies would have passed on Derrick Rose, had we gotten the #1 overall pick, instead of Chicago? You think we would not have picked Lebron? Your pick of Hakeem, Sampson and Yao were absolutely NO BRAINER picks. Like you had to DECIDE to take Yao or Dream, or Elvin Hayes. There is a HUGE difference from the #1 overall pick and every other pick in the draft and the rockets have had their share of EXTREMELY lucky draft positions, winning the draft in the years that Elvin, Dream, and Yao came out.
Who's fault is it they drafted a player who didn't want to play for the team, and then got -- what did they get again -- for the second overall pick? And the Grizzlies could have drafted T-Mac themselves. They had the 4th pick in the 1997 draft. They picked ... Antonio Daniels. Brilliant! In the Yao draft, the Grizzlies could have taken the player who many actually regard as that draft's best player -- Amare Stoudemire. They took ... Drew Gooden!
Sampson's knees Yao's feet Lucas' addiction Fools gold. I have no idea why you list McCray or even Francis in with those other guys. I'm sorry the Grizz have such a terrible drafting history. I'm sorry they started out in Vancouver, where nobody wanted to play.
Looking through the draft history of the Grizz (takes time because of the draft day trades) - I am not sure there is a first round pick in their history that shouldn't have been a different player except for on one occasion (Kyle effing Lowry).
as an example of what you guys get when you don't get a #1 overall pick in the draft, but a top 5 pick. in fact, other than in the 70s when you picked Calvin Murphy, your draft picks outside of the #1 pick in the draft were very average ROLE PLAYERS.
Here's their Top 5 picks: Shareef Abdur-Rahim (#3 1996) - Kobe & Nash went later, Iverson was #1 Antonio Daniels (#4 1997) - McGrady went later, Duncan was #1, ouch Mike Bibby (#2 1998) - Carter/Nowitzki/Pierce went later, Olowakandi was #1 Steve Francis (#2 1999) - Really deep draft, but took a guy who didn't want to go, Brand was #1 Stromile Swift (#2 2000) - Amongst the worst drafts of all time, Martin was #1 Drew Gooden (#4 2002) - Amare was available, Yao was #1 Mike Conley (#4 2007) - The one year you wanted to pick 2nd, Oden was #1 Kevin Love (#5 2008) - Wasted by trading for Mayo, Rose was #1 Hasheem Thabeet (#2 2009) - Could have had Harden, and maybe would have gone that way if they hadn't traded for Mayo, Griffin was #1 They did manage to trade SAR for the draft rights of Pau Gasol (#3 2001). Some of the better drafts of the last decade occurred while Memphis was actually good. While there was a couple of terrible decisions in there, there hasn't been many franchise guys they passed up on.
