Post by Granville Waiters' GhostPost by Raymond DeCampoPost by WheresMyLateJulietPost by simonHe would fit in well in Nellieball, but I actually am beginning to
believe that he won't be traded to anyone despite his handlers
massive desire to get him to the Bay Area.
The only NBA uniform that Yi will be wearing this season is a Bucks
jersey. The NBA can't let draft picks decide where they'll play. Yi
has the option of sitting out pro ball everywhere for one year and
going back into the '08 draft but that's not gonna happen.
I don't see any reason he couldn't play in any other pro league
besides the NBA.
Not only that, but "sitting out of pro ball everywhere" doesn't make
him draft eligible again.
Yes it does actually. They have his rights one year. The clock stops if he has a contract with
another team until that contract ends and then the one year goes back into effect. If he sat out he
could reenter the draft. If he could not agree with the next team that drafts him and did not sign a
contract anywhere after one year he would be a FA. .
Post by Granville Waiters' GhostIf that were true, David Robinson would
have been the #1 overall pick of the Sacramento Kings in 1989.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA052007.01C.BKNspurs.robinson.2b097ce.html
Then the real work began.
"Drafting David was a nonissue," McCombs says. "Signing him was a huge issue."
The options
No chance. That's what most NBA insiders gave the Spurs when it came to signing Robinson.
In any other year, the No. 1 pick would have had no choice but to sign with the team that picked
him. But faced with a two-year commitment to the Navy, Robinson had two attractive options:
If the Spurs failed to sign him, he could re-enter the draft the next year. (This point was disputed
by the Spurs, who said Robinson would remain their property for at least three years under an
obscure league bylaw pertaining to military service.)
If he were drafted a second time and failed to sign, he would become a free agent leaving him free
to sign with the highest bidder.
"We had good information," McCombs says, "that at least two clubs and maybe more had made
entrées into David on the basis of, 'Hey, since you are not going to play for two years anyway, just
sit it out, and don't sign. After two years, you'll be an unrestricted free agent, and you can pick
the city where you want to go.'
"And all the know-it-alls said it wasn't going to be small-market San Antonio."
The smart money was on Robinson bypassing San Antonio and its small media market (then ranked 45th,
now 37th) for the riches the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics could provide.
"The speculation was that there would be some kind of big bidding war, and the system would be
manipulated (by one of those teams)," New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton says. "But I
also remember being at a press conference David was at and talking with some insiders who said,
'This is not a kid who is out to make every dollar he can get.'"
The Spurs found out soon enough Robinson craved financial security as much as the next 7-footer.
The agent
Much to the Spurs' dismay, Robinson was in no rush to meet after the lottery. He wanted to pick an
agent first, and three were in the running Lee Fentress of Washington-based Advantage
International; Bob Woolf, who represented Larry Bird; and Donald Dell's ProServ, Inc., whose clients
included Michael Jordan.
"David was always very accessible by phone, but he was always like, 'There's no reason for me to
come to San Antonio because I haven't decided on an agent yet,'" McCombs says.
"It was frustrating, but we didn't want to say, 'Hey, go get you one, like tomorrow.'"
So the Spurs waited and worried. Their biggest fear was Robinson would pick the Boston-based Woolf,
who was pals with Celtics boss Red Auerbach. The Spurs wanted Fentress, who had close ties to
Drossos.
"I had known Angelo for some time," Fentress says. "I respected and liked him a lot."
"Lee was a likable guy, and he and my father just hit it off," says John Drossos, Angelo's son.
"Part of it was my dad's love for tennis. Lee was a very good tennis player, and my dad was drawn to
good tennis players."
On June 17 five days before the draft Robinson had dinner at Fentress' home in Potomac, Md.,
where he visited with Fentress' wife and four children.
"I've always been a family-oriented type person, and Lee's the same way," Robinson says.
"I talked with a lot of very smart (agents), but smart doesn't always equate to compatible. I liked
Lee's personality, his approach. He was very conservative, very low-key, a very intelligent man. I
liked Woolf, but I didn't see us as being as compatible."
Robinson announced the next day he was going with Fentress.
"God, that was a relief," McCombs recalls.
