Thornton, Battle Talking Potential Package at Kentucky, Michigan, UConn or Florida (UPDATED) | The Boneyard

Thornton, Battle Talking Potential Package at Kentucky, Michigan, UConn or Florida (UPDATED)

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What's with the package deals nowadays? It seems to be trending. Actually it reminds me of the Lebron fiasco.
 
Kitaman said:
What's with the package deals nowadays? It seems to be trending. Actually it reminds me of the Lebron fiasco.
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Agreed… little uncomfortable with this… Seems to put too much focus on the package-players v. the rest of the team, IMO… Could be bad for team chemistry.
 
I think there is some reporting bias in these types of situations because a package deal is something to write about but if you ask a 16 year old hey have you and your friend thought about going to the same school it shouldn't be surprising when they say yes and it really might not mean much.
 
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Kitaman said:
What's with the package deals nowadays? It seems to be trending. Actually it reminds me of the Lebron fiasco.
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A little off-topic but... I would hardly call Lebron's move to Miami a "fiasco." Since the move to Miami, he's been to 4 championship finals, won back-to-back championships, a couple regular season MVPs, and 2 championship MVPs. Even when the media made a big deal about him about his free agency, he donated all the proceeds ($6 million) from the craziness to charity.

I have never understood the public's dislike of Lebron. He's a good guy, a good role model and he wins. Maybe he wins too much?

People can argue that Jordan was better; ok, a debatable point. That he should have won 4 straight championships; 2 ain't bad and impressive in this day and age.

The package deal worked, but now the big 3 are getting old. Now it is time to change things up, which is what any sound businessman would do. Even Geno doesn't win EVERY year.

The Nets package deal last year was a fiasco for lots of reasons. Miami...hardly.
 
seeya27 said:
A little off-topic but... I would hardly call Lebron's move to Miami a "fiasco." Since the move to Miami, he's been to 4 championship finals, won back-to-back championships, a couple regular season MVPs, and 2 championship MVPs. Even when the media made a big deal about him about his free agency, he donated all the proceeds ($6 million) from the craziness to charity.

I have never understood the public's dislike of Lebron. He's a good guy, a good role model and he wins. Maybe he wins too much?

People can argue that Jordan was better; ok, a debatable point. That he should have won 4 straight championships; 2 ain't bad and impressive in this day and age.

The package deal worked, but now the big 3 are getting old. Now it is time to change things up, which is what any sound businessman would do. Even Geno doesn't win EVERY year.

The Nets package deal last year was a fiasco for lots of reasons. Miami...hardly.
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I think he was referring to the way Lebron went about his Decision. It's one thing to choose the team that gave him the best chance to win. To turn it into a one hour TV special is another. Then he says winning will be easy and predicts 7 championships having not yet won one.

Lebron is an all time great and usually a nice guy, but The Decision was a public relations nightmare. He went from being one of the league's most liked players to being the most disliked.
 
UConn is now considered a premier destination because of Ollie.
 
seeya27 said:
A little off-topic but... I would hardly call Lebron's move to Miami a "fiasco." Since the move to Miami, he's been to 4 championship finals, won back-to-back championships, a couple regular season MVPs, and 2 championship MVPs. Even when the media made a big deal about him about his free agency, he donated all the proceeds ($6 million) from the craziness to charity.

I have never understood the public's dislike of Lebron. He's a good guy, a good role model and he wins. Maybe he wins too much?

People can argue that Jordan was better; ok, a debatable point. That he should have won 4 straight championships; 2 ain't bad and impressive in this day and age.

The package deal worked, but now the big 3 are getting old. Now it is time to change things up, which is what any sound businessman would do. Even Geno doesn't win EVERY year.

The Nets package deal last year was a fiasco for lots of reasons. Miami...hardly.
Expand ...

Fiasco quite cleary refers to how his free agency transpired and not the final outcome of his "decision". If you can recall the ESPN/ every network 24/7 coverage frenzy, constant speculation about where he would end up, and the culmination in a primetime live interview for a declaration. Fiasco sums it up perfectly.
 
seeya27 said:
A little off-topic but... I would hardly call Lebron's move to Miami a "fiasco." Since the move to Miami, he's been to 4 championship finals, won back-to-back championships, a couple regular season MVPs, and 2 championship MVPs. Even when the media made a big deal about him about his free agency, he donated all the proceeds ($6 million) from the craziness to charity.

