Trade aftermath leaves Christie a bit defenseless

Published March 2, 2005


Everybody wants to analyze trades immediately.

Who got the best of whom? Who got taken? Who got greased and who got fleeced?

So here we are on the day the Sacramento Kings are in town to play the Magic -- the perfect time to break down and figure out the Doug Christie-for-Cuttino Mobley deal.

Personally, I think it's still too early to conclusively say who made out the best, but I can definitely tell you who got the worst of it:

Doug Christie.

Just six weeks ago, he was a valued starter. He played on a perennially contending team that admired him, in front of capacity crowds that adored him. Now, he sits on the bench, barely playing on a perennially mediocre team that is unsure of him, in front of a barely audible audience that is uninspired by him.

Steve Francis only lost his best friend when Mobley was traded to Sacramento. Doug Christie lost his entire identity.

"It was a very tough and emotional time when the trade was made," Christie admits.

Christie attempted to do a radio interview in Sacramento the day after the trade but became so emotional he had to cut short the interview. Christie's teammates in Sacramento were so distraught, point guard Mike Bibby told the Sacramento Bee, "It was like losing a member of the family." And power forward Chris Webber wouldn't talk about it because he said it was "too hard."

Said Kings star Peja Stojakovic: "Doug always put the team in front of everything. It was always his top priority. He was a great motivator for everybody, a great example on and off the court."

Traditionally, when a player is traded he packs up his locker and that's the end of it. But in Sacramento, teammates made the pilgrimage to Christie's house to say goodbye and Godspeed.

"Usually, after a trade, you just move on," Christie said, "but this was different. We spent a lot of time and fought a lot of battles together. Guys stopped by to just say good luck and chat about old times."

Excuse Christie if he seems a little nostalgic. After all, he stepped from an idyllic situation into this ever-changing Magic soap opera. How would you feel if you were shipped across the country and the first publicized words coming from your new locker room was Francis complaining that Magic management "messed up" a good thing by trading Mobley?

"I don't know what I'm going to wake up for," Francis moaned about losing his best friend.

Sadly, Francis' words seem almost prophetic now because he and the Magic have seemingly been asleep since the trade was consummated. Christie was supposed to improve Orlando's miserable defense, but he hasn't -- and maybe GM John Weisbrod was naïve to think he would.

One player -- especially a guard -- does not miraculously transform a bad defensive team. Defense is about a team -- an entire team -- being committed to the grueling, unglamorous concepts of toughness and tenacity. The Magic -- despite Weisbrod's effort to toughen the team -- are still softer than the Righteous Brothers singing "Unchained Melody."
"It takes more than one man to make a good defensive team," Magic forward Pat Garrity said. "You can't just put a guy on an island."

Said Christie: "To play good defense, everybody has to work at it and everybody has to be on the same page. It takes time, and it takes trust. Time is something you always have, but trust isn't something you always get."

Welcome to your own version of Trading Places, Doug.

As Eddie Murphy, playing the streetwise Billy Ray Valentine, said in the movie:

"There's some strange #!$&$+! going on here, Coleman."


Mike Bianchi can be reached at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com.

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Magic-Kings pits Mobley vs. Francis

By Brian Schmitz | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 2, 2005


That Cuttino "Cat" Mobley is back in town on Dr. Seuss' birthday is purely a coincidence.

Mobley earned his nickname as a child because he loved reading Seuss' famed Cat in the Hat storybook.

If only the coincidences ended there.

When Mobley returns with Sacramento tonight, he'll not only be facing the Orlando Magic -- the team that traded him to the Kings -- but he'll be guarding his best friend, Steve Francis.

It's a scenario they never imagined could happen -- or ever wanted to happen. But a perfect storm of events has sent Francis into the game playing Mobley's old position with the Magic.

"It's going to be fun," Mobley said, by cell phone. "Steve and I have played against each other in practice and in the summers. I'm hyped. It'll be like brothers going at it."

After watching them scrimmage, talking trash and throwing elbows, Magic forward Grant Hill said, "If you didn't know any better, you're thinking they were coming to blows."

Said Francis, "It'll be like playing against myself. Cat knows what I like to do. I know what he likes to do. Am I pumped up? Of course."

Francis and Mobley spent five years in the Houston Rockets' backcourt before they were traded to Orlando last summer as part of the seven-player Tracy McGrady deal.

The Magic then split up Francis and Mobley on Jan. 10.

Mobley and forward Michael Bradley were dealt to the Kings for shooting guard Doug Christie before a game against the Celtics in Boston, sending Francis and the Magic into an emotional tailspin and a 119-101 loss.

Mobley didn't want to go, but said, "It was tough leaving my best friend. You wake up one day, and he's not there. It was a weird feeling for a while. But I have no hard feelings. Everything's worked out."

Francis was angry at Magic General Manager John Weisbrod, but said, "I'm over that. It's a business. They like you one day and not the next."

The drama was only beginning for Steve-0. The Magic then separated Francis from his beloved point-guard job.

Last weekend, in the third significant lineup change in seven weeks, the Magic promoted rookie Jameer Nelson to point guard and moved Francis to shooting guard for the first time in his NBA career.

Bumped to the bench in this chain reaction was Christie, whose playing time is being cut considerably.

He was acquired from the Kings for his defensive moxie and versatility. But he will not be in position at tip-off to defend Mobley -- or the Magic's trade -- as a reserve.

The rebuilding Magic are 10-13 since the Mobley-Christie trade, losing seven of their past 10 games.

The perennially contending Kings are 15-11 since the deal, but they had lost six of seven games in one recent stretch.

The Magic needed to address their horrid defense at the time they made the trade. They said they felt they had enough shooters to weather the loss of Mobley, a pending free agent.

Statistically, the Magic's much-maligned defense has improved only a tad with the addition of Christie. The club didn't expect miracles when it swapped a 34-year-old defender for a 29-year-old scorer.

Ranked dead-last (30th) on the day of the deal and giving up an average of 100.9 points per game, Orlando now ranks 26th at 100.7 ppg. Opponents shot 44.3 percent then, as they do now.

Sacramento was 20th defensively before the trade at 98.6 points per game but has slumped to 27th at 100.8 without Christie. Opponents are making 45.1 percent of their shots, up from 44.2. That could change again because the Kings last week traded forward Chris Webber to the Philadelphia 76ers for forwards Corliss Williamson and Kenny Thomas and forward/center Brian Skinner.

The Kings climbed from third to second in scoring, with Mobley averaging 18 points per game, up from his 16 in Orlando.

The Magic slipped from fourth to eighth offensively. Christie is averaging 5.7 points under his 11.7 career average since coming to Orlando, and he's shooting just 37 percent.

Yet Magic Coach Johnny Davis says, "Doug is still prominent in what we're doing. He'll help us. It's too early to conclusively reach a decision on him."

It looks to be an emotional night for Cat and Steve-0, but Christie won't get sentimental. "When they're on the other side and they've got the gun pointed at you, it's a different deal," Christie said. "I still love them, but I'm out there to win.

"The emotional part was leaving. After that, it's out of sight, out of mind."


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