More Liquorice Allsorts

1: The following Youtube video has done the rounds recently, showing an impressive double alleoop in a highly one-sided high school game.



That clip reminded me of this one, featuring the Los Angeles Clippers's "overloaded with potential" era, specifically Darius Miles and Lamar Odom. (Also, is it Sean Rooks throwing that frontcourt pass? I think so.)

"The Lob, The Jam"

Since Kevin Calabro left us, Ralph Lawler has assumed the title of Best Announcer Of Any NBA Team. If ever you forget that, watch this clip. Great freaking call, Ralph. Great call.


2: While looking for that clip, I also found this one.

Portland Trail Blazers Miracle Minute

I loved that so-called "Jail Blazers" team. Loved it. There was just so much talent on it, so much depth, and so much athleticism (which, not matter how much you appreciate skill, is something that makes the game more fun. As evidenced by this clip). That particular Blazers team also had Steve Kerr and Chris Dudley, two all time favourites of mine. It was great times all around. But it's a bit odd, when you think about it. All but one Blazer in this clip is now out of the league. Derek Anderson is unsigned. Bonzi Wells is in China. Ruben Patterson is unsigned. Scottie Pippen is kicking 50's door down. (Not 50 Cent, but the age.) Kerr is the Suns General Manager now, and Chris Dudley is Kevin Love's mentor. (Well, he was, briefly.) Rasheed Wallace is still with us, but not the same Rasheed Wallace as we see today, and the rest of the roster not seen in this clip (Damon Stoudamire, Dale Davis, Shawn Kemp, Erick Barkley, Mitchell Butler, Ruben Boumtje Boumtje, Rick Brunson) are all out of the league. The only ones that aren't are Sheed and Zach Randolph, then a deep bench player on a deep bench. Admittedly, this clip is seven years old, and so 13 of the 15 players being out of the league seven years on should not be a surprise.....but it just doesn't feel right, does it?

3: Speaking of Darius Miles, congratulations on him playing his tenth game, and playing it bloody well.

4: Matt Carroll and Ryan Hollins for DeSagana Diop. Ermmm....hmmm. OK. Two things.

a) Is this evidence of Dallas realising that this core isn't working, and isn't going to work, so saving some money and thinking 2010 might not be a bad idea right now? I hope so. There's literally no potential for internal improvement right now. Gerald Green, J.J. Barea and Shawne Williams don't constitute a young core. And you'll have to keep Brandon Bass first before he counts.

b) Are there any more overpaid backup centres on long term contracts that the Bobcats can bring in to fight for the ten minutes behind Emeka Okafor? Is two (Diop and Nazr Mohammed - going to enough? Can we goad them into a move for Dan Gadzuric? Spend their full MLE on Fabricio Oberto? No? Pity.

5: It's a shame that the Nets realised that they stood to gain absolutely nothing from the Larry Hughes/Bobby Simmons & Maurice Ager swap, because otherwise the Bulls were in danger of pulling off a good move. It's also a shame, though, that talks seemed to break down over the Nets' insistence on including either Tyrus Thomas or Yannick Noah in the deal. Now come on, Thorneweghe. Give them some credit. You don't dump your sole semblance of a future frontcourt, however unsatisfying it may be, just to move Larry Hughes. And more importantly, you don't need Tyrus Thomas. You've already got Stromile Swift. They're basically the same, right?

6: Speaking of, why does everyone seem so interested in Sean Williams? What is he good at other than blocking the occasional shot, and being friends with insanely annoying British whiggers? Williams is simply not that skilled, and he compounds that with an apparent attitude problem (as evidenced at the D-League showcase, where he turned up only technically). Athleticism does not equal talent, and Sean Williams has lots of one and not enough of the other.

7: Hopefully, the Grizzlies firing Marc Iavaroni will lead to a change in philosophy. What's the point of creating a team with two point guard (Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry) who thrives when pushing the ball, then starting two great athletes like O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay (hehe) on the wings, having a similarly athletic power forward in Darrell Arthur and a high flying sixth man like Hakim Warrick, just to then be 22nd in the league in pace? Memphis should be pushing the ball. They're young, athletic, have enough of a halfcourt option in Marc Gasol to get by, and have just enough rebounding to run a reasonably successful running game. (More than the Warriors do, anyway.) To make them grind out meticulous and rather ineffective halfcourt sets doesn't seem to be working, so play to the team's strengths. At the very least, their trade values will go up. And you might even win more.

