Rick Robey, 28, 45 for Dennis Johnson, 21, 54

EddieYost · Nov 4, 2023

I had totally forgotten that they got Kite too. Robey was better than Kite but wasn’t particularly good. He was behind Parrish and McHale and Max

Maybe Robey still had perceived value from his Kentucky days?

Cellar-Door · Nov 4, 2023

So it was a hugely lopsided trade in the end but I would point out:

1. Basketball win shares is a complete garbage stat with zero value.
2.Robey wasn't much if any worse of a player than DJ the first year... then he had a "heel" injury that basically ended his career (so probably a partially torn Achilles)

snowmanny · Nov 4, 2023

I have a pretty strong memory of Howard Cosell on Monday Night Baseball announcing the trade and saying that Red Auerbach had once again concocted a major heist.

That trade, plus Auerbach out-maneuvering the Knicks in NY’s pursuit of McHale, plus hiring KC Jones, made for a damn good off-season. If the NBA hadn’t gifted the Cavs the draft pick in front of the Celtics - which allowed Cleveland to take Boston target Roy Hinson - it would have been pretty much the perfect off-season.

Cellar-Door · Nov 4, 2023

m0ckduck said:
Wait a sec.

Robey in the season before the trade: 4.2 PPG, 3.7 TRB, 1.1 APG
Robey in the season after the trade: 5.6 PPG, 3.2 TRB, 1.1 APG

DJ in the season before the trade: 19.5 PPG, 5.1 TRB, 4.6 APG
DJ in the season after the trade: 13.2 PPG, 3.5 TRB, 4.2 APG

These two players are not remotely the same. It really was like Plumlee for Holliday. Robey barely even played in the 1983 playoffs: he played 29 total minutes in five 1983 playoff games (and racked up DNPs in the other two) and shot 0-4 for the playoffs with 2 total points.

lol, I pulled the wrong stats, I pulled the per 36 for Robey.

Yeah nevermind I was looking at Robey having 14.4/8.3/2.7 as his line because of the mixup

jmcc5400 · Nov 4, 2023

The downside of the trade from the perspective of Celtics fans was that we no longer got to hear Cousy say "Rick Robey."

wade boggs chicken dinner · Nov 4, 2023

Robey was perceived to be pretty good - he was athletic for his size and did have a 10/6 season in 1979-80 - but he obviously going to be a backup after the Cs got Chief.

DJ, more importantly, was feuding with John MacLeod over his practice habits and was perceived to be a malcontent and PHO desperately wanted to get rid of him (kind of like SEA did a few years before). As the article said, "The upshot was that DJ could definitely be a pain in the ass at times and you had to accept that as part of the package."

As for Greg Kite, I had forgotten that the Cs got a 1st round pick with the trade, so thanks for reminding. I can't remember who said this, but someone described Kite as "pound for pound the least athletic player in the NBA." I can't think of a better one-line description of a player.

Jimbodandy · Nov 5, 2023

Robey was perceived in the jimbo house as a career backup, even then. To get a starting guard for a backup C with no distinguishing skills was an upgrade, not just some revisionist history. Rick played 14.5 minutes in 83, while Chief played 31.5. I loved Tiny, but he was on the 17th hole. Getting DJ to backfill him and only losing Chief's backup was gold.

Lose Remerswaal · Nov 5, 2023

I worked for Saucony a couple years later. Kite (and Sam Vincent) wore our shoes and visited the offices a couple times. Kite wanted the company to sponsor his basketball camp. The response was silence.

jose melendez · Nov 5, 2023

It also set them up to trade Gerald Henderson for the pick that became Len Bias.

snowmanny · Nov 5, 2023

Rick Robey was the third pick in the 1978 draft, taken by the Pacers three slots above of future Indiana legend Larry Bird. Indiana started with the number one pick and traded it to Portland, then early in the season traded Robey to Boston for former ABA Pacer All-Star but not quite qualifying as an Indiana legend Billy Knight.