I have never understood the public's dislike of Lebron. He's a good guy, a good role model and he wins. Maybe he wins too much?

People can argue that Jordan was better; ok, a debatable point. That he should have won 4 straight championships; 2 ain't bad and impressive in this day and age.

The package deal worked, but now the big 3 are getting old. Now it is time to change things up, which is what any sound businessman would do. Even Geno doesn't win EVERY year.

The Nets package deal last year was a fiasco for lots of reasons. Miami...hardly.
Expand ...
"Old"? Really? So what were the celtics when they won, ancient?

The reason people hated lebron, is because in the old days of the league, the best players didn't come together to take less money to give themselves the easiest possible chance at winning a ring. Older players join a dominant team for low money to try to win a ring before retiring, but the Miami big 3 began the practice of basically taking the easy way out. Rather than wanting to beat the best, they want to consolidate all the talent so that there isn't many teams out there that can truly challenge you. It's somewhat awful to teach young kids, sure teamwork is great and sacrificing for a common goal, but in sports, talent being spread out evenly and competitors wanting to beat their peers is better than wanting to make it easier to complete

How you can see miamis stars coming together as a positive is beyond me, unless you're a heat fan. It literally kills any shot the smaller market teams had at putting together a championship run.
 
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Reading the tea leaves about events is tough. I am in marketing and what I believe are sure-fire winners crash before your eyes. Unfortunately the media made a big deal about it, and that got projected onto him. I thought giving the $6 million to kids never got the play it should have.

He did promise 8 (not 7) championships and winning them with ease after he joined the Heat. Stupid thing to say for sure. In fact idiotic. But most everyone in sports says or does at least one thing foolishly in their career. I love Derek Jeter, but even he once acted like he was hit by a ball...when he wasn't.

It's the stuff that goes along with the game. And stupid.

Shouldn't have sidetracked the discussion. How KO has gotten us into the conversation for the best of the best is the real point. Package deal or not, KO is sooooo the man. No other coach in the world I would rather have right now.
 
the package deal is a new fad; but until it actually starts happening, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I feel like every year we have a bunch of package recruits. To my memory Okafor and Jones are the only two studs who publicly went as a package where it was stated early and the players actually committed together. Before that, I can't remember any public "packages" that actually came to fruition. Even Stone and Newman have already started backtracking. We had Leblanc and Voskuhl, but I don't think that was a package as much as us taking Jake to hopefully lure Leblanc in. Funny how that works.
 
boog204 said:
the package deal is a new fad; but until it actually starts happening, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I feel like every year we have a bunch of package recruits. To my memory Okafor and Jones are the only two studs who publicly went as a package where it was stated early and the players actually committed together. Before that, I can't remember any public "packages" that actually came to fruition. Even Stone and Newman have already started backtracking. We had Leblanc and Voskuhl, but I don't think that was a package as much as us taking Jake to hopefully lure Leblanc in. Funny how that works.
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I hear you. You know it reminds me of the times my and my boy went on a double date. Well what happens when one of the girls backs out? What happens when I like my date and he hates his? What if he gets rejected and I don't?

All I'm trying to say is that friendship can only go so far, especially when important personal decisions have to be made. Young kids will soon learn that over time. It sounds nice and perhaps cool, but its more complicated than just wanting to play together.

Teenagers man, the things they do and say......
 
Kembacity said:
"Old"? Really? So what were the celtics when they won, ancient?

The reason people hated lebron, is because in the old days of the league, the best players didn't come together to take less money to give themselves the easiest possible chance at winning a ring. Older players join a dominant team for low money to try to win a ring before retiring, but the Miami big 3 began the practice of basically taking the easy way out. Rather than wanting to beat the best, they want to consolidate all the talent so that there isn't many teams out there that can truly challenge you. It's somewhat awful to teach young kids, sure teamwork is great and sacrificing for a common goal, but in sports, talent being spread out evenly and competitors wanting to beat their peers is better than wanting to make it easier to complete

How you can see miamis stars coming together as a positive is beyond me, unless you're a heat fan. It literally kills any shot the smaller market teams had at putting together a championship run.
Expand ...


