Post by TrayWithAnA on Jun 30, 2014 15:36:52 GMT -6
We have prepared an official statement and we will open the floor for questions afterward.
Some moves were made last year with the hopes to compete with some of the better teams in the East and finally make a trip to the NBA Finals. Those moves worked out for us during the grueling regular season where we were able to win our third straight division title and even had some stellar individual recognition with both Reggie Miller and Steve Smith making the All-NBA First Team. Unfortunately though, we blacked out after the regular season and woke up to find we had been subjected to our second consecutive playoff sweep, this time to the #7 Charlotte Hornets. We don’t mean to diminish that team’s accomplishments, but the organization felt like this series was an easy 5 or 6 game win and we’d be preparing for the Knicks after that. Many league officials are actual unsure of how we could have faltered this badly, but alas, this is what happened, and we were forced to accept it.
Going into the offseason, we had to do some real soul searching and decide if we could take the next step or if we would just be trying to maintain the standard that we had set for ourselves with no real hope for improvement. In the end, the luxury tax that was looming over us for next season was too big a cost for what we thought was sure to be a below-average 1995-96 campaign. When we updated our trade block to make most of our players available, we got a very important call from the GM of the Magic. He was interested in Benoit Benjamin, our worst contract with $22 million left on the books over 3 more seasons, but it would cost us our first round pick in the redraft and five time All-Star and All-NBA first-teamer, Reggie Miller. With a projected $6-9M luxury tax penalty coming in the following year and only growing for the following seasons, we were quickly going to be in a financial hole that we could not get out of. We reluctantly accepted the trade which netted us a couple of decent players and two mid-to-late first rounders in the next three years. Let us take this time to thank Benoit and Reggie for their time here. We would especially like to thank Reggie who fought through a couple of rough seasons, two Eastern Conference Finalist heart breakers, and a completely disappointing first round exit. He did everything that was asked of him and I know that Detroit will be worse off without him. He is a true Detroit legend, and we wish him the best in his endeavors. We hope that our paths cross again someday and, if not, we will be hanging his number in the rafters at the end of his illustrious career.
With two of the five core players we had from last years division championship team gone and two others entering restricted free agency, we knew we had more tough decisions to make. Fortunately, one of those decisions was a fairly easy one to predict. We were able to sign Steve Smith to another long-term deal and fully expect him to stay in Detroit for the entirety of his career. This isn’t that tough of a commitment to make since Steve is one of the most talented players in the league.
When it came to our other star, Larry Johnson, we were given the opportunity to match a fairly reasonable contract for his talent level. After all, he has fought through and had multiple successful seasons regardless of his Training Camp shortcomings. However, we had too many holes on this roster to commit $3.1M a year to Larry and we had to decline to match the contract agreed upon with the Los Angeles Lakers. To add salt to the wound, the Lakers drafted Jerry Stackhouse with the pick that we gave up for Larry Johnson. That’s how the cookie crumbles I guess. We wish Larry and the Lakers the best of luck this season. Hopefully, LJ can finally show up to a training camp. We’ll all watch the situation closely.
We had one more shot at relevancy when the first round of free agency rolled around. Shockingly, Chris Gatling, stud power forward from Memphis, had foregone RFA and was available to all teams. We made our max offer to him hoping to have another key player to team up with Steve Smith and make our rebuild at least slightly entertaining to watch. In the end though, Chris elected to stay in Memphis and we were left without any real targets of interest going into round 2.
As it stands now, we are forced to rebuild. We currently have a lot of bench players and not a lot of viable starters. Steve Smith should have a great year, but besides him, we are not sure Mark Jackson has much of a future in Detroit. We hope to get something for him while he is in his prime, but we may have to make some concessions since he will be 31 by the end of the season. Our front office is currently fielding calls for him, and it wouldn’t take much to pry him from our hands.
Our outlook on this season is not very good. We expect to be lottery bound and we have very few options to fix that. Call it tanking if you will, we don’t care. We feel lucky to have had the success we did for the past three seasons, and will do whatever it takes to get back to that level as soon as we can. Better to rip off the band-aid now then to suffer through seasons of mediocrity.
