Upset as we are about the news of Rodney Rogers’s accident and paralysis, there’s only one way to tribute the man, and that’s with a Rodney Rogers Highlight Montage.
Unfortunately, I don’t have one. But I do have this awesome clip, of Rodney Rogers scoring 9 points in 9 seconds back in his days with the Denver Nuggets. This clip has been kind of forgotten over the years, as Reggie Miller’s 8 in 18 seconds and Tracy McGrady’s 13 points in 35 seconds have instead taken the plaudits as the best examples of lots of points in little time at all. However, both are inferior to Rodney Rogers’s explosion, which boasts a points-per-time-allowed ratio far superior to either of theirs, or indeed to any other instance that I know of. Well, except for Trent Tucker.
I am told that the Nuggets were down eight at the start of the clip, with 30-something seconds left in the game. Rodney Rogers’s outburst put them up by one. Rodney Rogers was indeed a game changer. (As was Robert Pack, I guess.)
God bless you, Rodney Rogers.
EDIT Apparently a Rodney Rogers mix DOES exist, upped with the last few hours. God bless both YouTube and Rodney Rogers.
Former NBA and college basketball star Rodney Rogers is paralyzed as the result of an all-terrain vehicle accident, his college coach told the News & Observer of Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Dave Odom, who coached Rogers when he earned All-America honors at Wake Forest and was the 1993 ACC Player of the Year, said Wednesday that his former star is paralyzed from the shoulders down, according to the report.
Those of us that used to play the Rodney Rogers game – the precursor to the Fred Tedeschi game – feel particularly bad about this terrible news.
It wasn’t all that long ago that I was wondering what happened to Rodney Rogers. Now, I wish I didn’t know.
The Bulls are, quite possibly, the hardest team in the league to gauge right now. Every one of their significant players is a question mark. Other than predicting Larry Hughes will shoot a pull-up 18 footer on 85% of the fast breaks that he’s involved in, there’s nothing that you can say with any conviction about this current Bulls roster. It’s a poser.
Theoretically, they could be great. This is still, essentially, the same 49-win second round team of the 2006/07 season, with only a few changes. The corpse of P.J. Brown has been replaced by Joakim Noah. The corpse of Ben Wallace has been replaced by Drew Gooden. And Chris Duhon has been replaced by Derrick Rose, which may or may not be an upgrade. (Sarcasm!) So, with those three upgrades, along with the return of Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni and Kirk Hinrich, plus the overdue-but-genuinely-forthcoming breakout of Tyrus Thomas, the Bulls should easily be able to usurp that 2007 team.
Shouldn’t they?
Well, no. The other change between then and now is the entire coaching staff. As outlined in the Milwaukee Bucks preview, Scott Skiles’s coaching jobs seem to always have a shelf-life, but until it goes wrong, he can make teams overachieve. The Bulls achieved what they did in 2007 despite having only the NBA’s 20th-best offence, purely because they had the best defence in the league. Skiles was directly responsible for that. However, after he lost the team last year – and after his replacement Jim Boylan proved to be about as much use as a surfboard with handlebars – the Bulls defence regressed to being middle of the road, and the offence was no better.
It’s not known what new coach Vinny Del Negro will try to do, and it’s futile to guess. But it’s a safe assumption to say that he won’t bring the level of defence that Scott Skiles did, because almost no one does. The hiring of Vinny The Black, and the new assistant coach line-up of Bernie Bickerstaff, Bob Ociepka and Del Harris, shows a clear intent to focus on the long term, and to concentrate on player development, something that was spotty during the Skiles era. It’s the right approach, and winning the lottery gives General Manager John Paxson a second chance to clear up the collateral from the Ben Wallace signing. Yet, for all long-term projections, the Bulls are currently awash in highly paid underachievers.