"We were like, 'Hey, man, that's beautiful.' It was a break for us. Lee was a straight, above-board,
solid guy. He played a huge role in us ultimately getting it done."
"We got lucky," Drossos later said.
The weekend visit
Before the lottery, San Antonio might as well have been Timbuktu to Robinson.
"I knew almost nothing about the city," says Robinson, who grew up in Virginia.
"San Antonio had not been on my radar screen. I had never stepped foot in Texas, and I didn't know
anyone from Texas. When (the Spurs) won the lottery, I didn't have any emotion. I looked at some of
those teams like Boston and Los Angeles and imagined what it would be like to play in one of those
places, but I never really considered San Antonio."
That changed in September when Robinson and his family visited the city on a sun-splashed weekend.
Determined to win over the Robinsons, Drossos arranged for developer Marty Wender's private jet to
fly to Washington to pick up Fentress, Robinson's parents and his brother. Next stop was King's Bay,
Ga., where Robinson worked as an engineer at a Trident submarine base.
Landing in San Antonio at SunJet Aviation Terminals, Robinson was greeted by a mariachi band, a
state senator and about 700 fans. Several carried signs saying, "Say Yes, David."
City leaders literally rolled out the red carpet.
"I was overwhelmed," Robinson says. "I never imagined people were even paying that much attention to
me coming to town. I remember I had shorts on my outfit was awful. I remember getting off the
plane and thinking, 'Oh, my goodness. I'm not prepared for this.'"
After a limousine whisked them to the St. Anthony Hotel, the Robinsons had a private dinner with
team management, coaches and a handful of players. The next morning, Robinson was treated to a
helicopter trip over the city, with Cisneros serving as tour guide. The day included a tour of The
Dominion where Robinson would eventually buy a home and golf and tennis with Drossos and other
team officials.
Through it all, Robinson smiled.
"There were times that weekend when I thought I saw David and his father make eye contact that said,
'This is not bad. We can live with this. This is us,'" Cisneros says. "I felt them getting more and
more comfortable."
The whirlwind weekend cost Drossos an estimated $50,000. It nearly turned out to be a down payment
on disaster.
The negotiations
San Antonio was a major hit with the Robinsons.
"I liked the city, and so did my parents," Robinson says. "It was very family-oriented, and it fit
my personality. I think I could have survived in any city, but this one just happened to fit my
personality better than most."
Still, Robinson wanted assurances from the Spurs that they were committed to building a championship
team. He wanted assurances that Drossos would provide him with a strong supporting cast.
From information Fentress had acquired about the team's finances, Robinson knew it was possible. But
would the notoriously frugal Drossos and the other Spurs investors loosen the purse strings?
"I have to say I was a little skeptical," Robinson says.
"The team was not very good, and the bottom line is nobody wants to go to a bad situation,
especially if you have an option. And I had an option. So I felt like they had to really prove to me
they wanted to be good. Being the best player on a bad team had no appeal to me."
Robinson's skepticism grew when he and Fentress met with Drossos during their September visit.
According to Robinson, Drossos began the conversation by explaining the small-market Spurs couldn't
afford to pay high salaries like the clubs in major cities.
The low-ball ploy irked Robinson. He interpreted Drossos' comments as a sign the Spurs lacked the
commitment to excellence he sought.
"So then why are you talking to me?" Robinson recalls thinking.
"Isn't this the NBA? If you don't want me, that's OK. It's not going to hurt my feelings. But don't
tell me you want me, and then tell me you don't want to pay me."
Robinson's conclusion: "I don't think this is going to work."
Robinson also had a quick reply when Drossos said the Spurs were in danger of being sold or moved.
"He said, 'You really are the key. If we can get you here, we are going to turn this thing around,'"
Robinson says. "So I told him, 'Well, if you really think I'm this player that can help you guys
turn it around, then you need to pay me.' Angelo got quite upset about that."
Robinson says he left the meeting convinced he would never sign with the Spurs.
"We might as well just go home," he told Fentress. "They really don't want me here."
Looking back, Robinson recalls no disappointment.
"I was like, 'OK. It's on to the next thing. We'll just wait to see who drafts me next year.'"
