``Danny wanted to get rid of me,'' said Walker. ``If you look at the trade, I think he really felt like I wouldn't mesh with these guys in Dallas. Me, personally, I think he was really trying to set my career back a little bit. If you really look at what I got traded for, it's got to be the biggest difference [in talent] in history. Usually, an All-Star gets traded for an All-Star. And you gave away Tony Delk, a proven scorer in this league.
"I can't understand it, unless he was trying to put me in a situation where he didn't want me to succeed. Obviously, he's going to ship me West. That's obvious. He didn't think individually I'd shine in Dallas, maybe team-wise. But if I'm putting up minimum numbers and I'm just an average player with this team, he can live with that because he knows that's what he's going to get in return anyways, with Raef [LaFrentz].''
I was always a big Antoine fan, and thought Ainge did get pennies on the dollar for him, but these particular quotes from Antoine, I mean I think they really shed light on the type of player he was.
He just got traded to a 60 win team who had just made it to the WCF (of course Antoine and Boston had been in the ECF the year before, so maybe this isn't as impressive to him), and was bringing back all their key players, plus some new ones. This is a team who had improved their winning percentage for 6 straight seasons and were a legit championship contender.
They basically already had 4 All-Star caliber players on the team, with Dirk and Nash current All-Stars, Finley 2 years removed but still putting up close to 20ppg, and they had acquired Antwan Jamison 2 months earlier who had just averaged 22/7 and would go on to be an All-Star 2 years later in '05. Adding Antoine Walker gave them 5 legit All-Star caliber players.
And Antoine is upset about this!?!? And it's not like any of these guys are known ball hogs or headcases. It's not like he was asked to share the court with Iverson or Kobe. Has anyone ever considered Dirk, Nash, Finley or Jamison anything but team-first, class acts? Antoine is upset about playing with these guys!? On a team that just won 60 games!?
That's like being upset if you just got traded to the current day Golden State or San Antonio right now for David Lee or Boris Diaw.
I think that shows what was important to Antoine, and it clearly wasn't winning.