Here is the story on the Pacers-Blazers trade. Blazers were targeting Bird. If he wouldnt guarantee he was leaving school that year they would take Klay’s dad #1 and then take Bird with pick #7. And they would definitely put all this in the paper so that whoever had pick number 6 could read all about it. Seems like a plan!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1978/06/09/blazers-get-1st-pick-for-davis/60ed904e-6187-4d90-9e74-24ef460dcfc6/

edit: also lol at Knicks.

Eddie Jurak · Nov 5, 2023

m0ckduck said:
Indeed!

But the hidden upside I forget to mention above is that— on top of everything else— they got rid of Bird's best drinking buddy, leading perhaps to The Legend reaching his physical apex in the 86 season.

I was surpised you left the Larry Bird angle out of the OP.

m0ckduck said:
Good link. So, Portland dealt Moses Malone in a salary dump (decried by Walton at the time) and then whiffed on the chance to draft Bird with the pick they got in exchange. Ouch.

This ties right into Portland's organizational history of terrible decisions and terrible luck when it comes to big men.

In 1972, Portland has the #1 pick and drafts C Larue Martin, a total bust who was out of the league after 4 years. They pass up Dr. J (#12), Bob McAdoo (#2), Paul Westphal (#10).

In 1974, Portland has the #1 pick again and drafts C Bill Walton, obviously a great great player who let them to a title, but one whose career was derailed by career-altering foot injuries. There's no one they "should have" drafted here, some very good players had longer careers, but they won with Walton in 1977. But the very next year his career was permanently derailed.

In 1976, they pick up Moses Malone in the ABA dispersal draft... and, liking their starting bigs (Walton and Maurice Lucas), they trade him for the first round pick that became Rick Robey. Malone, like Walton, was one of the NBA All-Time greats but he had the things Walton lacked - health and longevity. He played 45,000 NBA minutes to Walton's 13,000 and was an All-Star caliber player for 12 or 13 years.

In 1978, with Walton's health outlook uncertain, Portland decided they needed another big. They traded the Robey pick to move up to 1-1 again, and they drafted Mychal Thompson. A servicable NBA player for many years, one who would help the Lakers defeat the Celtics in 1987, but not by any means a star. Walton did not play at all this year, and the relationship between him and the Blazers had deteriorated to the point where Walton left as a FA the following year. Thompson had a decent year filling in for Walton as a rookie in 1978-79, but in 1979-80, coming into the season slated to be the starting C with Walton gone, Thomspon broke his leg playing pickup basketball over the summer and msised the season. Of course, as has been discussed the best player drafted in 1987 was Larry Bird (#2 Maurice Cheeks).

In 1984, Portland was already decent team but thanks to a trade they went into the draft with the #2 overall pick. The player they wanted to draft would go on to become one of the All-Time NBA great centers (Hakeem Olajuwon), but he went 1-1 to Houston. That left them a choice: they wanted to land a C in this draft, but the most talented player available was an athletic 6'6" shooting guard, one Michael Jordan. But Portland needed a C, and they had drafted a similar (in some sense, anyway) player to Jordan the previous year (Clyde Drexler) and saw some redundancy. Bobby Knight famously told the Blazers GM to draft Jordan. Alas, it was not to be.

View: https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1719863746309288063?s=20

Darren Rovell: If Blazers GM Stu Inman listened to Bobby Knight in the summer of 1984, Portland would have drafted Michael Jordan. “We need a center,” Inman told Knight of his No. 2 overall choice. Knight responded: "Then draft Jordan and play him at center!" Portland took Sam Bowie.

After that, Portland managed to go over 2 decades without some sort of catastrophic basketball decision involving a big man, but they broke the streak in 2007, when, again having the #1 overall pick, they chose the big (C Greg Oden) over Kevin Durant, the second best player of his NBA era after Lebron.

