Rasheed Wallace's Hilarious "Welcome to the NBA" Story

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SlyPokerDog said:
I put a lot of that on Dunleavy. Dean Smith and Larry Brown didn't have those problems with Sheed.
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Larry Brown only coached him one year and that was only a few months. Flip Sanders had the same problems for the next 2 years.
 
RR7 said:
Fun to listen to the full interview. Sounds like a funny and cool guy.

But sill think he's one of the most overrated players by portland fans.
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I would agree. helluva talent, but massively overrated by Portland fans.

Had the ability to be great, but wasn't. People rated him based on potential more than reality, IMHO.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
Didn't win a championship. Dunleavy did the team wrong.
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I honestly didn't see anything Dunleavy did wrong. Except maybe rely on his vets too much.

Sheed and his mentality are clearly what made that team different from other champions. And clearly what cost us games, IMO. I can't think of anything strategically that Dunleavy could have done better. Aside from possibly get Jermaine more minutes...

It doesn't make any sense to blame Dunleavy for Sheed's attitude problem, IMO. Sheed was a grown man.

Most coaches didn't win championships with Sheed.

Sheed was only really composed for 6 months after being rejected by Portland and Atlanta didn't even want to mess with him. To me it always seemed like that shook him and he tried to be more responsible.

From my perspective, once he got the ring he thought he'd proven his point and could go back to his old ways. But he really just proved that everyone had been right and he'd been hurting his teams with his antics.
 
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kjironman1 said:
Blame the coach. Hmmm?
Wonder where we have heard that before?
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So we blame the players and blame Trader Bob, but we give Dunleavy a pass during that era?!?

IMO, the only person who isn't to blame is Paul Allen. He spent the money.

That era of the Blazers had the talent to win a championship. The biggest reason we didn't was mental. That's the coaches' responsibility.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
So we blame the players and blame Trader Bob, but we give Dunleavy a pass during that era?!?

IMO, the only person who isn't to blame is Paul Allen. He spent the money.

That era of the Blazers had the talent to win a championship. The biggest reason we didn't was mental. That's the coaches' responsibility.
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Fair enough but seriously Wallace was the mental midget here. One coach that coached him 4 months won a Championship on what many consider the deepest team to win since the 80's Lakers. What exactly was Dunleavy going to do about CTC? Both teams played hard.
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SlyPokerDog said:
So we blame the players and blame Trader Bob, but we give Dunleavy a pass during that era?!?

IMO, the only person who isn't to blame is Paul Allen. He spent the money.

That era of the Blazers had the talent to win a championship. The biggest reason we didn't was mental. That's the coaches' responsibility.
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A coach can only do so much. You can't just expect a coach to fix a guy like Wallace. Unless you wanted to hire a highly respected coach with championship experience. But he was already working for the Lakers.

Expecting Dunleavy to do that with his resume (to the point of laying the blame at his feet) isn't reasonable, IMO, because I can't imagine him doing anything that would change that.

I blame the players who clearly deserve blame. I don't just blame people because they were there.

Trader Bob certainly deserves some blame. We needed a leader that Sheed would follow, or we needed to replace Sheed with somebody who could produce, but didn't need such glad handing.
 
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I have a feeling Phil Jackson. The master of personalities would have done just fine with Sheed. He wasn't close to as disruptive as Rodman, who is one of my favorite players of all time.
 
If we had a player like Sheed… The Blazers have missed a Rasheed Wallace since Rasheed Wallace was a Trail Blazer. I would honestly probably put a Rasheed Wallace on top of my wish list for the team right now.

Interestingly enough there’s a lot of good players from the past that you wonder how they would do in today’s game, Sheed might be even better than he was. The closest thing today might be Draymond Green, but that’s almost his attitude on the court more than anything.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
I have a feeling Phil Jackson. The master of personalities would have done just fine with Sheed. He wasn't close to as disruptive as Rodman, who is one of my favorite players of all time.
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It's Dunleavy's fault that he wasn't arguably the greatest coach of all time?

