April 5, 2004

LOSS OF FIRE THE SPARK BEHIND GRUNWALD BEING EXTINGUISHED

       Somewhere along the way he lost his nerve.  Perhaps it was in the aftermath of the Hakeem Olajuwon blunder.  Or perhaps it happened over a much longer period of time, caused by years of failed first round and non-existent second round selections.   Or maybe it was his choice of Lenny Wilkens as coach.  Maybe it was all of the above, but whatever the reason Glen Grunwald somehow lost his aggressiveness and instead stood by and passively watched as his club slid down the slippery slope. Like a deer frozen still on the highway staring at the headlights of the oncoming vehicle Grunwald could not make the moves needed to ensure the team’s, and ultimately his own, survival. 

       In the end he succumbed to the misappropriations and misguidance of his jumbled vision.  Never absolutely certain as to which direction the team should head Grunwald shuffled the deck in the early years and came out with an experienced club that went to the playoffs three successive years.  But when the experience players began to fade there wasn’t any youth around to replace it.

       The early years were filled with promise for Grunwald.  He was brought in by Isaih Thomas to help out with the financial side of the business of basketball—contracts, the salary cap etc, while Thomas went about building a shrine to his own greatness.  When that shrine crumbled Grunwald was the man left to pick up the pieces and rebuild it.  And he did.  Initially it seemed that the organization had instructed the inexperienced former assistant not to make any decisions until the ownership puzzle was solved, but Grunwald busily worked the phones in an attempt to solidify a team that was also crumbling around him.  The day after the ownership quandary was solved the neophyte GM, wanting to make his mark during what would likely be his one opportunity, moved troublesome point guard Damon Stoudamire in a package deal that netted the club Alvin Williams, a move that also rid the team of one of the worst head coaches in NBA history Darrell Walker.  Butch Carter was elevated from assistant coach and immediately brought a strong, stabilizing hand.  The following week Grunwald sent troublesome point guard (Kenny Anderson, acquired in the Stoudamire deal) to Boston for youth.  After the final home game the young leader took to the court amidst a smattering of boos and announced that the club, a disastrous 16-66, was headed in the right direction.  He was right.

       In the 1998 off-season he moved injury-prone center Marcus Camby to New York for veteran rebounder Charles Oakley, and he moved a couple of picks to Houston for veteran center Kevin Willis.  Then he swung a draft day deal to acquire Vince Carter.  The team was on the rise.  The following year he moved the number five pick in the draft for experienced forward Antonio Davis.  With the quickly developing talent of Tracy McGrady, with Carter, and with the veteran front court he had acquired the team made it to the playoffs where only a very public meltdown by coach Carter kept the team from advancing past the first round. 

       The loss of McGrady to free agency was not unexpected.  Grunwald took the money and signed free agent point guard Mark Jackson.  He also rid the team of another developing cancer moving Doug Christie west for forward Corliss Williamson.  He then hired Wilkens, hoping the hall-of famer’s calm demeanor and experience would settle the after shock from coach Carter’s hurricane-like departure. 

       Midway through 2000-01 season Grunwald reached his zenith as a GM.  Realizing that his quickly aging roster was under performing and not likely to improve he moved out Willis and Jackson and replaced them with Keon Clark and Chris Childs.  Also realizing that Williamson was not fitting in with the team he moved him to Detroit for high-energy rebounder Jerome Williams.  The team took off and flew all the way to a missed last second jump shot from the conference finals.  The team was seemingly on the verge of greatness.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, this was the peak, and the team, and Grunwald, began the slow slide down.

       The signings came with much promise.  Commissioner David Stern called the summer of 2001 the greatest signing period in NBA history.  The team was going to be together for years.  Alvin, Jerome, Antonio and Vince all locked in.  Then Grunwald decided that the team would be better with the aging and respected Olajuwon in the middle, allowing Davis to move to his more comfortable power forward position, rather than having the constantly complaining Oakley around.  This was a decision that would prove costly for the Raptors and for Grunwald.  Olajuwon could barely walk, let alone play.  But it was still surprising when the ever-classy Nigerian ripped the Raptors off by disappearing from the city, taking $18 million with him, like a thief on the run.  It was apparent that the GM had his hand severely slapped by the ever cost-conscious ownership group.  Grunwald was never the same.

      A late-season streak of wins against lower level teams elevated the 2001-02 Raptors into the playoffs for the third successive year.  But a first round playoff exit proved that the team was on the way down.  Grunwald, however, was adamant that the team he had built had just encountered a bump in the road, and he did very little to improve the squad.  When mounting injuries attacked the club the following year there wasn’t the depth needed to overcome it.  The team no longer was sliding down the slippery slope, it was falling backward in mid-air.  A patient ownership group, after canning Wilkens who had one year left on a very expensive contract, did not want to pay four people to do two jobs and kept Grunwald in his position.  But by not offering him an extension it was obvious that he was being given one more year to turn things around.  Whatever zealousness and confidence Grunwald possessed during his early years, the boldness to trade Camby, to move Jackson, to acquire Davis was gone.  The shell that was left could only add bottom feeders like Jerome Moiso, Milt Palacio and Mengke Bateer to a club that had lost an astounding 58 games the year previous.  The end was nigh.

      It came on a cloudy April Fools Day when ownership announced that after seven years Grunwald had been let go.  It was a different Grunwald that took to the podium that day from the one that announced the Stoudamire trade more than six years before.  The eager young GM, who turned into a confident young GM, looked spent.  The fire that had once burned bright had burnt out long before the organization turned out the light.