You've had more than a year to let it sink in, and some of you nitwits still don't get it, do you? The Grizzlies weren't trying to make an even swap in terms of talent. It was a salary dump, pure and simple.
They locked themselves into a huge long-term contract with Gasol, giving him superstar money to be the cornerstone of the franchise.
If Gasol is your No. 2 guy, you're cooking with gas. If he's your No. 1, you're destined to suffer the same fate they'd already been suffering -- getting their asses swept in the first round. Considering the market they were in, with the skin-flint owner they've got, they were never going to going to be able to pay another player more money. (If you've only got the money for one, who would you rather give it to, O.J. Mayo or Pau Gasol? I thought so.)
Gasol was it, and they weren't going anywhere with him. So they got him off the books, landed a few young prospects and draft picks and started over from scratch. Could they have gotten more from somebody else? Absolutely. But their GM Chris Wallace -- NOT JERRY WEST -- was terrible in Boston, so why should he have been any different in Memphis?
In the aftermath it sounded as if he simply didn't do his due dilligence in terms of fully exploring his options. But even if he had, how many franchises in the NBA have the resources to pay a second fiddle like Gasol $17 or 18 million? It's a short list -- New York, Dallas, Portland, Cleveland, Denver, probably a few more that I'm overlooking.
Not even Chicago, whose owner refuses to pay the luxury tax, would have brought him on. Certainly not the Spurs.
So if some of you think that L.A. fans are going to somehow feel ashamed that we pulled this off, you couldn't be any more wrong, or stupid for that matter. , it's exactly because of situations like this that I love being a Laker fan. Our fans have incredibly high expectations, and we have a franchise equipped to meet them. That's freaking beautiful.
And regarding the NBA being rigged -- Spurs fans should know more than anyone that this is simply not true. Otherwise, why in God's name would the NBA have delivered, against substantial mathematical odds, one of the most coveted draft prospects in NBA history to one of their smallest, least important franchises when they had teams in flagship markets waiting to get their hands on him?
This has happened to the Spurs not once but twice in the past two decades, in which they had a 20% and 16% chance to land the top pick in drafts in which David Robinson and Tim Duncan were available. Yet all some of you can do is pat yourself on the back about how the Spurs do things the right way, and whine like little es about how unfair the NBA is.
Get the out.