I write this post while speaking from inside a pair of Portland Trail Blazers shorts. It's not the smartest choice of garb right now, given that it's essentially snowing outside. But I'm wearing them anyway, because I'm a maverick, who doesn't play by the rules, a Mad Max gone maniacal, a man whose killing expertise and suicidal recklessness make him a Lethal Weapon to anyone he works against. Or with.
I own these shorts for two reasons:
1. As a cutting edge fashionista, I firmly believe in the simplified yet magnetic beauty of novelty oversized black shorts.
2. When I bought them back 2002, I counted myself as a Portland fan.
Over time, this feeling has dissipated. As my NBA fandom has gone from "hardcore" to "oh Jesus just kill yourself already", my allegiance to the Bulls became firmer than a Kevin Lyde backscreen, before slowing dying away into more of a general NBA kinship. Through that timeline, any Blazers allegiance was left by the wayside.
However, I never retracted the right to be able to crank that support right back up when I wanted to. The time for that is now.
(Note: I'm not claiming to be a Portland fan, even if I do invoke The Shorts Clause as a defense of any such claim. Instead, I am an NBA fan. And right now, all NBA fans are Portland fans. Or at least, they should be.)
Everything is coming up Milhouse in Portland. (Giggidy.) The team has the best colelction of young talent in the league, and easily the best that I've ever seen. Not even the 2003 Denver Nuggets can rival these bad boys. Every position is three deep, with the only hole in their rotation being at starting small forward, and even there it's all relative, as the duo of Nicolas Batum and Martell Webster have plenty of talent between them.
(By the way, I'm calling it now. Channing Frye to sign with Memphis next summer. Evidence? I have no evidence. I need no evidence.)
Portland has flair, athleticism, passing, shooting, rebounding, shotblocking, creativity, fundamentals and Steve Blake. Forget being a team "for the future" - this is a team for both the present the future. Rather than sacrifice talent for excitement, Portland combines the two, particularly from the bench, which houses exciting little bunnies liek Sergio Rodriguez, Jerry D. Bayless, Travis Outlaw, Rudy Fernandez, and Joel "Streetball" Pryzbilla. This sheer depth also allows them to lose little when the starters come out of the game, especially on offense. If there's a mismatch somewhere on the opposing team, Portland has someone who can expose it.
There are some drawbacks, though. Portland's roster is so full of talent that it might not allow for players to fully develop, as the team offers at least two quality options at every position. Additionally, the core has shown to be rather injury prone at a young age, specifically Brandon Roy and Greg Oden, and financially, Portland will be on the hook for a lot of salary, particularly if the salary of Darius Miles is......
.........wait, what? What the hell am I saying? Those aren't important at all. And some of them aren't even real drawbacks. I just made them up. Jesus. Sorry. I think I felt obligated to be negative for a minute there, when it just wasn't necessary. This is nothing to feel bad about with Portland right now. The talent is stacked, the future is blinding, the owner will pay for it, and the fans are on alert.
*Puts on XXXL Rasheed Wallace jersey, bought for a staggeringly cheap price after Sheed's trade to Atlanta, even in spite of the fact that it's at least three X's too big for him. My re-allegiance is complete*
Down one in the closing stages of a summer league game, new Wizards guard Dee Brown fouls Uruguay's finest, the insatiable Gustavo Barrera, sending him to the line. Barrera hits both foul shots, putting Houston up by 3.
Rockets forward Joey Dorsey - watching the game from the sidelines due to an ankle injury - briefly breaks away from his spontaneous "Who Can Wear The Worst Stripey Polo Shirt" competition with Rafer Alston, and decides to say something. The ref decides to T him up, demonstrating the elaborate technical foul calling technique that NBA scouts want to see from potenital refs. Dorsey sulks. Nick Young hits the technical free throw, and the Wizards have the ball, down two.
Andray Blatche, who has battled bravely against the desire to pass for a number of years now, throws up a tub of wank three pointer. It misses, but Brown tips it back in, and the game goes to overtime. The Wizards go on to win, and the Rockets don't. Joey Dorsey loses not only a game he wasn't in, but also the polo shirt competition, as he has no answer for Rafer's daring usage of deep red and sky blue on an otherwise predominantly white top.
(Also notice - Vladimir Veremeenko. Hooray! If these games are downloadable anywhere, then I need to know. Can't do streams, though.)
Here's what I know about Joey Dorsey - he's an idiot. Someone once told me that he's the next Ben Wallace, which re-affirms my belief on this. (And no, I'm not at all bitter about the spectacularly unsuccessful Ben Wallace signing and the collateraldamage that it caused. Nope. Not at all. Totally over it.) Admittedly I don't know much about Joey Dorsey - when he made headlines for "announcing" that his college team mate Derrick Rose was not going to be drafted number 1 by Chicago in a hilarious wind-up that everyone found hilarious, it took me two weeks to find out that Joey Dorsey was a player, and not an opportunist reporter. But still. I know he's a bit of an idiot. Wikipedia agrees.