Additionally, those players have regressed. Players were paid in accordance of what they were expected to go on and achieve, but after last year’s diarrhoea of a season, no one did what they were supposed to. Nocioni used to play with a clean form of aggression, one where willpower and effort overcame his inability to dribble in traffic and penchant for leaving jump shooters often. But these days, he chucks up jumpers, and he pouts. Ben Gordon briefly became a near-All-Star 20-ppg scorer, with good scoring efficiency and an improved ability to dribble without falling over, but this desire to fit in with the offence seems to have left him. Luol Deng’s jump shot was infallible, but only for one year. And Kirk Hinrich has managed to get worse at every facet of the game. This isn’t the team it once was, despite it still being the same core.
The talent is still there. The Bulls still have a 20-point scorer at shooting guard, a potential 21/8 small forward with fine defence, and a combo guard with elite defence and a good jump shot. Added to that, they now have a young Stephon Marbury at point guard, plus whatever you think of Thomas and Noah. Furthermore, only one of those players is over 25. As young cores go, this one is still good.
As of right now, though, the roster is a confusion. All the pieces that used to fit seamlessly, no longer do. And they’re not as cheap as they used to be, either.
It’s turnaroundable, if that’s a word. The players that broke themselves can mend themselves. But it will take dramatic improvement from a unit that spent all of last year going backwards. Hinrich needs to find his footspeed again. Gordon needs to develop some humility. Deng needs to get his jump shot back, and add four feet of range to it. Nocioni needs to pretend he’s playing for Argentina every night. Thomas needs to learn how to make lay-ups. Noah needs to learn how to make lay-ups. Thabo Sefolosha needs to learn how to shoot. Hughes needs to learn how to not shoot. And Gooden needs to stop messing about with his facial hair. (This won’t help his performance any. It’s just a general point.)
If this was another team, we’d probably be watching them intently, fawning openly, doused in our own happy sweat at the exciting and potential-laden duo of Rose and Thomas, despite them sounding more like the compelling protagonists in a Baroque-era love story. But that’s not going to happen here. This is the Bulls. It’s been nothing but false dawns for ten years. No one’s leading them anything. This time, they’re going to have to win our trust, by winning something.
The Milwaukee Bucks and their new head coach Scott Skiles are an eclectic mix. Recent Skiles-free Bucks teams have been capable of repeated instances of really bad defence, whereas recent Skiles-led Bulls teams (last year excluded) have been one of the best defensive units in the NBA. Make no mistake about it – Scott Skiles can coach defence. He really can. He even made Michael Sweetney and Eddy Curry into decent defensive players, briefly.
In theory, therefore, a union of the two will bring the much-needed defensive improvement to an offensively strong Milwaukee line-up. Or at least, that’s one way to look at it. Alternatively, Milwaukee might have just hired a coach that them away from their strengths, further exposing the flaws in their personnel. This could go either way.
For every Skiles strength, there is a Skiles flaw. While he’s shown that he can teach help defence to those players previously written off as futile, he also has a small offensive playbook. While he can coach guards onto better things, he can’t get the same results from big men, yet seemingly insists that he can. For every young player that thrives under his guidance, one more will be alienated and underwhelming. And for every amusing sarcastic comment he makes to the press, he’ll make someone hate him.
Perhaps mercifully, the Bucks don’t have too many young players. Their identity as a veteran team looking for something to push them back into contention was cemented this summer, when they dealt the closest thing that they had to a promising youngster – Yi Jianlian – as the primary piece for an in-his-prime Richard Jefferson. In free agency, the Bucks picked up Skiles’s favourite, Malik Allen, as well as other veteran backups Tyronn Lue and Francisco Elson. Trading away Mo Williams saw the Bucks get little of immediate use back on the court, but they did receive Adrian Griffin, Skiles’s other favourite, and another old veteran with no potential. These moves combined to send out a rather clear signal – they’d quite like to make the playoffs next year, please.
