Walker speaking the truth!!!!

[Max]

jejejejethis is gonna be an interesting one.....

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/bask ... 3178.story

"Honestly, the Miami situation is something Pat Riley put on himself," Walker told the Boston Globe. "You can't change the team like that. All the good teams, the teams contending for championships -- look at Detroit, San Antonio -- they have been teams that have kept their core guys together for three, four, five, six years. For some apparent reason, Coach felt like he needed a change.

"You got myself, Pose, all of us are 31, 32 years old, still can play. Still are valuable pieces. Last [season] we won 44 games. Even though we lost in the first round of the playoffs, Shaq missed [39] games, D-Wade missed like [30]. So you have to factor all those things in."

[GameTime_3]

I dont think it was this year that killed us, i think that for the past couple of offseason pat riley has keep the midlevel and not gotten new Blood.So After a while we just died. Same thing as the dolphins! Build thru the draft and Free agency!! and we have not done neither!

[CB4MiamiHeat]

what happened to the charges?...nobody take charges on this team, i miss that from Posey and Antoine.

[BFRESH44]

In hindsight wouldn't have done the Walker for Ricky Blount deal..As a matter fact it turned out real bad for us.

We take an extra year of salary for no damn reason, and we owe them an evetual first round pick.

But Toine was so bad last year Riley had to do something...

[MartyConlonJr]

In retrospect:

Use MLE in 06
Use MLE in 07
Don't sign Smush
Buyout Toine
Sign Posey or Kapono
Sign Jones

Just about all of those issues are completely luxury tax/owner related and almost all of them I could have told you at the time

[CoolD]

what happened to the charges?...nobody take charges on this team, i miss that from Posey and Antoine.

Good point, the only one know that takes a charge is Haslem at times, but last year we had Posey, Walker and Haslem probably be the best triplets at it. Another thing we missed is their rebounding. I big SF in Walker and Posey. Walker if you hated the guy, played hard that can't be said about most of this current team .

Am still not sure if Walker would of had a productive season though as a Heat, because he got even fatter, and also Walker got shooked of getting robbed, he was bound to have another bad season because he showed a lack a focus maybe do to getting robbed. But a focus Walker really does bring more to the table than Ricky. His rebounding and defense make up for Ricky's here and there spurts that come every something games in scoring. We also had to take Blount a longer contract. Ouch.

[Hoops23]

The way I look at it, Mr. Walker is still upset and mad at Riley. Thats what is all about.

Riley put this team together but there's always the issue of the tax with Mr. Arison.

[BFO]

In retrospect:

Use MLE in 06
Use MLE in 07
Don't sign Smush
Buyout Toine
Sign Posey or Kapono
Sign Jones

Just about all of those issues are completely luxury tax/owner related and almost all of them I could have told you at the time

You are sounding like Bill Simmons.

[D' Winner Within]

Walker is speaking the truth that Riley made a mistake trading him. Walker thinks the Heat is better of with him than Davis.

[BigDaddyPR]

Ive been saying ti for some time now, the prob with this team is the greedy owner who has more millions then a mark cuban and still doesnt wants to pay the lux tax. Not much you can do in that situation. I would love to see what a Pat Riley can do qith an owner like Cuban who is willing to pay the price to be competitive year in and year out.

[unowen85]

I'm about to put a twenty-thousand dollar hit through Jenny Craig to come find his ass and put him in a fat farm.

NetsForce's sig is too funny.

[BigDaddyPR]

LOL. that sigb is hilarious!!! At least is not Shaq going for the bucket!! LOL!!

[HeatInOhio]

Walker is speaking the truth that Riley made a mistake trading him. Walker thinks the Heat is better of with him than Davis.

Eh, letting Walker go wasn't a mistake IMO. He displayed one of the worst basketball IQs in recent memory last year. The only mistake was doing it at the cost of a 1st round pick. Riley has brought this town two very good teams with the Mourning/Hardaway teams in the mid-late 90s and the championship team from a few years ago.

He knows how to build solid teams (although due to Shaq's age, the 2nd team had a shelf life, but everyone knew that going in). My only beef with Riley is his willingless to trade 1st round picks. I wish he held them in higher regard. But as far as Walker goes, good riddance. Easily the most frustrating player to watch from a fan perspective in Heat history.

[PPAW4Life]

Despite how Tippy played last year, he wasn't the reason the heat won 8 games less than the championship season.

Tippy is right that Riley is at fault for the current mess because Riley didn't compensate well for the loss of former Heat players...nor did Riley restock with useful youth, no offense to DW1 or Cook, but these kids are not enough to help a team win....they need to still learn how to play this game at this elite level.