But Fentress never gave up on the Spurs even though Drossos kept repeating his disinterest in
handing out "a Patrick Ewing-type contract," a reference to the record 10-year, $30 million deal the
former Georgetown center received from the New York Knicks two years before.
"The Spurs," Fentress says, "really needed David, so he had immense leverage. There were a lot of
other teams interested in him. The Lakers really wanted him. So my reaction was to just tell Angelo,
'Well, we'll see. Let's not stake any positions here. Let's be flexible, and we'll work this
through.'"
His reluctance to grant Robinson a "Ewing-like contract" wasn't anything out of the ordinary for
Drossos, the son of Greek immigrants.
"That was not how Angelo had run a small-market franchise," says attorney Dan Webster, who
represented the Spurs while Drossos was majority owner. "And, frankly, had he not been tight with
the dollar during those early years, there would not be a franchise here."
None of that mattered to Robinson.
"I understood they were a small-market team and that they had to keep salaries under control,"
Robinson says. "But you have to find somebody you can believe in and then make a commitment to
them."
The turning point, according to John Drossos, came when the Spurs' investors, with Angelo Drossos
and McCombs taking the lead, agreed to break the bank to sign Robinson.
"It was probably a much greater amount of money than any of them had originally thought was
necessary to make it happen," John Drossos says. "But collectively, they agreed it was the right
thing to do. They all agreed, 'Whatever it takes, we have to make sure we get him.'"
"It had to be done," says Dan McCarty, then a Spurs investor. "It was our only chance for survival."
"I don't want to say there was a good-cop, bad-cop thing going on," John Drossos says. "But if there
was a bad cop, my dad had to be it, and the other investors played the role of the good cop. I think
it played well."
The deal
In late September, Angelo Drossos called Robinson to say the Spurs were prepared to dig deep for his
services and build a winner around him.
"He said, 'Look, we'll make some changes. We'll step out on the limb,'" Robinson says. "I felt like,
you know what, you make that kind of commitment to me, I'll make that kind of commitment to you.
That's when I started thinking maybe I can play down there."
Fentress and Drossos began serious negotiations Oct. 1. The two talked daily on the phone and met
once in New York before Fentress and his associate, Jeff Austin, flew to San Antonio for a Nov. 3
meeting with Drossos and McCombs at Drossos' downtown condominium along the San Antonio River.
During the flight, Fentress and Austin discussed strategy.
"Because we had so much leverage, we could have easily pushed them over the brink," Fentress says.
"So we agreed we needed to show some restraint and try to be as gracious as we could. At the same
time, we wanted to make sure David didn't suffer from playing in a small market. We wanted to make
sure we maximized his position with the Spurs to make up for whatever he would lose in
endorsements."
With that in mind, Fentress inserted a unique half-page clause into the proposed 10-year contract.
It stipulated that Robinson, provided he met certain statistical standards, would receive the
average of the league's top two salaries over the last five years of the deal. The clause also
called for Robinson to become an unrestricted free agent should the Spurs choose not to pay that
amount.
"Jeff said they would never agree to it," Fentress says. "But I said, 'I'm not so sure they won't.'"
Fentress was right. But the final negotiating session, which lasted roughly three hours, wasn't
without drama. Fentress says Drossos stormed out of the room during a disagreement about how the
contract would be paid out in the event of Robinson's death or a disabling injury.
"I remember Angelo said, 'That's it. I've had it,'" Fentress says.
"I thought that was a little brinksmanship on Angelo's part, and I remember following him down the
steps and saying, 'We can work this out. Come back, Angelo.' I literally had to pull him back up the
steps."
The final deal called for Robinson to receive $26.18 million over 10 years, including a $1 million
signing bonus and $1 million for each of the two years he would spend in the Navy, an amount that
dwarfed his monthly military salary of $1,260.90.
"I told Lee to write down the money he wanted, and I would match it," Drossos later said. "I just
asked him to leave me some teeth to eat with. He did, but not many."
Robinson signed the contract Nov. 6. Some 1,500 Spurs fans showed up for a news conference at the
Convention Center Arena to announce the signing.