Grizzlies sign Darius Miles

Grizzlies sign Darius Miles

Free agent forward Darius Miles arrived in Memphis early Saturday morning and signed a nonguaranteed contract with the Grizzlies following a physical examination.

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I'm hungry. Anybody in the position I'm in, and has been through what I've been through the past two years, if he's not hungry he shouldn't waste anybody's time," Miles said. "I'm hungry. I ain't quitting. I feel like I can still do this. I wouldn't even waste the Grizzlies' time if I felt like my career was over."

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"We got very good reports from Boston that he was really getting close to what he used to be," Griz coach Marc Iavaroni said.

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"We're taking a shot to see if he's a guy who can resurrect his career and help us," Griz general manager Chris Wallace said. "We need to find more veterans not just so much for leadership but for production on the court. We need guys who have been there a little bit."

Everyone's saying the right things, at least. And the Grizzlies do indeed need veterans, as well as just more talent. But the cynical side of me thinks they might have an ulterior motive.

The point of that whole draft day deal with Minnesota was not just to trade up to get O.J. Mayo, but also to create some cap space. With the contracts of Antoine Walker and G-Buck not guaranteed past this season, Memphis took on the extra year of Marko Jaric's salary in order to open up $6 million in cap space next summer, a saving afforded by moving the salaries of Mike Miller and Brian Cardinal for the two aforementioned unguaranteed deals. Mike Miller isn't the kind of player you gift away, but when doing so gets you a valuable trade-up and $6 million more in your already decent caproom, it's worth it. Memphis, along with Oklahoma City, will now have oodles of cap room to work with next summer, and even if free agents aren't big on the idea of signing there, Memphis will at least be able to pursue whoever they want.

The thing is, though, that Portland also figures to have cap room. Quite a bit of it, in fact. Even after Martell Webster's extension, it only takes the renouncements of insignificant players such as Ike Diogu, Channing Frye and Raef LaFrentz, plus the waivings of decent backups Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw (note: they're decent backups in an ideal world, if not currently), and Portland suddenly has 8 figures of cap room. General Manager Kevin Pritchard has spoken about how he's trying to trade LaFrentz's salary, which would scupper any cap room chances, but Outlaw and Blake signed deals with unguaranteed final seasons for this very reason: Portland has 2009 cap room aspirations, and always has.

Those cap room aspirations will be roundly buggered, though, if Darius Miles plays ten games with somebody else. If this happens, Miles's significant salary ($9 million each of the next two seasons) is put back on Portland's books, after it had initially been taken off due to Miles's medical retirement. However, playing ten games invalidates that medical retirement, and the salary would be on Portland's cap figure once again, making cap space an almost impossible (and entirely unworthwhile) aim.

(Reader's note: the ten games thing is not quite that simple, as I understand it, but that's the gist of it. Truth be told, I don't understand it especially well. There's something about an appeals process or something.)

Since they traded Javaris Crittenton to Washington, the Grizzlies have only 13 players under contract, and Hamed Haddadi is in the D-League. This leaves Antoine Walker on the active list, despite him having not played a minute all year, being out of shape (for a change) and being out of the team's plans. Therefore, the Grizzlies can easily leave Miles on the active list even for the ten games of his drug-related suspension. After that, he just needs ten games as a 10th man, and suddenly Memphis loses one of its few competitors in next year's free agency market. All for the $500,000-or-so cost of having Darius Miles around for 6 months.

And that's just a bargain.

Of course, maybe Im being overly cynical. It's happened before, many a time. Maybe they have only the best of intentions, and really think that Miles will provide a lot both on and off (HA!) the court for them. But somehow I doubt it.

Perhaps they should just admit it.

Dude. It's Zach Randolph.

ESPN: Knicks suggest dealing Randolph to Memphis

The Knicks have a trade proposal on the table with the Memphis Grizzlies that would see Darko Milicic and Marko Jaric dealt to New York in exchange for Zach Randolph.

OK, I get it. I do. I really do.

"Here, take Zach Randolph! Take this extremely talented player who just so happens to play at your weakest position! Nooooooo, we don't want anything back! You just take him!"

I get that. When your job is to improve your team, and you are offered a highly talented basketball player for essentially free, it's a tough one to turn down. And Zach Randolph really is highly talented.

