How goddamn stupid are the Memphis Grizzlies? A while back there was talk of them trying to get Lamar Odom, AND Andrew Bynum for Gasol, and they decide to settle for neither! The get bust Kwame Brown for 35 games, as they are sure to dump him at the end of the year, a back-up guard to join the five they have, a retired player, the rights to Gasol’s pudgy younger brother Marc who trust me, ain’t no Pau, and a 2008 and 2010 first round pick which now is pretty much guaranteed to be #25 or higher. But they get the cap room to go after the dozens of players who are dying to sign with a shit team in a shit city!
Now the Lakers have a potential starting five of Odom, Gasol, Bynum, Kobe and Fisher with a bench of Vujacic, Turiaf, Farmar & Radmonovic. Surely they are now the team to beat in the West. I’m not even a big fan of the NBA but this deal is the stupidest I’ve ever seen, and proof why shitty franchises like the Grizzlies usually stay shitty forever.
Sounds like the Grizzlies might be looking for yet another new home. They’ll say they can’t sell out in Memphis and look for a better deal from a city eager to attract an NBA team.
They got fleeced as far as players are concerned, but for a small market team with limited revenue, the $45 million they save is fair motivation. Of course they could have probably saved close to that much and still gotten a decent young player like Farmar. Would the Lakers have hesitated to make the deal had it been Farmar instead of that 2008 or 2010 pick? I assume they refused this deal, but you’d have to assume that they could have gotten at least this from another team in the East.
I heard some Memphis rep saying this was the best offer out there- he’s got to be full of shit. Last year you could have gotten Odom or Bynum and another good player, or some combination of Deng, Wallace & Gordon, and this year you have to settle for nothing at all?
Maybe he’s not a franchise player in the sense that he could lead a team of nobodies deep in the playoffs, but these asshole moron Memphis fans I see writing in that they’re glad he’s gone, even if the got absolutely nothing for him as if he were some 12th man, is pathetic- it shows their idiocy. He’s disliked there for having the audacity to admit he was unhappy playing for one of the worst teams in the league- stupid local fans somehow took that as a personal attack.
The owner should leave the city as soon as he legally can.
No shit, don’t you think that the Bulls would have made essentially that same deal with Wallace in place of Kwame if they’d have called them last night? Hell, I bet they’d have thrown in Duhon. The best deal for the Bulls would have been a 2010 1st rounder, Nocioni (or Duhon) and Wallace for Gasol.
If getting Wallace and his multi-year contract are a deal breaker for them, the Bulls could have been talked out of Deng or Noah after the way this season has panned out. Though I’m not sure the contracts work out.
I don’t know enough about basketball to have an informed opinion on this, so I’ll quote a friend of mine, a really smart guy who covers the Grizzlies for the Memphis free weekly:
My friend who wrote this is an extraordinarily astute observer of basketball; I’m looking forward to picking his brain about this.
I can tell you one thing for sure, though: Memphians have zero interest in the Grizzlies this year. Our NBA team is sucking mud, and our college team (the Tigers of the U of Memphis, which I attended for grad school and law school) is number one in the country, the only undefeated team. I’ve not heard one person talk about the Grizzlies this season; everyone follows the Memphis Tigers.
I’m just sick as a Bulls’ fan. This is the second big man this year that’s slipped through our fingers. We were offering more value for Garnett and Gasol that their teams ended up getting, yet because their GMs were dumb they passed.
The problem with GM Chris Wallace’s plan is that big name free agents don’t want to come to a hick town with no tradition like Memphis- in five years who are the biggest names they’ve brought in via FA- Brian Cardinal? Darko Milicic? Grizzlies fans think Gasol is “overpaid” and he gave them 19 and 9, what the hell do they call Brian Cardinal who makes 6 mil or so and doesn’t get off the bench? Kobe and Odom are tickled shitless to get Pau, but the genius Memphis fans who think he’s shit know better I guess- we shall see.
So Darko Milicic and Kwame Brown may be on the same team? And uh, you know, out on the floor at the same time? I foresee great posts for the future of basketbawful.