http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/grizzlies/
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Heisley's 'the guy making decisions'
Q&A with the owner
By Ronald Tillery
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley never shies away from conflict or controversy.
And in the case of trading away the team's one-time cornerstone in Pau Gasol to the Los Angeles Lakers essentially for draft picks and salary-cap savings, Heisley sounded as though he's ready to deal with the criticism.
"I'm the guy who is making the decisions," Heisley said Saturday. "If people want to (complain) don't get on (general manager) Chris Wallace about the trade -- get on me."
Heisley spoke exclusively with The Commercial Appeal about agreeing to the Gasol deal, its impact and the direction of the Grizzlies moving forward.
Q. Why did you trade Pau Gasol?
A. I traded Pau for a couple of reasons. There's been some negative reaction to Pau in the community, which I tried to alleviate and it didn't have a lot of effect. Had the team gelled this year with Pau, had we done better and started to move toward the playoffs, I would have been against trading Pau. The reality is we're a long ways from where we want to be. We need to step back and put 100 percent of our concentration on the young players and look toward the draft and possibly free agency to build a team. We tried to do trades with three or four teams and what we were offered wasn't going to do anything to improve the team.
We had to reconstruct and start building a team like Portland did and like what Minnesota is trying to do. This trade will give us the ability to get the payroll in line. There is no mystery to it. I'm not dumb enough to think we got quality for quality for Pau. What we did was try to open up flexibility.
Q. When did you realize that a financial deal had to be made?
A. I realized it when we tried to negotiate with Chicago. They weren't interested in giving us financial relief. We had other conversations with teams and the people they were giving us back were veterans with substantial money left on their contracts. They were not of the same quality that Pau was.
We didn't feel like we had a trade that was going to give us quality for quality or someone that would change the direction of the team that much. We had conversations with Chicago which were non-satisfactory. They didn't want to take on the luxury-tax situation and Los Angeles was. In this league, if you're in a big-market area you can afford to do those things. We negotiated as hard as we could for quality players and (Chicago) refused to give up anybody in their core group. What they offered us were guys who play on the second and third team, so we turned them down.
Q. As a Gasol fan, how much did it take to convince you to trade him?
A. It wasn't done in 15 minutes or in 15 days. This took months. What finally convinced me to listen was the performance of the team. We were not gelling and winning with Pau. I didn't think the answer was to stay the course. Maybe that's a better alternative, but I don't think with the way people felt about Pau and the way the team was performing we could stay the course. We tried to get one or two good players for Pau and we could not get that.
Q. Did Gasol's low approval rating factor into this decision?
A. There's no question we have not drawn well this year. I don't want to put that on Pau. A lot of people have said that in Memphis. I don't buy that. But when you're drawing the fans we're drawing, it's very difficult to compete with people who have a much more lucrative base. We're going to have to rely on the draft more than we have before.
If you look at San Antonio, the heart of their team was drafted. Until they got successful, that was a small-market team. There are people happy that Pau's gone. And there are people who say we didn't do the right thing. That's what sports are about. Everybody thinks they're an expert.
But at one point we had the fourth-highest payroll, we made the playoffs and didn't win. We got hammered by the fans. It wasn't because we weren't paying for players. We just didn't have that star nucleus.
I know right now people are saying we're crazy. The point was you have to trade for what you could trade for. We got everything we could get out of the Lakers. We got draft choices and cap relief. That's what we wanted. They weren't going to give us Kobe (Bryant). I'm trying to put a winner on the floor for the people and it's not easy. We're doing the best we can. Anybody that reads more into this is wrong. Maybe we're not making the right decisions but we have the right motives.
Q. Did you lower payroll to make the team more attractive for a sale?
A. Anybody could read anything into this. I don't know what to tell people. That's like saying the guy that comes in here would rather have a losing team. That's ludicrous. People that buy basketball teams don't buy teams to see if they can make money at the gate. They want a winning team.
People are always looking for something to say. If we didn't trade Pau we would have gotten hammered for that. If I brought in someone that wasn't as good as Pau we would have gotten hammered for that. I don't care. I know what we're doing and it's not making it attractive to sell. We're trying to build on the young players we've gotten recently in the draft. I am not going to sell the team to somebody for less than the value. I'm not going to put it out on the market like a piece of meat. I made that mistake with (Brian) Davis. I know that there are some people in Memphis that think I should just give it to them. And that's not going to happen, either.
Q. Was former Griz president Jerry West involved in this transaction?
A. No he was not. Not at all. There are a lot of conspiracy theories. If people think I haven't agonized over this trade they're crazy. If you want the exclusive, I got it from some guy in a flying saucer. Look, all I'm trying to do is make this team better for the fans. I've got people who say to me that they would never buy a ticket because Pau's here. We're looking long term rather than next year.
