First thing, there is no way Brian Grant is going to sign with the Lakers for 2 mil. That story was purely a creation by some LA Times writer trying to stir up controversy. Brian Grant is currently making roughly 9 mil a yr, there is no way he is going to step down to 2 mil. I dont care how bad he wants to win, to accept 3 yrs 6.6 mil over 3 yrs 30 mil is just insane. If he leaves Portland, I think it will be in a trade, sign and trade or outright signing with a team like Orlando. Also, a common misconception from the media is that Portland bought their team. The reason Portland is where it is today is b/c of GM Bob Whitsitt's creative and intelligent moves. Here's a re-cap of what he has done taking over an aging over the hill Blazers team: -Trades Bill Curley and some other stiff for Isaiah Rider -Signs Kenny Anderson, drafts Gary Trent -Trades Rod Strickland for Rasheed Wallace -Trades Kenny Anderson, Gary Trent, Alvin Williams and picks for Damon Stoudamire, Walt Williams and Carlos Rogers -Trades Randolph Childress and Aaron McKie for Stacey Augmon -Signs Brian Grant -Drafts Jermaine O'Neal at 18th overall -Trades Chris Antsey for Kelvin Cato on draft day -Signs Jim Jackson for an exception -Trades Jim Jackson and Isaiah Rider for Steve Smith and Ed Gray -Signs Detlef Schrempf for an exception -Trades a future pick for Bonzi Wells -Infamous Pippen trade The Blazers were put together on clever trades by "Trader Bob". The team was able to retain LBR players ie. Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire with Paul Allen's money. Its not like they just went out and started buying players, this isnt the Florida Marlins of a few yrs back, there is a salary cap in basketball. ------------------ Check out the Best Source for Draft Info Draftsource.net
Good call MManal - I think that a lot of Portland's huge payroll has to do with just rewarding their own players, rather than "buying" someone elses'. Brian Grant is really the only one that would fit under that category per se. But Of course you're leaving out the greatest trade of all as far as the Rockets are concerned: Drexler and Murray for Thorpe, a 1st rounder, and the rights to Marcella Nichola. That one wasn't so good for us, but it was definitely what Clyde wanted, and I've thought all along that it was on the minds of Dawson and Tomjanovich when it came time to deal Pippen. But that's just speculation on my part. ------------------
I agree Portland has made some good moves over the last few years, but they are in trouble with a capital T now. This was the year they expected to win it all and they couldn't (kind of like us last year, and we decided to unload and rebuild). Smith and Pippen are only getting worse with age, and have saddled them with big time contracts. Sabonis and Scrempf are about as physicially fried as you can get this side of John Salley. They will be facing big decisions. Wallace is one key piece, but the rest are unknown. They are either aging or unproven (Oneal shows little, Wells can't shoot from the outside and benifits from being a part-time performer). Other players appear to be disgruntled (Grant) or are overpriced part-timers (Stoudamire-who has a Pippesk terrible contract that won't be done for like 8 more years). We will see how savvy Portland's front office is now. I don't see them standing pat, certainly other younger Western lions won't (Lakers, Wolves, Suns, who knows, maybe us too). There is no guarantee there next move will be a good one. I think this was the Blazers best chance, and Pippen (there most recent addition) and the gang pulled an El Foldo. Gotta love it. [This message has been edited by sir scarvajal (edited June 05, 2000).]
I agree with you HPD. I think that Rudy knew what he was doing when he sent Quitten to the Blazers, only for different reasons. I think that he knew Pippen would choke at the appropriate time in the playoffs (like when you're up by 16 and need that veteran star to step up)thus leading to the break-up of a very expensive and talented team. We have to knock somebody out of a play-off spot next year, might as well be the Blazer's. Honestly, the Blazers and Whitsitt have done an excellent job in building a team. Unfortunately they fell into the same trap (Scottie Pippen) that Rudy and CD did a couple of years ago. Unfortunately they will not have the same luck we did in pulling the wool over someone elses eyes. They will find that paying 16mill to a average player that constantly disappears in "The Big Game" will be too much for team chemistry to bear. They will end up trading him for overpaid scraps or cutting him all together. Like I said, it is unfortunate that players like him find a home in this league. Unfortunately for you his home is going to be on the Blazer bench. ------------------ "Stranger things have happened, but none stranger than this" - Commentator after a parachutist landed in the ring of a Holyfield fight
Well, maybe your disdain for "Quitten" has blinded your jugdement. I can say without hesitation that if we didn't have Pippen during this series, it would have been over a long time ago. ------------------
A lot of people hate pippen for different reasons. Even many of his own kids hate him for leaving them fatherless. I'm definetly not a pip fan, but i do admit he played well overall in the playoffs. He always does the intangibles and you can't fault his effort. As for Portland's future; GM Bob has a lot of room to manuvure bc there's a lot of talent and trade value on that team (Steve Smith imo is still damn good). I think Portland will contend for the next 2 or 3 years max.
