Otto Porter said Wizards management held a private meeting with him before the trade deadline and assured him that he would remain with the team, tweets Fred Katz of The Athletic. Washington’s front office changed its mind sometime before Wednesday night when Porter was shipped to Chicago in exchange for Bobby Portis and Jabari Parker.
Porter was expected to be part of the Wizards’ future when he agreed to a rookie-scale extension in 2017. However, his production never matched his lofty new salary and he had settled into a sixth-man role since returning from an injury last month. He was owed $27.25MM next year and has a player option worth nearly $28.5MM for 2020/21, which created a luxury tax bind for a Wizards team that may not make the playoffs.
Katz notes that owner Ted Leonsis did a radio interview about a week ago in which he promised that Moore, John Wall and Bradley Beal would all stay with the organization past the deadline.
There’s more Wizards and Bulls news as the teams met tonight, just three days after the trade:
- Parker contends his relationship with Jim Boylen did “a complete 180” after Boylen replaced Fred Hoiberg as Chicago’s head coach in December, relays Madeline Kenney of The Chicago Sun-Times. “[Before that,] we never had controversy,” Parker said. “I always had his back, you know, with things that we had in-house problems with.” Displeased with Parker’s effort and commitment to defense, Boylen took him out of the rotation and Parker appeared in just one of 13 games in the first month that Boylen ran the team. “I’m happy,” Parker said of the deal that sent him to Washington. “I haven’t smiled in a while, but it’s great.”
- Portis said he learned of Wednesday’s trade about 20 minutes prior to a game against the Pelicans and his “stomach dropped,” according to Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. Portis seemed shocked about being dealt away from the team that drafted him in 2015. “Everybody knows how much I prided myself in playing for the Bulls and how much I really loved playing for the city of Chicago,” he said. “It’s a business and I finally got my first taste of it.”
- Porter enjoyed the chance to provide inside information about his former team heading into tonight’s game, tweets Candace Buckner of The Washington Post. “Yeah, I was telling coach everything there was to know about Washington,” he said. “Everything. … I was snitching, yeah.”
Porter was a 6th man being paid like a superstar. Of course he was going to get traded if they found someone to take on his contract. These grown men need to stop worrying about promises, like a 5 year old making a pinky swear, and realize that adults lie when it comes to money ALL THE TIME.
For the player, it was a lie of membership. The Wizards are messed up. But at least the owner made out.
Um, what?
If they said to him they wouldn’t trade him, trading him is a pretty sh***y thing to do. Even in a business. That lack of verbal commitment could also easily dissuade players from signing with them.
Walls injury changed what the plans were I’m guessing
Those assurances were made AFTER both of Wall’s injuries & diagnoses. They were just liars. I assume “management” being there meant Grunfeld. Future players forewarned.
Is Porter better off?– It’s possible.
BasRef shows him plugged in at PG with Lavine continuing at SF! IDK Anyway the Bulls are bad but there’s plenty of room for starting.
Future players forewarned? Do you really think all other management teams wouldn’t lie about it if it benefited them? Do you think any GM goes into a negotiation thinking about turning down a great deal because he once told a player what the player wanted to hear?
GMs tell players what they want to hear in order to maximize their output to the team. If a GM tells a player he might get traded, that player might not play as hard. The GM is looking out for his team and if a player’s feelings get hurt along the way, so be it. Simple as that.
The stakes are not always so high that all that is necessary. Some teams are not even pushing to win. In the long run a player will go harder if he’s not feeling jerked around.
It was not necessary to pull Porter into the office to tell him he was safe. Why do that? He was already benched.
I bet there’s not that much lying going on within teams. Lies to the fans, of course, on the regular. Fans are cattle to them.
He was benched, but not off the team. As a matter of fact, his benching made it even more important to lie to him. A guy gets benched and you tell him you might trade him you are going to have a very disgruntled player. If there was no guarantee that Porter was going to be traded, why upset him and more importantly the team?
And really, who cares if he is upset after he gets traded? It’s not like they have to work with him anymore.
Welcome to the NBA. NTC are not given out like candy.
NBA requires 8 years—4 same team, to be NTC-eligible.
Cry me a river, picked the wrong sport. In next CBA, players should negotiate an easier path to getting a NTC
Xabial, you are on hoopsrumors also? I love you bro. We need to figure out a way to hang out sometime.
So what’s this guy’s angle anyway?
Your only as good as your last envelope! Antonio Montana!
You can take a piece of crap and put it in a bow and stamp in Guaranteed, but all you have is a guaranteed piece of crap!
Box
A bow works too tbh.
The money’s still guaranteed so no sympathy coming from me