During the 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, Dorsey famously called Ohio State center Greg Oden "overrated as a big man," said that Oden "might be as good as Joey Dorsey," and called himself Goliath and Oden the "the little man." Dorsey also predicted a 20 rebound game for himself. The Buckeyes defeated the Tigers by a score of 92-76 and Dorsey finished with zero points and just four rebounds. In fact, Dorsey was so overmatched during the game that he was not able to even attempt a field goal in the 19 minutes he was on the court. As terrible as he was on the offensive end, he was as bad or worse on the defensive end. Dorsey's defensive duty was to guard Oden. Oden shot 7 for 8 from the field for 17 points and also grabbed 9 rebounds.
And now this.
The evidenced is really piling up. Joey Dorsey = a mouthy git. A bit like Stephen Jackson.
The Hawks got lucky, I think they would admit that. The Joe Johnson trade of 2005 left the Hawks owing two first round picks to Phoenix. One of these had already been conveyed, and was used to select Rajon Rondo last year, whom Phoenix then stupidly sold to Boston. The other pick was still outstanding headed into this summer, and was only top 3 protected, meaning that Atlanta had to win a top three spot in the lottery.
They did this, despite only having the fourth worst record and thus only the fourth most chances of moving up (I say "only", but that's enough to make it a statistical improbability). For that, they should be bloody thankful - had they not done so, they would have had a mediocre roster, with only an MLE and the number 11 pick to work with to improve it. And that would not have been fun. Ironically, the three teams with worse records than Atlanta (Milwaukee, Boston, Memphis) all failed to move up, thus proving the worthlessness of statistical probability.
(Incidentally, the number 11 pick itself was also subject to changes in the lottery - the pick was Indiana's as a part of the Al Harrington last summer, and had top 10 protection on it. Had Indiana moved up in the lottery, Atlanta would not have gotten it, and had Indiana moved up into Atlanta's place moving Atlanta out of the top three, Atlanta would have had no first rounder at all this year. Which would have been bad.)
Despite that little but of sorely needed good fortune, things could have been so much more profitable for Atlanta this offseason, were it not for a few things not quite falling their way. As welcome as it was to move up to the number 3 spot, the position is something of an anti-climax in this 'two superstars' draft: it only needed one more spot, and Atlanta had either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant to call their own. And if Billy Knight hadn't decided that the holy trinity of Speedy Claxton, Lorenzen Wright and Anthony Johnson was so valuable that it was worth spending nearly $12.5 million for next year (and, in the case of Johnson, also costing the Hawks their 2007 second round pick), Atlanta would also have had maximum cap room this offseason.
So that's a bugger.
(That trio, by the way, combined to score 597 points on 658 shots for Atlanta last year, at a scintillating 39% shooting, 54% from the free throw line. And they aren't there for their defense. Wright is now a third string center, and Claxton and Johnson are fighting it out for the 3rd and 4th string point guard spots. Feisty!)
Still, regardless of what mistakes had been made prior, General Manager Billy Knight made the correct picks with his two first rounders. Needing a young power forward/center with an inside scoring game, and a point guard who could distribute the ball, play some defense and not suck too much, Knight chose Horford and Law. The two not only figure to be a good young tandem to add to an already highly talented young core of players, but who also sound like a very believable name for an accounting company. And that's what matters, really.
Seemingly working to a budget, with both Josh Smith and Josh Childress to have their extensions (if signed) kick in next season, the Hawks haven't made any roster moves outside of these draft picks. With 14 roster spots filled with guaranteed contracts, the Hawks didn't have a lot of room to play around anyway. The only sub plot to develop from the Hawks offseason has been surrounding the man himself, Esteban Batista.
Left unrestricted by the Hawks, Batista has attracted a modicum of interest around the league, largely based off of his performances in the FIBA tournament this summer. It sure wasn't for his performances in his first two seasons in the NBA - Batista played 576 minutes in his two seasons and 70 games with the Hawks, the majority of which came in garbage time. Given my undue and inexplicable love for terrible basketball players and the garbage time in which they shine, I endeavoured to try and watch every single minute in which he played, and came fairly close to doing so. All Batista managed to demonstrate to NBA standard was his rebounding psoitional sense, and good strength. Everything else was lacking. In layman's terms, he did sod all.
And yet now, he's strangely hot property, due to his fine performances on the big stage as Uruguay's personal one man show. Hmmm. Maybe he got better or something. Or maybe I'm just wrong about stuff. That would be bad, but a fair comment.
Next season:
Last season, I pencilled the Hawks in for roughly 38-40 wins. I did not document this anywhere, which was probably best, given that they missed this mark by the worryingly large margin of 10 games.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see why they did so. Never a particularly deep roster to begin with, only one Hawks player managed to play over 72 games (Shelden Williams with 81), and even All Star Joe Johnson's consecutive games streak ending at 376, playing in only 57 contests for the year. Additionally, the unmitigated disaster that was the signings of Speedy Claxton and Lorenzen Wright did not help anyone, nor did the deadline trade for Anthony Johnson. Point guard play all season long was a massive weakness, as you would expect from any team which featured Tyronn Lue as its best, most consistent option at the position. And the backup center soap opera continued to disappoint with no real resolution to be found.