With all that said, are there any questions?
Some moves were made last year with the hopes to compete with some of the better teams in the East and finally make a trip to the NBA Finals. Those moves worked out for us during the grueling regular season where we were able to win our third straight division title and even had some stellar individual recognition with both Reggie Miller and Steve Smith making the All-NBA First Team. Unfortunately though, we blacked out after the regular season and woke up to find we had been subjected to our second consecutive playoff sweep, this time to the #7 Charlotte Hornets. We don’t mean to diminish that team’s accomplishments, but the organization felt like this series was an easy 5 or 6 game win and we’d be preparing for the Knicks after that. Many league officials are actual unsure of how we could have faltered this badly, but alas, this is what happened, and we were forced to accept it.
Going into the offseason, we had to do some real soul searching and decide if we could take the next step or if we would just be trying to maintain the standard that we had set for ourselves with no real hope for improvement. In the end, the luxury tax that was looming over us for next season was too big a cost for what we thought was sure to be a below-average 1995-96 campaign. When we updated our trade block to make most of our players available, we got a very important call from the GM of the Magic. He was interested in Benoit Benjamin, our worst contract with $22 million left on the books over 3 more seasons, but it would cost us our first round pick in the redraft and five time All-Star and All-NBA first-teamer, Reggie Miller. With a projected $6-9M luxury tax penalty coming in the following year and only growing for the following seasons, we were quickly going to be in a financial hole that we could not get out of. We reluctantly accepted the trade which netted us a couple of decent players and two mid-to-late first rounders in the next three years. Let us take this time to thank Benoit and Reggie for their time here. We would especially like to thank Reggie who fought through a couple of rough seasons, two Eastern Conference Finalist heart breakers, and a completely disappointing first round exit. He did everything that was asked of him and I know that Detroit will be worse off without him. He is a true Detroit legend, and we wish him the best in his endeavors. We hope that our paths cross again someday and, if not, we will be hanging his number in the rafters at the end of his illustrious career.
With two of the five core players we had from last years division championship team gone and two others entering restricted free agency, we knew we had more tough decisions to make. Fortunately, one of those decisions was a fairly easy one to predict. We were able to sign Steve Smith to another long-term deal and fully expect him to stay in Detroit for the entirety of his career. This isn’t that tough of a commitment to make since Steve is one of the most talented players in the league.
When it came to our other star, Larry Johnson, we were given the opportunity to match a fairly reasonable contract for his talent level. After all, he has fought through and had multiple successful seasons regardless of his Training Camp shortcomings. However, we had too many holes on this roster to commit $3.1M a year to Larry and we had to decline to match the contract agreed upon with the Los Angeles Lakers. To add salt to the wound, the Lakers drafted Jerry Stackhouse with the pick that we gave up for Larry Johnson. That’s how the cookie crumbles I guess. We wish Larry and the Lakers the best of luck this season. Hopefully, LJ can finally show up to a training camp. We’ll all watch the situation closely.
We had one more shot at relevancy when the first round of free agency rolled around. Shockingly, Chris Gatling, stud power forward from Memphis, had foregone RFA and was available to all teams. We made our max offer to him hoping to have another key player to team up with Steve Smith and make our rebuild at least slightly entertaining to watch. In the end though, Chris elected to stay in Memphis and we were left without any real targets of interest going into round 2.
As it stands now, we are forced to rebuild. We currently have a lot of bench players and not a lot of viable starters. Steve Smith should have a great year, but besides him, we are not sure Mark Jackson has much of a future in Detroit. We hope to get something for him while he is in his prime, but we may have to make some concessions since he will be 31 by the end of the season. Our front office is currently fielding calls for him, and it wouldn’t take much to pry him from our hands.
Our outlook on this season is not very good. We expect to be lottery bound and we have very few options to fix that. Call it tanking if you will, we don’t care. We feel lucky to have had the success we did for the past three seasons, and will do whatever it takes to get back to that level as soon as we can. Better to rip off the band-aid now then to suffer through seasons of mediocrity.
With all that said, are there any questions?
credit loco for photoshop