But he's also Zach Randolph. And therein lies the problem.

For all of Zach's talents, his play has never been efficient, sensible, or highly profitable. Just by playing him, you lose an untold amount on defense, something which Randolph simply cannot do. And for all his versatility and skill as an offensive player, Zach has never had the sense or awareness to fit into an offense efficiently - Randolph is a career .465 shooter starting his offense from increasingly near the three point line, and with an intense aversion to passing. Bear in mind, this is a man once berated for selfishness by former teammate, Nick Van Exel. And Nick Van Exel knows a thing or two about selfishness.

The problem is exacerbated when looking at Memphis's other big men. Out of Hamed Haddadi, Hakim Warrick, Darrell Arthur, Marc Gasol and Antoine Walker, who represents a good pairing for Zach? Who is the weakside shotblocker to counteract Zach's complete failure in that area? There's a bit there, mainly coming from Gasol, but there's not much. Additionally, if Marc Gasol is to start at centre - and it looks like he has to - then how do you pair him and Randolph on offense? Pairing Randolph with a man who plays within 3 feet of the rim at all times (Eddy Curry) went painfully badly last season, so how much different will it be with Gasol? How does Zach fit?

Take a wider look at the roster, and the same applies. The Memphis roster is a symposium of good young talent and veterans that they're stuck with. In Rudy Gay and Orange Juice Mayonnaise (readers note: that joke wasn't funny, nor mine), the Grizzlies have two talented young scorers, and a roster rounded out with complimentary athleticism, defensive versatility and scoring talent. However, outside shooting remains a concern, and there remains a big hole at power forward. There's also a big rebounding hole on a team that was outrebounded by 2.9 boards a game last year, good for only 25th in the league.

Now Zach Randolph is a power forward all right, and he's constantly armed with a good rebounding rate. But if anyone expects him to come in and be primarily a rebounder, in the role that David Lee refused to fill, then they're either eternally optimistic, or privy to some blackmail that the rest of us aren't. No one has been able to convince Zach Randolph that his future lies in the post for a while now, and a year under the stewardship of Isiah Thomas is not good news for any player who struggles to understand their limitations.

The current reported trade talk sees Memphis giving New York nothing more than Marko Jaric and Darko Milicic. That is something, at least. Milicic is a player who has failed to pan out for three teams, and Marko is someone Memphis didn't want in the first place. The two players combine to earn $35,860,000 over the next three years, and they represent the two worst contracts that the Grizzlies have. (Readers note: Antoine Walker's contract is longer and bigger, but it's also fully unguaranteed beyond this year. And that's why Memphis wanted it in the first place. Same with Greg Buckner, sort of.) The next three years of Zach Randolph will pay him $48 million, and the cap hold for the first two years will be only a minor increase over what Darko and Marko currently take up. The only significant cap hit comes in the 2010/11 season, where Randolph will earn $17,333,333 to Jaric's $7,625,000, with Milicic already expired. But, as the Grizzlies have only 5 players under contract at that time, that isn't relevant of right now. The cost of obtaining Randolph is as low as it can be: two mostly insignificant bench players, who also have the franchise's two largest contracts.

But is that minimal price still too much for Zach Randolph?

It's a high risk move, clearly. But it's only a high reward move if the Zach Randolph of 2006/07 turns up, the one who put up a flawed but sexy 24 points and 10 rebounds a game. The one who wasn't as bad as usual on defense. The one who stayed largely in the post. The one who didn't complain too much. The one who was in the best shape of his life. The one who produced. To make this trade worthwhile, Memphis needs that Randolph back. But even after such a career best season, Portland were willing to trade him for nothing. Portland would rather pay Steve Francis $30 million to not turn up,rather than have even the good version of Randolph back. Warning sirens aplenty. If they get this Zach Randolph back, then they will be trading for the highest paid non-All Star of all time, and making a $48 million investment in a painful player with a painful contract and a temperamental history.

Risky. Too risky.

Will we ever see the better Randolph again? I don't know the answer, and I don't know about this trade. I get it, but......dude.

It's Zach Randolph.

I hate life

Just shouldn't happen.

