My Favorite Transaction in Grizzlies' History
The Grizzlies have been busy over the past month losing games and making deals.
On the court the Grizzlies have continued their mediocre play against a variety of opponents.
Off the court, the Grizzlies have devised a new method of generating revenue. Some teams generate revenue by selling tickets, selling ads, or attracting a large TV audience. The Grizzlies generate revenue by completing personnel trades that net them revenue.
In one such deal the Grizzlies brought in washed up veteran, Steve Francis from Houston. The deal came almost a decade after 'The Franchise' demanded a trade from the his new team when the Grizzlies drafted him while still in Vancouver. It's only fitting that Francis' last hopes of reviving his career die with the team he spurned at the beginning of his career.
My favorite move so far has been the signing of Darius Miles. Like the Grizzlies' recent trades, signing Miles may actually net the Grizzlies a profit. Once Miles appears in two more games, his previous contract with the Portland Trailblazers, which had been removed from Portland's salary cap when Miles' career was said to be over by team doctors, will be back on the Trailblazers' books. That will put Portland over the luxery tax threshold for this season, which means the Blazers will owe all NBA teams under the threshold (like the Grizzlies for example) some percentage of the penalty.
The reason this is my favorite move is because the Blazers' team President Larry Miller, channeling Vito Corleone, sent an email to all NBA teams threatening action against any team that signed Miles for the purpose of "maliciously" hurting the Blazers.
Sending such an email was dumb on many levels.
- When you threaten something outrageous, it is not wise to do so in email form to a wide distribution list.
- There's almost no way for the Blazers to prove a team's intent. Did they expect a press conference where the GM told the press: " We don't really think Miles can contribute, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to screw one of our competitors out of several million dollars."
- Perhaps the Blazers did understand they were unlikely to be able to take legal action against a team. Maybe they were just bluffing and hoping a little intimidation would save their asses. Isn't such behavior worse than 80% of what the JailBlazers got into half a decade ago? (I say 80% because I'm sure Ruben Patterson did a few things worse than this.)
I hope the NBA fines the Trailblazers. It must violate some league rules to threaten other teams for operating within league rules. The NBA fines players for much less.
Even if Miles doesn't contribute, I like to see the Grizzlies embarass another team for once.
18 comments:
I think you forgot to mention the part where we waived Miles days before the cut off for having to keep him on the roster for the rest of the year. Now we have him on a 10 day contract and once we finish screwing the Blazers we can empty a roster spot. Chris Wallace may have issues scouting talent, but man can he produce some revenue without a fanbase.
Plus, the Grizzlies are so terrible that they can say with a straight face "we think he can help us."
Darius Miles > Mike Conley
You can buy my jersey at the NBA store for only $20 now:
http://store.nba.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2744249&cp=2712351.2712367
What's lower? Threatening to sue a team that signs a player with the sole purpose of hurting your team's financial situation -or- signing a player with the sole purpose of hurting another team's financial situation? Anyone who is freaking out about this is a hypocrite. They act like the blazers have bad intentions for Miles, and yet are defending other team's bad intentions of using Miles as a pawn to hurt the blazers and then dumping him off. No matter what happens, the blazers haven't done anything malicious or illegal and have nothing to be embarassed about. They sacked up and defended their franchise which is way more honorable than maliciously trying to screw over another team and use a player as a pawn.
"Anonymous"
Teams compete on the floor and they compete financially. Trailblazers left their right side undefended. The Grizzlies mauled them.
Deal with it.
Everyone knows when blazing a trail, you should keep your mouth shut so you can hear if there are bears on the trail ahead...
not team doctors you ass- it was nba/player union doctors...pull yer head out
Very telling when your favorite move your team has made is only to screw over another team.
Tell Kevin Love that his team just screwed over his home.
As a Portland resident and Blazer fan, the biggest frustration here is that NBA doctors...not Blazer doctors, but a doctor appointed by the league said his injury is 'career ending'. He even said something along the lines of if it were his kid he would never let him play ball again. IF that doctor had a different conclusion, the Blazers would never have released him this way. Perhaps they would have tried to buy him out or something else. Again...these were NOT team doctors...but league doctors. Something is wrong when the league declares that a guy cannot play, a franchise listens and believes that and then gets penalized when that turns out not to be the case.
NBA is gonna lose on this one. Grizzlies eat turds for being the ones to think they're gonna put it to the Blazers. Blazers and their fans are gonna get the last laugh. ha! FU!!!
Actually, I think you're right. The Grizz pulled one over on the Blazers. If not the Grizz, then some other team probably would have. Its OK though. The Blazers are still going to have cap room at the end of the season. Besides we get to kick the Grizzlies ass on the court, if not in the battle of the payroll wars.
i also like that we gave the lakers everything they wanted...why don't call anymore?
This guy writing this column is badly misinformed at least about what he thinks is the Blazers intent. Can you imagine if the Blazers would have told the NBA that it's doctors are wrong and required Darius to play inspite of league doctors saying it is a career ending injury. Any further injury would have been the liability of the Blazers. This guy should remember that the Memphis team name explains their problem, the Grizzlies can "BEARly" play basketball at all!!!lol
please. don't insult Vito Corleone. if they were channeling Vito, there would be grizzly brains all over miles' contract. sounds more like they're channeling Simple Jack.
Nice to have some portland fans in the house, ill informed and and angry portland fans, but still portland fans. First let me let you in on a secret, we traded Kevin Love's rights to the T'wolves for O.j. Mayo (who coincidentally is going to end up being better than Brandon Roy). Secondly, i am not sure why you guys are so angry, your team is in the happiest of place, you win 40+ games, don't make the playoffs, get a crappy late lottery draft pick and get to watch the real life story of Benjamin Button unfold before you? (Bill Simmons gets credit for that one) All the Grizz are trying to do is improve the product they put on the court. Darius Miles is a very good basketball player with a tremendous upside. Why else would have him on the books for $18 mill? And he is an incredible actor to boot. So anyway thanks for stopping by and be sure to tell all your friends.
Portland Fan here.
Sad to say, we said the same thing when he came to us from Cleveland. They said he had character problems, we said he was just in the wrong environment. The Blazers really tried to create something around this guy and he quit. Rest assured, whatever he shows you to keep him rostered will haunt you later. Maybe not monetarily, but he's a cancer.
You can take the thug outta the Ghetto. but you can't take the ghetto outta the thug.
Good Luck and don't tell us we didn't tell you so. It's just a matter of time.
Believe it or he'll take your club to even lower depths......after giving Gasol away, I don't know how much lower it can go than it already is.
Have fun "head boppin'"
LMAO>...LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
The way things look now, I think Greg Oden will win as many MVPs with the Blazers as D Miles did. Perhaps, the Grizzlies will trade us Conley for Roy so that Greg can recapture that Buckeye magic.
I can't believe I just waisted 15 minutes of my life reading a Grizzly Blog. Sheesh!
Congratulations Darius Miles on your 13 point showing against the Cavs. Thanks for contributing.
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