off-season winners and losers

[atxrocker]

It's an immutable law of sports: For every winner, there must be a loser. The NBA offseason is no different. For every team, player, coach, executive or city that skipped into August feeling great about its summer business, there is a counterpart who is ready to drink a bottle of Clorox.
With NBA summer business all but complete and two months to go before the opening of training camp, it's a good time to take a look back at the biggest winners and losers of the offseason.
Team

Winner: Bulls
They landed the big fish in free agency, prying Ben Wallace away from the Pistons. The fact that they dealt a blow to a conference rival only made it a bigger coup. Throw in top draft pick Tyrus Thomas, and there's a hoops buzz in the Windy City again.
Loser: Knicks
GM Isiah Thomas has taken over for Larry Brown on the bench, but that's about the only significant change from a year ago. Meanwhile, Thomas' selection of Renaldo Balkman with the team's top draft pick (No. 20 overall) didn't exactly excite the masses.
Free Agent

Winner: Peja Stojakovic
Despite a sub-par season and an ill-timed knee injury that forced him to miss four of Indiana's six playoff games, the 6-foot-10 veteran snagged a five-year, $64 million deal from the Hornets. Given that so few teams had cap room, it was a coup for the Serbian sharpshooter.
Loser: Bonzi Wells
The opposite of Stojakovic: The veteran swingman had a sensational playoff series against the Spurs but apparently has failed to cash in. He rejected a reported five-year, $32 million offer from the Kings only to have Sacramento move on and sign John Salmons instead.
Coach

Winner: Larry Brown
His reward for going 23-59 in his first season in New York? He gets to walk away from the mess he created while likely keeping a large portion of the $40 million or so remaining on his contract. What can Brown do for you!

Loser: Rick Adelman
His reward for leading the Kings on a late surge to the playoffs, where they battled the Spurs for six tough games? He gets released by the Maloofs, who opt instead for a "marquee" guy in ... um, Eric Musselman.
Executive

Winner: Steve Belkin
His unwillingness to trade Boris Diaw last summer was proven correct during the 2005-06 season. Then, after being forced out by his fellow owners in Atlanta, he wins a court battle that might lead to those owners being forced to sell him the team after all.
Loser: Billy Knight
Maybe the Hawks GM has been handcuffed somewhat by the organization's front-office confusion, but he sure has moved slowly on the Al Harrington trade. Meanwhile, his refusal to shake Belkin's hand last year won't help him if the Boston businessman takes over.
City

Winner: Oklahoma City
They get to watch Chris Paul and a retooled lineup featuring newcomers Stojakovic, Bobby Jackson and Tyson Chandler next season. And even if the Hornets go back to New Orleans in '07-08, as planned, there's another team in the wings (see below).
Loser: Seattle
The franchise's sale last month to an ownership group based out of Oklahoma City doesn't bode well for its long-term future in Coffee City. Unless the city of Seattle can reach an agreement on a new arena, it appears Sonics fans will be left with a bitter taste
http://www.cnn.com/si/2006/writers/marty_burns/08/07/winners.losers/index.html?cnn=yes

 

[Sac.Kings]

Since when was it 32 million?

 

[Arkitect]

Even if it was 32 million, its more than he is going to get...

 

[Dave McNulla]

Winner: Larry Brown
His reward for going 23-59 in his first season in New York? He gets to walk away from the mess he created while likely keeping a large portion of the $40 million or so remaining on his contract. What can Brown do for you!

while i think he was less deserving of more money that adelman, brown didn't make new york bad. he didn't help things, but he didn't sign any players or make any trades that i'm aware of.

 

[VF21]

What Brown did was help an already bad situation get even worse. If fans could take out malpractice insurance on coaches, the New York Knicks fans would probably be able to collect a mint. Of course, they could also go after Isiah Thomas... etc.

The once proud franchise of the New York Knicks is arguably the biggest joke in the NBA - and there's no "Eddie" character waiting in the wings to save them.

