<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'> Trade Speculation Rises as Lakers Make Move February 3, 2008, 6:46 am Does the Griz trade of Pau Gasol mean other WC teams feel pressured to pursue Jason Kidd? Will the Lakers now offer Lamar Odom to the Nets in hopes of completing a “dream team”? Wasn’t their initial offer Kwame Brown and Vlad Radmanovic? Did the Nets talk to Cleveland about Drew Gooden and Daniel Gibson? Meanwhile, Mitch Lawrence writes Kidd is the latest in a line of aging stars who think they are “entitled” to a championship. Jason Kidd throws Nets under bus in search of elusive ring - Mitch Lawrence - New York Daily News Kidd dreams not for Cavs - Bob Finnan - Lorain Morning Journal Cuban says stand-pat Mavs aren't Kidd-ing themselves - Jeff Caplan - Fort Worth Star-Telegram Difference-maker? - Jim Reeves - Fort Worth Star-Telegram Lakers might've pushed foes to make impact trade - Marcus Thompson II - Contra Costa Times Who's Kidd kidding? - Jonathan Feigen - Houston Chronicle Point-counterpoint: Kidd to the Dallas Mavericks? - David Moore & Eddie Sefko - Dallas Morning News Will Lakers land Kidd? - Michael Wallace - Miami Herald The waiting game - Rick Bonnell - Charlotte Observer GM Ferry still talking trades - Brian Windhorst - Akron Beacon-Journal Kidd deals blow to NJ - Mark Murphy - Boston Herald Kidd gets all dressed up but there's no place to go - Mark Heisler - Los Angeles Times Don't expect to see Kidd with Mavericks - Mike Monroe - San Antonio Express-News In-season trades have a poor history - Chris Beaven - Canton Repository Seller Beware - Fred Bierman & Benjamin Hoffman - New York Times Destination: Dallas - David Moore - Dallas Morning News A difficult, telling decision awaits - David Moore - Dallas Morning News What's their beef? - Ira Winderman - Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Week That Was: Gasol changes zip codes in deal that triggers rumors - Tony Mejia - CBS Sportsline No Kidd-ing: Don't make that trade - Patrick McManamon - Akron Beacon-Journal Kidd going, Miller staying? - Martin Frank - Wilmington News Journal On the NBA: Uncertain surprises - David Aldridge - Philadelphia Inquirer</div>
Drew Gooden and Boobie are not worth it. Like it says, Thorn never gives away anyone so it makes trading Kidd hard.
My 2 cents I think that Thorn is going to try and retool this team and keep them competitive , If he can trade Kidd for some quality players that can help this team right now I'm all for it, Kidd's brooding is killing this team right now just get some fresh faces in here and this team can move on with the business of trying to win some games
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JAMES.SLIMM @ Feb 3 2008, 06:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>My 2 cents I think that Thorn is going to try and retool this team and keep them competitive , If he can trade Kidd for some quality players that can help this team right now I'm all for it, Kidd's brooding is killing this team right now just get some fresh faces in here and this team can move on with the business of trying to win some games</div> that's not what kidd wants. I'm say this and please this is not a knock on VC RJ or Kidd but this team as long as it has the big three will never be competitive. Sure they might win 30 or 40 something games but once the second round comes this team will be an easy exit. Kidd is ready to leave and will not be satisfied with a couple wins or a 40 win season. As one article said. Once we add fresh faces what will happen then??? Oh we will hear the same excuses. Give this team more time to gain chemistry. Blah Blah Blah. The excuses are lame. Time to move on. The Nets are not a championship team. Hell with three potential all stars they're barely a 45 win team. Kidd looks at his time post 2003 as a failed experiment. He was fine with it too until he was denied a contract extension. He prob figure "Hell, might as well get paid and come up short."
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketba...ear.html?page=0 <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>"He's one of the few guys who can get a triple-double in this league and still look like he's not trying 100%," said the exec. "He can play just good enough to get his stats and you'll still lose. From the games I've seen recently, he's been in that mode."</div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>"In this league we've got a lot of stars who think they are entitled to a championship late in their careers," one Eastern Conference executive said. "These guys get older, they haven't won a championship and so they think it's their God-given right to be given away to a team where they can finally get their ring. Says who? What gives them that right? What about the team they're leaving? Look at the Nets. As much as Kidd helped them, they were the ones who took a chance on him and helped resurrect his career. All of a sudden, that doesn't matter?"</div> Sounds like Stefanski's not too happy about the way Kidd's been acting..
