SI: Jermaine O'Neal wants trade, sees Lakers as best fit

I'd love to see O'Neal go to NJ and Bryant to Chi.

Would bring alot of balance between East/West:

East:

Bos - Pierce/Allen/K-G
Mia - Shaq/Wade
Detroit - Wallace/Billups/Hamilton
NJ - Carter/Kidd/O'Neal
Chi - Kobe +


West:

Spurs - Duncan/Manu/Parker
Hou - T-Mac/Yao/Francis
Dal - Terry/Dirk/Howard
Suns - Nash/Marion/Amare
Jazz - Williams/Boozer/Okur

 

Look what he wrote about T-Mac. It's some of the highest praise I've ever seen of him IMO. I don't agree completely with what he said about 100 players choosing T-Mac over gilbert, kobe, and vince. First off he forgot Lebron and Wade who IMO would win the poll hands down. But Tracy is definitely better to play with than vince, I could see why you would choose Tracy over Kobe because of how much of a ball hog he is. I really am not sure about Gilbert though. If I were playing in the NBA i dont know who I would rather play with because Gilbert seems really down to earth and fun to play with, plus he is more fiery and a better leader. By the way where the hell is Yao on this entire list????

4. Tracy McGrady
The lost MVP candidate this season. Lemme know if any of these tidbits interest you:

A. The Rockets were 50-21 when he played this season and 2-8 without him.

B. When Yao went down for 32 games with a fractured kneecap, T-Mac carried the team to a 20-12 record and boosted his stats to a 29-6-6 for that stretch.

C. Other than Yao, his best teammates were Shane Battier, Luther Head, Rafer Alston, Chuck Hayes, Juwan Howard, Dikembe Mutombo and Yugoslavian gunner Turdo Sandowicz.

D. On a personal note, I don't trust basketball stats beyond a certain level because they can't interpret somebody's general impact on a game. Tim Duncan averages a 20-10 every night with two blocks ... does that measure everything he does for the Spurs? Of course not. Along those same lines, T-Mac and his cousin finished this season with almost identical numbers (a 25-5-6 for T-Mac, a 25-6-5 for V.C.), but unless you watched the games, you wouldn't know that Vince happens to be a streaky offensive player, a moody teammate and a defensive liability, and T-Mac happens to be a great teammate and superb all-around player who only goes for his numbers when absolutely necessary (like when he recently bumped his numbers to push Houston into the fourth seed).

If you asked 100 NBA players who they'd rather play with between Kobe, Vince, Arenas and T-Mac ... T-Mac would win the vote in a landslide. You win with Tracy McGrady. Wasn't always the case, but it's the case now. He's a true superstar. Now he needs to prove this in the playoffs. Please.

 

I want this trade to happen. When JO gets hurt (and I guarantee you it will happen), there will be no Odom to pick up the slack. And Bynum has the potential to be a top-level center if he works hard. He showed flashes of dominance last season before he hit the mental wall and basically stopped playing. He needs to get away from PJ and Kobe to develop and it may as well happen in Indiana. Meanwhile the Laker fans will moan and groan about JO's injuries while Kobe has even less of a team around him.

 

I have no doubt that LA is gonna end up with the shaft in the dealbecause they are gonna have to give up odom, bynum and draft picks for an injury prone mediocre player. im gonna laugh my ass of the first week of the season when JO breaks his leg and kobe starts b****ing again to be traded. The lakers suck and have the most overrated players outside of KB. Seriously i would rather watch an injury ridden clipper team led by al thornton and cat putting up 20 points each, than watch the crap the lakers call the triangle offense. Phil has so much faith in the triangle offense, now we can see that **** doesnt work without michael or shaq. Its complete bullsh!t that he has all those titles, he is not a fantastic coach.

 

Turdo Sandowicz???

 

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070807/SPORTS04/708070339/1088/SPORTS04

August 7, 2007

O'Neal waffles on trade
Pacers star backpedals from weekend interview

Indiana Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal has discounted Internet reports that he wants to be traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Time to move on? Jermaine O'Neal is scheduled to make about $63 million over the next three seasons if he remains with the Pacers. - Matt Kryger / Star file photo