It’s probably true to say that the core of Bucks players would be good enough to compete for the East if you significantly improved their defence. They have weapons, after all. Along with one of the league’s best shooters in Michael Redd, the Bucks boast the vastly-improved Andrew Bogut playing exclusively in the posts. They also now offer 20-point scoring small forward Richard Jefferson and 48-point scoring power forward Charlie Vllanueva, who both offer something of an inside/outside game. And while the point guard duo of Luke Ridnour and Ramon Sessions offer inconsistent outside shooting, they’re willing and able to pass, which should help.
But it’s not as easy as just adding a defensive coach. Scott Skiles has clearly defined strengths, thereby separating him from many NBA coaches, but he also has his flaws. Even in the early going, these flaws are showing through. The Sessions/Griffin/Fresh Prince/Allen/Elson line-up has already reared its ugly head on more than once occasion in preseason, and if you want to excuse its presence as being injury- or preseason-induced, then you need to start bracing yourself, because Scott Skiles is VERY willing and able to use Malik Allen as a go-to guy. You have been warned. (Note: this threat is doubly true, given that Allen represents the Bucks’ best pick-and-pop option. Skiles likes those. Expect Andrew Bogut to be involved in dozens of them, irrespective of his lack of a jump shot.)
That line-up represents the Bucks’ closest replication of what Skiles loves more than anything as a coach: players who don’t make mistakes, talent be damned. If that unit – or any unit – can’t get a shot off in 24 seconds, or even get the ball over halfcourt, then no matter, just as long as they rotate on defence and don’t get all unnecessarily talented. This is why thinly-veiled threats to start Allen (or Mbah a Moute) over Villanueva have already been made. Villanueva’s talent level makes him a better option at starting power forward than any possible Bucks alternative, yet precisely because of the nature of his flaws, he may lose playing time. As a coaching philosophy, this mistake-free, defence-first-and-only style gets your players and your team to a certain level of production and success. And then it will keep you there.
Of course, I’m biased. I’ve watched all bar about seven games of Skiles’s tenure, and while I used to defend him vigorously, those days passed once his flaws became more evident. I’ve witnessed Kirk Hinrich become temporarily brilliant, and yet I’ve witnessed Tyson Chandler emerge into an elite rebounder and useful offensive presence….for someone else. I’ve seen Chris Duhon play 8,000 minutes, and yet I’ve seen Thabo Sefolosha become damaged irreparably. I’ve seen a Bulls roster overhauled, gain an identity, assume a certain style of play, overachieve, tune out their coach, and fall apart. And it’s affected my bias somewhat.
Scott Skiles is a coach, whose CV screams “short-term improvements”. He has been united with a disjointed team, one now primarily focused on finding “short-term improvements”. That team’s weaknesses fit in perfectly with Skiles’s strengths. The fit is so perfect that it shouldn’t be allowed.
And yet, I’m not entirely convinced. Because I’ve been there.
Short term future: They’ll be better than under Krystkowiak. Scott Skiles knows what he’s doing, and half the team will benefit from it. The other half will be moved.
Long term future: See the above Bulls cycle. I’d like to be wrong.
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 shut up 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 defence 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. The team has the best collection of young talent in the league, and easily the best that I’ve ever seen. Not even the 2002/03 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, shot-blocking, creativity, fundamentals and Steve Blake. Forget being a team “for the future” – this is a team for both the present and the future. Rather than sacrifice talent for excitement, Portland combines the two, particularly from the bench, which houses exciting little bunnies like Sergio Rodriguez, Jerry D. Bayless, Travis Outlaw, Rudy Fernandez, and Joel Pryzbilla. This sheer depth also allows them to lose little when the starters come out of the game, especially on offence. 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. 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*
As an aspiring GM with no qualifications or career prospects to speak of, and whose sole outreach into the world of the NBA is this distinctly amateur and unattractive site full of mild slander, I enjoy certain advantages. One of those is the ability to do what I want, to a half-baked standard, and then to abandon it prematurely. This explains what happened with last year’s “30 teams in 30 or so days” series of predictions, where I started well, fell behind early, and then gave up roughly half way through. Get in.
