Do you guys know any inside info on the Knicks?

Good call, Swopa.

I suppose I lumped all of the Warriors' horrible trades into St. Jean's lap. The truth is, the Warriors have had a horrific run of deals over the last decade no matter who's in charge.

(Jerry Krause on the other hand...)

The Marc Jackson thing was downright contemptible though, no? Though, all in all, it probably worked out for the best for the Rockets, as I don't think Jackson would have been worth the money we were trying to pay him!

 

My goof, gr8-1. I got carried away in my attempt to think of something funny to say about the Knicks. The weather is lovely in Austin right now, by the way. On the hot side, but not bad for June. My plants won't wither, if I add a little water.

 

Thanks, Patience. Yeah, you can make a reasonable case that St. Jean got hoodwinked by teams during that 15-day period when they decided to match Jackson's offer -- i.e., wanting to keep Jackson away from the Rockets, they hinted at possible future trades that vanished in January.

Then again, it might have just been unforeseen circumstances. The deal the Warriors wanted was an expiring $3-3.5M contract and a mid-round pick in the 2002 draft. (The latter of which, incidentally, it's been reported that they're still angling to get.)

They wound up settling for the expiring contract when (1) the Pacers realized they could get Brad Miller and Ron Artest for their Jackson-sized expiring contract (Travis Best) and unload Jalen Rose in the process; (2) Phoenix decided to commit further to rebuilding and so refused to trade their now-lottery pick; (3) the Rockets fell into the lottery, depriving Memphis of the likely mid-round pick it hoped to offer GS; and (4) Portland, which reportedly did offer its pick near the deadline, didn't make Jackson's list of approved teams.

You're right that all GS apparently wound up accomplishing was rescuing Houston from a bad contract and sticking the T'Wolves with it. I didn't think that Jackson would be another Ike Austin/Michael Stewart whose game and/or motivation vanished after landing a long-term deal, but I may have been wrong.

About GS management: St. Jean (2000-present) has been OK, maybe a B or B-minus. PJ Carlesimo (1997-1999) was about a C-minus or D-plus (a CNNSI article written a week or two after the 1998 draft strongly implies that St. Jean would have drafted Paul Pierce over Jamison given the opportunity). The guy who really killed them as GM was Dave Twardzik (1995-1997), who I've nominated previously as perhaps the worst GM in NBA history (and if the search function was up, I'd link the thread).

 

You know, in the first 5 years of the WNBA, the NY Liberty have made the finals 3 times. Forget just getting T-Spoon: switch the entire teams. Tari Phillips would elbow Camby in the groin, and he'd be out for the season with broken bones we didn't even know existed. Tamika Whitmore would DOMINATE the entire Knicks frontline by herself. Crystal Robinson, Becky Hammon, and Vickie Johnson would shoot all day in Allan Houston's $100 million mug, and Wicks and T-Spoon would outhustle everybody (Houston's pansy a** couldn't even put the ball on the floor with 2-time defensive player of the year T-Spoon guarding him). You could even bring Kym Hampton out of retirement (she's far better than Felton Spencer, even at age 40). Finally, get Lobo back from the Comets to take Camby's place on the permanently injured list.

 

The Knicks have worked out Hilario 2 or 3 times, they have offered Camby and the #7, some kind of package, for the #1 (er, uh, thanks, but no), now they say they never wanted to move Camby in the first place (same old story).

 

I think he was just saying that the Liberty had a player named Wiherspoon in addition to Theresa Weatherspoon (I remember her, don't know if she's still with them, though). Thus making three similarly named players.

 

Sophia Witherspoon was traded to the Portland Fire one or two seasons ago. Portland just traded her to the Sparks.

Not that anyone cares.