BlazerWookee
UNTILT THE DAMN PINWHEEL!
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Pippen's unwillingness or inability to be a strong enough leader to keep Sheed from hand-grenading team success deserves some of the blame.
Wtf is wrong with Bill Walton?
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What you call a weakness, Sheed would likely have just called a characteristic. Basically the epitome of the, "It's not a bug, it's a feature," idiom that has become popular. That is to say, just because you (and most Blazer fans) didn't like it doesn't mean that it wasn't exactly who he wanted to be.
Phatguysrule
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Solid point. But I don't think Pippen had it in him to be that strong of a leader. We saw that in Chicago, really over and over.
Pippen was the weak link against Detroit. Chicago didn't get past Detroit until Pippen finally got tough enough to deal with their physicality.
We saw it when he pulled himself out of the game because Phil didn't call his number and Chicago had to win without him.
We saw it when he held himself out by waiting until the season started to get his surgery because they wouldn't renegotiate his contract, or they were talking about possibly trading him, and he was upset because he didn't negotiate for a better contract to begin with and he was vastly underpaid.
Pippen just wasn't a great leader. I really don't think he was ever capable of being a great leader. But I also don't really look back on him as one of the elite Blazers of all time, even though he obviously was among the most capable Blazers of all time. I've kind of got him in the same echelon as Sheed, maybe a rung or two higher because Pippen just wasn't as much of a knucklehead as Sheed. Pippen didn't hurt the team as deeply or as often.
Just my opinion on how I remember things but that's kind of how I see it.
But you're right in that I think Pippen was definitely brought in for his leadership and he didn't bring near enough.
Phatguysrule
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And that's exactly why I resent Rasheed Wallace and don't consider him a champion, or even a positive part of the Portland Trail Blazers history.
He rode coattails in Detroit and they were only ever able to do it when he was only there a partial season, and on his best behavior after being rejected twice in the same season.
Rasheed is and always has been a cancer to winning basketball and team concepts.
wizenheimer
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and Ron Garretson
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Yeah sure, especially if you look past the overwhelming winning he enjoyed throughout HS, college and the NBA which of course included a championship. I recall Phil Jackson specifically siting his Lakers as having no answer for Wallace's outside threat in that 4-1 crushing... that "he killed us". During his 7.5 seasons in Portland, among other stats Sheed usually led them in MPG & was their only All Star... the team compiled a 362-230 (61%) record during that span.
Good grief, personal hatred of a player for imagined rascism (or whatever) does not overcome statistical reality and facts. No one enjoyed his temper, but I would absolutely love to have a Big as talented and as team oriented in his play as Sheed on this Trailblazer team. We haven't seen a Big here nearly at his level since.
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Phatguysrule
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Because he was gifted with being naturally bigger, stronger, and faster than nearly everybody. He was literally given the best team money could buy. But he was too much of a cancer. Sheed had every gift that nearly every great big in the history of the game ever had.
It's not hatred. I don't care enough about Sheed to hate him. It's indifference. He was a clown throughout his playing career, and he still is. He has to try and drag the names of the greats through the mud just to get by. He's a shock jock.
I'm only mildly interested in anything he says because he was a member of my favorite team.
Tince
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I'm having trouble keeping up. We're talking about floppers now?
The original comment was about EVERY player on EVERY team being labeled in regards to their MATURITY. I don't think that's close to the case
kjironman1
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Gonna have to disagree with you on a few things here though I agree he had a decent career.
His UNC days were the two years following the Championship where they were national favorites but hugely underperformed and were second round exits I believe.
We all know about what happened here as he was part of the biggest meltdown in the history of the NBA.
He only led the team twice in MPG. Largely because he couldn't stay on the court.
Wallace had the ability to be a perennial All Star but only made it 4 times. Again Largely due to his behavior.
Bottom line the comment you responded to said "Cancer". That fits Rasheed Wallace to a T.
Rasheed Wallace underperformed most of his career.
kjironman1
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No the original comment was this
I guess when i re read that you did say "Off the court" so I stand corrected.
Tince
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tlongII
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Carolina was in the Final 4 in Sheed's last year in school. I know because I was there.
kjironman1
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Thanks for that. I was sure they were favored but unsure on the round of exit.
tlongII
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They lost in the semis. UCLA won it all that year.
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okay, though lol at your definition of decent.