This year, we’re going to do it again. There will be predictions, and by the power of Greyskull, they’re going to be woeful. Even better than that, it’s October 19th, and the season starts in just over a week, yet there are 30 teams to cover. So don’t be surprised if I only do about…oooh, five? ShamSports.com – run by an amateur.
The few posts that will be made are to be undertaken in a completely random order, with no semblance of logic or reasoning. And with that in mind, we begin with the Sacramento Kings.
Sacramento Kings
The Kings’ glory era ended a while ago. The days of the Adelman-era Kings, with Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Hedo Turkoglu, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie and friends, are over. Webber’s knee stopped working, Turkoglu surprised us all by actually getting good, Christie’s now the white Dame Dash, and Divac now works for the Serbian government. Other than the incumbent Brad Miller, the final player from those days – Mike Bibby – was pawned off to Atlanta earlier this year for a rather generous return. And that was that.
With a end of an old era should come the start of a new one. “The King Is Dead”, and all that. But it didn’t. For three years, the Kings have done little but tread water. A 44-win season in 2006 has been followed up with 33 and 38 wins respectively, which put the Kings in that most dissatisfying of places – too good to lose without trying, not good enough to compete.
In that time, though, the Kings have had the right approach. Despite a couple of novelty oversized contracts to short-term veterans (thank you, Bonzi Wells’s former agent!), the Kings have used this time to clean out the old guard, save some money, and to bring in some decent young pieces. This trend continued this year, as the Ron Artest trade brought back Bobby Jackson (big expiring contract), Donte Greene (decent young piece) and a draft pick (a draft pick). Furthermore, they defied ESPN’s fan grade of “F” when they drafted Jason Thompson at #12, to everyone’s surprise and widespread condemnation, but a move which (very) early on looks to have been savvy. They signed Bobby Brown out of the German league, thereby once again disproving my already-tenuous theory that ever nobody goes to Germany and later gets back to the NBA. (Thanks to all those who already pointed out that Casey Jacobsen did exactly that last year. Dammit, I was being facetiousness. This is the price you pay when you feel a moral compulsion to try and be funny – you’re often wrong, as well as not funny.)
What the Kings have fashioned themselves is a roster full of decent young pieces. With the exception of Kenny Thomas – whose days as a viable NBA player are behind him – the Kings roster is filled with decent pieces, most of them young. Francisco Garcia is a nice piece. John Salmons is a nice piece. Kevin Martin is a very nice piece. Beno Udrih, Bobby Brown, Quincy Douby, Spencer Hawes and Donte Greene are all nice pieces, even if Greene is the most selfish player that I’ve ever seen. The much-maligned Shelden Williams is also a nice piece, who’ll never justify his draft position, but who can help an NBA team. And even Bobby Jackson will be a nice piece for a few months, before being bought out in February and signing with the Hornets. (You heard it here first.)
Additionally, the Kings have an identity on the court. With Brown, Udrih and Douby, the Kings have guards who excel in the open floor, and with wing players like Salmons and Garcia along with big men Thompson and Mikki Moore to run with them, the Kings should have free reign to push the ball as often as they can. Based on preseason, they will. The new Kings are a young, athletic and talented bunch, who should entertain, even when they lose.