And not because he did anything wrong... Just because he was unable to manage a player that no other coach was able to manage unless they had incredible leverage over his financial future (Deen, in college, and Brown, after he'd been traded as a cancer and the team that traded for him flipped him like nothing). For one season and two seasons.

I think Phil may have been able to do it better thanks to the gravitas of having coached those great players to all of those championships.

But Phil would have never taken the Portland job with Sheed as the best player.
 
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PDXFonz said:
If we had a player like Sheed… The Blazers have missed a Rasheed Wallace since Rasheed Wallace was a Trail Blazer. I would honestly probably put a Rasheed Wallace on top of my wish list for the team right now.

Interestingly enough there’s a lot of good players from the past that you wonder how they would do in today’s game, Sheed might be even better than he was. The closest thing today might be Draymond Green, but that’s almost his attitude on the court more than anything.
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We needed Dame when we had Sheed. Dame was the kind of player that team needed to get over the top.
 
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Phatguysrule said:
It's Dunleavy's fault that he wasn't arguably the greatest coach of all time?

And not because he did anything wrong... Just because he was unable to manage a player that no other coach was able to manage unless they had incredible leverage over his financial future. In college, and after he'd been traded as a cancer and the team that traded for him flipped him nothing. For one season and two seasons.
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I didn't say it was Dunleavy's fault. Coaches can be good at certain things and not so good at certain things. It was more of an observation that I wish I saw Rasheed get coached by Phil Jackson.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
I didn't say it was Dunleavy's fault. Coaches can be good at certain things and not so good at certain things. It was more of an observation that I wish I saw Rasheed get coached by Phil Jackson.
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Gotcha. Yeah I was just commenting on the idea that Dunleavy was somehow more at fault than Sheed.

I agree that Phil very well may have handled Sheed better. But I don't think he would have taken on a team who's best player was Rasheed. Unless insane dollars were involved (like, stupid insane).
 
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crandc said:
I do think if a team loses a 15 point fourth quarter lead in Game 7 of Western Conference Finals the coach has to take responsibility.
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That's a valid point and definitely worth looking into.

Would you suggest they should have done something different offensively? Defensively?

Rasheed Wallace himself has said that he missed more than enough shots in the fourth quarter that are normally automatic to have won the game for Portland.

Now, I'm not trying to lay the blame for that loss at Sheed's feet, but it's very difficult for me to lay the blame at somebody's feet when we can't say that they clearly did anything wrong.

If you didn't have the best players on the court I could see calling out the coach.

If the offense was stagnant and they weren't getting good looks, absolutely.

If he was playing offensive players who couldn't play defense and we lost at the defensive end, then sure.

If he mismanaged the game clock that would be a valid point of contention to me.

If they had just gone into that series and been overwhelmed by Phil Jackson's game plan, that would absolutely place the blame on the coach.

But I've honestly never heard any criticisms like that about the coaching in that game.
 
Phatguysrule said:
That's a valid point and definitely worth looking into.

Would you suggest they should have done something different offensively? Defensively?

Rasheed Wallace himself has said that he missed more than enough shots in the fourth quarter that are normally automatic to have won the game for Portland.

Now, I'm not trying to lay the blame for that loss at Sheed's feet, but it's very difficult for me to lay the blame at somebody's feet when we can't say that they clearly did anything wrong.

If you didn't have the best players on the court I could see calling out the coach.

If the offense was stagnant and they weren't getting good looks, absolutely.

If he was playing offensive players who couldn't play defense and we lost at the defensive end, then sure.

If he mismanaged the game clock that would be a valid point of contention to me.

If they had just gone into that series and been overwhelmed by Phil Jackson's game plan, that would absolutely place the blame on the coach.

But I've honestly never heard any criticisms like that about the coaching in that game.
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When Sheed through the towel in Sabas face I lost a lot of respect for the guy.
 
Sheed choked big time......and he knew it! The man couldnt demonstrate any composure when needed the most.
 