8: Heartfelt condolences to Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, who had half of both his legs amputated, and to long time Bulls staple Johnny 'Red' Kerr, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Offseason Preview: Charlotte Bobcats

The second in a new series of posts detailing teams financial outlooks for the upcoming free agency period, what cap room they have, what exceptions, what draft slots, etc. Should be fascinatingly fascinating, if you're easily pleased.

No information is 100% guaranteed accurate, but unless you're privy to hitherto unknown information, or just better at this than I am (highly possible), then it's probably more accurate than you.

To be completed in an order best described as "Random".

---

  Charlotte Bobcats


Currently Committed Salary, 2008/09:

Jason Richardson - $12,222,221
Gerald Wallace - $9,500,000
Nazr Mohammed - $6,049,400
Matt Carroll - $5,050,000
Adam Morrison - $4,159,200
Raymond Felton - $4,148,715
Sean May - $2,661,026
Jared Dudley - $1,222,320

Total: $45,012,882



Team options:
Othella Harrington - $2,552,000 (no chance)
Jermareo Davidson - $711,517 (probable)

Total including options: $48,276,399



Unrestricted Free Agents:

Derek Anderson (cap hold - $1,001,793)
Earl Boykins (cap hold - $924,732)



Restricted Free Agents:

Emeka Okafor (qualifying offer - $7,082,635, cap hold - $13,568,268)
Ryan Hollins (qualifying offer - $972,581, cap hold - $893,693)



Draft picks:

First round: 8th pick, subject to lottery results. (Cap hold - $2,002,600)
Second round: 38th pick (no cap hold)



Cap room/exceptions:

None, unless they renounce Okafor....which they won't. MLE and BAE, no trade exceptions.




Depth chart if you take all the free agents away:

PG - Felton
SG - Richardson, Carroll
SF - Dudley, Morrison
PF - Wallace, May
C - Mohammed



Sensible things to do:

Change coach. Re-sign Okafor, but don't overpay - let him find out how weak the market is the hard way. Get backup guards that don't suck, and whose presence the coach won't hold against Felton. Keep Hollins or Davidson, but not really both because there's not much point. Pray for a rainout.

30 teams in 524 or so days: Charlotte

Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Jason Richardson (acquired from Golden State)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Jared Dudley (22nd overall)
Second round: Jermareo Davidson (36th overall)



Players retained:

Derek Anderson (re-signed, one year minimum)
Jeff McInnis (re-signed, one year minimum)
Matt Carroll (re-signed, six years, $26,900,000)
Gerald Wallace (re-signed, six years, $57,000,000)
Ryan Hollins (exercised team option)
Walter Herrmann (exercised team option)
Primoz Brezec (opted in)




Players departed:

Alan Anderson (signed in Italy)
Jake Voskuhl (opted out, signed with Milwaukee)
Brevin Knight (waived, signed with L.A. Clippers)



Bobbins:

In a recent debate with someone about who the eight playoff teams in the East are going to be this season, debate raged as to who would be the 8th team. We discussed the possibility of the eighth seed being Orlando, Washington, Milwaukee, and even Atlanta, before finally settling on one which I won't mention (because it will spoil a later post).

Neither of us debated the possibility of Charlotte being the eighth seed. This is because we had both already pencilled them as the seventh, with absolutely no contention from each other.

There's two possible conclusions that you can draw here. The first would be that the two of us basically don't know what the hell we are talking about, which is a good point well made that I am unable to counter. The second would be to assume that, yes, Charlotte is a playoff calibre team. And that point, I can defend.

The franchise got off to a slow start after expansion, as you would expect, but slowly the Bobcats picked up pieces along the way. Starting around Emeka Okafor and building outwards, nothing much has gone right for the Bobcats before this summer. Mired deep in the lottery, and bound by the salary cam limitations that the NBA seems to strangely enjoy putting onto new franchises, the Bobcats achieved little on-the-court success, struggling through the growing pains that expansion teams are somewhat mandated to go through. All the losing didn't really pay off either, given the shockingly unsuccessful selection of Adam Morrison at number 3 in last year's draft.