Financially, the Kings have overspent a few times in recent years. Brad Miller is no longer worthy of his eight-figure contract, as the age and injuries are catching up with him. Mikki Moore is paid like a starting power forward, but a starting power forward he is not, even if he is. (Did that make sense?) The same poorly-phrased sentence can be used to describe Beno Udrih’s new salary as a starting point guard. Francisco Garcia’s new extension necessitates future improvements in his game to justify the salary and the number of years, or else it’s excessive. And Kenny Thomas’s contract is nothing more than dead weight. Yet, the Kings’ cap situation isn’t a problem, despite these small mishaps. Miller’s big salary comes off the books in 2010, as does that of Kenny Thomas. Shareef Abdur-Rahim’s contract will magically disappear soon due to the injury-induced retirement rule thing, and even if it doesn’t, that expires in 2010 too. As things stand – Francisco Garcia’s extension excluded – the Kings figure to have $25 to $30 million in cap space in the big-name 2010 offseason, with all of their significant players signed. That figure will no doubt decrease slightly over time, but it nevertheless represents a plan. A lot of teams already have, or will soon develop, plans for cap space in the summer of 2010 offseason, but the Kings are ahead of the game and already have one. And they’ll have some decent youth to add to that.
There are drawbacks, though. $25 million of cap space in 2010 should get anyone’s juices flowing, but it’s currently nothing more than speculative. In contrast, the facts of the current situation show that Kevin Martin is the Kings’ best player. Martin is a fine player, someone whom every team would want, but who also shouldn’t be your best player. If he is, you either need to be in the Eastern Conference and with an almost-perfect replication of the Pistons’ championship-winning team from 2004, or you’re not going to get very far. Sadly for Kings fans, it’s the latter. Additionally, for all of their strengths when pushing the ball, the Kings will often bog down in the halfcourt. With little creativity or playmaking from the point guard spot, and with not a great deal of consistent outside shooting in the rotation, a lot of the Kings’ halfcourt offence will depend on Martin, and the high post/low post passing of Miller and Hawes. When armed with comparatively few options, it becomes rather easy for the opposition to take the Kings out of whatever they want to do, and Sacramento has little individual creativity to overcome this.
On nights when it clicks, when the Kings make shots and run on all misses, it’ll look glorious. The young and athletic roster will tempt the fans, and hint at a good-looking future. But on other nights, the Kings will look like what they are: average.
The Kings have the right idea, and they are halfway to the right roster. But, for now, they’re several yards behind.
Short term future: Too good to suck, not good enough to compete. Long term future: It could be beautiful. Or it could be anti-climactic.
Third Prize Is You’re Fired (2008 NBA Training Camp)
October 6th, 2008
“Anybody wanna see second prize?”
“Second prize is a set of steak knives.”
– Milwaukee signed Ron Howard, T.J. Cummings, Matt Freije and Kevin Kruger for camp. If you’re wondering who Ron Howard and T.J. Cummings are…well, you have yourself a valid question, but both are represented by Elfus-Siegel Management, an agency quite adept at landing their players places on training camp rosters. (If you were wondering, this is how Garth Joseph rolled up on the Bulls training camp back in 2003, for one beautiful week.) Be very careful when you Google-search T.J. Cummings’s name. Freije gives the Bucks a weak-defending jump-shooting power forward, as they only have two right now, which just isn’t enough. And Kruger gets to spend a couple of weeks in the NBA, even though he has little chance of making a roster that sees Luke Ridnour, Ramon Sessions and Tyronn Lue ahead of him, whether he likes it or not. Sham’s prediction: The Bucks told Damon Jones not to report, and they’ll try to trade him, but he will probably be waived if that can’t be done. That would open up a roster spot for someone, but what would be the value of any of those four filling it?
– Minnesota made me a happy man this summer. Their camp signings were Kevin Ollie, Blake Ahearn and Rafael Araujo, while Chris Richard accepted his qualifying offer. Blake Ahearn is a nice player. Kevin Ollie is a moustachioed legend with something of a Brunson complex. But….Araujo? There’s so much right about that move. Part of it is the way that Rob Babcock won’t let go, part of it is the fact that it’s Rafael Araujo, but also because his signing allows for the existence of this picture. Only Rafael Araujo could use training camp media day as an excuse to pull an unhateably funny face such as that, while sitting in a brand spanking new home jersey that he’s already managed to dribble on. The NBA needs Rafael Araujo.
