Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan comes under fire following Gerald Wallace trade
Michael Jordan, the owner and the majority share holder of the Charlotte Bobcats, certainly likes to move things around.
Since inheriting a franchise that could not afford players with huge pay checks, Jordan has made 13 trades involving 35 players since 2006. Hours before the NBA’s trade deadline on Thursday, he made yet another move, trading Gerald Wallace to
the Portland Trail Blazers.
The recent transaction has sparked widespread resentment among Bobcats fans and many are comparing it to departure of point guard Raymond Felton and centre Tyson Chandler.
At the end of last season, one in which the Bobcats qualified for the playoffs for the first time in their history, Jordan had traded Raymond and Tyson to essentially slip under the luxury tax threshold. The move left Charlotte with a younger
team, one that didn't work well with ex-coach Larry Brown's precision offence.
A lacklustre start to the season that was marred by a string of low key performance added fodder to fire. The team’s listless displays left the legendary coach frustrated and he publically criticised the players many times. A 31-12 fourth quarter
meltdown against the Oklahoma City Thunders on 22 December, which preceded a four-match losing streak, proved to be the last straw.
Jordan fired Brown on the same night and brought in interim coach Paul Silas.
Silas put the Bobcats on the right track immediately by introducing his own offensive style of play, to which the young players showed their likeness. However, he also considered Wallace an essential cog of the Charlotte line-up, and had openly
expressed his support for Wallace to stay.
In fact Wallace, who has $21 million left on his contract over the next two years, was also keen on playing for the Bobcats in a bid to qualify for the play-offs this season.
However, Jordan eventually had his own way.
Thursday's trade gave the Bobcats the luxury of having two first-round draft picks, including New Orleans' choice this season, provided it's not in the top seven. Another first-round choice from Portland will also arrive as soon as 2013.
In addition to that, Jordan has also roped in backup centre Joel Przybilla, reserve forward Dante Cunningham and centre Sean Marks into Charlotte’s fold.
The leadership and athleticism of Wallace, who had become the face of the seven-year-old franchise, will be hard to replace though. The void becomes all the more significant, considering the fact that the Bobcats are looking to lay down a challenge
to the Indiana Pacers for the final Eastern Conference playoff slot, during the rest of the season.
The transaction doesn’t appear to have gone well with the player as well. While D.J. Augustin expressed his shock at the development, Stephen Jackson said he was as close to Wallace as he's been to any team-mate in his career.
"This is something that was a shock to everybody on the team," Jackson said, "but at the end of the day we still have a job to do."
The team management however, insists that the moves are just part of a bigger picture and the things will eventually settle down.
"Down the road you'll see some of the benefits of this deal," Bobcats general manager Rod Higgins said in press conference. "Our [salary] cap numbers going forward you can see the plusses there. We can trade and do some things in free agency.
In terms of years, I couldn't sit here and say in 2014 we're going to be where we want to be. It's always evolving."
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