Interview with Grizzlies' owner

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An interesting read...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/ian_thomsen/02/20/heisley.interview/index.html

In his own words: Michael Heisley
Grizzlies owner talks Gasol, West's future and more
Posted: Tuesday February 20, 2007 2:05PM; Updated: Tuesday February 20, 2007 4:14PM
 
The trade season expires Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern, and the Memphis Grizzlies will be in the middle of the discussions, thanks to the request by All-Star forward Pau Gasol that he be moved to a winner. It has been a difficult year for the Grizzlies (14-40), who have been undermined by Gasol's injury as well as the collapse of the team's proposed sale to Brian Davis and Christian Laettner.

Memphis owner Michael Heisley continues to seek a buyer with local roots to take over the Grizzlies, but he strongly denies that he'll give away Gasol to clear his salary off the books in order to court potential buyers. In this frank interview, Heisley explains exactly what the Grizzlies are seeking in exchange for Gasol, the future of team president Jerry West, the difficulties of running a small-market team in the NBA and why Donald Sterling, of all people, has earned his respect.

• On restructuring the payroll:

"At one point we were the fifth-highest-paid team in the NBA. That's not good business in the smallest market in the NBA, and we're still paying the NBA $6 million a year in relocation fees (dating back to the Grizzlies' 2001 move from Vancouver). We have to be more frugal in the way we add players and so on. We want to try to develop a team along the lines that Phoenix has done -- more crowd-pleasing and upbeat, and we have a better chance to do that with a reasonable salary structure.''

• On what it will take to acquire Gasol:

"You should hear some of the things people have been offering, it has just been ridiculous. There is no way that kind of trade is going to get through the Grizzlies. If we decide to trade Pau, we would like to get one or two good players, and not all of them necessarily at the same time, by the way; we would look at getting another good position in this draft, because it's one of the best drafts of the last few years, and No. 3 we would like to have salary relief. If somebody offers us a good trade where we can have two of those three, then we may be interested in doing that. If somebody comes up with a great trade and we don't get salary relief, we may make that trade.''

• On the idea of unloading Gasol's salary in order to make the team more attractive to a potential buyer:

"Somebody wrote in Los Angeles that Michael Heisley told Jerry West to get the best deal and trade Pau Gasol and get him off the payroll. It is an out-and-out lie.

"The whole discussion of trading Pau Gasol, was this a move to make it easier to sell the team? Nothing could be further from the truth. We're looking at it from the point of view that Pau put himself on the market to be traded, and we are looking to trade anybody from the Grizzlies if it is more likely to improve the team in two to three years. But if we wanted just to get the cap room, we would call Chicago right now, and they could get me $10-15 million under the cap. Why not make that trade if we're looking to clear salary?

"Other teams are doing the same thing right now, and there's no discussion about them trying to sell their team. And they're more blatant about it than than I'm doing. For example, Philadelphia getting rid of [Allen] Iverson and [Chris] Webber -- they're trying to restructure the team, but you never hear that they're doing it to try to sell the team.''

• On how close he came to contending for a championship during the 2003 draft, when the Grizzlies wound up losing the No. 2 pick to the Pistons:

"The sale of the team and restructuring of the team are not on same page. I had the team for sale when we winning 50 games, OK? I was trying to sell the team while I was trying my best to win an NBA championship -- I had Jerry West, we were making every effort. But it's not easy, you need a break.

"The previous management [led by] Stu Jackson traded away the rights to our first-round pick [in the 2003 draft]. We tried to get it back, but Detroit did a great job of blocking us. We got stuck in the position where we could keep that pick only if it was No. 1 in the entire draft. Had we won that pick, had the dice gone to us instead of to Cleveland, then we would be playing for the NBA championship [with LeBron James as a member of the Grizzlies]. But we didn't. And that's what is so difficult about winning the NBA championship. You need a break.''

• On trading Shane Battier for Rudy Gay in the draft last year:

"We need to draft and trade for young players. Shane Battier was an example of someone we hated to trade but we did it to get young, athletic players to play the type of game we're trying to play. Right now that doesn't look like a great trade, but in a few years it might look like a great trade.

"We need to get good athletic guys and at least one more player who's a big guy who can play defense and rebound the ball and run the floor. There are at least two of those in this draft.''

• On the example of Clippers owner Donald Sterling:

"You have guys like Donald Sterling, who I have great respect for, who runs a profitable franchise. He was criticized because for many years he didn't do what people thought he should be doing, which was to chase the championship. He felt he couldn't do that until he built up the fan base.

"I never criticized him for that.

"We had one of the highest payrolls and we were paying $10 million in luxury tax. You cannot put that type of ticket price on the people of Memphis.''