I'm gonna have to agree with Tince that you keep trying to move the goalposts of whats being talked about in this thread. The post of mine you disagreed with took issue with the statement "Rasheed is and always has been a cancer to winning basketball and team concepts," not whether he lived up to someone's personal lofty ideals of what he should have been. Did he win? Hell yes he did. You deride his college career again for not living up to what you think he should have been, not the 56-13 (81%) record they compiled while he was there. In the NBA, he was a tremendous and versatile Defensive player both individually and as a team defender... is defense not important to winning hoops? Dude is 32nd all time in Defensive Win Shares. Excellent passer, solid shooter and outside threat... those are all big positives in team hoop concepts for me. Only made the All Star team 4 times... thats sitting just out side of a HOF level. You are absolutely wrong saying he "only led the team twice in MPG". He led the team in MPG 5 of his 7 full seasons in Portland. Additionally, his final half season he finished 3rd averaging 37.2 MPG. If the best ability is availability, how do you square him being 66th all time in minutes played with your claim that he "couldn't stay on the court"?
bottom line, everyone is welcome to their opinion no matter how outlandish. If you feel Wallace wildly under performed, I disagree but I also have no issue with you feeling that way & probably don't respond. If someone doesn't like a player for whatever reason, no problem. Saying Sheed wasn't a winner is directly countered by facts though. Could he have enjoyed an even better career if he'd have had a better temperament? Of course. But that doesn't change the fact that dude did enjoy an incredibly successful career.
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Tince
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Never a wise move to agree with me as that will only hurt your credibility with others!
Sheed frustrated me at times, I was amazed by his abilities on both ends of court most of the time, but as time as passed I've came to the conclusion that with the minimal knowledge I have, he seemed like a good person at his core. Flawed, but too many people closer to him to seem to like him for me to think he was a bad guy.
Walton seems like a great, flawed, well-intentioned person as well.
Fez Hammersticks
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I was listening to some sports radio show a while ago and was talking about how Walton always refused measurements - they stated that Walton was a full 7’2”
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Especially since I like and get along well with the posters I'm disagreeing with here, I'll take my chances and express my honest full agreement with what you wrote.
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Phatguysrule
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He had more tools than most NBA hall of famers. And he sits just outside the hall or fame.
That's the point. His personal decisions prevented him from delivering the hall of fame career he was gifted with. Prevented him from winning multiple NBA titles, IMO.
Nobody is saying he was a bad defender or incapable. Quite the opposite. But his shit attitude and outlook was so shitty that it detracts from the fact that he was more physically capable than almost every player in NBA history. And he had the skills to match.
The things that hurt the teams he was on are thw same things that hurt his historical standing in the NBA. He was just so gifted that he was able to seemingly help a team more than his drawbacks hurt. But at the highest level, when it mattered most his teams were never composed enough or prepared enough to get over the top.
Except the one time he had only been on the team a couple few months.
This fan base absolutely cherishes many Ex-Blazers for far, far less. But a significant portion of the fan base doesn't even want to remember Sheed.
That's on him.
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Again, I would disagree. I think one's temperament is largely something you're born with. I think he had as much to do with his temperment as he did with his small hands that prevented him from being able to palm a basketball... which is largely why he stayed out of the post as guys would poke it away too easily.
I grew up in Winston-Salem rooting for Wake. Duncan hit college the same year as Sheed. While my Dick Vitale season preview magazine proclaimed Wallace the #1 Freshman in the country, it hailed Timmy as the 4th best Freshman prospect at Wake. Much to DV's & my surprise Duncan was clearly the better player as their Freshman seasons unfolded. While both were physical specimens, TD was bigger, longer & better at most things. He was also more focused/calm cool & collected. I doubt he could have been a hot head if he tried.
Since he was on my favorite pro team, I enjoyed Wallace for what he was, worts and all. I didn't focus on the worts
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Phatguysrule
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Interesting perspective... I'll have to consider that...
PCmor7
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If I understand you correctly, then Dame and Ant playing point guard but choosing to focus more on scoring didn't mean defense and playmaking were weaknesses in their game.
If something about you is detrimental to your ability to perform a task, it's a weakness. It doesn't even matter whether it's by choice or by nature. But even psychopaths can to some degree mask some of the worst traits in their behavior to achieve a goal, even if that goal is to become a great serial killer.
I interviewed a 19-year-old last night after the best game of his career. He told me the reason to play basketball is to win. That's it. That's the quote. The primary goal as a competitive basketball player is to win. That means being able to not only co-exist but work with your teammates. That means not costing your team points and possessions with a constant stream of technical fouls that perhaps gets one disqualified from the game entirely. One might not be able to change their skin color, age, ethnicity, but, to a certain extent, behavior is manageable. And I guess choosing or not being able to manage it might be a characteristic, but one can have characteristics that are weaknesses, or we might have more 5-3 players in the NBA.
If you can't stand young people, it would be both a characteristic and a weakness in teaching. If you hate women innately, that might be a characteristic, but acting out on it is a weakness socially and in other ways. Heck, I'd say it's a bigger weakness if you acknowledge the damage something can do to yourself or others and continue to do it under the auspices of "it's just me being me" than if you lack the self-control mechanism in one's brain.
Anyway, if you are trying to look like a credible analyst or podcaster or just someone who doesn't look like being highly emotional makes them lose sight of the most obvious of facts, you don't say Bill Walton wasn't a great college player. He was by every conceivable measure one of the greatest college players of all time. To say otherwise makes someone look like they have no ability retain objectivity in the face of a negative emotion. A lack of self-control in our world almost unanimously would be considered a weakness in our societies, at least it would have before 2016.
