September Still Hasn’t Ended
September 25th, 2008
Part 1!!!!!!!! Now part 2!!!!!!!! Minimum salary deals: Atlanta signed Randolph Morris for two seasons, giving themselves both the opportunity to develop a talented young centre and the opportunity to lose him to restricted free agency. They also signed Othello Hunter and Thomas Gardner for training camp. My lame ill-informed prediction: Hunter makes it if Solomon Jones gets traded. (Readers note: they haven’t signed Dalibor Bagaric, despite it reputedly being a done deal almost a month ago.) Boston signed Darius Miles and Patrick O’Bryant to young’en up an old old bench. Miles could be something between inconsequential and surprising, depending on how much cartilage is in his knee. And all O’Bryant has to do to replace the production of Scot Pollard is to stay alive. Whether he becomes anything of any reliable use is another matter, but he’s not talentless. Ryan Hollins re-signed with Charlotte for the qualifying offer, after the team had already taken out the team option on Jermareo Davidson. So apparently Charlotte likes these two nigh-on identical players in equal measure. The Bobcats also signed non-shooting guard Shannon Brown, trading away their draft pick Kyle Weaver immediately afterwards. They must think little of Weaver, because Brown is not proven either. The Bulls re-signed Demetris Nichols on the basis that he’s young, cheap, partially guaranteed and can hit a jump shot. But mainly the second one. Cleveland made two minimum salary-signings of a different standard. The signing of Tarence Kinsey gives the Cavaliers a young player on the cheap, one who should never have been out of the league in the first place, but in contrast, the signing of Lorenzen Wright gives a new home to someone who, based on last year, shouldn’t be in it. Wright used to be good, but those days are gone – […]
Wake Me Up When September Ends
September 25th, 2008
John Hollinger wrote a long old piece two weeks ago in which he opines upon pretty much every transaction made this summer. Well, if he can, I can. From the people you know about, to the insignificant ones you couldn’t give a Keith Closs about. That’s how I want it, so that’s how it’s going to be. If you’re the kind of person who is annoyed by long posts, then the length of this post will annoy you. It is essentially done as a compendium of all the relative NBA parts of the Summer Signings sequence of posts, written so that I don’t have to do it when I do my season previews. This way, I might actually get them all done this year. (Readers note: If the format and opinions contained within this piece are incredibly similar to those of John Hollinger, then that’s because John Hollinger is very good at what he does. And that’s why he did this first. To a much higher standard. (Instead of this, just search for your favourite team’s name for their transactions.) Big old eight figure deals: Philadelphia landed a big name free agent, which hasn’t happened in the entire time that I’ve followed the sport. They did so by signing Elton Brand for five years and $79.8 million, after Brand reneged on a verbal agreement to re-sign with the L.A. Clippers, a deed for which he will join Carlos Boozer and John Salmons in hell or whatever. After this, Philadelphia also re-signed Andre Iguodala to a six-year, $80 million deal – those two now form the Sixers core, along with Louis Williams, Samuel Dalembert, Thaddeus Young and Andre Miller (who is staring down the barrel of an extension.) But none of them can shoot threes. Baron Davis opted out and […]
….But It’s Zach Randolph?
September 6th, 2008
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, consistently sensible, or highly profitable. Just by playing him, you lose an untold amount on defence, something which Randolph simply does not do. And for all his versatility and skill as an offensive player, Zach has never had the greatest sense or awareness to fit into an offence efficiently – Randolph is a career 46.5% shooter who nowadays is starting his offence 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. 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 shot-blocker to counteract Zach’s absence 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 […]