• On Jerry West's autonomy:

"You should understand that we don't run our franchises like a lot of them. Jerry West makes the basketball decisions, and I can't remember the last decision he wanted to make that I didn't approve. Stan Meadows [senior corporate counsel] is running the sale of the team. He's the guy who sits down and works with those people, and Stan Meadows is not telling Jerry West what to do to help sell the team. There are conversations between them, but the conversations are that we're telling Jerry we would like to see the payroll reduced. He understands, but he's not doing anything to the detriment of the team.''

• On West's future:

"He is a very, very intense guy who dies when the team is losing. This season is extremely difficult for Jerry. At this stage of the game I'm not going to tell you what Jerry is going to do or not do; there was speculation two years ago that he wouldn't be back, and he ended up coming back. The season is half over, there are a lot of things going on, but there is a reasonable chance he will be associated with the team beyond this year. Whether he is actively going to be associated with the team, I can't say, but I would be surprised if he didn't have some kind of role with the team in the future.''

• On his personal feelings for Gasol, who broke his foot while playing for Spain in the FIBA World Championships last summer:

"I don't know that he could have a better owner. I was proud that he went over and played for Spain. I was torn: I don't know if I was more in favor of Spain than I was for the U.S. team. I had my guy playing for Spain and he's a wonderful young man. The fact that he gave so much for his country and risked his career, I think we could do with a little bit of that in the U.S. He came back and I didn't criticize him. I said, 'Pau, I was proud of you.' I had a special award for him on opening night for what he did in the world games. He knows how I feel about him.''

• On the relocation fee:

"The league spread it out over six years, and for one year they waived it for both us and the Hornets [who moved from Charlotte to New Orleans]. We have been paying $6 million per year.

"The relocation fee came after we moved. The point was, after we moved to Memphis, the league made the decision that we needed to pay a relocation fee. There were some negotiations around the price, and it was initially totally unreasonable, but we finally got it down to $30 million over five years. The league was so astounded that we did the [arena] naming rights for FedEx, that they wanted a piece of it. At least that was my opinion of it. We've tried to get it removed based on the fact the team has suffered losses, but the league's position is that it is our responsibility for those losses. That's where we are, and we're big boys, so we go forward.''

• On revenue sharing:

"Sixteen cities in the history of the NBA have won a championship, and a lot of those cities have won because franchises have bounced around from city to city. I've looked at them, and I see the times when they've run into a perfect storm like in San Antonio when all the cards came in lined up and [their No. 1 picks turned into David Robinson and Tim Duncan]. Portland tried to win without any concern for the bottom line, but I don't see how you can do it that way. If you look at the local TV revenue in L.A. and New York, it's more than our franchise brings in for everything. How can I keep up with them if I'm conscious of what the bottom line is?

"It works in the NFL, where they split all of the TV revenue and 60 percent of the ticket revenue goes to the home town and 40 percent goes to the road team.

"In our league we have the national TV money split equally, but the local TV money is not. And the ticket revenue is not split up at all. Chicago one year made $80 million. I'm sure L.A. [Lakers] easily makes over $50-60 million a year, which approaches what my entire revenue is.

"Maybe you can get lucky in the draft, but in the draft we're also different from the NFL. In the NFL the worst team gets the No. 1 pick. If I'm the worst team in the NBA, I have a 25 percent chance at the No. 1 pick. I don't think there's anything in it that helps the small-market teams. We've written letters about it, but it's the commissioner's and the Board of Governors' decision. I'm not some guy bitching about it. I'm a big boy, this is what we got into, I understood it, and now I'm just making an observation. I think the future of the NBA depends heavily on whether the commissioner and the Board of Governors are looking at a level playing field between the small teams and the large teams. Eventually it's going have impact on making [player personnel] moves.

"I'm not trying to badmouth the NBA, I'm just trying to make the point. Me personally, I own companies that have franchises, and I believe the strength of the company is based on its ability to make the weakest franchises better. It's not to make the good franchises better and let the small franchises die away. Can you point to small franchises that have done pretty well? Sacramento in a small market has done very, very well, but they have their burdens to carry. Portland has not done so well for a good while. Salt Lake City [the Utah Jazz] has always managed to do OK. It's tough on New Orleans; that is a very, very difficult situation. Memphis has got its problems, and look at some of the other franchises our size, I'm sure they're having problems too.''

• On whether the next owner will move the team:

"If somebody came in to buy the team and his plan is to move the team, I wouldn't be receptive to moving the team. I went to a lot of trouble to move the team to Memphis; I didn't do it to tear the team out of Memphis. It would be very expensive to do it, and [the new owner] couldn't do it for a while. I doubt whether the league would let him do it. I don't think I would be in favor of that.

"The team can be successful in Memphis. But you've got to understand, you can go in and say you want to win the championship and in the process you may be willing to sacrifice the profit line. Or you can say that you want build the team by paying attention to the profit line.''