speedythief

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog...3dstateChanged


In the article Thorn suggests that we would've taken the deal with Portland (SAR and filler for Rose and Carter) had Jersey not come forward with draft picks. He says that no other team had an offer even close to these two deals.

butr

The Jersey Deal is better.

Ideally, we should have done what Indy did and sit/suspend the player and wait.

speedythief

If an 04 draft day trade wasn't possible, but MLSE hired Rob to build around Vince. Trading Vince wasn't their intention until he made his demands--the drafting of Araujo is a clear sign of that.

Makes you wonder how much autonomy Rob ever had.

Benching Carter would've sent a nice message to the League about our resolve (as would fining/benching Mourning) but I'm not convinced Rob had any. Plus it ran the risk of lowering Vince's value even more.

anniebananerz

I was always confused about why the Raps didn't suspend fine Mourning when he didn't report to the team.

lucky777s

That was the rumour at the time too. Remember the Portland trade was thought to be a done deal, then fell apart, and the NJ trade finalized.

I say Babs would have done the POR deal if it was SAR and VanExl for VC and Jalen. Thats immediate cap relief of almost 30 mill. But Portland wouldn't take Jalen without giving back equal length contracts. No draft picks.

Babs made the call that the NJ trade was better, even knowing that Zo was not coming here. No way he figured EWill would be so bad here. How could he predict that.

There were no other confirmed offers we know of, and Rob had been shopping him since July/Aug when VC made the 'quiet' request. Thorn is just being honest.

no_free_baskets

in stark contrast to babcock's panicked responsed to the carter trade, walsh and bird really put on a clinic on how to milk every last drop you can get for a disgruntled star...their manipulation of the media was superb...

lucky777s

Please, no more Zo talk.

Would anybody really be happier if we played hardball and he just retired and took every penny of the money owed on his contract?

A moral victory that would not help us at all.

speedythief

It was a battle worth fighting and we chickened out. It was worth the risk because we were in the position of power, IMO.

lucky777s

The best we could have done is force him to fly here and sit on the bench in street clothes or retire.

He could never pass an nba physical, which is why we waived that to make the trade.

He held the power. He looked done in NJ and was not playing for them anymore.

I would have held out til the trade deadline and tried to force a bigger discount on the buyout. And tried to force him to at least show up and work behind the scenes with our bigs.

Not much difference in the end.

I think the Pacers screwed up by waiting. Sure they look tough, but the team went into the tank, and they got very few offers of any value. They could have gotten more in the summer. I'm not impressed with the way they handled this at all. It was a huge distraction. The Raps played quite well after ridding themselves of VC and avoided further drama.

speedythief

^ No, the best we could've done was told him to drop his contract or finish his career on the IR. His ego would've been on our side.

shookem

True, it was great to see a team's management stay tough. I think they had as much of an impact on Rob's being fired as Thorn did. If he feels guilty, he shouldn't.

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lucky777s

I think you underestimate how important the money was to Zo. He really held up NJ to get that uninisured guaranteed contract when it was highly unlikely he could live up to its length. He wan't letting that just go. NJ had talked buyout with him and he was 'insulted' by the offer. I remember that quote.

Just like Jalen here. He wants out so bad why not just give up his contact and take a 2 mill buyout? Never happen. Same with EWill. Not happy, take a 10% buyout. Nope.

They all talk about winning and PT but money comes first.

Benis007

Funny how the new CBA has a bunch of ways that teams/the league can dicipline players for acting the way that VC and Zo acted towards Toronto.

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speedythief

I disagree entirely. He wanted a trade, he didn't want to retire. He wanted to play. He wanted to win a championship. He used his injury as a mask with Toronto like he did with Jersey.

Obviously he wants the money, but we were willing to give it to him. Take the buyout off the table and tell him he can rot and I think we are in a totally different position with him.

He becomes the Hall of Fame potential guy who ruined it by sitting out rather than playing for a bad team. And nobody takes a chance on him when his contract with us runs out because his priorities are out of order.

Jalen and Eric have lots of life left in them and not a lot of contract time. Different situations. Eric is probably gone this summer through opt-out and Jalen thinks he will be traded.

charlz