McGrady To Houston Thread (Update: Francis will visit Orlando)

Your link didn't work. I'll post the article here.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/magic/2004-06-22-mcgrady-snag_x.htm

ORLANDO — The Tracy McGrady trade saga churned ahead Tuesday with apparently little resolution following a day of talks between the Orlando Magic and the agent for Houston guard Steve Francis. And it appears now that the Magic, seemingly determined to deal McGrady but unwilling to accept an offer from the Rockets, have reopened trade talks around the league because they are wondering if they can get a better deal.

Francis' agent, Jeff Fried, said on Monday that he thought a deal that would send McGrady, Juwan Howard, Tyronn Lue and Reece Gaines to Houston for Cuttino Mobley, Kelvin Cato and Francis was imminent. But the potential blockbuster stalled Tuesday and might drag on for days now as the Magic weigh other offers pouring in from around the league.

"It was just communication," Fried said. "It's still moving. There's nothing definitive. Steve (Francis) really likes Houston. You have to face reality. If Houston is set on moving Steve, which is not Steve's preference, you have to deal with reality. There is nothing against the Orlando Magic. They are a fine organization, but they are also in a rebuilding stage."

Indiana, one of the teams that has held trade talks with the Magic off and on for the past month, seemed to have bowed out of the McGrady sweepstakes.

Indiana has an overflow of talent at the forward positions and has reportedly been willing to trade Al Harrington and Jonathan Bender. It is uncertain whether or not Defensive Player of the Year Ron Artest is available. If the Magic had demanded all three players, it likely would have killed the deal.

Phoenix, Portland, Miami and others are also believed to be interested in trading for McGrady, an all-star in all four of his seasons in Orlando. Magic general manager John Weisbrod refused comment for a second consecutive day Tuesday. But over the weekend he stressed that he would not accept a bad deal.

"I have a lot of bad personal traits in terms of stubbornness, directness and lack of empathy," said Weisbrod, a Harvard graduate, "but being dumb is not one of them.

"I know people think I'm goofy for being optimistic in the face of adversity, but what could be better than rising out of the ashes? The toughest job to take is to replace somebody in an organization that's at the top of the mountain. It's expected that you stay there. But there's nowhere for us to go but up."

Even with McGrady averaging a NBA-best 28 points a game, Orlando finished with a league-worst 21-61 record. The Magic endured losing streaks of 19 and 13 games.

By virtue of their dismal record and winning the draft lottery, the Magic will pick first in Thursday's NBA Draft. The Magic are still trying to decide between Atlanta teen Dwight Howard and Co-National Player of the Year Emeka Okafor. Both players were in Charlotte Tuesday meeting with the Bobcats, owners of the No. 2 pick following a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.

Dwight Howard's agent, Aaron Goodwin, said the Magic have yet to disclose which player they will draft. Because the Magic are also listening to trade offers for the No. 1 pick, Goodwin thinks Orlando will keep its choice a secret right up until Thursday night.

"They haven't said anything to me about which way they are leaning," said Goodwin, who also represents LeBron James, last year's No. 1 selection. "It would be nice if they did, but they haven't to this point. All I want them to do is tell me before they go to the podium Thursday night. The hard thing is that Dwight has 75 people coming to the draft and they'd love to have an indication. They'd love to be able to get to the next city. So I've told (the Magic) if they could give us a heads up it would be a big help so his family could get on to the next city and show their support for the kid."


Larry Bird believed the Pacers made a better offer for McGrady than the package of players the Rockets have proposed sending to the Magic.

"My personal opinion is they might have got a better deal from us," Bird said Tuesday.

"Take nothing away from the guys that have been traded. I like our guys. I know our guys are talented and hard workers, but when you go after Tracy McGrady, you have to give up something, and the price was just too high for us."

Both Bird and team CEO Donnie Walsh spoke with Weisbrod late last week about McGrady, but did not hear back from him after their initial talks.

"No question, when you have a player like Tracy McGrady out there, you try to pursue it and see what it was going to take to try to get involved in it," Bird said. "Obviously they didn't like the players we put out there and really, we didn't get down to details. We just asked them what they would like and they threw some names out there and the price was really too high for us."

While Bird would not say which players the Magic asked for, he did say the Pacers have received a number of inquiries regarding forwards Al Harrington and Ron Artest.

Harrington, one of the top sixth men in the league last year, told Bird at their season-ending meeting that he would like to be traded if he wasn't going to start for the Pacers next season.

"There's a lot of interest in Al," Bird said. "We're not really shopping Al. I wish Al was happy here and everybody else was happy, but sometimes a change of scenery will do both teams some good."

Artest, the defensive player of the year, didn't help his case when he was fined for skipping his season-ending meeting with Bird.

The Pacers were also mentioned in rumors surrounding the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal, but Bird wasn't optimistic that O'Neal or McGrady would land in Indiana.

When asked if they were out of the running for an available "superstar," Bird said, "At this point with Shaq and Tracy, yeah. We hear that Tracy's probably going to Houston, but you never know, something might happen. If he's out there, we're going to go after him."

Whether the Pacers get back in the race for McGrady or not, Bird made it clear that they will continue to be a player in the trade market, partly because of their considerable youth and depth.

"We have a lot of guys with a lot of talent," Bird said. "We can put packages together to go after these guys."

 

As Jeff said, Orlando demanded to know McGrady's intentions. They wanted to know before the draft so they could make their draft plans. What was McGrady supposed to do?? Lie to them???

