If I recall correctly... earlier in the season Sabas did the same flop/flail move raking Wallace across the face and badly poking him in the eye. It swelled up shut and caused Sheed to miss a few games. I wonder if the roles had been reversed whether some would have been more understanding STOMP
absolutely wrong. There was no reason to extend Zach and Theo a year before their contracts ran out to max deals. Doing so took away their capspace and what chance the club had to add Free Agents to their core. Management also could have traded some of those expiring contracts and clearly mismatched pieces instead of paying them top dollar and making them virtually unmovable. They also could have just let guys walk and let the club bottom out. Nash chose the worst possible option and earned his permanent vacation from front office employment. STOMP
I'm not saying Nash was great and all or even want to defend his tenure here, but Zach's agent threatened to take a one-year tender offer the next summer and become an UFA if we didn't give him the extension, according to a report. While few players actually do that, Nash bit the bullet and didn't want to take the chance of losing a 23-year-old PF who averaged 20-10 and who everyone thought was our core. With Theo, he led the league in shot blocking for two years in a row at the time. Not sure why they extended him though rather than re-sign him the next summer, but with his play back then, it was a desperate move to show the fans that we were keeping a good character guy who was playing some of his best ball in his career. No prominent free agents would've signed here anyway with our capspace. We were like where Memphis is today. I just think Nash was bullied around a lot by agents, Patterson and Vulcan -- with the whole Telfair-adidas thing as well. I don't think he would've turned the franchise around anyway if he hadn't been bullied around proved by his draft picks, but he was put in a tough situation trying to clean up Whitsitt's mess.
Going to a game in late 05-06 when there were MAYBE 5000 people in the crowd. At least I get to tell people I was there at the lowest point in franchise history and never stopped going to games.
I recall the or else I'll walk stuff that the Zach camp made, but it was an empty threat as Portland held most of the leverage. Only a couple of teams could have possibly made a run at ZR as a FA with a max type deal, and of course no one could have outbid the Blazers. If he didn't want to come back to Portland over a slight of not being extended a year out, his best chance of getting paid would have been a S&T which would have brought back talent to PDX. And Zach was not only a 20-10 guy, he was also a horrible defender, which was why I was so appalled at the time when he was extended for a max deal. Recalling the chatter in this group of posters at the time, not everyone was set on him being retained at any cost. resigning an oft injured 31 year old one trick pony to a max extension was not only desperate but very stupid. While he was a great help defender/shot blocker, he was also poor as a man defender and virtually useless on the offensive end. I wanted to when they extended him. says you... but we'll never really know. nonsense... KP inherited at least as bad of a mess and through good decisions quickly righted the ship. A quick look at Nash's two drafts provide obvious examples of missed opportunities. How about if he took the Detroit offer for Sheed instead of Atlanta's? Atlanta turned the Piston's 1st into Josh Smith and they'd have shaved even more $$$ off the cap. Portland would not have been over the cap had they not made the three moves they did as you contended. Nash chose the future core of the team to be built around Zach, Darius, and Theo which much of the board applauded wildly. I thought (and posted) my doubts about those moves at the time as did others (including EdO and Mixum) and was labeled a contrarian and belittled as Trader Bob apologist even though I had my beefs with some of his decisions as well. The benefit of hindsight hasn't exactly changed this matter... I think it's pretty clear who was right and wrong. STOMP
For a while, I spent a lot of time trying to find a vid of Wallace throwing that tantrum. I had another poster tell me that all he did was slap the floor with both hands, then got up. Never could find it, though.