With every story that comes out its becoming more and more clear that no one wants Kidd. Lakers made their move, their out. Both Cuban and Johnson have said they are not making changes, Dallas is out. Cleveland beat writers are saying Cavs FO is not even willing to deal Gibson for Kidd. I get the feeling the Nets won't even get 1st rounders for Kidd
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GM3 @ Feb 3 2008, 09:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>With every story that comes out its becoming more and more clear that no one wants Kidd. Lakers made their move, their out. Both Cuban and Johnson have said they are not making changes, Dallas is out. Cleveland beat writers are saying Cavs FO is not even willing to deal Gibson for Kidd. I get the feeling the Nets won't even get 1st rounders for Kidd</div> Because he's one of their only reliable shooters. And Cleveland doesn't necessarily have the pieces for a trade for Kidd, anyways. And as for Dallas, it could just be this (which is simply speculation from a beat writer): <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and coach Avery Johnson have been disputing the rumors. But they don't want the Mavs to turn into the Chicago Bulls, who seemed to crumble when rumors were flying about Kobe Bryant heading their way.</div> http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=...46370&rfi=6 So who knows what's going on there. You just never know what's going to happen. After all, Gasol trade came outta nowhere. Who knows, maybe right at this moment, Thorn's talking trade with a team we wouldn't expect.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (pegs @ Feb 3 2008, 09:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GM3 @ Feb 3 2008, 09:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>With every story that comes out its becoming more and more clear that no one wants Kidd. Lakers made their move, their out. Both Cuban and Johnson have said they are not making changes, Dallas is out. Cleveland beat writers are saying Cavs FO is not even willing to deal Gibson for Kidd. I get the feeling the Nets won't even get 1st rounders for Kidd</div> Because he's one of their only reliable shooters. And Cleveland doesn't necessarily have the pieces for a trade for Kidd, anyways. And as for Dallas, it could just be this (which is simply speculation from a beat writer): <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and coach Avery Johnson have been disputing the rumors. But they don't want the Mavs to turn into the Chicago Bulls, who seemed to crumble when rumors were flying about Kobe Bryant heading their way.</div> http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=...46370&rfi=6 So who knows what's going on there. You just never know what's going to happen. After all, Gasol trade came outta nowhere. Who knows, maybe right at this moment, Thorn's talking trade with a team we wouldn't expect. </div> Milwaukee! Seriously, he would be a good fit on Atlanta.
BTW, the reason the Nets suck has nothing to do with the "big three." When Kidd says that "it doesn't work," he is being disingenous. This is a team with the worst bench in the league; with (probably) the lowest field goal and free throw percentages in the league; and whose starting frontcourt had about 30 games of total experience coming into this season. The top players off the bench are: (1) a defensive-minded SG/SF who can't shoot; (2) an offensive-minded SF/PF who can't box out or play defense and can't hit any shots anyway; (3) a jumpshooting big man who plays no defense and can't really shoot, anyway; (4) a highly-touted young PG who is terrified to do pretty much anything (and also can't shoot); (5) Jason Collins--no description necessary; and (6) a 40-year-old PG that somehow has the most energy on the team (but also can't shoot). Nah--it's Carter's fault.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/grizzlies/ <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Heisley's 'the guy making decisions' Q&A with the owner By Ronald Tillery Sunday, February 3, 2008 Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley never shies away from conflict or controversy. And in the case of trading away the team's one-time cornerstone in Pau Gasol to the Los Angeles Lakers essentially for draft picks and salary-cap savings, Heisley sounded as though he's ready to deal with the criticism. "I'm the guy who is making the decisions," Heisley said Saturday. "If people want to (complain) don't get on (general manager) Chris Wallace about the trade -- get on me." Heisley spoke exclusively with The Commercial Appeal about agreeing to the Gasol deal, its impact and the direction of the Grizzlies moving forward. Q. Why did you trade Pau Gasol? A. I traded Pau for a couple of reasons. There's been some negative reaction to Pau in the community, which I tried to alleviate and it didn't have a lot of effect. Had the team gelled this year with Pau, had we done better and started to move toward the playoffs, I would have been against trading Pau. The reality is we're a long ways from where we want to be. We need to step back and put 100 percent of our concentration on the young players and look toward the draft and possibly free agency to build a team. We tried to do trades with three or four teams and what we were offered wasn't going to do anything