I think the trade with Minny was one of the worst trades in NBA history because you actually do not want Mark Blount and Ricky Davis playing a ton of minutes for your team. If Shaq was healthy, Blount would be getting Mike Doleac's minutes....zero.

Ricky Davis is best used off the bench as a 6th man. If he is ever one of ur leading scorers your team is doomed.

And to give a draft pick away is suicide.

[HeatInOhio]

Despite how Tippy played last year, he wasn't the reason the heat won 8 games less than the championship season.

Walker rarely contributed anything positive to the team last year on the court. One thing he did do well was take charges in the team defense concept. You can't directly blame a single player in a team sport but you can certainly look at the individual value. Walker's horrendous shooting percentages and low basketball IQ speak for themselves.

Tippy is right that Riley is at fault for the current mess because Riley didn't compensate well for the loss of former Heat players...nor did Riley restock with useful youth, no offense to DW1 or Cook, but these kids are not enough to help a team win....they need to still learn how to play this game at this elite level.

I agree somewhat. Riley did attempt to get Mo Williams who wanted to play in Miami... Milwaukee just had more coin to throw at him and we all know what happens in that situation. As far as compensating there wasn't much Riley could do. He only had the MLE and Arison isn't down with the luxury tax. Cook is a mid to late first round rook, not much should be expected out of him in his rookie year. Wright has been a dissapointment overall IMO.

I think the trade with Minny was one of the worst trades in NBA history because you actually do not want Mark Blount and Ricky Davis playing a ton of minutes for your team. If Shaq was healthy, Blount would be getting Mike Doleac's minutes....zero.

Huh? Blount would have rarely touched the floor if Shaq and Zo were healthy as you noted so I'm not sure how getting back Blount contributes to "one of the worst trades in history." Ricky Davis is almost a guard version of Walker IMO. Ricky doesn't have Walker's ball handling but he's a better mid range to outside shooter. Considering the void we had, we desperately needed to add a shooter to the team. Either way if the trade were never made, I think we would have been in a similar position. So in hindsight, the trade should not have been made and we would not have given up a future first.

And to give a draft pick away is suicide.

That's the only way Minny would have taken Walker from the reports and Riley was hell-bent on moving him I think. But yea I agree, the one thing that bugs me about Riles is his willingness to trade first round picks.

[salqaddoumi]

Eh, shut up Fatoine.

Losing Posey/Kapono was bad, losing you was a blessing.

[dflash3]

Tippy is right. The Heat shouldn't have traded him away, but not because he was such a valuable asset to the team. Its simply due to the fact that his contract expires sooner than Blount's.

Ricky has been putting up the numbers that was expected from Walker, but the only difference is that he is doing it on a worse team. His contribution would have been a lot more beneficial if the Heat were still contenders.

Walker is kidding himself if he feels that the Heat would have been in a better situation if he was playing for the Heat instead of Ricky.

Ricky could be replaced by Luke Jackson and Jwill could be replaced by Smush Parker and the Heat wouldn't suck anymore than they do now. The problem isn't the loss of Walker or the current play of Ricky. Its the entire team that is the problem with NBDL players being given more minutes than they should be getting when they would be collecting DNPs on any other team.

The mistake that Riley made was letting impact players like Posey and Kapono go, and bringing in Ricky to a depleted team.

[PPAW4Life]

Ok guys, just try to set aside for your dislike for Toine's performance from last season.

What Toine is saying is that with a healthy Wade and Shaq the 44 win Heat team would be different this year...it would have been more like the 52 win team of 2 years ago.

However, one can say the same thing for the current Heat team...had Wade and Shaq been healthy, and Zo too...the Heat may have been much better than their current record.

[DBurks2818]

It was still a really good deal as a trade to bring in supplementary role-players and not starters, which it has become due to injuries.

The 1st rd. pick was the only bad part of the trade because even if Walker was still around there still wouldn't be any kind of useful capspace the year that his contract comes off the books. So you may as well get your backup C (who is solid in this system and generally plays hard) and your (in a perfect situation) third scorer, because their contracts fit into the current plan for future cap-space also.

PG- JWill (who was supposed to be fully healed)
SG- Wade (who was thought to be fully over his knee problems by this point)
SF- Posey/Barnes/Pietrus (If there would've never been the Parker signing, although that was before the trade)
PF- Haslem
C- O'Neal (who I didn't think would drop off this quickly, although the divorce obviously seems to be affecting him)

6- Davis
7- Wright
8- Mourning
9- Cook/Quinn
10- Blount

I think that's a near 50-win team before the injuries. It's just a shame that so much has continued to go wrong. I'd make the trade over and over again though, I'd just make that pick top-20 protected next time.

[Heat3]

It doesn't matter how you feel about Walker, he is speaking truth. Our problems were created by our FO and no one else.