Jul
12
What Jack McKinney was to Magic Johnson, Bill Fitch to Larry Bird and Kevin Loughery to Michael Jordan, Paul Silas was to Lebron James, serving as the King’s first head coach in the NBA.
Birthday boy Silas’ place in basketball history is especially relevant considering that he can relate to this week’s major storyline in “As the NBA World Turns.”
Elton Brand’s decision to leave the Los Angeles Clippers and sign with the Philadelphia 76ers earlier this week has left many up in arms, especially LA fans and General Manager Mike Dunleavy, who has indicated that he smelt a rat…make that an agent…in this controversy.
According to Dunleavy, Brand reportedly indicated that he wanted to stay with the Clippers – as long as he could get around $75 million and the team was aggressive in free agency, which Los Angeles exactly was when it signed Baron Davis away from Golden State.
Dunleavy further said that a contract to resign Brand was all but done and simply needed to be reviewed by the player’s agent, David Falk.
That’s when Dunleavy claims Falk reneged on the reported contract and began shopping Brand’s services to other teams for a higher price.
According to some reports, Falk called Philadelphia General Manager Ed Stefanski and told him that if he was interested in Brand, he should start clearing some cap space.
Seizing the opportunity, Stefanski did exactly that – trading away Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth to the always-taking Minnesota Timberwolves and freeing up the necessary money to sign Brand to a 5-year, $80 million deal and leave Clipper land in shambles.
While saying that he thought he knew who Elton Brand was as a person, Dunleavy indicated that he apparently did not know the true Brand following his jump to the 76ers.
According to Brand and Falk, they were insulted by an alleged take-it-or-leave-it offer from the Clippers that was reportedly $20 million less than what Philadelphia ultimately offered.
And even though Golden State offered about $10 million more than the 76ers, Brand cited Philadelphia as being a better fit for his game when explaining his decision to play in the City of Brotherly Love.
While Brand’s departure was certainly not on the up and up and there is some lying or fabricating taking place somewhere along the line — whether it was an ultimate Falk power play or the case of the Clippers marking up a contract that had flawed legal language, as Brand claims – people should not forget that Brand has been one of the classiest yet unfortunate players in the game since entering the league nearly 10 years ago.
Brand has never had the opportunity to choose to play for a team that he wanted – he was drafted out of Duke in 1999 by a miserable Chicago Bulls organization that paired him up with front-line stiffs like Dragan Tarlac and Dalibar Bagaric during his first two seasons in the league before trading him to the Clippers, where he reached the playoffs only once in seven seasons.
Brand did sign an offer sheet to play with the Miami Heat in 2003, but the Clippers matched it, despite Brand begging owner David Sterling not to do so.
So while the way he left the Clippers has likely damaged his image to some people, Brand should be cut some slack for deciding to sign with an improving Philadelphia team.
Brand and the Sixers will jump right into the top-tier of the middle-of-the-pack teams in the Eastern Conference, and should improve on last year’s showing – a first round exit to the Pistons – and be a very tough out in the second round.
On the other hand, the Clippers were hardly a guarantee to make the playoffs with Brand and Davis in a stacked Western Conference in which all eight playoff teams had at least 50 wins last year.
Considering Brand’s history as a class act and lunch-pail guy who got 20 and 10 every night when healthy and was a model off-court presence for the Clippers – who’ve had public image problems with players like Lamar Odom and Darius Miles and Sterling’s notorious penny-pinching in the past – it’s still safe to give him the benefit of the doubt that his character has not changed, as controversial as his departure may be.
With all this in mind, the Brand saga brings the story back to Silas, who certainly knows how it feels to be jilted by a former Duke power forward, in his case the player being Carlos Boozer.
Following James’ rookie season, Silas and the Cavaliers apparently had a deal with the free agent Boozer all but done in the summer of 2004.
That’s when Boozer allegedly reneged on the deal to resign with Cleveland and signed with the Utah Jazz a week later, causing much anger and resentment among Cavalier fans and management.
Silas – typically a class act like Brand – didn’t hold back when describing his feelings about Boozer when the former Cav returned for the first time to Cleveland with the Jazz during the 2004-2005 season.
While Dunleavy expressed his anger with Brand but did not resort to name-calling, Silas implicitly did, spelling out a certain four-letter word when describing Boozer that you certainly would never want to say in the presence of any woman or decent human being.
Silas would get fired by the Cavs shortly after those comments, and while this incident – along with an argument with Eric Snow that year – may not have done much for his image at the time, Silas has most often been high-character fellow in the pros.
Here’s a perfect example.
When Silas was fired by the New Orleans Hornets in the summer of 2003 after leading the team to the first round of the playoffs, he went to go visit owner George Shinn.
Apparently, Silas and Shinn lived in homes in a same property complex, and Silas took a walk over to the owner’s home. After Silas knocked on the front door, Shinn’s son answered.
Silas let Shinn’s son know that he wanted to speak with his former boss – however, Shinn refused to come downstairs, rather having his son ask if Silas was going to beat up his dad.
Laughing when talking to the media about his firing and this bizarre scenario, Silas let Shinn’s son know that he wasn’t here to beat up anyone but wanted to thank the owner for his time in Charlotte.
So while fans in Cleveland and Los Angeles may view Boozer and Brand as weasels, it’s easy to see while fans in Charlotte view the once-popular Shinn in a same manner, when taking this story into consideration and also remembering the controversial decision to move the Hornets to New Orleans.
As for Silas, a few incidents haven’t affected his respected image around the league. Silas recently interviewed about the Phoenix job that eventually went to Terry Porter.
In short, the bottom line of this post is that the bottom line ultimately rules in today’s NBA, whether it’s a playing moving on to another team or an owner relocating a franchise, and it’s typically very hard to discern the truth about what exactly happened during jilted contracted negotiations when hearing both sides of the story — the player-agent angle versus management’s versions of what “actually” transpired.
Related Posts
- Brand New Destination, Same Old Bulls
- July 9, 1968 — Sixers Trade Chamberlain to Lakers
- On this Day in Basketball History — 1982
- Maggette to Come Out and Play with Warriors
- On This Day in Basketball History — 1997