Summer signings, round 12

- After much protestation on my part, the Clippers finally waived Josh Powell, hours before his contract became guaranteed. They then use the resultant cap space to sign veteran forward Brian Skinner. Thus, waiving Powell WAS worth it after all. My same plaudits and criticisms of every other Clippers free agency move so far also apply here - good player, very good value, but again with the age? (Oh well. Signing good players for good value can never be a bad thing.)

This move also impacts me on a personal level, as I had advocated Brian Skinner as a good signing for my incorrigible Chicago Bulls, because the idea of Aaron Gray and Drew Gooden as backup centres doesn't stir my loins. I tend to get right bummy and anal when what I deem to be a great addition falls by the wayside (See also: Devin Brown, Jason Kapono, Luther Head), and so you might be hearing a lot more talk about Brian Skinner around these parts. Additionally, if Ben Gordon leaves as a free agent, my Salim Stoudamire campaign is going global.

- Speaking of the Bulls, they actually did stuff. After overpaying to re-sign Luol Deng, the Bulls also then waived guard JamesOn Curry, leading to a round of "JamesOff The Team" jokes from people who should probably know better. Including me. Curry's salary was only $100,000, thus waiving him saved the Bulls $169,403 (Curry's $711,517 salary, minus the $100,000 amount of his guarantee, and the $442,114 cost of his rookie replacement, something which I have just assumed will happen.) This is the kind of purse-string dalliance that the Bulls will be regularly flirting with now, determined as they are to not pay the luxury tax. Cedric Simmons, don't even bother unpacking.

- Orlando waived James Augustine, a move only baffling if you poke around and discover that, according to everybody, he wasn't even under contract in the first place. Strange times.

- Rumours abound that Premiata Montegranaro - the Italian first division team who I mentioned earlier after they signed Darius Rice - are to try and sign the formerly famous and currently infamous Shawn Kemp. Apparently, if that doesn't work out, Bread Mountain have a different nearly-40-substance-abusing-power-forward-who-has-been-out-of-the-game-for-ages-and-whose-weight-could-be-anywhere already lined up, in the form of Vin Baker. I don't know whether such reports were fashioned before the team had had any kind of first hand look of the two players, but I'd pretty confidently guess not. It might chance their stance.

- In other scrub news, Ken Johnson signed with the Koeln 99ers in Germany, and Kennedy Winston signed with Turk Telekom. You can probably figure out which country that team resides in. HarpringIsMyHomeslice.com: the only NBA website to actually still care about Ken Johnson. (You hear that, Ken? We care. Call me.)

- And now news of a trade that hasn't happened yet. The Sacramento Kings will trade Ron Artest to the Houston Rockets for an assortment of goodies, including Bobby Jackson, Donte Green, and a first round draft pick. (Patrick Ewing Jr and Sean Singletary will apparently be included for salary matching, and will then be waived.)

That trade owns for Houston. Simply owns. It's a risk, for it is a risk whenever someone acqures Ron Artest before he's even gotten there, Artest has already made a twat out of himself to the Houston fans. But it's a risk worth taking. Artest is on an expiring contract, and if things don't work out, it need only be a one year investment. With Tracy McGrady starting to show signs of age, Houston's championship window is pretty small, but this move demonstrates that they clearly understand that and will give it a shot while they can.

The defense that the new Rockets lineup can put together is friggin' awesome. Awesome, I say. The Rockets now have two of the most versatile and skilled defenders in the league at the forward spots in Artest and Shane Battier, and McGrady is not bad either. Rafer Alston tries hard, even if he doesn't really know what he's doing, and Yao Ming intimidates you just by being there. Off the bench, the Rockets boast more good defensive forwards in Mike Harris, Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey (maybe), while Luther Head doesn't do all that badly defending players that are often bigger than him. The Rockets also boast an underrated defensive head coach in Rick Adelman.

Offensively, the Rockets still have questions. The guards either can't shoot, or don't know when they're supposed to (that's you again, Rafer. Not you, Brent Barry and Luther Head), and while the Rockets continue to look for shooters, the only player consistently able to create shots for others is McGrady. However, Artest will help the Rockets on the offensive end too, even though he has absolutely no concept of offensive continuity.

It's not too bad for the Kings, either. Not going anywhere fast, they've managed to get a promising young player, a draft pick, and an expiring contract that doesn't interfere with their salary situation. Greene may be the worst chucker in the history of professional basketball, but he has offensive skills, and maybe one day he'll either learn to shoot like Kobe Bryant (which would somewhat justify his shot selection), or realise that he can't and stop trying to. They can also pretend that Bobby Jackson wil play like he did during his first stint in Sacramento. And they might even get Ewing and Singletary back.

I think we've found a trade that makes sense, you know.

30 teams in 36 or so days: Milwaukee

Milwaukee

Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Desmond Mason (2 years, $10.4 million)
Jake Voskuhl (1 year, $3 million)
Awvee Storey (one year minimum)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Yi Jianlian (6th overall)
Second round: Ramon Sessions (56th overall)



Players retained:

Maurice Williams (re-signed, 6 years, $51.263 million)



Players departed:

Ersan Ilyasova (signed in Spain, rights retained), Charlie Bell (unsigned, rights retained for now), Damir Markota (waived on general principle, see blog entry), Earl Boykins (opted out, unsigned), Jared Reiner (signed in Spain), Ruben Patterson (signed with Clippers), Brian Skinner (team option declined, unsigned, thinks he's worth more than he is)





Bobbins:

It's difficult to convey how I feel about the Bucks offseason and recent past without stealing too much directly from my own recent blog entry.