 

[Arco Arena]

Nice, they mention three ....former.. Kings. =/

 

[Bricklayer]

while i think he was less deserving of more money that adelman, brown didn't make new york bad. he didn't help things, but he didn't sign any players or make any trades that i'm aware of.

Oh yes he did -- last season was completely uncalled for and humiliating. Knicks have been poorly run for years, but they've never had such an ugly unending public collapse into bickering children. If it wasn't the New York Knicks, last year is the sort of season that kills franchises, or at least sets them back years. It was as bad as anything the Blazers have gone through. And at the heart of it was Brown's insufferable ego.

 

[Dave McNulla]

i guess it's not ok to say your players aren't playing right, or say they aren't doing what the coach tells them. let's see, that makes every coach bad.

i think the only thing that larry brown can be blamed for is going to the knicks when he knew the players on that team would not listen to him. after that, i don't think anything he did was so bad. he shuffled line ups. all coaches do that when they are looking for chemistry. he got on his star because of a questionable team-play ethic. who doesn't agree that starbury doesn't need to play team ball?

larry wasn't the problem. the personnel went from bad to worse. now if something showed that those personnel moves were larry's idea, maybe you'd have something. no way does brown trade for francis to play on the same team as marbury.

 

[Bricklayer]

larry wasn't the problem. the personnel went from bad to worse. now if something showed that those personnel moves were larry's idea, maybe you'd have something. no way does brown trade for francis to play on the same team as marbury.

If you don't think Larry Brown was a problem, you just weren't sitting here int he city watching it all unfold. He was an utter disaster. A pissy little whiny media coach trashing his players at every opportunity to the most aggressive media in the country and setting an all-time NBA record for most starting lineups. He threw temper tantrums, started guys one night, played them zero minutes another night. There is not a team in NBA history he could have coached that way that would have even made the playoffs. He was a complete and utter little punk all season long, and frankly, I am more than a little convinced he did it on purpose. Lost and embarrassed the franchise either to a) force them to give him basketball control; or b) to pay him a ridiculous completely unearned sum of money to walk away. Hell they should be suing him not only for his contract, but for damages to the $$ value of the franchise. he managed to do the impossible, and make Isaiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury look like relative heroes.


And as an aside, that roster last year had more than enough talent to be as "good" as Knicks teams have been for the last half decade. All it required was just a legitimate effort from even an average coach. Not the sad travesty that Brown laid on the Knicks last year.

 

[acisking]

What Brown did was help an already bad situation get even worse. If fans could take out malpractice insurance on coaches, the New York Knicks fans would probably be able to collect a mint. Of course, they could also go after Isiah Thomas... etc.

The once proud franchise of the New York Knicks is arguably the biggest joke in the NBA - and there's no "Eddie" character waiting in the wings to save them.

very very true....people like to put it all on isiah and while i agree that Thomas deserves the blunt of the blame...Brown and his coaching style alienated many of his players and created rifts in a losing team (literally the worst thing you can possibly do to a franchise)

 

[acisking]

If you don't think Larry Brown was a problem, you just weren't sitting here int he city watching it all unfold. He was an utter disaster. A pissy little whiny media coach trashing his players at every opportunity to the most aggressive media in the country and setting an all-time NBA record for most starting lineups. He threw temper tantrums, started guys one night, played them zero minutes another night. There is not a team in NBA history he could have coached that way that would have even made the playoffs. He was a complete and utter little punk all season long, and frankly, I am more than a little convinced he did it on purpose. Lost and embarrassed the franchise either to a) force them to give him basketball control; or b) to pay him a ridiculous completely unearned sum of money to walk away. Hell they should be suing him not only for his contract, but for damages to the $$ value of the franchise. he managed to do the impossible, and make Isaiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury look like relative heroes.


And as an aside, that roster last year had more than enough talent to be as "good" as Knicks teams have been for the last half decade. All it required was just a legitimate effort from even an average coach. Not the sad travesty that Brown laid on the Knicks last year.

well said...and i agree whole-heartedly