Massie has 131 AFL games to his name, including 88 with the Crows, and was a reliable contributor in the latter half of the season after overcoming injury.
Carlton’s former first-round draft pick was one of three players at West Lakes to be delisted by the club on Monday. Luke Jericho and Bryce Campbell were the others informed that they wouldn’t be getting a contract for 2009.
“All three, Kris, Luke and Bryce, have been good guys, committed to the cause and the club," Reid told Adelaide radio station 5AA.
"But unfortunately, you have to sit down, look at your list and see where it’s going. Kris was probably the unluckiest of those three, so it is an awkward time, but unfortunately it’s one of those situations that just occurs.
“You would never query Kris’ commitment to anything, but I suppose from a match committee perspective, we’ve got some young guys coming through and they need to be given the opportunity.
“He’s unlucky and there’s no nice way to tell them or explain it.”
The Crows have now made six changes to their 2008 senior list with Nathan Bassett, Rhett Biglands and Ken McGregor (all retired) joining the delisted trio in vacating their lockers.
As it stands, these changes will give Adelaide six picks in the NAB AFL Draft with the club’s rookie list to be confirmed over the coming days.
Reid said it was the Crows’ need for more selections in next month’s rich draft that led to Massie’s demise.
“This year, our decisions were reasonably clear-cut … We had a lot of discussion and then we wanted to see what happened with trade week because sometimes you actually trade in another pick and that might’ve saved Kris,” Reid said.
“There weren’t too many more players in our discussions. Sometimes age is on their side and they stay on. You could mount an argument for a player staying or going, but in the end, it’s a decision we have to make.”
The losses of Bassett and Massie will open the door for a handful of the club’s budding defenders, including Greg Gallman, Aaron Kite and Myke Cook, who will adopt Bassett’s old number eight guernsey.
Massie is the latest in a long line of veterans, behind Ben Hart, Matthew Bode and Jason Torney, to make way for the youth policy at West Lakes, and Reid said fans would soon see the upside of these tough decisions.
“We’re quietly confident that in this year’s draft … we’ll do okay and it’s important to us because of the way we’re developing with a number of young guys at our club,” he said.
“[Next season] we’ll end up with something like 24 guys who either haven’t played a game or have played a maximum of three games, so we’re going to have a very young and inexperienced group.
"But that’s what we’re looking to develop."