MManal, Also, a common misconception from the media is that Portland bought their team. The reason Portland is where it is today is b/c of GM Bob Whitsitt's creative and intelligent moves. Ok, I'll agree that Portland hasn't out and out bought most of their players, but that's only because the salary cap won't allow it. Paul Allen's money has, however, allowed them to retain their own free agents and trade for players that other teams wouldn't have been able to. Let's look at this from a slightly different angle (not in chronological order): - Portland signs Brian Grant to a 7yr/$63M contract. -Stoudamire wants out of Toronto because they can't pay him the max. So, Portland trades Kenny Anderson, Gary Trent and Alvin Williams to Toronto for Stoudamire. The only reason Toronto does this deal is because Paul Allen agrees to pay off most or all of Anderson's $38M contract. If that wasn't enough, Portland also sends cash to Toronto in the deal. After the season, Portland resigns Stoudamire to a 7 year $81M deal. So, in essence, Portland invested well over $100M to acquire Stoudamire. I can't think of any other owner in the league that can afford to do a deal like that. - Portland resigns Rasheed Wallace to a 6 year $80M deal. That's two players on the same team with $80M+ contracts. - Portland resigned Arvydas Sabonis for 3 years at $30.4M. - Portland resigns Jermaine O'Neal, who's not even one of their top 8 players to a 4yr/$25M deal. How many other teams have the money to afford something like that? -Portland trades for Pippen, a 34yr old with 4 years and $57M left on his contract. Even the Lakers/Jerry Buss wouldn't touch that contract. - Portland trades for Steve Smith, a 30 year old with terrible knees and 4 years and $34M left on his contract. Again, nobody else wanted to take on Smith's contract because of his knees. Portland's payroll is $73M NBA salary cap is $34M That means that when the Luxury tax kicks in Portland could end up paying $39M in tax for a single year to the league. No other team, except possibly NY, could take that kind of hit. The only other team that I can think of that has two $80M+ contracts is LA. The difference is that after Shaq and Kobe, nobody on LA makes a whole lot of money other than Rice($7M). Portland has Grant($7.8M),Sabonis($9.8M),O'Neal($5M) and Steve Smith($7.2M). While teams like Minnesota are having to trade off players because they can't afford multiple contracts at the league max, Portland just keeps adding more. When you're willing to take on bad contracts for aging/injured players, or you're willing to pay off the large contracts that you trade away, it's much easier to do a deal. Why can Portland do those things? It's because of Paul Allen's money. Couple this with the fact that you'll probably never lose any of your players to free agency (if you don't want to) and it's much easier to be a GM than it is any where else in the league. ------------------
Aelliott, I agree with that as I stated in my post that Paul Allen's money kept the team together, but the point I was trying to make is that Bob Whitsitt's excellence as a GM should not be taken away from b/c of Paul Allen's money. If you read some of the comments in this thread, they make it sound like any GM could do what Whitsitt did if he was working under Allen. Do you seriously think any ordinary GM could do what Whitsitt did even with those financial resources? Rod Strickland for Rasheed Wallace, Kelvin Cato for Chris Antsey, Bonzi Wells for a future pick and Jermaine O'Neal at 18th overall are just pure brilliance. Whitsitt got Wallace at a time when people were calling him a bust. That was an excellent talent evaluation. Who thought Wells would go from being a cast off by the Pistons to become a stud young player? Another excellent move, and he got him for peanuts. Also, I agree that most teams would not take on a contract like Pippen or Smith but you think that 80 mil for Wallace was far fetched? Let's say the Knicks had him, you think they would even flinch to re-sign him even if it took 80 mil? They just handed Sprewell a similar contract in terms of per yr salary. Also, the Brian Grant contract I dont think was far fetched at all. If I am not mistaken, in his final season in Sacramento, Grant was making around 9 mil right? ------------------ Check out the Best Source for Draft Info Draftsource.net
MManal, Whitsitt is a good GM, I'm not disagreeing with that. What I was addressing is your statement that Portland didn't buy their team. I have to disagree with that. They've been able to assemble that team solely because of Paul Allen's money. Sure Whitsitt has made some good deals, but how much of that is because of the extra resources that he has that almost any other GM doesn't? He can retain every player he gets, so it's pretty easy to stockpile players. Once he's got all those bodies and no financial ceiling, then are deals like the Pippen, Smith or Stoudamire deal all that remarkable? Is the Wallace deal out of line? By itself,no. It's the fact that he can take on 5 or 6 contracts of that magnitude is what is out of line. Nobody but the Knicks could even come close to that. Why is Jermaine O'Neil at 18 brilliance? Sure he's got potential, but after 3+ years, he's still just an overpaid bench player. As far as Brian Grant, he wasn't making anything close to $9M/year at Sacramento. He made $1.2M his final year in Sacramento. ------------------
Just a quick thing on that Cato for Anstey trade; correct me if I'm wrong, but Dallas engineered that trade.. ... and Wallace for Strickland was not a simple deal, if I remember rightly Strickland was putting up huge numbers but saying he wanted out of the blazers (to either Washington or Boston if I remember right) - so the blazers took what they could get - turned out sweet for them too!! Of course I'm not saying Whitsitt isn't a good GM, I just think it's craziness to say that the Blazers will definitely be in the finals next year after they've shown a lack of composure this year and are a year older (and have worse knees - Sabonis and Smith..) ------------------
What I was addressing is your statement that Portland didn't buy their team. I have to disagree with that. I think we have differing opinions on what constitutes buying a team. What I consider buying a team is what the Marlins of a couple yrs ago did, just went out and signed 4-5 quality free agents. There is no salary cap in baseball so they just walked out and started "buying people". The Diamondbacks did the same thing, they just walked out and signed Randy Johnson, Todd Stottlemyre, Andy Benes and Jay Bell. The Blazers on the other hand acquired players like Steve Smith and Scottie Pippen via trade. I understand that the contracts of Smith and Pippen were a major financial committment but it still took players like Isaiah Rider and Jim Jackson who are acquired via trade or signed for an exception. I think that is different than just going out and throwing 13 million at Randy Johnson, 7 mil at Stottlemyre, etc. I guess we will have to agree to disagree since we have differing opinions on what buying a team is. ------------------ Check out the Best Source for Draft Info Draftsource.net [This message has been edited by MManal (edited June 06, 2000).]
