Milwaukee Bucks: Examining the Joe Barry Carroll saga

During the 1985 NBA offseason, the Milwaukee Bucks attempted to sign former first overall pick Joe Barry Carroll to bolster their big man depth. What followed was an incredibly complicated and strange process filled with many twists and turns.

Throughout their successful run in the 1980’s, one lingering hole within the Milwaukee Bucks’ roster stood out, that being the center position.

Yes, the Bucks had a Hall of Famer in Bob Lanier manning down the fort for the first four seasons in the decade and despite his age and declining durability at the time of his run in Milwaukee, he still proved to be a starting caliber big man on the whole. But following The Dobber’s retirement after the 1983-84 NBA season, the 5-spot was in major flux for the Bucks.

The Bucks did well to fill the void left behind in Lanier’s exit from the game with a trio consisting of Alton Lister, Randy Breuer and Paul Mokeski the following year, as they succeeded the expectations that were set for them following a high risk, blockbuster trade with the Los Angeles Clippers a month before that season.

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But even after tallying 59 wins during the 84-85 campaign, another postseason defeat in the Eastern Conference Semi-finals at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers showcased the lack of steel and athleticism the Bucks needed at the center spot to help vault themselves over their East rivals. That’s precisely where Joe Barry Carroll entered the picture.

The first overall pick of the 1980 NBA Draft, Carroll certainly carries a level of baggage as it relates to his strange place and career arc in NBA history.

After all, the Golden State Warriors had swung a deal with the Boston Celtics the night before that year’s draft to acquire the top overall selection in exchange for Robert Parrish and the third overall pick, which they picked Kevin McHale with.

Despite the legacy of that trade for both teams and how that came to define his career, Carroll acclimated to the NBA level pretty quickly by becoming a well-rounded and productive player in his first four years in the league. Eventually, though, Carroll grew increasingly dissatisfied during his stay in the Bay Area as the pieces to the Warriors’ core, both on the bench and the roster, left for greener pastures as he settled himself into his career.

Entering the final year of his rookie contract in 1984-85, Carroll sought a contract extension that met his demands and changed his agent to Howard Slusher, a Los Angeles-based attorney that was nicknamed “Agent Orange” by some who had experienced previous contract negotiations with him in other fields.

At the time, the Warriors’ reputation for letting big name stars (ranging from the likes of Wilt Chamberlain to Jamaal Wilkes and Bernard King) leave over money and overall contract disputes came to haunt the franchise, thanks to the thriftiness of the team’s owner, Franklin Mieuli.

When the Warriors’ front office and ownership didn’t meet his demands, the former Purdue Boilermaker elected to hold out of playing out his contract with the Warriors and spent that entire season in Italy for Simac Milano. Following his successful one-year overseas excursion, Carroll returned back to the States as a restricted free agent to get the type of contract he was unable to the previous summer.

Carroll found a free agent suitor in the Bucks, who officially offered the then 26-year-old a five-year, $6.2 million deal that included a $2 million signing bonus and backloaded the yearly payment at Slusher’s behest to ensure the Warriors wouldn’t match the offer sheet.

On the deal being struck between the two parties, Bucks head coach, Don Nelson, glowed about what Carroll could bring to the team and touched on the offer itself as it pertained to the Warriors’ chances of matching the deal to the Associated Press by way of the Gainesville Sun:

"“We feel he is a terrific center,” Bucks’ coach Don Nelson said. “We feel he can be one of the top centers in the game.”“We feel it is,” he said. “It depends on how you evaluate his skills. We evaluate them pretty high. Obviously Golden State doesn’t because they’ve never made the same kind of offer.”"

Because of how the deal was structured and the team’s reputation for being more frugal under the previous ownership regime, the Bucks’ offer sheet to Carroll turned heads around the league but was an investment new Bucks owner Herb Kohl described as “a part of the business.”

However, the Bucks and Carroll’s best laid plans were dashed when the Warriors stunningly decided to match the offer sheet within the 15-day window to extend Carroll’s stay in Oakland. Reflecting on the decision in a profile by SLAM’s Irv Soonachan in July of 2013, Carroll was a bit baffled by the Warriors’ process and ultimate decision as he believed he would be added to the list of players who left the organization under similar circumstances:

"“I’m not sure why they chose to match the deal,” says Carroll. “I was hopeful they would allow me to go to Milwaukee. It was an opportunity to do what many talented players before me had done upon leaving Golden State.”"

Speculation immediately stoked regarding why the Warriors did an aboutface with Carroll because of the team’s history in that regard. As it would turn out, a key figure who held Bucks ties and recently left the organization played a pivotal role in upstaging and throwing a wrench in the Bucks’ big free agent gambit.

Having recently sold the Bucks that year to Kohl for $19 million, Jim Fitzgerald had brokered a deal to inject funds into the Warriors as a consultant on behalf of Mieuli. Before the NBA Board of Governors voted to approve the deal, Fitzgerald commented on the contents of the arrangement to the Associated Press in late June of 1985:

"″We don’t have an investment per se in the Warriors,″ Fitzgerald said at the NBA meeting this week. ″I’d say we’re a catalyst, a financial catalyst.″However, Fitzgeald added, ″(Mieuli) had to give to get; you don’t get something for nothing.″"

While there was plenty of conjecture over what that meant for Mieuli’s reign over the club, it just so happened that days following the approval to bring in Fitzgerald on a consulting basis the Warriors ended up matching Carroll’s offer sheet from the Bucks.

In the end, it left the Bucks without their big center upgrade and it left Carroll returning to a Warriors franchise that he and the fans had little interest in seeing return to, despite then being paid the richest contract in the team’s history at that time.

As a footnote, Carroll’s history with Nelson didn’t end there as the Hall of Fame coach later landed with the Warriors organization, which was fully under Fitzgerald’s ownership, as a minority owner and a front office executive following his 12-year reign with the Bucks following the 1986-87 season.

In fact, Nelson ended up calling an end to Carroll’s six-and-a-half season stint in the Bay Area during the 1987-88 campaign when he dealt Carroll as well as Eric “Sleepy” Floyd to the Houston Rockets for Ralph Sampson and Steve Harris.

Although the Bucks being unable to land Carroll ranks among the many “what if” questions that have plagued the franchise over its lifespan, the same sentiment clearly applies to Carroll’s career, considering the downward trajectory it went on during his deal a few years later.

Unfortunately, the change of scenery Carroll was seeking came too late to lift his career to another level or to change the perception that has since followed him since retiring at the end of the 1990-91 season.