David Falk, agent for Greg Monroe, went on the record and strongly denied reports that his client was interested in a trade from the Detroit Pistons.
"He does not want a trade. He wants to honor his commitment to Stan and give it the year and evaluate everything at the end of the season," Falk told USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt.
Can't get anymore direct than that. Falk went on:
"He made a commitment to Stan (Van Gundy) when he took the qualifying offer that he would work as hard as he could and help the team as best that he could and he would keep his mind open and at the end of the season, he would evaluate all of his options," Falk said. "That was his plan in July, and that's his plan in December and that will probably be his plan in February and will be his plan when the season ends."
Earlier, we posted a story that tried to make sense of the fact that two stories were published that were 100 percent at odds with each other. In the first, Zillgitt reported that Monroe was not interested in giving up his bird rights (which would happen if he was traded in season) and he would remain with the Pistons all year. The second story, posted by Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, which was equally strongly worded that Monroe very much wanted a trade out of Detroit.
"Everyone knows he wants out of there. There is almost nothing he would shoot down," Deveney quoted a source as saying.
At the time I wrote about these stories, I was firmly on team Zillgitt. Today, however, we reported on Deveney's appearance on Matt Dery's radio show where he tried to clarify, saying while it was once true he had no interest in giving up his Bird rights, with his reduced role on a bad team his representatives were worried how it would adversely affect his free agency and wanted him out of the situation ASAP.
Now we have a new story where Monroe's primary representative goes on the record and strongly denies the Sporting News story. That means one of two things: 1. Falk wants to speak anonymously of Monroe's desire to leave to put pressure on the Pistons to deal him while publicly supporting Monroe's stance that he has no interest in a trade and just wants to play ball. 2. Whomever Deveney used as a source for his story isn't nearly as close to Monroe's camp as Deveney thought.
There's probably no point in really taking sides on this one, but I will anyway. Team Zillgitt!