| Who Cares Who the Owner Is? - A candid conversation with Mike Heisley |
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| Written by Chip Crain |
| Tuesday, 16 March 2010 14:00 |
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As many Grizzlies fans already know, Mike Heisley gave an interview with Ron Tillery recently in the Commercial Appeal. To say his responses to Tillery's questions were poorly received by local media and fans is an understatement. 3 Shades of Blue wanted to follow up with Mr. Heisley to find out what he meant by those comments since some of the answers seemed at odds with the questions being asked.
Mr. Heisley was kind of enough to give us about an hour of his time during a busy day. He wanted to get the real message out he was sending to the fans. Unfortunately 3 Shades of Blue's technology let us down and the interview recording was lost. After speaking with Mr. Heisley and telling him what had happened he gratiously said for us to paraphrase what he said. He felt is was more important that the message be told than to worry about the exact words he used. So here is what we remembered from our conversation. The first question had to deal with the Tillery interview. Particularly about the draft performance where his answer seemed to imply that attendance was somehow to blame. Heisley said that he didn't mean to make it sound like attendance had anything to do with the draft or how he builds the team. He simply wanted to express how he was disappointed by the attendance this season.Heisly believed that once the team started to win that the fans would return. He was disappointed that a team that has been playing above .500 ball most of the season and was currently 3 games above .500 would have only seen a paltry increase in attendance (up 9% from a very low base). He wasn't blaming the fans nor trying to imply that the draft nor his moves in free agency would in any way be impacted by the attendance. He understands that three years of poor performance is not going to evaporate over night. That it will take time to rebuild the base. He just hoped for a greater response to this team. Heisley believes that this team is quite possibly the most entertaining one that the franchise has ever had. He heard the complaints about Mike Fratello and his slow, defensive pace of play. He knows how people responded to the disciplined attack of Hubie Brown as well. He feels that this team runs with the best teams in the league, has great young players who are exciting to watch and are winning games again. This is what the fans have said they wanted the team to provide. He doesn't understand why more people haven't come out to see them play. The franchise has some of the lowest ticket prices in the league. The $5 tickets are the lowest and they haven't even been selling out those tickets. The seats at the FedEx Forum are a lot better than more expensive seats in other arenas around the league. In Chicago for example the luxury boxes are at the top of the arena. You need binoculars to see the court. He believes this team is worth the investment for the entertaining style of play they have. He just wishes more people would come out to see the team play. He wanted it to be clear however that he is serious about building a winner in Memphis. Re-signing Rudy Gay is something he seriously wants to do and since Rudy (and Ronnie he added) are both restricted free agents that he has control over that. What Heisley wants more than anything is to build a winner here in Memphis. He said that people don't understand how hard it is on him personally when the team loses a game. He feels it is a personal failure and not just a team failure. It would be the biggest joy in his life if the Grizzlies won the NBA championship. He understands that fans don't realize this is how personally he takes it. He knows he isn't well liked in Memphis right now but he also asked a great question. Do people in Memphis really care who the owner is when the team is winning? He doesn't believe that anyone really cares who the owner is in good times but when times have been bad, and they have been very bad in Memphis the last three years, the owner suddenly becomes the lightning rod for fans displeasure. He brought up the case of the Chicago Bulls and owner Jerry Reinsdorf. The Bulls won 6 championships in 8 years however the year after the Bulls were broken up the citizens of Chicago voted Reinsdorf the worst owner in professional sports. Heisley said that is normal of fans but surely the owner who provided the city with 6 championships in 8 years wasn't the worst owner. He hopes the people of Memphis will see that what he is doing is going to produce a winner in Memphis and when that happens people won't believe he is such a bad guy as they do now. Either way, he doesn't believe people care about who the owner is in the grand scheme of things. The sports talk media may make it an issue but he can't believe someone would miss a Grizzlies game they wanted to see because they don't like the owner. It's the owner's job to make the team so good people don't want to miss the game for any reason and he is trying to build a team that will do that. 3 Shades of Blue followed up this conversation with the obvious question of will he resign Rudy Gay despite the poor attendance if he is offered a huge deal elsewhere. He couldn't say absolutely that he would resign Rudy but he did say that he wanted Rudy to stay a Memphis Grizzly. He feels that Rudy has become the most important player on the team this year and he was not going to just let him walk away. It wasn't an absolute statement that Rudy would be back but it was clear from his comments that Heisley has no intention of letting him go without a fight and in this fight Heisley has the biggest dog. Heisley repeatedly said that despite what you hear in the media Rudy is a restricted free agent and Heisley wants him back. That is the message that somehow gets lost in translation with the media. Heisley was less committal on Ronnie Brewer but he explained that he really hasn't had the opportunity to see him play. He didn't give up a 2011 first round draft pick just to have him leave at the end of the year. He wants Ronnie to be a part of this team in the future. He just needs to see how he fits in with the team before knowing what type of financial commitment he wants to make. At this point of the interview 3 Shades of Blue attempted to move the discussion to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Mr. Heisley shut that down immediately. He made it clear that no owners