The article doesn't exist anymore, but there's a forum post from that time with quoted text. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=5154
See? Dunleavy did not want to trade JO and thought it was a bad idea. Bob made a bad trade. We didn't let Crabbe go just because he wanted to start. And do you really think JO was a superstar? Honestly? What is your definition?
JO to Indiana wasn't really a consolidation trade though, was it? It was an experience trade. A young forward that wasn't playing for an All star on championship team that played well against our biggest challenge. I think anyway?
Gee ya think!?! Wow...... I've never heard THAT opinion before. Your grasp of trades that happened 16 years ago is AMAZING Eric. Simply AMAZING.
Six straight All-Star games. Voted as a starter in 2 of them. Go look at his stats between 01-02 and 06-07. That's a superstar.
Dale Davis was the best player in the league at slowing down Shaq, and if I recall correctly, it wasn't even close. That trade was the absolutely right trade to make, because at the time it was about getting over the Shaq hurdle the next season to win it all.
it was a three man rotation for the most part. Sabonis starting at center, Wallace at pf and grant playing minutes backing up both of them as i remember it. grant disliked guarding centers. davis had been effective defending shaq probably as well as any one because he was so strong. so oneal was behind wallace and grant in the rotation and at 35 sabonis was breaking down. we traded a young powerforward,#3 in our depth chart, for a starting center who could match up with our chief obstacle to the finals in LA and Oneil
Petrie also made a bad trade when he let Drazen go because he wanted more playing time. Again trading youth for experience. It's not ideal having a player who is unhappy on the bench, especially Euro's who have other options, but either you get real value for them......or don't trade them!
At the time trading Jermaine for Dale Davis would be a lot like trading Meyers Leonard for Taj Gibson. I know Gibson isn't an all star but is a similar player.
No, it really wasn't. Davis had just defended Shaq, in the Finals, better than anyone had defended him all season. Shaq was our biggest obstacle to a championship. Jerm wasn't doing shit for us. It was a great trade that just didn't work out.
You really can't have enough bigs on cheap contracts these days..Vonleh will play. He added a lot of upper body strength and looks to me like he's ready to take the next step in his progress...this is a young, young 3rd year player
First - the idea of trading Sabonis is blasphemous. You should probably be banned for the summer for such a statement. But, here's what would have happened if we did that: Shaq would have literally (not figuratively) eaten Jerm alive while tearing down the backboard on a dunk and farting out Jerm's spirit; after which he'd have wafted Jerm Fart in the face of Joey Crawford who would then assess Sheed a double-technical.
The argument could be made that he was the best power forward in the game for a few years there, so I'd say yes. But, he has never been voted as a starter. Jermaine was voted in two times in a row, 2003 and 2004. I guess it depends on what your definition of a superstar is. If you're one of the top 10 players voted in by the fans, you're most likely a superstar, or you were a superstar at one point (IE Kobe this season.) Aldridge has been to five straight, so pretty comparable.
It's very comparable; that's why I asked the question. Jermaine was an all-star starter...in the east...whereas Aldridge has made 4 all-NBA teams to Jermaine's 3, and averaged 21.5/9.2 to Jermaine's 20.4/9.9. But IMO, being a superstar isn't about stats or starts; it's about national perception. And I would hesitate to say that either has ever really been nationally perceived as a player that can be the anchor of a contender. To me, both fall short of "superstar" status. Of course, it's such a subjective term that we could argue about it all day and never agree.
It's all about perception, but the fans don't typically vote in someone that isn't a franchise player, or at least was a franchise player at one point. But then again, your question about LMA was a loaded question, so I was sidestepping that land mine
Still, did you look at how weak the East roster was those years? 2003--Jermaine had fewer than 1M votes, fewest of any starter. Reserve all-star forwards: Antoine Walker and Jamal Mashburn. Grant Hill almost beat Jermaine, and he was injured. 2004--Carter and Oneal were the only real options. Reserve all-star forwards: Kenyon Martin (16 & 9) and Ron Artest (18/5/4)--the only all-star appearances for either. Hell, 38-year-old Pippen played just 23 games that year, started only 6, and averaged 12/6/4 on 38% shooting, and came in 5th in the east voting among forwards. It was THAT bad. Seriously--it took historically bad all-star rosters for Jermaine to start the all-star game. Had he been in the West, he wouldn't have had a prayer.
