Rasheed Wallace's Hilarious "Welcome to the NBA" Story

I lobbied for Pat Summit. She turns her death state on Sheed, he meekly says "yes, ma'am".

 

If we had a player like Sheed… The Blazers have missed a Rasheed Wallace since Rasheed Wallace was a Trail Blazer. I would honestly probably put a Rasheed Wallace on top of my wish list for the team right now.

Interestingly enough there’s a lot of good players from the past that you wonder how they would do in today’s game, Sheed might be even better than he was. The closest thing today might be Draymond Green, but that’s almost his attitude on the court more than anything.

 

It's Dunleavy's fault that he wasn't arguably the greatest coach of all time?

And not because he did anything wrong... Just because he was unable to manage a player that no other coach was able to manage unless they had incredible leverage over his financial future (Deen, in college, and Brown, after he'd been traded as a cancer and the team that traded for him flipped him like nothing). For one season and two seasons.

I think Phil may have been able to do it better thanks to the gravitas of having coached those great players to all of those championships.

But Phil would have never taken the Portland job with Sheed as the best player.

 

We needed Dame when we had Sheed. Dame was the kind of player that team needed to get over the top.

 

I didn't say it was Dunleavy's fault. Coaches can be good at certain things and not so good at certain things. It was more of an observation that I wish I saw Rasheed get coached by Phil Jackson.

 

Gotcha. Yeah I was just commenting on the idea that Dunleavy was somehow more at fault than Sheed.

I agree that Phil very well may have handled Sheed better. But I don't think he would have taken on a team who's best player was Rasheed. Unless insane dollars were involved (like, stupid insane).

 

I do think if a team loses a 15 point fourth quarter lead in Game 7 of Western Conference Finals the coach has to take responsibility.

 

That's a valid point and definitely worth looking into.

Would you suggest they should have done something different offensively? Defensively?

Rasheed Wallace himself has said that he missed more than enough shots in the fourth quarter that are normally automatic to have won the game for Portland.

Now, I'm not trying to lay the blame for that loss at Sheed's feet, but it's very difficult for me to lay the blame at somebody's feet when we can't say that they clearly did anything wrong.

If you didn't have the best players on the court I could see calling out the coach.

If the offense was stagnant and they weren't getting good looks, absolutely.

If he was playing offensive players who couldn't play defense and we lost at the defensive end, then sure.

If he mismanaged the game clock that would be a valid point of contention to me.

If they had just gone into that series and been overwhelmed by Phil Jackson's game plan, that would absolutely place the blame on the coach.

But I've honestly never heard any criticisms like that about the coaching in that game.

 

When Sheed through the towel in Sabas face I lost a lot of respect for the guy.

 

Sheed choked big time......and he knew it! The man couldnt demonstrate any composure when needed the most.

 

That was a huge deal. HUGE.

 

I am not a coach. I don't know what coach could have done differently. I do recall Blazers totally in sync, scoring almost at will and coach called time out late third quarter for no reason other than they would lose it if they didn't take it. And Blazers stalled after that, it's like their flow was interrupted and Lakers caught their breath. Can't blame loss on that one thing but I do consider it a coaching mistake.

But I recall Sheed scored something like 30 points. So pointing finger at him doesn't compute.

 

Maybe he wanted them to start milking the clock more to protect the lead and shorten the game.

If so, I'd say that's definitely a coaching mistake. It can totally change the way your team plays and result in exactly what we saw in that fourth quarter collapse.

That's the kind of thing I've done in the past and learned to try and avoid. Coaches like Phil Jackson try to avoid that kind of mistake.

The kind of mistake Popovich made by overcoaching against the heat in the finals.

Yeah, valid concern, for sure. Thanks for sharing.

 

Back to Sheed...

He organized coat drives to collect winter coats for homeless people in Philadelphia. When Flint water crisis broke her personally drove a truck full of bottled water to Flint. He joined some hip hop artists to make a Covid prevention video aimed at young Black men, who data showed were behind the curve on Covid prevention. I mean he's no angel and his temper is a problem but I felt he was more bark than bite. There are/have been some genuinely bad people in NBA, as there are in any random group of people. I just never felt Sheed was one of them.

My $0.2, which will soon be obsolete as the penny is going away.

 

I have always been a Sheed fan. He was the designated Bond villain after Rodman but he got some of the worst non calls ever against the centers of his day...he was also Donaghy's favorite tech target while he was fixing games for profit. Sheed got bitter over the years but what a talent. His complaints especially early in his career were warranted. Later he just stopped giving a fuck. People magnify a few seconds of a game when a guy melts down sometimes and ignore all the times he had that same guy's back. It went Oakley, Rodman, Sheed, Draymond and now Dillon Brooks..there's always a bad guy. Shaq should have fouled out halfway through every first quarter he played against Sheed. He mauled Sheed to dunk on him and get and one's...Sheed would complain...tech on Sheed, Donaghy makes the spread gambling on the game...rinse, repeat. A lot of guys who played with him praise him as a teammate.

 

I didnt and dont now have anything against Rasheed. I know he lost his composure and probably regretted the flying towel incident. Ive played a lot of sports in my time and have seen guys get pissed and overreact. I must admit, I have never seen a towel thrown in the face of a team mate before. I was a huge Sheed fan but that did piss me off. I know he's been a good dude and has helped out many times. I know this if that was ZBO throwing a towel in Sheeds face, there would have been a fight on the floor. lol

 

Context. SBas twice tripped over Sheed's feet in that game. Sheed should not have thrown a towel at a teammate, but it was a towel. Not a punch. Not the Gatorade cooler. So even then when he lost his head and did something he shouldn't have, he didn't hurt anyone. Choke anyone.

 

He hurt the team. Incredibly so.

The fact that he did that publicly speaks to how he likely was far more often with the team in private. And that willingness to put himself over the team is likely why that team was not mentally tougher, IMO.

I've seen that dynamic far too many times.

And he still tries to play it off like Sabas was somehow at fault.

 

FIFY