Return to Sender: The Mark Williams Thread

[Walt Cronkite]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

[KembaWalker]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

Lakers owe us some major compensation

[LofJ]

The old regime would have just laid down and given up. I respect that the new folks seem to have some fight in them. Now if they'd ever commit to actually winning some games that would be nice...

[countryboi]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

[fatlever]

The fact that Mark himself doesn't know why he failed the physical is pretty alarming.
"sorry Mark we're going to have to Cancel your trade. you failed your physical"
" What is it? is it my knee is it my back? is it my foot? why did I fail my physical?"
" We can't tell you. It's a Secret. But you're just going to have to trust us We found something that might shorten your career eight years from now"

[fatlever]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

My first guess that was Mark's agent. Without googling it. So while I do believe he's probably right. I think it's also fair to take this statement with a grain of salt. This is PR 101

[LofJ]

The MJ regime didn't even bother to engage in PR 101, so this is a step up for sure.

[yosemiteben]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

[fatlever]

Yeah that's Mark's agent. Finally took the three seconds to Google it.

[fatlever]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

I'm curious if they had mark seen by several 3rd party doctors over the past week to see if they found anything. Maybe that's why they waited so long because they wanted to triple check to make sure that there wasn't actually anything there that would threaten his career.

It's not just me, like.... reading Mark's quotes you guys got the impression that he had no idea why he failed that physical... right? If that really is true it's shocking to me that you can fail a guy and not tell him specifically what you found that was the problem. So either they didn't tell Mark what they supposedly found. Did tell him and Mark and his agent don't want to say what it was the Lakers told him was the reason...

But yeah the whole thing is obviously stupid. Clearly my initial gut reaction to this was wrong and I do now heavily lean towards the Lakers getting cold feet and using this loophole as a reason to back out of the trade. They should have never traded for him to begin with. Mark Was never going to be the solution for them at center.

The league will have no choice but to address this during the next bargaining agreement. There's nothing to prevent teams from abusing this in all sorts of ways. But it won't help us at all. Certainly won't help fix the damage the Lakers did to marks market value.

Side note... I wonder if it's possible that if Mark and his agent can prove that he is completely fully healthy and have a bunch of independent doctors sign off on the fact that he's completely healthy, somehow sue the Lakers for reputational damage considering they probably cost him Millions of dollars by completely tanking his reputation and market value for both trades and future contracts. That would be a very wild scenario that probably isn't possible just curious.

[Walt Cronkite]

Shams update: Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

I don't follow. What is interesting about waiting until now to reaffirm that the overwhelming majority of consulted doctors nationwide disagree with the assessment that Mark should have failed his physical?

[yosemiteben]

is Jeff Schwartz his agent? that really rubs most of the shine off this post.

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

I don't follow. What is interesting about waiting until now to reaffirm that the overwhelming majority of consulted doctors nationwide disagree with the assessment that Mark should have failed his physical?

Because it seems like something that they could have done in the days after the trade was rescinded and not a couple weeks later.

[Walt Cronkite]

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

I don't follow. What is interesting about waiting until now to reaffirm that the overwhelming majority of consulted doctors nationwide disagree with the assessment that Mark should have failed his physical?

Because it seems like something that they could have done in the days after the trade was rescinded and not a couple weeks later.

Ah, ok, wasn't sure if something else. I guess, if he's legitimately getting second opinions/ health screenings from doctors across the nation, I would assume that takes time.

[SWedd523]

Yeah it is. What is most interesting is not necessarily that he did this at all, but that he waited until now to do it.

I don't follow. What is interesting about waiting until now to reaffirm that the overwhelming majority of consulted doctors nationwide disagree with the assessment that Mark should have failed his physical?

Because it seems like something that they could have done in the days after the trade was rescinded and not a couple weeks later.

I read that as Mark's guys sent his medicals out to a bunch of different docs and got additional opinions, which would tend to take some time to review and pore over it.

I have to imagine they'd be very careful to make such a statement without being very confident that they're right

[luciano-davidwesley]

So the evil pOvErTy FrAnChIsE Hornets weren't trying to pull a fast one over the darling Lakers?

Going off early has made a LOT of people look stupid on this one.

[Chapelchilla]

So the evil pOvErTy FrAnChIsE Hornets weren't trying to pull a fast one over the darling Lakers?

Going off early has made a LOT of people look stupid on this one.

Yep, lots of "fans" of the Hornets too! Weird

[Rays Pompadour]

The "Job" for all right now:

Agents - Rehabilitate Mark Williams' medical profile...and his value
Hornets - Suggest, insinuate and allude to LA's culpability, while sending flowers every day to Mark's home address
Lakers - What trade?

It was fun to follow for a while, hoping a villain would emerge, but it's (c)old news at this point. Unless the Hornets file some sort of protest (which they won't) or Mark's agents somehow find a deep throat in the Laker's organization (which they won't), then the situation is a non-issue.

[Braggins]

So now I'm starting to think the Lakers made a mistake by cancelling the trade. Mark would have been sick on that team.

[Walt Cronkite]

So now I'm starting to think the Lakers made a mistake by cancelling the trade. Mark would have been sick on that team.

Agree, thought that a lot last night. Mark wasn’t super impressive, but they would struggle less to get him the ball when he had mismatches and he’s a lob threat from all over with LeBron and Luka. So stupid.

[Liver_Pooty]

So now I'm starting to think the Lakers made a mistake by cancelling the trade. Mark would have been sick on that team.

Having no legit center is why they’re going to get smoked in the first round instead of going to the WCF