Webber: “I am an NBA guy!”
October 2, 2007 by Tobias
As Marc Stein reports, Chris Webber said no to Europe, Greece and Olympiakos. Basically he said no to everybody but the Pistons and retirement.
I’m not going to Greece,” Webber said. “It’s no disrespect to [Olympiacos], but I can’t do that. I’m an NBA guy. I don’t want to just chase money. I want to make sure I respect the game.
“To tell you the truth, it’s kind of stupid in a way to turn down stupid money, as my dad would call it, but I can’t just do it for the money. If I’m going to play, I’m only going to play as a Piston … unless something crazy happens.”
Now if you call Olympikos’ money, which was about $10-12 million, stupid, you can count on it that some Greek fans will take that as disrespecting their holy club. This is not the NBA, this is more like the love Eagles fans have for their club (and a fan must love the Eagles pretty much right now to call himself a Eagles fan).
I am sure whatever decision Chris Webber would have chosen, it would have been a good one. People would have loved him Athens, people will love him in Detroit and if he retires even more people will love him for pursuing the great charitable things he is already involved in.
Just don’t call some Greek guys money stupid Chris - they don’t like that for sure.
Chris, in all honesty, you are a player who had a great future coming out of Detroit Country Day, and you blew it big time - just like when you called that timeout in the NCAA title game against North Carolina. We do think you would have been a great influence on Big Sofo. Well, maybe not. Stay in the Motor City.
In C-webbs defense, “stupid money” is a slang term for saying it is A LOT of money. I could go on for a while and breakdown the origin of the slang, but i will digress… Look at the context of his comment: “…as my dad would call it, but I can’t just do it for the money.” He’s saying the offer is generous and a lot of money, but he doesn’t want to go because it is a “stupid” (read - large) amount of money. I highly doubt he was down-talking this guys offer of a ton of money. His feeling is that he’s a career NBA player (the alleged highest league in the land - for better or worse) and wants to stay there - even if another league offers more money. Its not as bad as many think…
[...] probably remember Chris Webber’s words after he turned down Olympiakos’ offer : “It’s no disrespect but I can’t do [...]