Jerry West on the Grizz/Francis issue

He threatened to retire? Can someone explain that to me?

 

kind of like what Jerry West did to Charlotte with the Kobe Bryant/Vlade Divac trade........

when you get the good side of one of these deals it is ok....... but when the other team wins it is bringing down what the NBA is trying to do "internally"

that is the biggest bullsh!t I have ever heard.......

I used to like Jerry West

 

I think he threatened to play in Europe for a year or something and then re-eligible (thats not a word is it?) himself for the draft. I highly doubt he said he would "retire". I mean the guy hasnt even had a carreer! WTF would he retire from?

 

Dude, Kobe completely held Charlotte hostage. When Kobe was drafted he announced there was only one team he would play for: the Lakers.

Kobe's a punk.

 

I never heard anything about this Kobe demanding a trade crap, can someone please give me a link to a source stating that this happened?

 

I've heard both... That he did and he didn't.

Recently, I've heard that he didn't ask for a trade.

Even on Beyond the Glory, they never mentioned it.

Besides, everyone thought LA was fleeced by giving up Vlade.

 

Posted by Writhe

So what does that make stevie?

Posted by World B. Free

I'd be pissed off if I was West also.


Let me throw out a situation. Lets say that we draft Ming with a high pick. Ming then demands a trade to the Knicks or some other team or threatens to never play for us. Would we not be pissed off at Ming? I mean, look at how we reacted to Pippen wanting to leave. It flat out sucks when a player does not want to play for your team. I love stevie and I will always want him in a rockets uniform, but if you stand back and look at it in an unbiased manner, he is a little sh*t also for doing what he did. We were extremely fortunate in the stevie case and Vancouver was extremely unfortunate. Do those fans not have a right to boo Francis every time he touches the ball? We do it to Pippen, dont we? It is completely uncalled for when players demand not playing for a team or demand playing for another team. These guys get paid absurd amounts of money to play a freakin game and any time one of these situations takes place, the integrity of the sport should be questioned.

 

Who gives a $hit what Jerry says ? It was the best thing that could have happen to the Rockets.

 

There's a diference between what Francis and what Kobe did. Kobe said: "I will only play for the Lakers. Your gonna have to trade me to LA." Francis told the grizz before the draft that he did not want to play SG. And he didn't want to go to the grizz because he knew he would be asked to play SG, since the then had Bibby at PG. That's why he said: "Trade me to a team that wants me to be their PG.

I'm not saying what Francis did was nice or anything.

 

The thing with West is his hypocracy. Now he's criticising something that he himself took advantage of not that long ago. But shure it was his job to make the Lakers better and he succeded.

 

so what are you saying?

 

Francis wasn't verry nice or respectful to the grizzlies organisation, but Kobe was even worse, imo.

I think this issue can be given much thought. What do you think? Should the rokies have absolutely no say about witch team they will be playing for?

 

I don't find it so wrong that someone says they want to play for a certain team or someone says they DON'T want to play for a certain team.

It's your life. You better be happy where you're living/working or everything else in your life will suffer, in this case, your game too.

The idiots here are the Grizzlies. Charlotte knew Kobe wouldn't play for them, but they picked him TO trade him. They knew they'd get value (or so it seemed back then). But the Grizz picked Francis and told him they want him to play SG. They didn't say they'll trade Bibby, or pick him to get a veteran. No, they wanted to make him the SG regardless of what he thought.

That's the difference. If you know a player doesn't want to play for you, then don't pick him for your team because you wno't get the player you're hoping for when he's unhappy.

It's that simple.

 

There's something that has to be considered here and that's the fact that Steve told them BEFORE the draft that he didn't want to play on the darkside of the moon (Vancouver). I agree that it does disrupt the draft structure, but doesn't that just display how horrible an idea it was to put a team in Vancouver? No dude from the East Coast who grew up playing street ball in Washington is going to want to play in Vancouver (the prettiest city in the world....made just for Canadians and draft dodgers).

I gaurantee you that if they were in Memphis they'd still have Steve, but we wouldn't so I'm not going to argue. I still don't see why they got screwed. They had a great talent that many teams wanted so even though they couldn't keep him they still had a number of teams that that would love to trade him. They're only b****ing because they wound up getting the short end of the stick in the deal, but if they had gotten the better hand on us then you wouldn't hear a damn thing about it. What's the difference between this and Griffey telling the M's that he won't sign an extension with them? In both deals the team could trade away the guy they had and get a lot of talent for him because a lot of teams wanted him. The only difference is the M's got better players in return than they traded in Griff and the guys the Grizz wound up getting were worse than what they traded. Wouldn't the M's be b****ing right now how Griff screwed them if Cameron was a dud and Griff was jacking out 50 a year? I bet they would.

The Grizz should b**** about their management not getting a better deal and not b****ing about Steve wanting to leave. By the way, why don't we do a GM draft so we can tell Mr. West where he's going to be the next 4 years? Some people just don't want to be in certain places Gerry, and I'm sure there are certain teams that you would never have signed for as a GM (like me, I'd never manage, play or work for the Knicks....not even with a 12 gauge at my skull would I sign a contract with those turds).

 

rezdawg,

We boo Pippen because he sucked and was a complete craphole when he was STILL ON OUR TEAM. Hell, I'm happier now that he's gone. I boo him because he's an a-hole, I'd boo him if he were never on our team. He just rode Mike's crouch and proved to be useless without Superman.

Also, you saying that if Kobe is a punk then Steve is a punk is a little off. First off, Kobe said he'd only play for the Flakers, so Charlotte had no bargaining position (whereas the Griff could have traded Steve to just about any other team). Also, Steve was being told he was going to play SG (which he didn't want to play) in a city that he didn't want to go to. What would you do if your job told you that you now had to be the janitor. It didn't matter if you wanted to do that or not, that was the only thing you could do unless you left the organization. I personally don't want to be a janitor (as some people probably wouldn't care), so I'm gonna leave the place to do what I want to do.

 

Exactly! West had no problem with disrupting the integrity of the draft when HE was reaping the rewards.

http://classic.sacbee.com/sports/kings/articles/2001/oct/20011028kings_ss_04.html

 

JeffB--

I'm glad you found that, because I hadn't heard of anythign with Charlotte. I thought they had just picked him to trade him, but I knew I saw on some TV show where Kobe had dinner with the Nets organization before the draft and he seemed like a lock in New Jersey until he found out LA wanted him. Supposedly, once he found out he had a chance of going to LA he/his agent told the Nets there was no chance in hell he would play there.

 

Thanks for the link, I had not heard about Kobe threatening to play in Europe.

I personally have no problem with his demands since I am a Rockets fan. Anyone that has a problem with Kobe's move, but don't think Steve's a "punk" is a straight up hypocrite...

I have lost a little bit of respect for West though...

 

It's gonna be kind of funny with Steve and Jerry West in the same room in the lottery draw.