| Chatting with the Big Cheese - Part Four |
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| Written by Chip Crain |
| Tuesday, 08 December 2009 01:22 |
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This is the final installment of the interview 3 Shades of Blue had with Grizzlies majority owner Michael Heisley. In the first part, second part and third part Michael talked quite candidly about the Grizzlies season, the Allen Iverson situation, his role as owner and decision maker on the team, the difficulty being an NBA team in a small market and other topics. Michael has always been generous with his time and the writers at 3 Shades of Blue appreciate his openness. We have removed certain players names from the interview to eliminate any possibility of tampering allegations being made but otherwise the interview is exactly what Mr. Heisley gave to us. 3SOB: Memphis has a team right now that could be well built for long-term future growth however this is also a team who has every player potentially without a contract within the next two years. Is this a wise strategy for a small market team and you need to hold onto players for longer time? MH: Well, I can only hold on to them if they want me to hold on to them. I have every reason to believe that we will reach a contractual acceptance of Rudy and he'll stay with us. We've got a couple of other players that are going to come up in the next year or so, Marc and others. I have utmost confidence that we will be able to keep virtually all of those players if not all of them. Everybody's forgotten about Pau Gasol. Do you remember what it was like to be Pau Gasol in Memphis? 3SOB: I remember how most of the fans felt about him... MH: Exactly. Everybody was telling me "I don't care what you get for him. Just get rid of him." I kept saying I think he's one of the best big men in the NBA, getting double and triple teamed every night. If he played somewhere else he'd be a star. He's one of the best big men in the league. Nobody wanted to hear that. They just wanted me to get rid of him. It was everywhere in the media and people were booing him. It was just tearing his heart out. He liked Memphis. His family was working for St. Jude's. His brother was going to school here. That family likes Memphis. We had everything going for them but the pressure on him was huge. At that point I made a decision. Now look at him. In L.A. he's spectacular. Why is he so good in L.A.? I'll tell you why. It's a simple reason. He plays on one side of the court with Kobe. Now you've got a choice. You've got two or three guys on that side of the court so who are you going to double team: Pau or Kobe? Did you see what he did in the championship game last year? He was one on one and no one can handle Pau one on one. If we had gotten LeBron James on that draft pick which we missed by one, the world would have been different for us. Everybody would have said I was a genius and Jerry was a genius but it didn't turn out to be that way. So we had to live with it. Now I'm not asking people to accept mediocrity and failure. I think we've done a great job building a young team. We've got a nucleus. We just need some breaks. We need to be smarter. I need for someone to turn out to be a superstar. 3SOB: We have three number one picks in the upcoming draft. Do you plan on keeping those picks or making a move to bring in more experienced players? Or more simply do you plan on making more changes or do you like where we are now? MH: I can tell you right now we need help. I can't tell you what we need right now but we do need help. Until things sort out I can't say exactly what we're going to do. Any time I see the ability to improve the team and enable us to win I'm going to act. The three year program is the goal I set for myself. It's what I've told everyone I am doing and I haven't changed. I realize that people might not agree with the plan. You asked what am I going to do with those draft picks, if somebody came in and gave me an outstanding player and I could make a trade and throw in one or two picks then I would do it. If I don't get that opportunity then I am going to do the best I can with those draft picks. 3SOB: Last question, a story broke this weekend that Minnesota was going to be making an offer, or had put together an offer, for Rudy Gay. You just mentioned there were no trades on the table. Is this one of those stories like Tiger's wife tried to kill him or is there something going on?
There is always somebody for one or more of our players.There is alway somebody saying will you trade us Rudy or will you trade us Marc or O. J. I have not had any conversation about Rudy or Mayo. So to say this guy isn't on the trade block just opens you up to being called a liar. You said you wouldn't do it and now you're doing it. We are not even thinking about anything that would affect the front line that we have. I am very happy with that front line right now. I don't know what will happen in the future but right now we have one of the best front lines in the league. I think we need to make a lot of improvements but I don't think we need to make moves there. 3SOB: Well getting Zach Randolph for practically nothing... you made the right call. MH: Well that's what I am trying to do. We THINK we made the right call. I'm not so damn arrogant that I think I am smarter than everyone else or that I know how things are going to work out. But right now I am fairly happy where we are as a team. What we need to do is figure out how to win games we basically get big leads in. I think that's seasoning and that's something Lionel is going to have to work on. This concluded our interview. I realize some questions people wanted asked were not but time is always a factor when talking with Mike Heisley. I hope to get whatever questions people still have answered the next time we talk. Feel free to leave your questions in the comments section and 3 Shades of Blue will do their best to get them asked in the future. |
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thanks