Personal story. My friend who is a die hard Laker fan framed a Campbell, Jones and Rice jersey in his Laker room with the title “Worst Laker Trade Of All Time”. We thought for sure we had blown our opportunity for a championship. Glen Rice was a bad fit for the triangle and he became our whipping boy. Deplorable defense, never in the right spot and couldn’t make a shot when we needed one. Then became a distraction during the Championship. Probably our most hated Laker player.
P.S, – Vlad is our current whipping boy

http://tinyurl.com/7vfpk6

I think he’s a little too forgiving of Bynum only getting 3 boards, but maybe that’s because Kelly didn’t remember Bynum only got 1 the night before and averaging under 4 rebounds a game over the last 4 games.

Hopefully the coaches will talk to him about being more active on the boards.

I think both Glenn Rice and Doug Christie were two guys that have been a victim of this – but Glenn got it worse because his wife was a bit of a hot head and had a tendency to say politically incorrect things (see the Latrell comment above). I think this hurt Glenn in the end because the sports media portrayed him as a man that was being manipulated by his “bitchy” wife – in other words, it made him look “weak” willed and gave his complaints the appearance of being “irrational” – when in fact they may have been valid all along.

Anyway, at the end it looks like Glenn’s problems were really because he did not fit Phil’s system well and, frankly, because Phil did not want to change his system to suit Glenn’s talents. There is no question that that was a waste of his talent, but the Lakers made a strategic move to suit the offense around their two superstars (Kobe/Shaq). In the end, chosing Phil as a coach sealed Glenn’s fate – much as chosing DAntoni for NY sealed Marbury’s and Curry’s fate.

Thank you so much for the saga of Glen Rice. It’s impossible to forget that beautiful shot.

I personally bought in to that “third option” idea, and wish Phil would have found ways to integrate him into the Lakers system–partly for strategy, and partly for the sheer beauty that he brought to the game.

You’ve done a great job of laying out some of the organizational complexities that lay just below the surface and eventually did Glen in, giving more context to the loss of Jerry West, and ultimately the guy currently referred to as the “Big Cactus.”

It also makes me appreciate the apparent lack of drama both on the team and in the organization this year. Of course, that won’t last forever.

To realize that, listen in to the roller coaster discussions on Celtics Blogs these days.

‘Until you transcend the ego, you do nothing but add to the insanity of the world’ – John Randolph Price

Bring on the Magic…

1. Being around 10 years old at that time, I found amusement in hearing the tandem of Curry Rice in Charlotte.

2. Glen Rice was the cover boy for Nba In The Zone 98 for the Playstation.

Being the cover boy, they usually just showed clips of his great shooting. Also he has a pretty high three point shooting rating that made it cool to use him.