Interesting SAR information

[Rain man]

I don't know how much of this is already known on the board, but I had an interesting chance to meet Aaron Goodwin this afternoon (SAR's agent). .

Anyway- one of the questions that came up in the meeting was if agents/players ever have problems with the league morotorium for signing players (if teams or players ever back out on agreements that are agreed to after July 1 but before contracts can become official). Naturally, the SAR saga from this past summer came up.

Basically, Goodwin said that there is absolutely nothing wrong with SAR's knee. The scar tissue that they spoke of was from an old high school injury (which I believe is common knowledge around here). What is not so common knowledge is that SAR didn't fail any physcial with New Jersey. Basically, some people within the Nets organization got some very cold feet about adding another long term contract to go along with Kidd/Jefferson/Carter. Apparently there is a very prominent battle within the organization about being over the cap (sort of like the Joe Johnson situation in Atlanta) and enough of the powers that be decided they wanted out of the contract.

Since there was no signed contract, Thorn and company did what they could to get out of the deal and told SAR/Goodwin that there was no deal. Interestingly, there was NEVER a failed physical. Thorn pulled the deal off the table and then to save face said it was because SAR had a bad knee, not because his team got cold feet.

Interesting how much goes on behind the scenes that we never know about...

 

[LPKingsFan]

Interesting, but I feel so much of this already goes on in politics, business, etc, so why not sports. I feel that in some ways, public relations is just another term for B.S. But, I digress..

Good to know we don't have to worry about the knee.

 

[Bricklayer]

a) this is his agent speaking

and

b) there is at least one piece of B.S. there (some of the rest being public knowledge, but now with the agent's spin). The B.S.? That SAR and the agent would just go along with a team saying he had a bum knee and that "it would not hurt them". Riiiiight. Nope, having a team cancel its contract with you on grounds that your knee is bad and could give out at any time is not going to adversely affect your market value? That's obvious B.S., and casts the rest of the spin in doubt. (I am not overly concerned about SARs knee but trying to convince me that a professional athlete and his agent would cheerfully allow their physical fitness to play to be smeared by a team cancelling their contract is not the way to make me feel better about he situation).

 

[captain bill]

I'm sure it is somewhere in between- yeah, they didn't want the contract. They might have pulled out for fear of being over the cap. But (1) they would have gotten that figured out before hand and not a week or two after they signed someone and (2) this is an agent speaking, of course he'll say the knee is perfect. But, as has been well documented, the knee hasn't caused any active problems. Most likely scenario in my mind is that NJ was unhappy about the deal (or some factions in the organizations were) and then got an opinion from a doctor that his knee may not hold up over several years. Management then pulls the plug and cites the physical, but is really just scare as hell of being stuck with a long term contract on a guy who is hobbled and playing below potential.

 

[playmaker0017]

I have it on pretty good authority that Shareef does not have issues with his knees.

If you did speak with Goodwin, the speech sounds about right.

The story I was told is that there wasn't a "failed" physical ... but rather a question arose. That's a different scenario.

 

[captain bill]

I have it on pretty good authority that Shareef does not have issues with his knees.

If you did speak with Goodwin, the speech sounds about right.

The story I was told is that there wasn't a "failed" physical ... but rather a question arose. That's a different scenario.

who, exactly, is your "good authority"? because unless you talked with the doctors or someone high up in nj, you know as much as the rest of us. maybe you had lunch with the maloofs and chatted about the future with them? not to sound mean, but there seems to have been a small rash of people around here claiming to have inside info without much of a basis that really amounts to them trying to give their wishful thinking more credence.

 

[Packt]

This has been discussed heavily, but I don't remember the Nets ever mentioning what exactly scared them. It was Goodwin who first said the Nets got cold feet over scar tissue in his knee. The Nets said it was something they hadn't previously known about and Thorn said he wonders if even the Blazers and Shareef knew about the problem, hinting that the issue was not about the scar tissue in his knee.

Obviously both sides are spinning things in their favor, but it's kind of hard to believe Goodwin's story about going along with the Net's "bum knee" story. In fact, they didn't go along with any story at all. They refuted Shareef had any problems from the get go.

 

[playmaker0017]

who, exactly, is your "good authority"?

Does it matter?

because unless you talked with the doctors or someone high up in nj, you know as much as the rest of us.

Oh. I guess you're right. I mean, only doctors and people high up in NJ would know.

How about this - I've known Shareef personally since I was 17. I talked to him over the offseason. Doubt me - go talk to the Portland board.