I hate this stance...every single NBA championship team of recent memory is comprised of multiple All-Stars, if not legends...NOBODY did it alone, not even Jordan. You have to surround yourself with top talent, and if your management is going to give you Ilgauskas and Daniel Gibson ...you go and do it yourself

Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Perkins, etc...
Bulls with MJ, Pippen, Rodman, etc...
Celtics with Bird, McHale, Parrish, etc...and then with Ray, KG, Pierce
Spurs with Duncan, Parker, Manu, Robinson for 1, etc...
Pistons with Isaiah, Rodman, etc...

Lebron taking the Cavs to the Finals in 2007 was one of the most ridiculous things ever...look at that squad. Terrible.
His made for TV "decision"....was terrible, i agree with that
 
uconndennis said:
I hate this stance...every single NBA championship team of recent memory is comprised of multiple All-Stars, if not legends...NOBODY did it alone, not even Jordan. You have to surround yourself with top talent, and if your management is going to give you Ilgauskas and Daniel Gibson ...you go and do it yourself

Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Perkins, etc...
Bulls with MJ, Pippen, Rodman, etc...
Celtics with Bird, McHale, Parrish, etc...and then with Ray, KG, Pierce
Spurs with Duncan, Parker, Manu, Robinson for 1, etc...
Pistons with Isaiah, Rodman, etc...

Lebron taking the Cavs to the Finals in 2007 was one of the most ridiculous things ever...look at that squad. Terrible.
His made for TV "decision"....was terrible, i agree with that
Expand ...


And for the record, the most dominant pro team in American sports (over the past decade plus) has resided in what is considered one of the US's smaller American pro markets -- San Antonio. (Small market in the "pro sense", not by total population).
 
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uconndennis said:
I hate this stance...every single NBA championship team of recent memory is comprised of multiple All-Stars, if not legends...NOBODY did it alone, not even Jordan. You have to surround yourself with top talent, and if your management is going to give you Ilgauskas and Daniel Gibson ...you go and do it yourself

Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Perkins, etc...
Bulls with MJ, Pippen, Rodman, etc...
Celtics with Bird, McHale, Parrish, etc...and then with Ray, KG, Pierce
Spurs with Duncan, Parker, Manu, Robinson for 1, etc...
Pistons with Isaiah, Rodman, etc...

Lebron taking the Cavs to the Finals in 2007 was one of the most ridiculous things ever...look at that squad. Terrible.
His made for TV "decision"....was terrible, i agree with that
Expand ...

I agree with everything you've said. Except, as much as I liked Sam Perkins (was it just me or did he looked stoned 100% of the time?), putting him in the same sentence as Magic, Kareem, and Worthy and then putting the tag of all star or "legend" is absolute comic gold. I get what you were saying, just have no idea why you chose Sam Perkins to accompany two of the greatest players who ever lived and another HOF in Big Game James.
 
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boog204 said:
I agree with everything you've said. Except, as much as I liked Sam Perkins (was it just me or did he looked stoned 100% of the time?), putting him in the same sentence as Magic, Kareem, and Worthy and then putting the tag of all star or "legend" is absolute comic gold. I get what you were saying, just have no idea why you chose Sam Perkins to accompany two of the greatest players who ever lived and another HOF in Big Game James.
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completely fair....no idea why I had Perkins on my mind. he only played like 3 years in LA anyway...
and I even skipped the Kobe/Shaq teams all together
 
uconndennis said:
I hate this stance...every single NBA championship team of recent memory is comprised of multiple All-Stars, if not legends...NOBODY did it alone, not even Jordan. You have to surround yourself with top talent, and if your management is going to give you Ilgauskas and Daniel Gibson ...you go and do it yourself

Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Perkins, etc...
Bulls with MJ, Pippen, Rodman, etc...
Celtics with Bird, McHale, Parrish, etc...and then with Ray, KG, Pierce
Spurs with Duncan, Parker, Manu, Robinson for 1, etc...
Pistons with Isaiah, Rodman, etc...

Lebron taking the Cavs to the Finals in 2007 was one of the most ridiculous things ever...look at that squad. Terrible.
His made for TV "decision"....was terrible, i agree with that
Expand ...