Dreaming about Mark Madsen

Do you ever stop and think about that time that Mark Madsen shot seven three pointers in an overtime game, when Minnesota and Memphis had the most blatant tank-off that history has ever seen? No, nor did I. That is, not until this morning, when I woke up thinking about it.

(For those unaware of what the hell I'm talking about, here's a box score.)

It's not an entirely normal thing to wake up thinking about, even for the most hardcore Madsen fans amongst us. (For we are all Mark Madsen fans. Obviously.) But some part of this must have ruffled my feathers, stoned my crows and enraged my loins, because this was all that i could think about for about 3 minutes after waking up.

It is now a permanent blot on the NBA landscape. The situation Minnesotas found themselves in - not good enough to make the playoffs, not bad enough to suck mightily without trying to - left them deliberately trying to lose games. It needn't have done, but General Manager extraordinaire Kevin McHale had already pissed away Minnesota's first rounder that season, as it was owed to the L.A. Clippers along with Sam Cassell in exchange for the mesmeric insignificance of Lionel Chalmers, along with Marko Jaric and his bevvy of minge. The pick, however, had top ten protection, and so in order to be able to keep it, Minnesota had to lose with a bit more regularly and finesse than they were doing up until that point.

They did this with aplomb, telling Kevin Garnett to stop playing (or so we thought), playing their better players for merely token minutes, and letting their worse players do whatever the hell they want, in what then-head coach Dwane Casey called "letting them have some fun" (read: "playing really badly so that we lose".)

The fact that they met an equally tanking Memphis team, who were tanking for a different reason, was an unfortunate coincidence. Memphis had comfortably made the playoffs, but was trying to lose for a different reason - they were residing in the fifth spot, with the Clippers in sixth. Whoever finished 5th would face the 60-22 Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, without homecourt advantage, but whoever finished 6th would face Denver with homecourt advantage. After *accidentally* losing four of their last five games, the Clippers secured the worst (and, thus, the best) seed, in spite of Memphis's valiant efforts on the final day.

(The Clippers then beat Denver comfortably. The Grizzlies were swept by Dallas even more comfortably. Memphis were right not to want it.)

The whole exchange highlighted two key flaws in the NBA's system - the new playoff system and the protection of draft picks. The playoff system has been somewhat resolved, as the possibility of a team finishing lower down the seedings than a team with an inferior record has been decreased with the new decision to grant division winners no less than a top four seed, as opposed to a guaranteed top three seed. But the other situation remains intact, with lottery teams able to lose at will to either retain traded picks, or better their lottery chances. And it remains a travesty based around a communist idea of parity.

(The draft lottery isn't a million miles away from what Stalin was trying to do. Remember that.)



At this point, this post would benefit greatly from a well thought out and heavily critiqued suggestion for a better way of going about these things, so that such a deplorable situation won't ever happen again. (The concept of teams deliberately trying to lose is still prevalent - Miami, for example, has told Dwyane Wade to stop playing, and Memphis recently gifted away Pau Gasol just to take them out of purgatory.) However, as mentioned at the top, this post had a mere three minutes of thought, and so I haven't got one.

Any scenario in which teams are deliberately losing, though, is a gaping flaw in the otherwise well-constructed NBA machine. Therefore, it gives me something to bitch about. And so, I did. Quietly. To myself. For about three minutes.



Coincidentally (and it really was), a report came out on this very day (note: this note was not published on the day that it was written, which was the 18th) on the subject of Minnesota's recent tanking.

Responding to claims that his team tanked it down the stretch in recent years to improve draft position, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor fired a barb at Kevin Garnett on Tuesday, as reported by Yahoo.com.

Taylor pointed out that Garnett, who was traded to the Celtics this offseason, took himself out of the lineup late last season and missed the last five games with a sore right quadriceps.

“It was more like, I’d say, K.G. tanked it,” Taylor told the Pioneer Press. “I think the other guys still wanted to play, but (the loss of Garnett) sure changed the team and didn’t make us as (good).”

While the quote may have been taken out of context, or Taylor had not necessarily said what he meant, it does sure as shit look like he is trying to pass the blame onto this entire situation onto Garnett's shoulders. This hardly seems entirely fair, given the Madsen situation that inspired this post. But it DID lead to me googling Glen Taylor's name, and thus seeing for the first time a picture of his grin.


I thought I should share that with you.