They were given 30 minutes.
It was back in the winter of 2012, and the father-son front-office combo of Tony Barone Sr. and Tony Barone Jr. had been fired by the Memphis Grizzlies, their belongings packed up. They had a half-hour to leave the premises. There were no farewells, no teary good-byes, despite the years of service the Barones had given the team.
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Last spring, Grizzlies assistant coach Barry Hecker got the same treatment when he was abruptly fired during the playoffs because of a run-in and simmering disagreements on the coaching staff — his office contents boxed up, and a half hour to vacate. “I called my lawyer and told him to tell them what they could do with their half hour,” Hecker said.
These are trying times for Grizzlies fans, undoubtedly. A year after the team let go of head coach Lionel Hollins, who had led the team to a franchise-record 56 wins and the team’s first appearance in the Western Conference finals, there is more upheaval, with Memphis owner Robert Pera ousting team CEO Jason Levien and his assistant, Stu Lash.
That put exiled general manager Chris Wallace — who confessed to Geoff Calkins of the Commercial Appeal that he had not been into the Grizzlies’ office in nearly a year — in charge on an interim basis. Worse, the successor to Hollins, Dave Joerger, has received permission to interview with the Timberwolves for their open job. Joerger was signed to a three-year contract just last summer, and led the Grizzlies to 50 wins this season.
But considering the way the organization has been run — the treatment of the Barones being an example — and that the team has now rid itself of Levien, whom one league source called “just a bad guy,” this week has actually been a good one for the franchise going forward.
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Personally, the first time I’d heard from Levien was back in 2004, when he was a low-level agent trying to break into the NBA business. He had left the firm of Williams and Connolly, the agency with clients such as Tim Duncan and Ray Allen, to start his own agency. At least, that’s how it has been portrayed in the media — in reality, a source said, Levien had been fired from Williams and Connolly.
Levien called to tell a tale of woe, that of Mario Austin, the Bulls’ second-round pick in 2003, out of Mississippi State. Austin hadn’t signed with Chicago, but, rather, went to play for CSKA Moscow, the well-respected Russian powerhouse whose ownership group included current Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
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The way Levien told the tale, Austin had been signed to play in Russia against his will. He had been offered a contract with the Bulls but his agent sent him abroad in order to line his own pockets.
Austin suffered a collapsed lung while in CSKA training camp, and months later, appeared on ESPN to give a teary, heart-rending version of what happened — young kid from the rural South being taken advantage of by a big-time NBA agent.
Problem was, the story was demonstrably false. Austin had only technically been offered a contract by the Bulls — he was given a qualifying offer, which the Bulls needed to do in order to keep his rights.
In the summer after he was drafted, Austin and his agent, Bill Duffy, met with Bulls general manager John Paxson and mapped out a strategy which would have Austin playing for a year in Europe, develop his talent, and come back to sign with the Bulls the following year.
Chicago had 15 contracts already, and could not keep Austin with the team. Had Austin signed the qualifying offer, Chicago would have had to cut him altogether.
As for the charge that Duffy was lining his pockets? That did not pass the logic test. Austin signed with CSKA for $700,000, and Duffy’s agent fee would have been $70,000. At the time, Duffy’s client list included Carmelo Anthony, Yao Ming, Jay Williams and Steve Nash. He did not need to line his pockets with Austin’s CSKA money.
Levien’s tale just did not add up. That would become a theme to his career in NBA front offices.
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Eventually, Levien achieved success as an agent, landing guard Kevin Martin and getting a $71 million contract for Luol Deng. But shortly after getting the Deng deal done, Levien met with the Maloof brothers, owners of the Kings. In November of 2008, he was hired by Sacramento, tabbed as the eventual successor to longtime team president Geoff Petrie.
That experiment barely lasted 20 months. Petrie had long run one of the most hush-hush organizations in the NBA, priding itself on its unanimity and discretion. But by the 2009 draft — just seven months after Levien was hired — a rift had developed between Petrie and Levien.
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Worse, from Petrie’s point of view, was that the rift had hit the media, with reports surfacing that Petrie did not want to draft star Spanish guard Ricky Rubio, while other factions in the Sacramento front office (i.e., Levien) did.
The Kings, of course, passed on Rubio and wound up choosing Tyreke Evans. By the following spring, it was reported that Levien was seldom seen around the Kings’ practice facility, and he officially resigned in July 2010.
By November 2010, Levien was on to a new venture — trying to put together a group to buy the Sixers. According to a court document, Levien had lunch with Bob Whitsitt, former Paul Allen adviser who ran the Blazers and the Seahawks, and Reebok executive Tom Shine.
That pair had a deal in place with Comcast, owner of the Sixers, in which they would be paid a finder’s fee of $2 million if they found a buyer for the team.
Levien didn’t have the money to buy the team outright, but he met with Comcast’s Ed Snider, and eventually, brought in private equity investor Josh Harris to spearhead a deal to buy the Sixers. When the deal was struck in July 2011, Levien was listed as part of the ownership group, but Whitsitt and Shine were not paid their finder’s fee — Comcast claimed that Levien was not a “controlling owner.” Whitsitt and Shine sued.
Like his time in Sacramento, Levien’s stint in Philadelphia was short. He was, officially, a minority shareholder, but with the team’s front office in flux — general manager Ed Stefanski was let go in October 2011, when the NBA approved the sale to Harris — Levien was seen as an executive-in-waiting for the team.
That wait never ended, though. In the 2012 offseason, the Sixers announced Rod Thorn would leave after the ’12-’13 season. As a list of potential candidates to replace him surfaced, one name was notably absent: Levien’s.
The reason, a source with knowledge of the situation said, was that respected veteran coach Doug Collins, like Petrie, had soured on Levien. Collins’ influence had grown within the organization in the months after the sale, and told the ownership group that he would not work with Levien if he was put into a decision-making role. “It was a ‘him or me,’ kind of thing,” the source said.
Not a problem. By then, Levien was already deeply involved with yet another potential owner — Pera, founder of Ubiquiti Networks. That deal, too, moved quickly, with Pera agreeing to a deal to buy the Grizzlies for $377 million June 2012. The deal became official in October, and Pera installed Levien as CEO in November. Just weeks after that, the Barones were so unceremoniously jettisoned.
Here we are, 17 months after Levien was installed in the job running the Grizzlies, and he is gone. It is almost the exact match for his timetable in Sacramento. Sources said tension between he and Pera had been building for months, and when Pera conducted player exit interviews after the season — usually the purview of the coach and general manager — he did so to figure out what the perception of his players were in the wake of the Hollins firing and general upheaval around the team.
Pera decided to remove Lash, Levien’s assistant, who is actually better liked around the NBA than Levien himself. Levien left, too, and now, Joerger is free to shop his services to the Timberwolves.
Yes, it is a mess. And if you’re a Grizzlies fan, another offseason full of off-court messes doesn’t sound encouraging. But look on the bright side — the guy Pera just got rid of didn’t have much of a reputation around the league to begin with.