Despite all of what went wrong, though, I don't believe that a similar prediction for next year would be too out of the question. Point guard remains a concern - Claxton's knees may never be good again, and who knows how well or how quicly Law adjusts - but the Hawks should have more luck with injuries this year, and they also have an extremely talented roster, something often overlooked. With a lineup scheduled to feature Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, Shelden Williams, Horford + Law Ltd, Josh Childress, Zaza Pachulia and Marvin Williams, Atlanta boasts a young rotation full of talented players who continue to improve, and who have mostly been together for quite a while now. While as a team they continue to struggle for consistency, their talent level counts for quite a lot, and having young role players like Salim Stoudamire and Solomon Jones on hand too is a further bonus.
Although they've had to trawl through some hard times, some bad luck and some mismanagement to get there, the Hawks have wound up with a core of players that almost every team in the NBA, bar about 6, would dearly swap with. And that counts for a lot.
It just should have been better.
Still, their expendable players can rustle up about $10 million in expiring contracts, should they choose to go that route. Let's see what becomes of that.
Last year, both of these teams pulled the incredibly-unsubtle-tank-job routine, rivalled only in blatantness by that of the Minnesota Timberwolves. So obvious was it that then-Celtic Ryan Gomes essentially admitted to the tank job in an interview, saying, and I quote:
"I probably (would have played), but since we were in the hunt for a high draft pick, of course things are different," Gomes said. "I understand that. Hopefully things get better. Now that we clinched at least having the second-most balls in the lottery, the last three games we'll see what happens. We'll see if we can go out and finish some games."
Say what you really feel, Ry.
Both teams put most of their eggs in one basket, trying their best to lose out, hoping for one of the top two spots in this year's draft, and thus a chance at Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.
Both were the victims of bad karma, and failed to move up, ending up with the 5th and 6th picks respectively.
From there, Boston has gone on to trade for two All-Stars, one of whom is arguably the most talented player of his generation still in the back end of his prime. They are left with plenty of work to do, yet they have become instantly vaulted towards the top of the Eastern conference and into title contention.
Whereas Milwaukee is mired in the middle of a soap opera.
Enough has been said about Boston and what they've done, but Milwaukee and GM Larry Harris seem to have been overlooked somewhat. 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.
And 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 "no"), 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 have 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 now Yi is refusing to sign for Milwaukee.
All in all, something of a cock-up.
In between these two mismanaged offseasons, the Bucks traded T.J. Ford to Toronto for Charlie Villanueva, a can't-miss trade that they somehow managed to miss on. They also made an extremely poor trade, dealing Desmond Mason and a first round draft pick to New Orleans for Jamaal Magloire, a man not only coming off of serious injury but who also played the same position as Bogut, whom they had drafted only 4 months previously (Magloire then went on to disappoint mightily and was shipped out for spare parts at the start of last season). And Milwaukee also managed to compound their problems at the 2006 draft by needlessly trading their 2007 second round pick to San Antonio for the utterly useless Damir Markota - due to last year's tank job, that pick went on to become as high as number 33, meaning that Milwaukee missed out on Glen Davis and Jermareo Davidson, amongst others.
And they had Terry Stotts as head coach. Come on now.
The result of all this as things stand is a Bucks team that figures to be mired once again in mediocrity (or, at best, decency), and its place as a team that has more than ample opportunity to improve considerably more than it has done. Can anybody really see them as being anything more than a low seed/late lottery team, even if things begin to go their way for a change?
Larry Harris has made some good under-the-radar finds in his tenure as GM (Pachulia, Charlie Bell, Ersan Ilyasova), but perhaps he would do best to let someone else manage the financial side of things. For he and his team just got outmanoeuvred by Danny Ainge.
Sham is a miserable and self-effacing little bastard, whose basketball opinions are often riddled with bias, insecurity, and rank immaturity. He has also never played the sport, and the only game he has ever been to see was a Ware Rebels game back in 2001. The night bus didn't show up and he had to walk the 9 miles home. It was after this that his passion for basketball really took off.
He considers himself to be Britain's foremost NBA expert, an arbitrary title that carries with it no basis in fact, or any worldly significance. He also wrote this section of the website in third person narrative, purely for reasons of arrogance.
Copyright ShamSports.com, 2005-2010. Every published word on this website
is copyrighted to the website's owner, including (but not limited to)
the really stupid ones that I wish I'd never written.
I write this post while speaking from inside a pair of Portland Trail Blazers shorts. It's not the smartest choice of garb right now, given that it's essentially snowing outside. But I'm wearing them anyway, because I'm a maverick, who doesn't play by the rules, a Mad Max gone maniacal, a man whose killing expertise and suicidal recklessness make him a Lethal Weapon to anyone he works against. Or with. 
First round: 