They are screwed for the forseeable future. Nobody wants to do deals with him because they have seen him get the best of too many deals. He's in a bad cap situation. To fix the cap situation, he most likely will have to hand a team in his own division major talent. Either that, or he has to take a bunch of junk back from the Knicks. They'll never win significantly with Gasol as their leading man. I think West is gone in the next year or two at the most, maybe sooner than that.
I remember ESPN interviewing him during the draft and he didn't seem very happy. They even asked him about his future in Memphis and he didn't really answer the question but to say that this is the last year on his contract. So, yea, I agree that it doesn't look like he'll be around after this year.
He also said Hakim Warrick was a great player at Princeton. Sounds like his head's already somewhere else.
Or that West retires and the organization goes into a tailspin, not knowing what to do, and just decides to have a firesale.
That was a hilarious soundbyte! Just classic. West was still pouting for not getting Gerald Green. Hilarious. This is the last year of West's contract in Memphis. He will probably finish out the contract and move on. Then when the new GM gets there other teams will begin to pillage the Grizzlies for their talent.
West is one of the greatest GM's of all time. He picked NVE and eddie jones and maintained those LA teams of the 80's. He got shaq to come to LA. Before he got to the griz they were a joke now they are playoff contendors.
I guess saying this on a message board is ok, it'd be a lot different that talking about it in an article ... Heisley is broke, has debt running in every direction. I was told this before he broke the bank for West, and after.
I've heard that many times in many places. What it means on this Board, IMO, is that Stro will be SnT'd with J-Will...and probably a third to balance a deal (JPo, perhaps...or even a huge deal with Gasol?). So, why can't Heisley sell all or at least part of the Griz? I have heard he has had substantial offers for minority ownership, but not enough to get his head above water???
His giant ego gets in the way. Put it this way: the man needs to invest in a fake mustache and English accent if he ever wants to walk the streets of Chicago again.
Man, oh, man have you been a dick to me this week. Heisley bought a ton of industrial companies some 25 years ago that were near bankruptcy, borrowing money and nursing them back to health. For a while, he thrived, but started to fall back to earth in the late 90s. He tried to buy the Grizz before Laurie (from Columbia, MO) got involved, Laurie's bid fell through, and the Vancouver types decided to run back to Heisley. By then, he had lost even more money, and borrowed a great deal on top of that to make an acquisition possible. This was mostly done in suburban Chicago, where he operates out of. Heisley did a ton of business in BC, and sincerely hoped to keep the Grizz there, but everyone regarded that 2000-01 team as a lame duck and he lost TONS that first year there. He lost even more with the move, failed to secure big initial funding from FedEx, and suffered playing in the ancient Pyramid. Meanwhile, his other business ventures weren't so hot, he kept borrowing and here we are. It has nothing to do with giving Brian Cardinal a big contract, or paying for several different coaches, or even West's salary. That's all small beans compared to the rest of his running mortgages.
Wow. Didn't realize Heisley was that bad off. Maybe we could talk West into a Swift & Posey trade for expiring contracts.
I should also point out that, while Heisley is having "issues" (to say the least) -- he is quite capable of thinking on his feet and keeping his head above water. Since I've used up my cliche quota for one post, let me just say that I first started hearing about his financial troubles in 2001 and he's still hanging in there. Four years is a long time, especially considering the dire financial trouble I was told about. My sources kept me abreast of what he was doing to keep the team and keep his debtors at arms length. I should also point that I have dealt with either of my sources since last fall, and they never gave me anything compelling enough to run with a story on this (not that this would interest anyone); or even as an aside in a notes column (I did mention it in passing in a Grizz article last fall, but that was it). This guy has been walking between the raindrops since 2000, with a playoff team and a new arena to work with, so I don't want to come across as a guy swearing up and down that we'll see Heisley being led away from his office in handcuffs anytime soon. He DOES still have a lot of checks to write, though.
If it is I who has been the dick to you, apologies. I do appreciate the insight (even if I incite, but I don't mean to indict...).