Incredible how cursed Portland has been because of one position.

HomeRunBaker · Nov 5, 2023

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
Robey was perceived to be pretty good - he was athletic for his size and did have a 10/6 season in 1979-80 - but he obviously going to be a backup after the Cs got Chief.

DJ, more importantly, was feuding with John MacLeod over his practice habits and was perceived to be a malcontent and PHO desperately wanted to get rid of him (kind of like SEA did a few years before). As the article said, "The upshot was that DJ could definitely be a pain in the ass at times and you had to accept that as part of the package."

As for Greg Kite, I had forgotten that the Cs got a 1st round pick with the trade, so thanks for reminding. I can't remember who said this, but someone described Kite as "pound for pound the least athletic player in the NBA." I can't think of a better one-line description of a player.

Malcontent would seem like an understatement. In todays world he would be in the Kyrie/Harden league of similar personalities without having social media around to magnify it after running himself out of two different winning organizations. DJ was available because Phoenix wanted to get rid of him and nobody else wanted to deal with him. Red knew, because Red knew things, that the Celtics core was strong enough to rein him in to not be a negative influence. Still, there were some stories back in the day about DJ doing his own thing that wasn't in the best interest of the team....but they had Larry, Kevin and the Celtics culture there to keep him in line.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Nov 5, 2023

m0ckduck said:
I was absolutely astonished to learn that he played hundreds of games for other teams, post-Celtics. He started— STARTED— about 200 games after leaving Boston. It's hard to fathom.

Yeah, the NBA loved their "space eaters" back then.

Then the NBA learned some math.

Eddie Jurak · Nov 5, 2023

HomeRunBaker said:
Malcontent would seem like an understatement. In todays world he would be in the Kyrie/Harden league of similar personalities without having social media around to magnify it after running himself out of two different winning organizations. DJ was available because Phoenix wanted to get rid of him and nobody else wanted to deal with him. Red knew, because Red knew things, that the Celtics core was strong enough to rein him in to not be a negative influence. Still, there were some stories back in the day about DJ doing his own thing that wasn't in the best interest of the team....but they had Larry, Kevin and the Celtics culture there to keep him in line.

I don't think peak DJ was ever at the level of domaince of Kyrie/Harden when they were on, and he was past his prime when he came to the Celtics (even though he did have a legit pre-Celtic prime that might have surprised casual Celtic fans who rememer him for his Celtic days. In that way I think that he might have been primed for what the Celtics offered him in a way that Kyrie/Harden types are not now and may never be.

View: https://twitter.com/malika_andrews/status/1720202953326485866

Malika Andrews: “I am not a system player. I am a system.” Full comment from James Harden

Van Everyman · Nov 5, 2023

Eddie Jurak said:
I don't think peak DJ was ever at the level of domaince of Kyrie/Harden when they were on, and he was past his prime when he came to the Celtics (even though he did have a legit pre-Celtic prime that might have surprised casual Celtic fans who rememer him for his Celtic days. In that way I think that he might have been primed for what the Celtics offered him in a way that Kyrie/Harden types are not now and may never be.

View: https://twitter.com/malika_andrews/status/1720202953326485866

Malika Andrews: “I am not a system player. I am a system.” Full comment from James Harden

lexrageorge · Nov 5, 2023

DJ was 29 when he was traded to Boston, so not sure he was "past his prime". His POINTZ per game were down significantly in his final season in Phoenix, but that team also saw Larry Nance emerge as a bonafide scoring threat in his 2nd season and had a healthy Walter Davis (Davis missed the opening months of the prior season, arguably among DJ's best statistically, with an elbow injury that plagued him all year).

That Suns team was decent, and may have given the Lakers a competitive series in the West, as the 2 teams evenly split their season series. But drawing a first round best-of-3 series with Doug Moe's run-and-gun Denver Nuggets of Alex English, Kiki Vandeweghe and Dan Issel was the worst possible matchup for Phoenix. Suns had won only 1 of 5 regular season matchups, and then lost the final 2 games of the playoff series in which DJ struggled (9-for-29 shooting).