So that's exactly what I'll do.

After a poor 2004-05 season in which they finished with a disappointing 30-52 record, the Bucks beat long odds to win the lottery, and also had maximum cap room available to them. This offseason, they once again had potentially maximum cap room, and a high pick (number 6) in a supposedly powerhouse draft.

Once again, they have not taken advantage.

2005's offseason yielded Andrew Bogut with the number 1 overall pick, one of the better players of a weak draft but far from the best. The cap space was spent on re-signing Michael Redd to a maximum contract (decide amongst yourselves whether it was worth it, but the correct answer is "not really"), signing the Most Improved player of the previous season (Bobby Simmons) to a $46.4 million contract only to then see him miss one season and disappoint in the other, and re-signing Dan Gadzuric to a considerably overpriced deal, all while letting the considerably younger, considerably cheaper and considerably better Zaza Pachulia sign with Atlanta, unchallenged.

This offseason brought much of the same: they signed another starting small forward in Desmond Mason, who figures to not only make the Simmons signing look that much worse, but who should also be roughly the equal of the man he is replacing - Ruben Patterson - and signed Jake Voskuhl to compete with/replace Gadzuric at the backup center spot. Voskuhl, too, figures to be the mere equal of the guy he has replaced, the unheralded Brian Skinner. (OK, so "unheralded" is a blatant embellishment. But you know what I mean.)

In addition to the disappointments in free agency, the Bucks also had an ongoing saga with their draft choice at number 6, Yi Jianlian, whose agents and 'people' warned Milwaukee that their client did not want to play there, going as far as refusing to let Bucks personel watch a private workout conducted by Yi. The Bucks took the risk and drafted him anyway, and much dalliance ensued. It ended reasonably amicably, as Yi has signed his rookie contract and will join the team as normal. But it is reported that he does so only after obtaining a minimum playing time guarantee. And that's.....bizarre.

Charlie Bell, one of the few bright spots over the last two years (an under-the-radar find by General Manager Larry Harris, a man who is quite good at doing that), has been subjected to his own soap opera with the Bucks this offseason. A restricted free agent combo guard, Bell had to take a back seat as the Bucks prioritised the re-signing of unrestricted guard Maurice Williams (who, for what it's worth, has the same agent as Bell), and also had no choice but to look on as Milwaukee spent the rest of their cap space on Desmond Mason and Jake Voskuhl (who, for what it's worth, also has the same agent as Bell). This probably unsettled Charlie a bit - if a team spends the salary slot that they should be using on you to instead sign a 10mpg back up center, you're entitled to interpret that as a bit of a kick in the balls.

Nevertheless, the Bucks kept Bell as a restricted free agent, not renouncing him as they did with everybody else (except Ersan Ilyasova), and continued to negotiate with him. Bell turned down all offers made to him by Milwaukee, but never signed an offer sheet with another club, despite playing the field a bit to try and force Milwaukee to increase their offer. Milwaukee didn't - at least, not by enough for Bell, who turned down Milwaukee's reported final offer of 3 years and $9 million. And now Bell's all but gone, leaving Milwaukee with Lynn Greer, Ramon Sessions and David Noel as backup guards for next year. They can, they will and they should do something about that before the season starts, but with only the minimum salary to work with, that's not a good result from what started out as near-maximum cap room.

All in all, something of a cock-up this offseason. Even the bits that went well only did so via a roundabout method.

Oh, and let's not forget the Damir Markota experience. This was fun.



Next season:

The Bucks's championship aspirations last season were marred by two rather important drawbacks:

a) Everybody seemed to get injured
b) They were a terrible defensive team.

The only Bucks players to play more than 68 games last year were Patterson and Bell. The only Bucks players to play much defense last year were Patterson, Bell and Brian Skinner.

Those three have all left the team.

Replacing them are Desmond Mason, a player that Milwaukee need not have ever lost in the first place were it not for the extremely poor Jamaal Magloire trade of October 2005, and a man scheduled to play Ruben Patterson's former role to a lesser standard than Ruben Patterson did (but hey, at least Mase isn't a registered sex offender!). Jake Voskuhl replaces Brian Skinner and, while he's not a particularly good one, Jake has an outside chance at being the Bucks best defensive player this season. If he sees the court, that is. And as mentioned above, Charlie Bell and Earl Boykins have not been replaced, leaving the Bucks very thin in the backcourt behind the starters.

This rather unsuccessful shuffling of personel leaves a lot of pressure and expectation on the Bucks' young big man trio of Andrew Bogut, Charlie Villanueva and Yi Jianlian. In the coming season or two, one - or preferably more than one - of these players has to step up, break out, and assume the franchise mantle. Villanueva and Bogut have the talent to do so, but both suffered disappointing sophomore seasons in which they did not make particularly significant improvements to their games, albeit with both missing a lot of games due to injury. However, all the opportunity they can handle is once again available to them (unless you think Jake Voskuhl was signed to be a regular starter. In which case, you're an idiot), and the Milwaukee franchise goes as far as they do. Milwaukee needs them to succeed for this current era to be going anywhere.

If they don't, the Bucks will once again be an offense-only team, led by the perimeter games of Michael Redd and Maurice Williams, a team that can make the 6-8 seeds if all goes well, or a team which could once again end up in the lottery if their luck with injuries does not change.

Oh yeah, and Andrew Bogut cut his hair into a pony tail. I thought you should know.