These Trades Didn’t Bring Many Happy Returns

They were two of the biggest trades in Los Angeles sports history, if not North American sports history, and they happened within a span of 10 months.

On Oct. 31, 1987, the Rams traded Eric Dickerson to the Indianapolis Colts for running backs Greg Bell and Owen Gill, three first-round draft choices and three second-round draft choices.

On Aug. 9, 1988, the Kings acquired Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley from the Edmonton Oilers for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas and three first-round draft choices. The greatest running back of our generation and the greatest hockey player of any generation--that was the double-billing at the time.

Instant credibility--that was what the lost-their-way Colts and the never-been-anywhere Kings thought they were buying.

Remember the headlines, the press conferences, the adrenaline and the excitement that accompanied both trades?

Contrast that to the returns Dickerson and Gretzky made to Los Angeles this week. Full-on slink was the transportation mode of the hour.

Dickerson came back home and became a Raider, at a much-reduced salary.

Gretzky came back home and began an early vacation, with a much-reduced reputation.

And who’s better off now that the results are in on the blockbusters of ’87 and ‘88?

Not the Colts, who won one game with Dickerson last year and wanted him gone so intensely that they had to beg the Raiders to give them a fourth-round choice and an eighth-round choice.

Not the Rams, who picked up two running backs in the deal, drafted two others (Gaston Green and Cleveland Gary) because of it and now enter the 1992 season looking for . . . a running back.

Not the Kings, who have had Gretzky for four full seasons and have done nothing in the playoffs the old Kings couldn’t do except sell more tickets.

The Oilers? Well, now that you mention it, they did outlast the Kings--for the third season in a row. In 1990 and 1991, the Oilers eliminated the Kings in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. This year, they did the job in the first. In other words, the Kings have regressed under Gretzky.

File that one under Amazing Tales.

No King team before Gretzky advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs. No Kings team after Gretzky, either. The pre-Gretzkys and the with-Gretzkys have both defeated Edmonton in April, but in 1982, the victory was greeted with confetti showers and christened the Miracle On Manchester, whereas in 1989, the victory was followed by a second-round loss to Calgary and Bruce McNall’s firing of Coach Robbie Ftorek.

Trivia time: Name the only King coach of the Gretzky era to beat Edmonton in the postseason.

Hint: It’s not Tom Webster.

When McNall acquired a 27-year-old Gretzky in 1988, he imagined the Kings having a “window of three-to-five years” to win a Stanley Cup. Four years later, Gretzky is an injury-prone 31 and the Kings are no closer to the Cup than they were with Marcel Dionne. And McNall’s window closes this time next year.

The problem with trades for superstars is that once you’ve experienced the thrill of the deal, you’re stuck with the superstar. For McNall and Bob Irsay, that meant keeping your mega-investment happy.

McNall did everything he could, often to the detriment of his franchise. Wayne had his way. McNall fired The Coach Wayne Didn’t Like, replaced him with The Coach Wayne Approved Of, acquired The Players Wayne Said We Should Get. McNall began collecting old Oilers the way he collected old coins, except for one crucial difference:

Old coins appreciate with age.

On the other hand, no one or nothing could make Dickerson happy. Not John Robinson, the coach Dickerson was born to run for. Not Ron Meyer, Dickerson’s coach at SMU and again in Indianapolis. Not 2,105 yards with the Rams, not $2.2 million per year with the Colts, not getting away from Georgia, not hooking up with Jeff George.

After 4 1/2 seasons, the tailback who was supposed to run the Colts into the Super Bowl had to be run out of town. Dickerson got Indianapolis into the playoffs once, then stopped ringing up 1,000-yard seasons in 1990. He became a pain (he was suspended for three games in 1991), a drain (the Colts owed him $8.6 million through 1994) and, finally, the only way out was Al Davis, who has this thing for resurrecting burned-out careers at the expense of Marcus Allen. The Raiders wound up acquiring him, essentially, for Steve Beuerlein. A year earlier, the Raiders traded their backup quarterback to Dallas for the fourth-round pick they would send to Indianapolis for Dickerson. And, at that, Dickerson first had to agree to a $1-million pay cut, meaning that his 1992 salary with the Raiders will be roughly the same as the 1987 Ram offer he spat at.

Would our world be much different if the Dickerson and Gretzky trades had never been made?

Well, John Robinson’s might. It is a fallacy to suggest that a Dickerson-Jim Everett backfield would have guaranteed the Rams a Super Bowl. The Rams got close without him in 1989 and their loss to San Francisco in the NFC title game was due to a lack of tacklers, not high-stepping tailbacks. But Dickerson could have staved off the disintegration of 1990 and ‘91, when Ram backs couldn’t hold onto the football, much less run with it.

Imagine the Kings without Gretzky, but with Gelinas, Carson and, most likely, Bernie Nicholls. Would they be any worse off? Worth noting: Gelinas, Carson and Nicholls are still active in the NHL playoffs.

Gretzky made the Kings more popular, but not much better. Even the Hartford Whalers outlasted the Kings in the ’92 playoffs.

Buyers into blockbusters, beware. The block you bust might very well be your own.