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NBA Regular Season 2002 - 2003 Detroit Pistons vs Los Angeles Lakers (12/03/2003) Full Match :

Small detail, but 03/04 not 02/03

A harbinger of what was to come in the NBA Finals

chrbal wrote:Small detail, but 03/04 not 02/03

Hello my friend. This match from 2002/2003 season;

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200303120DET.html

12/3/2003. I read it the American way, my bad

I remember that game when Okur was a rookie.

Funny because he played only 38 minutes in the finals the following season and scored 11 points the entire series. He had 7 fouls, which was his primary function- hack Shaq. There was even one game he didn’t get off the pine.

He was in Larry Brown’s doghouse the entire playoffs. Leaving Detroit was a good career move for him. Shame too. He’d have been a great part of a 3 big rotation if we could have afforded to resign both he and Sheed- assuming LB came around.

Snakebites wrote:I remember that game when Okur was a rookie.

Funny because he played only 38 minutes in the finals the following season and scored 11 points the entire series. He had 7 fouls, which was his primary function- hack Shaq. There was even one game he didn’t get off the pine.

He was in Larry Brown’s doghouse the entire playoffs. Leaving Detroit was a good career move for him. Shame too. He’d have been a great part of a 3 big rotation if we could have afforded to resign both he and Sheed- assuming LB came around.

As a 2nd round pick with only 2 seasons here we didn't have his Bird Rights so were limited in what we could offer.

If memory serves it was always a choice between keeping Sheed or Okur.

Seems if Sheed came in, acted out and was disruptive we woulda let him walk and kept Okur.

Instead Sheed came, fit like a glove and the rest is history.

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Pharaoh wrote:

Snakebites wrote:I remember that game when Okur was a rookie.

Funny because he played only 38 minutes in the finals the following season and scored 11 points the entire series. He had 7 fouls, which was his primary function- hack Shaq. There was even one game he didn’t get off the pine.

He was in Larry Brown’s doghouse the entire playoffs. Leaving Detroit was a good career move for him. Shame too. He’d have been a great part of a 3 big rotation if we could have afforded to resign both he and Sheed- assuming LB came around.

As a 2nd round pick with only 2 seasons here we didn't have his Bird Rights so were limited in what we could offer.

If memory serves it was always a choice between keeping Sheed or Okur.

Seems if Sheed came in, acted out and was disruptive we woulda let him walk and kept Okur.

Instead Sheed came, fit like a glove and the rest is history.

Sent from my SM-A520F using RealGM mobile app

This is correct. We had cap space to resign him but only if we let Sheed walk, which wasn’t happening after we won.

I do question whether we’d have been willing to match his Jazz offer had we been able to, but we’ll obviously never know.

Snakebites wrote:I do question whether we’d have been willing to match his Jazz offer had we been able to, but we’ll obviously never know.

Unlikely, given the lengths the team went to to avoid the luxury tax in subsequent seasons.