Well that doesn't actually give them that much salary relief. They could just let Swift walk, and Posey only has 2 years left on a deal, so an expiring contract only gives them 1 year of relief. Now if they really wanted some help, we could send them expiring contracts for Swift, Posey, Miller, Cardinal, and Tsakalidis. That's a lot of incoming salary, and it would definitely put us into luxury tax territory, but it's really the only way that Memphis would do this deal with us. And we would finally have a quality supporting cast around Yao and T-mac. Sura or James / Head Posey / T-Mac / Head (maybe Barry) T-Mac / Miller / Cardinal Swift / Juwan / Cardinal Yao / Tsakalidis (or Deke if Yao insists on it) This would be a very flexible and dynamic team. T-mac, Posey, and Miller would form a pretty potent swingman combo. Against certain matchups we could slide Miller or T-mac to the 4 and run the three of them together. Or we can run a very athletic lineup of Head, Posey, T-Mac, Swift, and Yao. Or we can trot out a sweet-shooting group with Head, T-mac, Miller, Juwan/Cardinal, and Yao. Or small ball with James/Sura, Head, Posey/Miller, T-mac, and Swift/Yao. The combinations would be endless. I'd love for Memphis to go on a true firesale and give us a deal like this. It really would be a huge savings for them after 1 year. And they'd still have some decent players in Gasol, Battier, Williams, Sura/James, and Wesley. And they could finally give their youngsters Bell and Jones some PT. Like I said, it would be a big financial investment on our part, and we would be in the luxury tax. But it would give us a team that is ready to contend. We would have a lot of depth and very few holes(PG being the only possible hole on the team).
don't try and make it look like he treated the city of vancouver good in any way when it involves discussing basketball. sure, there were other issues - stu jackson was no basketball genius, coaches (brian winters, brian hill, any other) didn't help at all, and steve nash was not pursued (think of what that would have done around BC basketball hype, a good business decision AND team decision - could have easily traded down in that draft to secure a long life in BC with corporations supporting the movement because of a BC boy). but now that those are out of the way, lets cut the crap - heisley wanted his team in the good ol' US of A. He didn't give a rats ass that vancouver averaged very decent numbers in attendance with such a crappy team - he didn't force changes like he did the second they moved to memphis (shareef and bibby out, new faces in, new management, new coaching, new look - new team - success) - and he didn't give a damn about vancouver. it's funny how the team actually tried to win AFTER moving away. there was no "try" in vancouver, it was more of a "lets ride this out until the fans give up on them." giving bryant reeves the max, drafting steve francis when he clearly didn't want to be in vancouver (lamar odom said he would very much enjoy being drafted by vancouver, baron davis was a west coaster and on the board - we could have done much better than michael dickerson and pickles), and trading a future first rounder for a disgruntled and pathetic Otis Thorpe was not the business move of the century for a team that was building, not looking for the final piece of the puzzle. sure, many of these moves were before heisley, but the reason i'm mentioning them is because he simply did not try to bring change for the better until he left vancouver. he fudged the numbers of loss and blamed vancouver for his failures, rather than blaming the previous management. you can't buy a **** product and hope it turns to gold without trying to fix it first -- he bought a **** product and kept it that way while losing money until he could complain about the **** long enough and move the franchise. he should have bought the team, brough in changes to show vancouver he was making an effort, and do the best he could to bring wins to the fans. who the hell wants to support a crap team? well, vancouver fans did - just look at the attendance numbers - http://www.kenn.com/sports/basketball/nba/nba_mem_attendance.html - the fan base is very apparent - it is there. with a losing team you will lose fans. the turnaround is evident as it moves to memphis - but could that fan turnaround been there in vancouver? of course it could have if the team was successful like it was in memphis. what a slap in the face to vancouver to have the team move and immediately make changes for the better. four years into memphis having a basketball team - they FINALLY surpassed the lowest numbers of a losing franchis in vancouver's first four years. the same opportunity was there in vancouver that was in memphis, heisley just had to work hard - he never tried to work with vancouver corporations for major sponsorship (EA Sports anybody?). of course the canadian economy was somewhate difficult at the time, but every economy comes around - he bought the team in a bad economy, what was he to expect? it has turned around by now and the team would be doing just fine, but he bought a team that was going down, and he wasn't willing to ride out a few tough years to have it come around - which is why, in essence, us vancouver fans refer to michael heisley as "fat b*stard."