to improve the team. We had to reconstruct and start building a team like Portland did and like what Minnesota is trying to do. This trade will give us the ability to get the payroll in line. There is no mystery to it. I'm not dumb enough to think we got quality for quality for Pau. What we did was try to open up flexibility. Q. When did you realize that a financial deal had to be made? A. I realized it when we tried to negotiate with Chicago. They weren't interested in giving us financial relief. We had other conversations with teams and the people they were giving us back were veterans with substantial money left on their contracts. They were not of the same quality that Pau was. We didn't feel like we had a trade that was going to give us quality for quality or someone that would change the direction of the team that much. We had conversations with Chicago which were non-satisfactory. They didn't want to take on the luxury-tax situation and Los Angeles was. In this league, if you're in a big-market area you can afford to do those things. We negotiated as hard as we could for quality players and (Chicago) refused to give up anybody in their core group. What they offered us were guys who play on the second and third team, so we turned them down. Q. As a Gasol fan, how much did it take to convince you to trade him? A. It wasn't done in 15 minutes or in 15 days. This took months. What finally convinced me to listen was the performance of the team. We were not gelling and winning with Pau. I didn't think the answer was to stay the course. Maybe that's a better alternative, but I don't think with the way people felt about Pau and the way the team was performing we could stay the course. We tried to get one or two good players for Pau and we could not get that. Q. Did Gasol's low approval rating factor into this decision? A. There's no question we have not drawn well this year. I don't want to put that on Pau. A lot of people have said that in Memphis. I don't buy that. But when you're drawing the fans we're drawing, it's very difficult to compete with people who have a much more lucrative base. We're going to have to rely on the draft more than we have before. If you look at San Antonio, the heart of their team was drafted. Until they got successful, that was a small-market team. There are people happy that Pau's gone. And there are people who say we didn't do the right thing. That's what sports are about. Everybody thinks they're an expert. But at one point we had the fourth-highest payroll, we made the playoffs and didn't win. We got hammered by the fans. It wasn't because we weren't paying for players. We just didn't have that star nucleus. I know right now people are saying we're crazy. The point was you have to trade for what you could trade for. We got everything we could get out of the Lakers. We got draft choices and cap relief. That's what we wanted. They weren't going to give us Kobe (Bryant). I'm trying to put a winner on the floor for the people and it's not easy. We're doing the best we can. Anybody that reads more into this is wrong. Maybe we're not making the right decisions but we have the right motives. Q. Did you lower payroll to make the team more attractive for a sale? A. Anybody could read anything into this. I don't know what to tell people. That's like saying the guy that comes in here would rather have a losing team. That's ludicrous. People that buy basketball teams don't buy teams to see if they can make money at the gate. They want a winning team. People are always looking for something to say. If we didn't trade Pau we would have gotten hammered for that. If I brought in someone that wasn't as good as Pau we would have gotten hammered for that. I don't care. I know what we're doing and it's not making it attractive to sell. We're trying to build on the young players we've gotten recently in the draft. I am not going to sell the team to somebody for less than the value. I'm not going to put it out on the market like a piece of meat. I made that mistake with (Brian) Davis. I know that there are some people in Memphis that think I should just give it to them. And that's not going to happen, either. Q. Was former Griz president Jerry West involved in this transaction? A. No he was not. Not at all. There are a lot of conspiracy theories. If people think I haven't agonized over this trade they're crazy. If you want the exclusive, I got it from some guy in a flying saucer. Look, all I'm trying to do is make this team better for the fans. I've got people who say to me that they would never buy a ticket because Pau's here. We're looking long term rather than next year. Q. Are you confident that Memphians will be patient as you rebuild? A. Well, we are rebuilding. And I have said that the people in Memphis want and deserve a winning team, a playoff team that can win a championship. I didn't think I could get there staying the route that we were on. This is not an unforeseen way to build a basketball team. The value of this trade is what did they get three years from now in terms of the draft picks and how they used the cap? That's when you can evaluate this trade. - Ronald Tillery: 529-2353</div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Owner feels the pain over deal, too By Geoff Calkins Sunday, February 3, 2008 In publications all across this land, intelligent people