are allowed to talk about the CBA in any manner. Mr. Heisley said that all negotiations with the players are being handled by a committee of owners and that he couldn't even say who was on that committee. Apparently David Stern has made it clear that fines will be levied against any owner commenting to anyone about the negotiations and the fines are serious. With that conversation over we moved to the upcoming draft and the lack of a scouting department. The actual term 3 Shades of Blue used was 'skeleton.' Mr. Heisley took offense to this depiction. He said he doesn't feel he has a skeleton scouting department. He did reduce the number of scouts on the payroll last summer but that was from a league high staff of 12 people. He asked if we had heard of any other team with that many people scouting. I hadn't heard of any team with that more than 2 or 3 dedicated scouts. The Grizzlies currently have three people dedicated to scouting so they are back to the average number. Mr. Heisley went on to explain that the decision to reduce the scouting department had a lot more to do with function than price, atlthough the savings were appreciated. He just didn't understand why he was paying these people to travel around and watch ball players than the core staff was already aware of and when it came time to make a decision the scouts weren't involved. The decisions were being made by the Barone's, Chris Wallace, Kenny Williamson and himself. The reports being filed were not that useful. So he objected to the idea that the scouting department was not staffed the same as other teams, he felt the extra bodies were an unneeded expense on a franchise that can't afford to waste money in non-productive exercises and that their absence would have no effect on this draft or any draft in the future. 3 Shades of Blue then asked whether the franchise would consider using a draft pick on an European player who would not come over right away. Mr. Heisley said yes. He felt that this strategy has paid great dividends for San Antonio and other franchises and would be something the team would consider. However that doesn't mean we should expect that strategy to be used this summer. He said that he would consider such a scenario only if the right type of player was available and if no one else seemed to be as attractive. He was not interested in stashing a player just to not pay him. He wants to bring in the best players possible for next season. The final question dealt with how important it was for him to beat Chicago. He said short of winning a playoff game they were the two most important games of the year. He was up late in Chicago calling friends to brag after the Grizzlies won this year. Heisley really is a fan of the game and when he can beat the hometown favorites it is extra special. He looks forward to sweeping the Bulls with a win tonight in Memphis as well. 3 Shades of Blue apologizes again for losing the recording. It was a technical problem we hope not to repeat and appreciate the kindness and confidence Mr. Heisley showed us to recreate this interview as best as we could. |
Comments
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You could be a team that is in the lottery but littered with old veteren scraps playing the worst ball of their careers, no young core or talent, no exciting play because of the age. No hope for the future. How long have the Knicks been rebuilding for? 10 years? That's just one team. Alot of the doomed teams are also in the East, where it's EASIER because they can play other crap teams more often. Grizzlies are in the West, which already makes it alot harder.
Grizzlies always had hope. They had a GM and owner explain the "plan" to them so that they knew what was going on. They had Rudy an entertaining young player. Then Conley (okay, a bit of a letdown but better then signing Baron Davis and then he shoots 35%fg for the season, at least Conley is young and has a future). Then Mayo and Gasol. Last year you could see that the starters were pretty good and a good young core was forming. Add an extra years experience playing together and Z-Bo's signing, and it's been a huge improvement. And unlike alot of other "better teams", Grizzlies best days are still ahead of them.
I know some people didn't believe Grizzlies had hope, they still probably don't, and even if the Grizz got to the second round in 2011 would find something negative to say like "Wallace and Heisley fluked it". But then these people will never be happy.
Memphis as a whole will probably hop onto the bandwagon if the Grizz keep winning, but it might take a bit longer then it should. I don't know the reason why.
I've followed alot of sporting teams, from alot of different sports, coaches, owners, technical directors, etc... some very good and some very bad. I don't get any bad feeling about Heisley, I don't think he is incompetent like others seem to think. Trying win a championship in Memphis is probably one of the hardest challenges in USA sports.
However, irregardless, who the owner is affects the way the organization is run. And poor owners, usually produce poor results in W/L over the long-term. Which any fan cares about. I guess what I'm saying here is ownership matters, and has a significant impact (its not a random variable). Hardcore fans just are more involved and see things on more of long-term basis.
The difference between Chicago and Memphis in market size is something your never going to change. Chicago can have a crappy team and it will still do well in revenue.
Admittly, the NBA is very management dependent. Which is kinda of cool from a strategy standpoint, but not something casual fans appreciate. This really is the key though. Getting a guy or guys like RC Buford, Peotrie, Darly Morey is crucial. And I guess to his credit Heisley realizes this (Jerry west), although the execution hasn't always worked. West may have been a bit overrated as well.
From general NBA perspective Heisley as an owner, should really push for structural changes, which allow teams that have more balanced roster like the grizzles compete for titles vs the Lebron + parts Style teams that always make longer runs in the playoffs. The NBA would lose some of the effectiveness of marketing its superstars, but it wouldn't lose all of that, and it would Gain a ton by more year to year parity (look at the playoff teams for the West over the last 3 years-not alot change).
I could go into what I think that would probably look like or least 1 possiblity but I think I'll save my breath...
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