Just like you critisize McGrady, then you should critisize Steve too. You allege that McGrady knew what he was doing and that a trade would be imminent once he told the Magic that he would opt out. On the same hand, Steve damn well KNOWS that this trade would have a greater chance of falling apart if he were to come out and insult the Magic franchise and fans by saying that he didn't want to play there.

Steve knows what hes doing. He sounds professional, but his intentions are anything but.

Again, Steve knows what hes doing (hes done this before remember ). His intention is to not to have to go to Orlando if he has any say in it. He is sabotaging this deal and he knows it.

 

thats true... but he basically ruins his stay in houston at the same time him an the organization will basically never want anything with each other again and many fans will never embrace steve in houston again

 

thanks nWo34Life... all this T-Mac talk made me lose my mind.

 

does anybody know what could happen to the orl org if the deal doesn't go through? i mean jeff mentioned that other gms would be hesitant to deal with them, but any league rules or anything that could get orl into trouble? a fine? loss of draft picks? etc...

since the orl gm kept reiterating that he was in talks with tmac and orl can always say that francis' comments made them look elsewhere for a deal... i'm thinking that would keep orl from suffering any consequences. hmmmm....

man... fudge francis.

 

i wondered the same thing since it looks like they were the ones who leaked all of this stuff and got it all on the front pages

 

Do you guys actually believe that even though Steve doesn't want to be in Orlando, that he doesn't have the pride to maybe be even better than he is now? He's going to whine about going from an enigmatic team in the west to NBA wasteland... but he has that fire to play, even if he's pissed where he is. I think it will sink in that he already has the reputation of pouting, but he's a proud guy...

 

i have a feeling the rockets will end up getting desperate since they know this can really backfire and offer up a future pick or two

 

Unfortunately, I don't think the Magic have done anything against NBA rules. No question they haven't dealt in very good faith, but it ain't over til it is over and everybody knows that.

 

But, what good will that be if the Rockets are considered playoff contenders for the next X number of years. It isn't like it would be a high first rounder.

 

jeff,

doesnt more first rouncers help though if you can package them to move up or for other players.. im just speculating though because if this fall sthrough the rockets will probably get pennies on the dollar for francis

 

I guess it is possible, but I'm not sure if they would carry much weight.

 

I wasn't criticizing Steve or McGrady. I was saying that they expressed similar feelings. I do see that there is a difference in their situations. If it comes out as definitive that STeve sabotaged the deal then he should receive blame, and criticism.

I agree that McGrady shouldn't have lied, but he could have said that he intended to stay loyal to Orlando and help them rebuild into a championship contender. Remember when Hakeem ended up going to Toronto there were plenty of folks who thought Hakeem should have stayed loyal to Houston and played here. I don't hear anyone saying that about McGrady. For the record I didn't say that about Hakeem nor would I say that about McGrady. I'm just saying that he's getting pass from some folks.

I don't blame McGrady for telling Orlando his intentions. I don't blame Steve for saying he would rather not play for the worst team in the league. If it's more than that and he's truly sabotaging things then like I say he deserves blame.

But for right now we don't know that he's sabotaging anything. We've heard these rumors about Steve before(drafting of Yao) and he handled the situation like a pro. I'm just for waiting and seeing.

I will say that with the info we have definitively now, McGrady and Steve are in similar situations as far as their lack of desire to play in Orlando.

 

As much as i like Francis i am starting to lose respect for him. He is under contract and he should fullfill it. Hes getting paid millions and if he doesn't like it too bad. This reminds me of a kid who doesn't want to play for a bad team and would rather not play. I hope he doesn't turn into a CRY BABY. If he ruins this deal and stays in Houston his name will be tarnished. There are alot of people that want the best for the rockets and if he messes it up there will be alot of people who will hate him for ruining a chance at grabbing T-MAC. I guess we will have to wait and find out when everything goes through!

 

FB,

In all honesty....do you really feel that Steve's comments are meant to do anything else, BUT sabotage this deal??

Him and his agents are smart. They know that by leaking this to the media, that it could wreck the deal. Or else, why would they have said anything to begin with???

There is motivation here.

 

What can Francis do? I mean he HAS to play, right? If the coach puts him in the game he has to play. He could play bad or whatever but that would destroy his rep even further.

 

thats true he wont walk away from the 75 million still owed to him but orlando is scared of the huge pr hit they may take with this

 

What comments of Steve's do you mean? The 26 inerview with Steve seemed fine. Then his agent says that the talks are still going on, that Steve wouldn't want to play for Orlando but it's business, etc. They may be wrecking the deal, and if I see more on their comments or more comments from the team, I may feel more harsh toward Steve.

It could be that there are comments that I'm missing.

There are the ones from Steve from the 26 interview. ANd there is this from his agent.

Now the total of those things don't add up to a tantrum, whining, or sabotage as far as I can see.

I do admit there may be other things going on behind the scenes. But I can't argue for against those supposed issues, until somebody comes out and tells us what really went down. I'm only judging by the statements that have been released.

Add to that the other offers that Orlando is considering, and they could wish to simply take a look at those other offers. IF that's why the deal isn't going down then all the bashing of Francis was meaningless.

I may jump on the bash Francis bandwagon too, but I haven't seen thing anything substantiated that shows the sabotage is definitive yet.

 

Which is what? I can maybe understand not wanting to go to a crappy team, but then why are they trying to turn it around and say that Francis' relationship with the Rockets is going to be scarred?

 

Probably because they want to attempt to force either the Magic or Rockets to deal Steve to the team of his choosing.