I'm no NBA historian, but how many of these great pairings involved superstars widely considered to be the top in their sport taking smaller salaries in order to allow the team to stockpile an absurd amount of talent? Did Jordan ever take big pay cuts to team up with Malone and Stockton? Nope...

and wonderful point about the Spurs... having Robinson and landing that great draft pick of Duncan, and then proceeding to draft Parker and Ginobili as late gem picks in drafts.... that's so similar to allstar players campaigning one another to join certain teams and take paycuts to create an allstar team.

The spurs legend was built on great draft picks allowing them to remain relevant while their core (which they got very lucky to land in the draft) aged
 
Kembacity said:
I'm no NBA historian, but how many of these great pairings involved superstars widely considered to be the top in their sport taking smaller salaries in order to allow the team to stockpile an absurd amount of talent? Did Jordan ever take big pay cuts to team up with Malone and Stockton? Nope...

and wonderful point about the Spurs... having Robinson and landing that great draft pick of Duncan, and then proceeding to draft Parker and Ginobili as late gem picks in drafts.... that's so similar to allstar players campaigning one another to join certain teams and take paycuts to create an allstar team.

The spurs legend was built on great draft picks allowing them to remain relevant while their core (which they got very lucky to land in the draft) aged
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the point is those stars didn't have to take pay cuts to team with other superstarts when their contracts were up, they already had stars/superstarts already in place on their team. Who was the 2nd best player on the Cavs during the end of Bron's tenure with Cleveland, Mo Williams? Who was the 2nd best player with Bosh, Jose Calderon? Who was the 2nd best player with Wade, a broken down Jermaine O'Neal? You don't see the difference there in Bosh/Bron/Wade's situations compared to the superstars of years past? How many years of his career was Lebron supposed to waste for the Cavs organization to put a great supporting cast around him?
 
Kembacity said:
Did Jordan ever take big pay cuts to team up with Malone and Stockton? Nope...
Expand ...

Well, Jordan already had one of the 50 greatest players ever on his team in Chicago. And then Chicago went and signed the best player in Europe...and then they signed one of the best rebounders that ever lived, etc.
 
Dennis Rodman went from enemies with Jordan on the Bad Boys Pistons teams to his teammate a few years later. Like others have said the reason those other legends never left is because they didn't have to. They built a team around them. Something the Cavs didn't. Kareem went from the Bucks to LA. He's arguably the best center of all time playing with the best PG of all time. This type of stuff happens. Lebron just lived in the age of social media. Like others have said the announcement wasn't even about him. It was about 6 million raised for charity.
 
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I'm not sure I like the idea. Sure, I want to get lots of great players, but one will most likely get more tick than the other, and what happens then? Do they gang up on the coach? Pout? Transfer?
 
seeya27 said:
Reading the tea leaves about events is tough. I am in marketing and what I believe are sure-fire winners crash before your eyes. Unfortunately the media made a big deal about it, and that got projected onto him. I thought giving the $6 million to kids never got the play it should have.

He did promise 8 (not 7) championships and winning them with ease after he joined the Heat. Stupid thing to say for sure. In fact idiotic. But most everyone in sports says or does at least one thing foolishly in their career. I love Derek Jeter, but even he once acted like he was hit by a ball...when he wasn't.
Expand ...

Dude, he participated in, most believe initiated, a one hour TV special called, of all the arrogant things, "The Decision". Trying to frame it as the most important historic sports free agent decision of our lifetime. This was not a "media driven" event. This was a LeBron driven event. He's been driving his media bus since high school.

That and he charged $10,000 for people to attend his birthday party, or something like that.
 
LeBron is a class guy. Didn't handle the move from Clevelandthe best butt nobody's perfect. Easy to nitpick and that is what you guys are doing. The man does a lot of good things for people , charity only one of the things.
 
Pretty sure Jordan took a cut in pay to fill out his team. I think his NBA salary was about 10% of his income at the time.

Now, let's land a package deal!
 
J187Money said:
I'm not sure I like the idea. Sure, I want to get lots of great players, but one will most likely get more tick than the other, and what happens then? Do they gang up on the coach? Pout? Transfer?
Expand ...

Exactly. Didn't need no stinking package before and did just fine. Don't like the idea of the recruits making terms and conditions. Indicative of other behavior? This is UConn and Kevin Ollie. Come to play and be a star, not somebody's BFF.
 
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