Q. Are you confident that Memphians will be patient as you rebuild?
A. Well, we are rebuilding. And I have said that the people in Memphis want and deserve a winning team, a playoff team that can win a championship. I didn't think I could get there staying the route that we were on. This is not an unforeseen way to build a basketball team. The value of this trade is what did they get three years from now in terms of the draft picks and how they used the cap? That's when you can evaluate this trade.
- Ronald Tillery: 529-2353</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Owner feels the pain over deal, too
By Geoff Calkins
Sunday, February 3, 2008
In publications all across this land, intelligent people looking for an explanation for the Grizzlies-Lakers trade hit on the same explanation: Salary dump.
So there was a columnist for Yahoo.com, writing that the Grizzlies were "desperate to strip payroll and make themselves more attractive for a potential buyer."
And there was the big redhead, Bill Walton, laughing at the Grizzlies' "fire sale."
And there was Marc Stein of espn.com, writing that it's hard not to feel sorry for Marc Iavaroni and Chris Wallace, "who you have to believe have been forced to take charge of a fire sale to make it easier for (Mike) Heisley to sell the club."
Only problem?
Heisley had to be persuaded by Wallace and Iavaroni to make the deal. Not the other way around.
And while the trade may or may not prove to be smart for the Grizzlies long-term, Heisley did it because he thought it was the best way to build the team into a winner.
Honest.
"The strategy sure as hell isn't to try to wreck the team," he said. "Quite honestly, if it was in my power to turn the Grizzlies into the San Antonio Spurs tomorrow I'd do that. I don't think anyone appreciates how painful it is to be the owner of a team that's losing and have people criticize you."
Cue string music here. Or not, as the case may be.
Regular readers of this column know that I have not been a fan of Heisley's moves over the last couple years. He doesn't want to own the Grizzlies any longer. The city, the franchise and Heisley himself would be better off he would set a price that -- here's an idea -- somebody wants to pay.
But the wide-spread belief that Heisley forced this deal for purely economic reasons simply isn't true.
Sources with no connection to Heisley emphasized this in conversations Friday after the trade. They said that far from driving the transaction, Heisley had to be convinced to part with Gasol.
"I like Pau and I think he'll be very successful in Los Angeles," Heisley said. "But after a lot of soul-searching, I recognized that maybe the best course of action would be to see what we could get for him and start fresh."
So the Grizzlies started shopping Gasol, fielding offers from around the league.
Most of them were junk.
Cleveland wanted to build an offer around Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes. Chicago tried to tempt the Grizzlies with Andres Nocioni and Tyrus Thomas. Portland mustered a package of Travis Outlaw and Raef LaFrentz.
"What we started to see was that we weren't going to get an elite player coming back," Wallace said. "Rather than take a 'name' player that wasn't going to get us where we wanted to go, we preferred to get picks and salary cap room."
Enter the Lakers, with an offer of Kwame Brown and Vladimir Radmanovic. The Grizzlies wanted Brown and his massive expiring contract, but insisted on getting Javaris Crittenton and draft picks as part of the deal.
"We held out," said Heisley. "They finally sweetened the pot."
The Lakers agreed late Thursday night.
Heisley could have declined at that point and waited until the trading deadline or the draft to see if any better offers emerged.
"We were worried that the Lakers might do the deal with Chicago," said Heisley, who had learned the Lakers were talking about sending Brown and Radmanovic to Chicago for Ben Wallace.
That would have taken Brown's expiring contract off the table; the Grizzlies decided they had to act.
"Otherwise we'd be like Chicago is today," Heisley said, "and gotten nothing done."
None of which means it was a smart trade or anything. The deal has been ripped by most everyone who's weighed in.
The best you can say about Wallace and Iavaroni at this point is it took them eight months to learn what everyone else in Memphis already knew: Gasol isn't a player you can build around. He's a fabulous third guy.
And while Heisley insists he plans to use the Grizzlies new cap room to improve the team, it's hard to imagine any top-flight free agents coming to the franchise in its current shape.
Heisley understands all these points. He's sympathetic to many of them.
"When Chicago broke up the Bulls, I was fuming for three days," he said. "I get it. I understand. And the Bulls still aren't back."
But Orlando did OK by tearing things down and starting over; so did Toronto and Portland.
"I'm hoping to catch lightning in a bottle like Portland," Heisley said. "Look where they are now."
In the meantime, Heisley plans to be in Memphis for Tuesday's game. He said he doesn't begrudge anyone.
"I just want people to know I didn't do it to strip the team," he said.
So now, people, you know.</div>
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