The History of Fred, by Tim Shea

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The NBA. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I LOVE THIS GAME

The NBA to me and to millions more is about excitement, glamour and showtime. It’s about a spectacle designed for families, for men, women and for both the young and old.

Simply said, the architects of the league know their basketball business and do a tremendous marketing job of it both nationally and worldwide.

Luck

Being lucky enough to work with the New York Knicks, Charlotte Bobcats and Phoenix Suns as a Director I had the opportunity to meet and rub elbows with some great, experienced professionals. Executives like Jerry Colangelo who established and built the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns franchises. Ernie Grunfeld ex-NBA player and my President of the NYK. Coaches like Ron Adams of the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors or George Karl former Head Coach of the Seattle Super Sonics and also Real Madrid. I learned from them just as I did from great European club leaders like Juan Fernandez of OAR and Jesus Gil y Gil of Athletic of Madrid.

What I experienced was that above all the NBA is a business and it is sometimes a cruel and unforgiving business. It is not one of sentiments. The part that is not seen publicly. It is about what is behind the NBA “scene”.

*I give you the recent unexplained instance of the Doncic/Dallas-Davis/Los Angeles trade where one unexpected day/one surprising trade changes the direction of two franchises and the reasons satisfy absolutely no one.

Perhaps, in the future, someone will have a clear explanation. I don’t.

The Case

But what I do know is about a NY Knick example of the malice, about the power struggles and about the cold business side. It happened at the beginning of the 1999-2000 season in the summer

Being part of the New York Knicks Basketball Operations Staff as Director of International Scouting permitted me to be a witness to a behind the scene event that remains, until this day 25+ years later, deeply embedded.

And the scene I saw was more than sad.

It was cruelty personified.

The Power

It is vital to understand that newly appointed coach Van Gundy was asserting his dominance during this period. He had recently undermined Ernie Grunfeld, resulting in Grunfeld’s ousting from the president/GM role and had reached the NBA Finals primarily due to the defensive skills of Marcus Camby and Latrell Sprewell, whom he initially refused to play as a form of retaliation against his former boss, Grunfeld, for trading Charles Oakley.

The Incidents

The then NYK Head Coach Jeff Van Gundy successfully compelled Frederic Weis to leave NY and the USA and never to return again.

Van Gundy’s abrasive, despicable and racist behavior led to the French player being wrongly regarded as the worst draft pick in Knicks history.

(#15 in ’99, especially considering NY born Ron Artest was still available and was picked at #16).

(I am also a NY born and breed boy. I favored the St. Johns player Artest solution but my pleas fell on deaf ears to the acting General Manager, the Virginia-bred Ed Tapscott who had completely misjudged the NYK fanbase atmosphere by miles!)

As the Knicks geared up for the NBA summer league, Fredric Weis, a seven foot, young, sensitive, almost sweet and cultured French citizen that had never been to the USA before, has joined the team. Although he has not signed a contract, he has consented to take part in workouts, understanding that his participation in the entire tournament will be limited, due to obligations with the French national team.

Weis’s proficiency in English was quite limited, especially when faced with the typical communication style of most Americans (Poor enunciation and pronunciation) While Fred could manage some basic conversation, his understanding of the language was often flawed.

In the Summer League preparation stage Van Gundy, opposed to the draft selection of Weis from the start, started practice drills by deliberately positioning Frederic at the front of the line and explaining things using his New York slang, poor vocabulary and NBA jargon. Fred quickly became bewildered, comprehending maybe half of the instructions. The drills did not proceed smoothly, and after just two minutes, Jeff lost his patience, resorting to insults and his usual aggressive demeanor. From that moment on, it was a relentless stream of profanities as Weis struggled to keep up with Jeff’s impatience. Witnessing it was an embarrassing and shocking. I had never seen anything quite as hateful and had to exit the practice gym before I did something that would cause a public scene. I still, to this day, regret not standing up against that arrogant, ugly and mean spirited demonstration. Meanwhile Ed Tapscott did nothing, nor did his assistants. I considered them cowards.

This van Gundy barbaric, inhumane behavior persisted throughout the summer league, where Weis seemed lost. The situation escalated when Weis asked to play only the first half of the third game due to a flight to France that required him to leave shortly after. Van Gundy dismissed him with a harsh reprimand, insisting there was ‘no need to play’ because ‘the Knicks don’t need you.

I am Never Coming Back

Later, while packing at the hotel, Weis, tears in his eyes, vowed to me that he would never return the Knicks after experiencing such debasement, such perversion. He was a good kid who maybe could have been somewhat of an valuable asset. Instead, Jeff never stopped and seized the chance to ridicule him in a full-page article in the New York Post.

Fred never came back to NY and his career and life I believe, was adversely affected by that NYK/Jeff van Gundy treatment. I believe it completely broke his competitive spirit. I cannot find direct correlation between his later alcohol abuse and attempted suicide but I do believe that the summer episode with the Knicks affected him. It damaged him deeply.

As for me it made me ashamed to be a part of the NY Knicks and forever changed the way I looked at or understood the NBA.

Few people ever knew of these despicable incidents and will never know the many, not so pretty things that happen behind the curtains of the business called the NBA …but believe me… they happen.

However, I continue to say:

I LOVE THIS GAME