"My preference is to play here and win here," O'Neal said in a telephone interview after returning from Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, attempting to deflate a brewing controversy that had brought clarifying statements from Pacers president Larry Bird and O'Neal's agent, Arn Tellem.
O'Neal appeared at -- but did not play in -- a charity basketball game Sunday hosted by NBA stars Baron Davis and Paul Pierce. There he talked with reporters from Web sites for Sports Illustrated and ESPN.
Both accounts quoted him expressing a desire to be traded to the Lakers.
"It's time for me to move on," O'Neal was quoted in the ESPN story. "And the Lakers are the team I want Indiana to trade me to."
O'Neal added the Pacers are "obviously" in a rebuilding mode, and he did not want to "take in five years of losses and downtime." He added he also would favor a trade to New Jersey.
Bird has had trade discussions with both teams regarding O'Neal this summer. A draft day conversation with the Nets was brief, however, and he has not talked with the Lakers since early July.
Bird issued a statement through the Pacers on Monday, repeating his claim that O'Neal would be traded only if he brings "fair market value."
"Jermaine has worked out very hard this summer while rehabilitating his knee after surgery (for a torn meniscus)," the statement read. "We believe under (new coach) Jim O'Brien that our team as a whole and Jermaine as a player can be successful. You never know what will happen, but for now Jermaine is an Indiana Pacer."
Tellem, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, denied O'Neal wanted out of Indiana.
"He hasn't requested a trade to the Lakers," Tellem wrote. "Any reports to the contrary are inaccurate."
The ESPN story also quoted O'Neal as criticizing Bird for wanting too much from the Lakers in a trade.
"Larry Bird is a hard man to deal with," O'Neal was quoted as saying. "He tries to make unfair trades. He wants to gut a team, but the Lakers are trying to get over the hump. I want Indiana to benefit, but with some nice young players and draft picks. I want to make it clear that I don't want to gut a team that I come to, because then it'll be like Indiana all over again."
O'Neal denied making that statement Monday when it was read to him.
"Wow," he said. "I didn't say that."
O'Neal said he believes the Pacers can reach the playoffs next season with their current roster, and spoke positively about O'Brien, who will install a faster-paced offense.
Contrary to his quotes in the Internet stories, he said the Pacers are not rebuilding.
"We have a team that's coming back that was thrown into the fire pretty quickly (after the eight-player trade with Golden State) and never really got comfortable," he said. "Giving them a full year is the most interesting part.
"The key thing is for everybody to come in a lot better than they were last year. Give the new guys (Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy and Ike Diogu) a chance to come into a fresh training camp and get their feet wet. There will be a big difference between how they played this year and last year. That was a tough situation to come into, especially with a team that hadn't missed the playoffs in 10 years."
O'Neal averaged 19.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocks last season. He played in 69 games and suffered a knee injury midway through the season. He had surgery to repair torn meniscus cartilage after the season.
"I should have gotten that (surgery) two years ago," he said. "I feel a difference in my movement now. It will be the first time in a long time I'm walking into a season worry free about any part of my body. I'm really excited."
O'Neal will be paid nearly $20 million in the upcoming season. He will receive about $43 million over the final two years of his deal if he doesn't invoke his opt-out clause and become a free agent.
He was quoted in Los Angeles as saying he would opt out "if things don't work" with the Pacers next season, but downplayed that possibility later in the day.
"I'm happy where I'm at," he said. "As far as the opt-out clause, it's there. But the only way I do that is if it's a very unenjoyable situation."
Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh said he was not disturbed by O'Neal's reported comments in Los Angeles, nor does he believe the threat of O'Neal's impending free agency will pressure the team into a trade.
"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Walsh said.
If O'Neal becomes a free agent after next season, the Pacers would be about $15 million under the salary cap and in position to sign a top free agent.

 

Dude, I would totally buy a Turdo Sandowicz jersey.

 

This is something that Kobe wants. He's been campaigning hard for O'Neal for sometime now.

 

You would allow them to trade you there? Oh, by all means!!!!!!!!!

 

I don't know what to believe. But do you know who O'Neal sounds like in this report? Kobe! These two deserve each other, and by 'deserve', I mean tank each others' careers.

 

Bynum is decent... but it is very premature to say he is going to be a top center at this point.

On the other hand. JO is a very good player, and if he stays health, the Lakers will be a decent team.

 

Amen to that.

 

they had the 7th best offense in the league last year, with a fairly crappy roster. i wish our offense had been such complete BS. it's amazing how many people think the lakers' problem was offense.

 

Steve Novak = Turdo Sandowicz (Turd Sandwich)

 

I say let O'Neal run away from Indiana, then get thrown under a bus by Kobe when the team struggles. And people will realize what a warrior Odom was playing for that team.

 

Wow, I never knew O'Neal made that kind of jack. If so, how in the world can he have any leverage over the Pacers in any way? The "trade me or I'll opt out" only works if other teams are willing to pay you at least about the same you make now.

NO team in the NBA is stupid enough to give J.O'Neal anywhere close to $20 mil a year. There's no chance he's opting out of that contract.

Also, I could care less if Lakers get him even without giving up Odom. Who cares? O'Neal is a jumpshooting C/PF who's not even that great at shooting jumpers. Him and Odom will likely miss over 70 games between them next season. He's basically the difference between the Lakers losing the 1st round 4-1 and 4-2, since they're not going to get higher than a 6th seed.