DJ's scoring dropped further in Boston, but then again he was at best the 4th scoring option on the Celtics. The fewer POINTZ certainly meant fewer All Star appearances (only one with Boston), but the presence of Bird, Parish, and McHale on multiple All Star teams in that era meant there just wasn't much room for anyone else from Boston.

EDIT: Regarding the trade, I recall thinking it was a classic Red fleecing the minute I heard about it. Robey was a decent backup, but he was just that - a backup. DJ was still considered a very good player. Certainly not at the Harden/Kyrie level of player, but still a well-known All Star.

HomeRunBaker · Nov 5, 2023

m0ckduck said:
That seems a bit strong. Kyrie and Harden are not only difficult but also have overtly quit on teams, expressed minimal interest in playing defense and— in Harden's case— showed grossly out of shape. I don't remember anyone questioning DJ's work ethic and commitment to defense. He did (judging from the article I posted above) directly undermine coaches whose approach he disagreed with, and was often just ornery and hard to get along with. In today's NBA, he seems closer to Chris Paul— very exacting, hard on people, difficult in the wrong situation but a potential leader and asset in the right situation.

I feel in todays environment he would have done all those things and he did quit on his teams by walking out of practices, distancing himself, etc....you generally aren't tagged a "cancer" by multiple teams without earning it.. Back then they didn't exist but his personality would have fit right in with those who have done so.

HomeRunBaker · Nov 5, 2023

lexrageorge said:
DJ was 29 when he was traded to Boston, so not sure he was "past his prime". His POINTZ per game were down significantly in his final season in Phoenix, but that team also saw Larry Nance emerge as a bonafide scoring threat in his 2nd season and had a healthy Walter Davis (Davis missed the opening months of the prior season, arguably among DJ's best statistically, with an elbow injury that plagued him all year).

DJ's scoring dropped further in Boston, but then again he was at best the 4th scoring option on the Celtics. The fewer POINTZ certainly meant fewer All Star appearances (only one with Boston), but the presence of Bird, Parish, and McHale on multiple All Star teams in that era meant there just wasn't much room for anyone else from Boston.

Remember though that 29 back then with the late night fast times lifestyle that DJ, and according to many in the know, most NBA players of that time, along with the lack of supplements, training, knowledge, etc was often the end of many players primes. That was probably equivalent to 32-33 in today years old.

Eddie Jurak · Nov 5, 2023

HomeRunBaker said:
Remember though that 29 back then with the late night fast times lifestyle that DJ, and according to many in the know, most NBA players of that time, along with the lack of supplements, training, knowledge, etc was often the end of many players primes. That was probably equivalent to 32-33 in today years old.

Some ‘supplements’ were of the illegal variety. Several Phoenix players were busted a few years later.

Smokey Joe · Nov 5, 2023

Eddie Jurak said:
Some ‘supplements’ were of the illegal variety. Several Phoenix players were busted a few years later.

Well those are the only ones that do anything.

Eddie Jurak · Nov 5, 2023

Smokey Joe said:
Well those are the only ones that do anything.

I didn't mean the anabolic kind so much as the Len Bias kind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987–88_Phoenix_Suns_season#:~:text=in December 1988.-,Drug scandal,Garfield Heard and Mike Bratz.

