http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/14116899p-14946178c.html
Mark Kreidler: Petrie puts sentiment aside
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, January 26, 2006
There was a great and continuous mistake made Wednesday by anyone, anywhere who attempted to discuss this deal in straight basketball terms. You know, points and rebounds and defense and all that - as if the Peja Stojakovic-Ron Artest trade could be reduced to such basic fodder.
It was a gargantuan gaffe for two reasons:
1.) The Kings - and, trust me, they know this - just acquired a player who is arriving from some strange and exotic planetoid, where everyday logic and math does not apply; and
2.) That would be Stojakovic on the way out.
About Artest, you've probably already formed your opinion. The other angle concerns Stojakovic and Geoff Petrie, the man who essentially discovered Peja, brokered his NBA career, and finally - just here and now - had to come to peace with the terms of separation.
There are those who believed such a day would never arrive, because they believed that Petrie had too much wrapped up in Stojakovic, both emotionally and competitively, to ever let go. It was one of those Geoff things. He just couldn't see through the haze.
But the events of this week, pockmarked and scabby though they are, suggest something else. They suggest that Petrie hasn't abandoned his capacity to think basketball first and relationship second.
They confirm, actually, what people who really know Petrie have said all along: He's a cold-blooded Westerner at heart.
"He'll always have a fond place in my heart," Petrie was saying of Stojakovic late Wednesday afternoon. "I'm proud of him. I'm proud of what he has accomplished."
But Petrie's pride didn't blind him to the truth. Over the past several months, friends and colleagues say the Kings' top basketball executive had come to the full realization that his plan wasn't going to work, that trying to make a "core" out of Stojakovic, Brad Miller and Mike Bibby was a failed effort.
When the season began, those three were joined by Bonzi Wells and Shareef Abdur-Rahim in a starting five that was widely considered to be one of the strongest in the Western Conference. But there was no getting around the fact that the unit wasn't great together, and specifically that Stojakovic was simply not the player he had been even two years before.
In Indianapolis, Pacers executive Donnie Walsh was saying Wednesday that it was a rumored Stojakovic-for-Artest deal that prompted Artest six weeks ago to essentially demand to be traded, leading to his deactivation by the Indiana team (an organizational blunder we'll save for another day). As Walsh recounted the story, "That was not true. And we really didn't think there was any hope to do the deal back then."
Interestingly, though, Walsh and Petrie never stopped talking. Petrie knew he was going to have to make a move. And no matter how fond of Stojakovic he was, there was no question that Peja not only was the most enticing trade piece but also the player whose performance seemed to be sagging most dramatically.
So there's no room for a GM to be sentimental?
"No, you can be that," Petrie said. "But you also have to be practical and realistic."
Petrie didn't create Peja Stojakovic; it only seems that way. When the executive first saw Stojakovic, the player was a teenager laboring for Team PAOK in Greece, all promise and no NBA production.
Petrie is the one who stood on the podium at Arco Arena in 1996 and heard the boos rain down from the draft-day crowd when he selected Stojakovic over John Wallace (remember him?), a player many Kings fans wanted instead. Petrie is the one who waited patiently for two years after that, while Stojakovic remained stuck under his PAOK contract.
When Stojakovic became a shooting star, it was Petrie who was lavished with credit. And maybe it was natural, seeing the Stojakovic of 2002 and 2003, to wonder whether he might finally be ready to take over a team entirely, to be the leader.
Stojakovic was never that, which isn't his fault, exactly. He is what he is, a fine complementary player.
For a while there, it was fashionable to suggest that everyone could see that but Geoff Petrie, just as it was fashionable to suggest that Petrie traded Chris Webber last season because Webber kept messing with Peja's mojo.
