Forget about Kobe Bryant: Chris Wallace, the GM of the Memphis Grizzlies, is the real "Most Valuable Player" of the Lakers' championship. He was the dufus who traded Pao Gasol to LA for pocket change and gave them their first championship since Shaq. Thanks a lot, Chris! Your brilliance as a GM is now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Yep, I hope LA sizes him up for a ring. He did a much better job GMing the Lakers than Mitch Kupchak did.
But dude, they now have cap space and Pau's brother! That's a totally fair trade. At least, that is the company line. I don't think Wallace had a whole lot of choice in the matter. The Grizzlies owner is a tightwad fool.
Wow. I forgot that the Lakers got Ariza from Orlando. The Magic GM must have been dying when Ariza torched his old team in the finals.
A question: would the Grizzles have been better off if they had NOT traded Gasol to LA? They would have paid $12m more for the better Gasol, but they'd still be out of the playoffs and probably not picking as high as #2. Looks to me, as an outsider, that Wallace improved the future of the Grizzlies by making that deal and saved his owner a boatload of cash. Ed O.
OJ Mayo, Pau Gasol and Rudy Gay? that's a great base to build with. what a dolt. no wonder they're the worst franchise ever.
With Pau Gasol, they'd have finished with a better record and probably not been able to draft Love, whom they swapped for Mayo. You can't just add Pau Gasol to a core including Mayo. Not having Pau is significant in them having Mayo.
they're not going to be able to do anything with this cap money, they are a horrible franchise. they probably won't exist in 10 years.
Absolutely not, LA traded for talent, MEM traded for Cap Space... The people who claim conspiracy theory(not saying you) never want to address this obvious point. MEM didnt want to pay for CHI garbage...they wanted more say in how they were gonna spend it...Kwame accomplished that better than any other expiring contract that was on the table.
No one ever said that Memphis shouldn't have traded Pau Gasol. The point is, they GAVE HIM AWAY. It was a lopsided trade that benefitted the Lakers, and everyone said so at the time.
The thing was, Memphis traded Pau way before the trade deadline and seemingly didn't give any other teams a chance to give an offer. The only other team was Chicago. You'd think if you had an All-Star caliber player to give away, you'd wait for the best offer. Even their owner admitted later that he could do it again, he thinks Memphis could've gotten a lot more for Pau than they did. It was a lopsided trade, the Grizzlies got their cap space, Chris Wallace tried to sell it to their fans but no one is going to sign as a FA to play for their crappy franchise.
It's not Wallace's job to not improve the Lakers. It's JUST his job to improve the Grizzlies. The first level of inquiry, then, is to ask whether the Grizzlies would have been better served not to make that deal and keep Gasol. The second one is, as others have noted, whether there were superior options. Personally? I think that he did as well as he could, and that both reports at the time and his continued employment are evidence of that. Ed O.
