| | It is a long-held tenet of general managership that one should
never fall in love with the idea of getting lots of OK players for one
really good one, for the good and sensible reason that mediocrity in
volume is still mediocrity.
|  | | Scottie Pippen's not a Laker, but Phil Jackson has other worries. |
It is the lesson the Chicago Cardinals learned when they traded
Hall of Famer Ollie Matson to the Los Angeles Rams in 1959 for nine
players. It is the lesson Jimmy Johnson made sure he understood when he
asked for seven draft choices in addition to the five players he was
already asking for in exchange for Herschel Walker in 1989.
And now, the Houston Rockets are about to learn the same lesson in
the preposterous Scottie Pippen deal.
Now you may find it perfectly sensible for the Rockets to accept
six Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Pippen, who was coming off
his worst year in many and hated Charles Barkley with a fine glowing
hatred -- enough to force the Rockets' hand on a trade.
Now it may also be that Pippen just used Barkley as his ticket out,
but that's another story for another time, and in any event it's too
weird to get into now. Thus, we'll just take Pippen's remarks on ESPN
last week at face value, that he thought Barkley was disrespectful,
selfish, slothful, bloated and just plain annoying as all hell.
That isn't the issue anyway. What is more eye-opening is the idea
that Scottie Pippen, at this stage of his career, age 34 and with 11
years' worth of mileage on his odometer, is worth six NBA-caliber
players.
Now we grant you that Pippen is a likely Hall of Famer. We also
grant you that Kelvin Cato, Walt Williams, Brian Shaw, Stacey Augmon, Ed
Gray and Carlos Rogers aren't, even if you stack them one on top of the
other to create a 38-foot tall player with an erratic jump shot and
modest rebound and blocked-shot figures.
In other words, the trade itself isn't so bothersome. The Blazers
were thick with salaried players. The Rockets had a disgruntled employee ... indeed, one who was taking disgruntlement to its semi-logical
extreme. Plus, the salary cap made Pippen untradeable in any other
circumstance.
But as a concept, Scottie Pippen for six guys is a bit
staggering.
Matson was traded in his prime. So was Walker. Pippen may be many
things, but prime isn't one of them.
Plus, it is reasonable to mention the fact that since he is not
bringing Michael Jordan with him, he isn't the Pippen of three years
ago, on the best team of the modern era.
Pippen has been a support player nearly his entire career, first to
Jordan and then as one of three equals in Houston with Barkley and
Hakeem Olajuwon, and in the days when he wasn't sharing the marquee, the
Bulls were just an ordinary playoff team. And frankly, his legacy
without Jordan isn't worth six people.
He will surely be asked to win an NBA title in Portland, hand in
hand with Arvydas Sabonis, Damon Stoudamire, Brian Grant and Steve
Smith. But things don't usually work that way. Matson never got close to
one, either with the pathetic Cardinals or with any of his other teams.
Neither did Walker. Even if the expectations didn't crush them, the
developments did.
Fans don't know that. Surely, fans in Portland don't know that. The
Blazers are the city's most visible export, and the team is a sort of
civic mood ring. They see Pippen attached to an Western Conference
finalist and they know that nothing less than one of those big fat rings
will do.
History tells us that is a stretch. So does Pippen's age. So, for
that matter, does his career sans Jordan. He doesn't like being reminded
of this, of course, but facts are facts are facts. He has to prove to us
that he can be the straw that stirs the Willamette River.
And be the equal of six other men along the way. Nobody knows how
it will play out, but most people know which way to bet. Namely, on
neither the Blazers nor the Rockets.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
New Blazer Pippen says Portland 'a great fit'
Shippin' Pippen: Rockets send Scottie to Blazers
Pippen, Barkley exchange verbal jousts
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