Not even a year later, Stojakovic is gone, too. Webber, Doug Christie, Vlade Divac, Bobby Jackson, Peja - it all suggests what Petrie said Wednesday, that this is a team in transition. Look, Ma, no sentiment here.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
Mark Kreidler: Petrie puts sentiment aside
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, January 26, 2006
There was a great and continuous mistake made Wednesday by anyone, anywhere who attempted to discuss this deal in straight basketball terms. You know, points and rebounds and defense and all that - as if the Peja Stojakovic-Ron Artest trade could be reduced to such basic fodder.
It was a gargantuan gaffe for two reasons:
1.) The Kings - and, trust me, they know this - just acquired a player who is arriving from some strange and exotic planetoid, where everyday logic and math does not apply; and
2.) That would be Stojakovic on the way out.
About Artest, you've probably already formed your opinion. The other angle concerns Stojakovic and Geoff Petrie, the man who essentially discovered Peja, brokered his NBA career, and finally - just here and now - had to come to peace with the terms of separation.
There are those who believed such a day would never arrive, because they believed that Petrie had too much wrapped up in Stojakovic, both emotionally and competitively, to ever let go. It was one of those Geoff things. He just couldn't see through the haze.
But the events of this week, pockmarked and scabby though they are, suggest something else. They suggest that Petrie hasn't abandoned his capacity to think basketball first and relationship second.
They confirm, actually, what people who really know Petrie have said all along: He's a cold-blooded Westerner at heart.
"He'll always have a fond place in my heart," Petrie was saying of Stojakovic late Wednesday afternoon. "I'm proud of him. I'm proud of what he has accomplished."
But Petrie's pride didn't blind him to the truth. Over the past several months, friends and colleagues say the Kings' top basketball executive had come to the full realization that his plan wasn't going to work, that trying to make a "core" out of Stojakovic, Brad Miller and Mike Bibby was a failed effort.
When the season began, those three were joined by Bonzi Wells and Shareef Abdur-Rahim in a starting five that was widely considered to be one of the strongest in the Western Conference. But there was no getting around the fact that the unit wasn't great together, and specifically that Stojakovic was simply not the player he had been even two years before.
In Indianapolis, Pacers executive Donnie Walsh was saying Wednesday that it was a rumored Stojakovic-for-Artest deal that prompted Artest six weeks ago to essentially demand to be traded, leading to his deactivation by the Indiana team (an organizational blunder we'll save for another day). As Walsh recounted the story, "That was not true. And we really didn't think there was any hope to do the deal back then."
Interestingly, though, Walsh and Petrie never stopped talking. Petrie knew he was going to have to make a move. And no matter how fond of Stojakovic he was, there was no question that Peja not only was the most enticing trade piece but also the player whose performance seemed to be sagging most dramatically.
So there's no room for a GM to be sentimental?
"No, you can be that," Petrie said. "But you also have to be practical and realistic."
Petrie didn't create Peja Stojakovic; it only seems that way. When the executive first saw Stojakovic, the player was a teenager laboring for Team PAOK in Greece, all promise and no NBA production.
Petrie is the one who stood on the podium at Arco Arena in 1996 and heard the boos rain down from the draft-day crowd when he selected Stojakovic over John Wallace (remember him?), a player many Kings fans wanted instead. Petrie is the one who waited patiently for two years after that, while Stojakovic remained stuck under his PAOK contract.
When Stojakovic became a shooting star, it was Petrie who was lavished with credit. And maybe it was natural, seeing the Stojakovic of 2002 and 2003, to wonder whether he might finally be ready to take over a team entirely, to be the leader.
Stojakovic was never that, which isn't his fault, exactly. He is what he is, a fine complementary player.
For a while there, it was fashionable to suggest that everyone could see that but Geoff Petrie, just as it was fashionable to suggest that Petrie traded Chris Webber last season because Webber kept messing with Peja's mojo.
Not even a year later, Stojakovic is gone, too. Webber, Doug Christie, Vlade Divac, Bobby Jackson, Peja - it all suggests what Petrie said Wednesday, that this is a team in transition. Look, Ma, no sentiment here.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
) but I was pretty amazed to hear them talking about it.
