http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060224 The latest entry from Bill Simmons. It is absolutely hilarious. Genius.
I like how he gives Baylor a free pass after trashing him mercilessly for yerars now that he has apparently met the guy.
They're actually on speaking terms now. I read it in one of his blog entries. Sleeping with the enemy. :shakes head:
No, he said something in his last column about how he had spoken to Baylor and he was a nice guy now they were on good terms or something like that. Seriously - who's had more playoff appearances - Minnesota under McHale or Baylor wotj the Clippers? He's been the GM of one of the flagship worst franchises in sports history for decades - who cares if they're on track this year to squeeze in their one playoff appearnce for the 2000's? Granted, a lot of it is Sterling's fault - but if Simmons is going to rag, and rag, and rag on Baylor for years and then all of a sudden give him a free pass for one decent season - it's just kind of lame.
Everyone rips weisbrod but the only mistake he made was trading mobley and not getting anything in return. everyone wanted him to draft okur, he drafted the right guy and he drafted jameer nelson. weisbrod was in a no win, he had to trade mcgrady. what was the other deal on the table, artest?
t-mac got tired of losing, weisbrod was a scapegoat. that dude was not signing with orlando again, and as much as I criticize the guy I have to give him credit for not doing them like shaq did them.
Tmac requested the trade because his relationship with Weisbrod turned extremely icy. He later said if Weisbrod wasn't the Magic's GM, he would probably stay in Orlando.
why would he want to stay in orlando with a broken grant hill and a team coming off 21 games. do you seriously think it was all weisbrod? seriously, before you respond tell me one good reason to stay in orlando? remember, this is before dwight howard.
You have good reasoning, but I have fact. I base my argument on what Tmac said, not my own speculation. You can argue with me till doom's day, but Tmac said what he said.
Baylor belongs at the summit for the Michael Olowakandi pick alone - though he has made some good moves over the years. The Manning-Harper teams were decent until injury destroyed them, he made some nice deals to pick up Corey Maggette(salary dump) and Elton Brand. He's a below average GM, but he's not Isiah Thomas bad. As for McHale - the Joe Smith move, and acquiring Olowakandi despite knowing what a bum he was - and essentially failing to get a partner for Garnett. Those were pretty poor moves.
Don't know. All I know is this is what he said. I'll take the face value of tmac's words. You want to speculate? Go ahead.
BTW according to all reports, Mchale had nothing to do with the Joe Smith debacle. That was strictly between Smith, his agent and the owner of the Wolves. If Mchale was involved, I'm sure that Stern would have removed him from the GM position and possibly ban him from the league for a time. Stern can't quite lower down the boom on an owner as much. And Weisbrod's biggest blunder was trading Cat away for what turned out to be nothing. That turned a C/C+ trade into an F trade. Cat, a Happy Steve and Howard would have surely made the playoffs. There'd be a lot of grumbling about Steve and Cat freezing Howard out, but I'm sure the results would have spoken for themselves. They wouldn't be such a bad team in the East.
I don't think he sold out to Baylor. He rode him pretty hard the year before, remember? And then Baylor called him something that rhymed with "bassbowl," and Simmons kept riding him. Baylor should miss out on the summit. Ewing, Ross, and Singleton have been great under-the-radar guys, and the Cassell trade was tremendous.