On April 17, 1987, the Maricopa County attorney's office announced indictments against 13 individuals in relation to a cocaine-trafficking investigation. The indictees included Suns players James Edwards, Jay Humphries and Grant Gondrezick, and former players Garfield Heard and Mike Bratz. Edwards, Gondrezick and Bratz were charged with three counts of conspiracy to traffic in or possess a narcotic drug, while Humphries and Heard were charged with one count. A number of other current or former Suns players (Walter Davis, William Bedford, Alvin Scott, Johnny High, Don Buse and Curtis Perry) were named in the indictments but not charged. Other indictees were: Terrence Patrick Kelly, a waiter at Avanti's restaurant in Phoenix; Wynn and Kim Lesure, local businessmen; James Jordan, manager of Malarkey's nightclub in Phoenix; Joseph Beninato, a team photographer; Ramon Vives, owner of Avanti's restaurants in Phoenix and Scottsdale; Kevin Merriweather, roommate of Suns' center William Bedford; and an undisclosed team ticket taker.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987%E2%80%9388_Phoenix_Suns_season#cite_note-9

Mooch · Nov 5, 2023

Lose Remerswaal said:
I worked for Saucony a couple years later. Kite (and Sam Vincent) wore our shoes and visited the offices a couple times. Kite wanted the company to sponsor his basketball camp. The response was silence.

I had no idea that Saucony made basketball shoes.

OCST · Nov 5, 2023

I sold Kiki Vandeweghe a pair of jeans when he was with the Knicks.

I had a part time job at The Gap on Lexington Ave.

a really tall guy came into the store. I was working the cash wrap and bullshitting with the security guy. We had been talking sports. I said the name of the tallest white guy I could think of-“hey that’s Kiki Vandeweghe”

Guy shops for a few minutes, comes to the register, and hands me a credit card that is jet black, polished to a mirror and about ten pounds heavy. Stamped in gold it says

KIKI VANDEWEGHE

that’s all I got.

HomeRunBaker · Nov 5, 2023

Eddie Jurak said:
I didn't mean the anabolic kind so much as the Len Bias kind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987–88_Phoenix_Suns_season#:~:text=in December 1988.-,Drug scandal,Garfield Heard and Mike Bratz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987–88_Phoenix_Suns_season#cite_note-9

Iirc it was Frank Layden who went public and announced that the NBA had a very serious cocaine/free base problem and that the league needed to do something. I forget if it was him, another GM or an ex-player but said that 75% of the league was using in the '70s and that was a conservative number.

Heavy cocaine users with poor footwear, no strength training or dietary supplements vs today where the top players employ chefs, personal trainers and abide by sleep analytics. It's no wonder todays 35 was yesterdays 28-30.

Van Everyman · Nov 5, 2023

OCST said:
I sold Kiki Vandeweghe a pair of jeans when he was with the Knicks.

I had a part time job at The Gap on Lexington Ave.

a really tall guy came into the store. I was working the cash wrap and bullshitting with the security guy. We had been talking sports. I said the name of the tallest white guy I could think of-“hey that’s Kiki Vandeweghe”

Guy shops for a few minutes, comes to the register, and hands me a credit card that is jet black, polished to a mirror and about ten pounds heavy. Stamped in gold it says

KIKI VANDEWEGHE

that’s all I got.

You had jeans in stock that fit him?

Lose Remerswaal · Nov 5, 2023

Mooch said:
I had no idea that Saucony made basketball shoes.

Saucony and Spotbilt were the brands . You are correct, Saucony was more running, Spotbilt was basketball and baseball

lexrageorge · Nov 5, 2023

HomeRunBaker said:
Iirc it was Frank Layden who went public and announced that the NBA had a very serious cocaine/free base problem and that the league needed to do something. I forget if it was him, another GM or an ex-player but said that 75% of ~~the~~ professional sports leagues was using in the '70s and that was a conservative number.

Heavy cocaine users with poor footwear, no strength training or dietary supplements vs today where the top players employ chefs, personal trainers and abide by sleep analytics. It's no wonder todays 35 was yesterdays 28-30.

Wasn't limited to the NBA in that era.

Red Right Ankle · Nov 6, 2023

Van Everyman said:
You had jeans in stock that fit him?

Maybe the dude liked capris?

OCST · Nov 6, 2023

They weren’t for him. It was all women’s stuff. He was buying gifts or running errands it seemed.

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