looking for an explanation for the Grizzlies-Lakers trade hit on the same explanation: Salary dump. So there was a columnist for Yahoo.com, writing that the Grizzlies were "desperate to strip payroll and make themselves more attractive for a potential buyer." And there was the big redhead, Bill Walton, laughing at the Grizzlies' "fire sale." And there was Marc Stein of espn.com, writing that it's hard not to feel sorry for Marc Iavaroni and Chris Wallace, "who you have to believe have been forced to take charge of a fire sale to make it easier for (Mike) Heisley to sell the club." Only problem? Heisley had to be persuaded by Wallace and Iavaroni to make the deal. Not the other way around. And while the trade may or may not prove to be smart for the Grizzlies long-term, Heisley did it because he thought it was the best way to build the team into a winner. Honest. "The strategy sure as hell isn't to try to wreck the team," he said. "Quite honestly, if it was in my power to turn the Grizzlies into the San Antonio Spurs tomorrow I'd do that. I don't think anyone appreciates how painful it is to be the owner of a team that's losing and have people criticize you." Cue string music here. Or not, as the case may be. Regular readers of this column know that I have not been a fan of Heisley's moves over the last couple years. He doesn't want to own the Grizzlies any longer. The city, the franchise and Heisley himself would be better off he would set a price that -- here's an idea -- somebody wants to pay. But the wide-spread belief that Heisley forced this deal for purely economic reasons simply isn't true. Sources with no connection to Heisley emphasized this in conversations Friday after the trade. They said that far from driving the transaction, Heisley had to be convinced to part with Gasol. "I like Pau and I think he'll be very successful in Los Angeles," Heisley said. "But after a lot of soul-searching, I recognized that maybe the best course of action would be to see what we could get for him and start fresh." So the Grizzlies started shopping Gasol, fielding offers from around the league. Most of them were junk. Cleveland wanted to build an offer around Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes. Chicago tried to tempt the Grizzlies with Andres Nocioni and Tyrus Thomas. Portland mustered a package of Travis Outlaw and Raef LaFrentz. "What we started to see was that we weren't going to get an elite player coming back," Wallace said. "Rather than take a 'name' player that wasn't going to get us where we wanted to go, we preferred to get picks and salary cap room." Enter the Lakers, with an offer of Kwame Brown and Vladimir Radmanovic. The Grizzlies wanted Brown and his massive expiring contract, but insisted on getting Javaris Crittenton and draft picks as part of the deal. "We held out," said Heisley. "They finally sweetened the pot." The Lakers agreed late Thursday night. Heisley could have declined at that point and waited until the trading deadline or the draft to see if any better offers emerged. "We were worried that the Lakers might do the deal with Chicago," said Heisley, who had learned the Lakers were talking about sending Brown and Radmanovic to Chicago for Ben Wallace. That would have taken Brown's expiring contract off the table; the Grizzlies decided they had to act. "Otherwise we'd be like Chicago is today," Heisley said, "and gotten nothing done." None of which means it was a smart trade or anything. The deal has been ripped by most everyone who's weighed in. The best you can say about Wallace and Iavaroni at this point is it took them eight months to learn what everyone else in Memphis already knew: Gasol isn't a player you can build around. He's a fabulous third guy. And while Heisley insists he plans to use the Grizzlies new cap room to improve the team, it's hard to imagine any top-flight free agents coming to the franchise in its current shape. Heisley understands all these points. He's sympathetic to many of them. "When Chicago broke up the Bulls, I was fuming for three days," he said. "I get it. I understand. And the Bulls still aren't back." But Orlando did OK by tearing things down and starting over; so did Toronto and Portland. "I'm hoping to catch lightning in a bottle like Portland," Heisley said. "Look where they are now." In the meantime, Heisley plans to be in Memphis for Tuesday's game. He said he doesn't begrudge anyone. "I just want people to know I didn't do it to strip the team," he said. So now, people, you know.</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>People that buy basketball teams don't buy teams to see if they can make money at the gate. They want a winning team.</div> <span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%">O RLY?</span>
Bruce Ratner strikes me as the type of person who probably considers North Jersey to be part of New York State. Like Alicia Keys at that bogus Live Earth concert at the Meadowlands. "It's great to be back in New York!"
Kidd for Odom? nah... though it would be a good trade 'now' it would imo disrupt the flow and chemistry of the lakers why? Jkidd will most probably handle the rock, and how can we execute the triangle correctly if he doesnt know it yet. Kidd will mean fisher will be the backup, so what will happen to farmar? Im already satisfied with fisher as our pg and farmar the backup