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I am not a coach. I don't know what coach could have done differently. I do recall Blazers totally in sync, scoring almost at will and coach called time out late third quarter for no reason other than they would lose it if they didn't take it. And Blazers stalled after that, it's like their flow was interrupted and Lakers caught their breath. Can't blame loss on that one thing but I do consider it a coaching mistake.

But I recall Sheed scored something like 30 points. So pointing finger at him doesn't compute.
 
crandc said:
I am not a coach. I don't know what coach could have done differently. I do recall Blazers totally in sync, scoring almost at will and coach called time out late third quarter for no reason other than they would lose it if they didn't take it. And Blazers stalled after that, it's like their flow was interrupted and Lakers caught their breath. Can't blame loss on that one thing but I do consider it a coaching mistake.

But I recall Sheed scored something like 30 points. So pointing finger at him doesn't compute.
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Maybe he wanted them to start milking the clock more to protect the lead and shorten the game.

If so, I'd say that's definitely a coaching mistake. It can totally change the way your team plays and result in exactly what we saw in that fourth quarter collapse.

That's the kind of thing I've done in the past and learned to try and avoid. Coaches like Phil Jackson try to avoid that kind of mistake.

The kind of mistake Popovich made by overcoaching against the heat in the finals.

Yeah, valid concern, for sure. Thanks for sharing.
 
Back to Sheed...

He organized coat drives to collect winter coats for homeless people in Philadelphia. When Flint water crisis broke her personally drove a truck full of bottled water to Flint. He joined some hip hop artists to make a Covid prevention video aimed at young Black men, who data showed were behind the curve on Covid prevention. I mean he's no angel and his temper is a problem but I felt he was more bark than bite. There are/have been some genuinely bad people in NBA, as there are in any random group of people. I just never felt Sheed was one of them.

My $0.2, which will soon be obsolete as the penny is going away.
 
I have always been a Sheed fan. He was the designated Bond villain after Rodman but he got some of the worst non calls ever against the centers of his day...he was also Donaghy's favorite tech target while he was fixing games for profit. Sheed got bitter over the years but what a talent. His complaints especially early in his career were warranted. Later he just stopped giving a fuck. People magnify a few seconds of a game when a guy melts down sometimes and ignore all the times he had that same guy's back. It went Oakley, Rodman, Sheed, Draymond and now Dillon Brooks..there's always a bad guy. Shaq should have fouled out halfway through every first quarter he played against Sheed. He mauled Sheed to dunk on him and get and one's...Sheed would complain...tech on Sheed, Donaghy makes the spread gambling on the game...rinse, repeat. A lot of guys who played with him praise him as a teammate.
 
I didnt and dont now have anything against Rasheed. I know he lost his composure and probably regretted the flying towel incident. Ive played a lot of sports in my time and have seen guys get pissed and overreact. I must admit, I have never seen a towel thrown in the face of a team mate before. I was a huge Sheed fan but that did piss me off. I know he's been a good dude and has helped out many times. I know this if that was ZBO throwing a towel in Sheeds face, there would have been a fight on the floor. lol
 
Context. SBas twice tripped over Sheed's feet in that game. Sheed should not have thrown a towel at a teammate, but it was a towel. Not a punch. Not the Gatorade cooler. So even then when he lost his head and did something he shouldn't have, he didn't hurt anyone. Choke anyone.
 
crandc said:
Context. SBas twice tripped over Sheed's feet in that game. Sheed should not have thrown a towel at a teammate, but it was a towel. Not a punch. Not the Gatorade cooler. So even then when he lost his head and did something he shouldn't have, he didn't hurt anyone. Choke anyone.
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He hurt the team. Incredibly so.

The fact that he did that publicly speaks to how he likely was far more often with the team in private. And that willingness to put himself over the team is likely why that team was not mentally tougher, IMO.

I've seen that dynamic far too many times.

And he still tries to play it off like Sabas was somehow at fault.
 
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