ORLANDO (poolside) --"Ubuntu, y'all!" Orlando Magics GM Gainesville Celtic ended his impromptu morning press conference with his odd yet familiar sign-off. The presser was to announce that the
Orlando Magics had traded former NBA MVP
Allen Iverson and
Thaddeus Young to
Toronto for former Finals MVP
Chauncy Billups, SF
Jared Dudley and a 12th and a 13th round pick. The teams also exchanged 14th round picks.
"We are really, really sad to see
Allen Iverson go," explained a oddly unsuntaned Gainesville Celtic. "He has a heart the size of Lake Okeechobee and is probably the best little man to play this game. But our goal is to bring multiple NBA titles to north central Florida in the last 4-5 years of
Tim Duncan's (and now Billups') career and we think that pairing him and
Danny Granger with a PG of
Chauncey Billups' caliber brings us a lot closer to that goal. Despite playing only 70 fewer games than AI, Billups has played 10,000 fewer minutes -- or the equivalent of 322 fewer games. So we think he's a little more ready to play 3-5 more years at an elite level. And we think that Billups is just a slightly better fit with our team in terms of offensive efficiency. He, along with our depth at SG/SF (West, Granger, Harpring, Barnes, Dudley, Wright) allows us to match up a little better with teams like New Jersey."
"But the decision was harder than you'd think. We just don't understand folks like Roy "All-Star Webster" Hobbs' hatred toward Iverson. He is still an elite player in this league and is a physical freak. 8 years ago he dragged the 76ers in to the finals, and he's lost maybe only a 1/4 of a step. That Iverson and Melo haven't worked as well together as hoped says more about Melo, in our opinion, than it does about Iverson. You can mark "The Answer" down for 22/6/3 and a steal every night and he hates losing. And 6 assists is from your SG! This was not a question of talent but of fit. Our core of Iverson/Granger/Duncan was just about as good as there was in the East -- in large part because of Iverson."
"You have to build a team around Iverson, compliment his talents and we think we were well on our way to doing that. We had some feelers out for another veteran PG and thought that if we could get one no one could stop Iverson/Granger/Duncan and the Magics. We wish Toronto all the luck in the world, and hope they win all but 8 games.
"Yeah, Thaddeus Young is a stud of a young player, but he's still only 19 and our window is a little smaller than that. And we still have a ton of youth in the pipeline. While he doesn't get the publicity that Iguodala or Josh Smith do, Granger is every bit as talented as those young SFs. We think he's the second coming of Shawn Marion.... don't believe us? Look at the 24 y.o. Grangers' numbers compared to 25 y.o. Marion the year before Steve Nash rolled into Phoenix [
http://tinyurl.com/5g742k]. And Delonte West, Joakim Noah, Jared Dudley, Dorell Wright and Shelden Williams are 24 or younger. So we think we've kept a great mix of youthiness and veteranability. And our young guys are solid, team-first kids.... that's what we mean when we say "Ubuntu Y'all!"
"We really want to thank Rondo2287. He's a class GM, and we did this deal faster than Iverson goes baseline to baseline --- which as you know is pretty darn fast."
"I need to get back, poolside now and check my BlueBerry and my Chelada.... we still have some work to do in this draft and in terms of trades. thanks."
Topic: 2008 CelticsBlog draft board. (Read 916267 times)