Along the way, though, the Bobcats have slowly been assembling pieces. Despite only Gerald Wallace and Primoz Brezec remaining on the roster from their initial expansion draft (someone's going to have to explain to me one day quite what the point was of selecting so many free agents that they then didn't sign), Charlotte have picked some players up along the way for cheap, players that have helped their on-court product. Brevin Knight (recently waived, but we'll come to that) added veteranness and that, and also played fairly well. Pickups on the cheap such as Matt Carroll and Walter Herrmann have paid dividends, and the Bobcats have added good young players through the draft such as Okafor and Raymond Felton (notice that I didn't list Morrison).

This summer, they added the scoring punch that they sorely lacked, in obtaining Jason Richardson from Golden State for next to nothing. The move has its downsides - with contract extensions for Felton and Okafor coming up in the not-too-distant future, and with Gerald Wallace and Matt Carroll re-signing this summer to 6 year contracts, adding the big salary of Richardson takes away the financial flexibility that Charlotte previously enjoyed. It commits them to this current core for at least the short term, whether it is good enough or not. And it also means that the awesome unredoubtable Matt Carroll gets less court time, which is disappointing for all concerned. But it plugs the slightly important 20 point a game scorer that Charlotte has always lacked. Draw your own Jason Richardson/Michael Jordan comparisons, they're all stupid.

In addition to this, the Bobcats spend well in retaining most of their players from last year, and obtained two possible rotation players in Jared Dudley and Jermareo Davidson via the draft. I don't really know any more about them than that, so I'll leave that there.





Next year:

As I said above, Charlotte seemed like a strange choice for automatic inclusion into my predicted playoff seedings. They haven't, to coin a phrase, done shit yet. But despite being only a 33 win team a year ago, they have three big factor working for them:

a) They had a big infusion of talent this offseason, more so than most teams.
b) They have continued interal growth from their young core players.
c) They're relatively healthy. Well, except Sean May.

To elaborate on point C, the Bobcats do have an injury prone roster. Star big man Emeka Okafor has played in only 166 of the 246 games of his career, which is a poor ratio, and star forward Gerald Wallace set a career high in games played last year with a rather uninspiring 72.

Everyone is healthy at the moment, apart from Sean May, who is to miss the season with more surgery on his cartilege-free knees, and who I'm willing to bet never plays more than 40 NBA games for the rest of his life. Despite the fact that injuries to the Bobcats are about as inevitable as a Jonny Gomes swing and a miss on a down and away curveball, they have the sort of depth right now thay they have never had before, which will help them to overcome it. Last year's starter Matt Carroll is now a key bench player, joinining a deep wing rotation including Wallace, Richardson, Dudley, Morrison, and last's year breakout player and Lord of the Sex, Walter Herrmann. Herrmann shined late last season filling in as an emergency power forward as the injuries piled up yet again, but he's now faced with lengthy stays on the bench as Charlotte stocked up the wing positions this summer. It also appears that head coach Sam Vincent thinks it's best to start Emeka Okafor at power forward alongside Richardson, Walace and either Primoz Brezec or Ryan Hollins at center, and we can only hope that it won't take long for him to realise that it would be best to play Okafor at center with Wallace and Herrmann as the forwards. Walter needs his court time, dammit, if us neutrals are to have any interest in watching Charlotte this year.

The Bobcats are weak at the center position though, in spite of their improved depth, and Jeff McInnis is the full time backup point guard. But it's not really that important: the backup point guard spot has never been important enough to be able to sabotage an entire season, even if it is Jeff McInnis. After all, the San Antonio Spurs just won a title without a backup point guard worth a damn. By the way, someone (namely me) ought to point out the irony of waiving Brevin Knight for reported chemistry issues and locker room diviseness, then re-signing Mr Chemistry 2007 McInnis to take his place. A strange one, that.

Nonetheless, the Bobcats plugged other gaps, andTo make the playoffs, the Bobcats only realistically need about 8 more wins. Is adding a 20 point scorer for no real cost good enough to do that, especially when youf actor in all the other shit that I outlined above?

Probably.