Sham’s prediction: Unfortunately, it probably won’t get him. These moves give Minnesota 18 players under contract, 16 of which are at least partially guaranteed (except for maybe Richard; notice I said maybe). The two that aren’t are Ollie and Araujo, which doesn’t bode well for Hoffa, as much as we want him to make the team. As things stand, Minnesota has the unrivalled Frontcourt Fivesome™, with Araujo, Brian Cardinal, Calvin Booth, Mark Madsen and Jason Collins all on the roster. I want this to continue on forever and ever. But it won’t. (Ahearn makes the team, by the way, and Booth gets cut. This is the prediction that I promised you, from the website that occasionally keeps its promises.)
– New Jersey are good sports. With 15 guaranteed contracts already, and with Keith Van Horn still technically a member of their team, the Nets signed four players for camp anyway. One of them – Awvee Van Storey – has already been waived, but Julius Van Hodge, Keith Eddie Van Gill and Keith Van Brian Van Hamilton survive. The Nets could really use a third point guard, and Gill fits that bit. Hodge does, too, sort of. And one of them may well make it. The Nets still have 19 players on their roster, but one of them is Van Horn, who isn’t in camp, and who only survives on the roster should a trade opportunity arise that needs his unguaranteed salary. Hamilton is another easy cut, for his minimal offensive skill level isn’t needed on a forward-heavy roster. And Maurice Ager’s sole leverage is his guaranteed deal, for his play these first two years has been poor. With the depth chart against him, he too is an easy cut. That leaves a spot free for one of the two, if the Nets choose to add a third point guard. Given that they don’t really even have two right now, they should. Sham’s prediction: Gill.
– New Orleans has done the bench-with-veteran’s-minimums thing that Denver so enjoys, and all but Sean Marks ($200,000) are guaranteed. With 14 players on a largely-completed roster, the Hornets’ only camp signings were point guard Jared Jordan and centre Courtney Sims. Sims was in the NBA last year at least, as Indiana signed and waived him about 40 times, whereas Jordan spent the year on the continent. Working in Jordan’s favour, though, is the fact that MVP candidate Mike James is the only point guard option behind Chris Paul that the Hornets have. Sham’s prediction: Jordan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was neither.
– New York brought back Allan Houston, signing him for camp. Houston won’t make the team, and neither will Dan Grunfeld, but at least they get some free coffee and the attention of passers-by for a few minutes. Even minus those two, the Knicks need to make a cut. They have 16 players, with Patrick Ewing Jr on the outside looking in. The sentimentality factor of him making the team might be nice, but he’s the only one without fully guaranteed money ($200,000 guaranteed only), who plays a position where Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Jared Jeffries and Quentin Richardson all play ahead of him. To get Ewing on the team, either Ewing has to play so well that the Knicks are willing to cut Anthony Roberson (despite his guaranteed contract and skillset useful to the team), the Knicks have to hope Stephon Marbury reignites all the bridges he’s trying desperately to rebuild, or the Knicks have to cut their losses and pay Jerome James to leave. Sham’s prediction: The latter one is his best hope.
– Oklahoma City need a third point guard, and managed to find one with local ties in former Rocket and fan of trilogies, John Lucas III. They also signed former Sixer and MP for Tyneside North, Derrick Byars, as well as minor league star and former giraffe, Chris Alexander. Sham’s prediction: Why they signed Alexander is a mystery. Alexander’s a late bloomer with massive bounce-flavouring numbers in the D-League, and so another shot at the league seems fair, but the Thunder don’t have many players under 6’9, and adding one more seems unnecessary. Byars doesn’t really add anything that Kyle Weaver and Damien Wilkins couldn’t sort out between them. Lucas has the best chance to make the roster on depth chart alone, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut all three.
– Orlando’s three signings all represent good value and fringe NBA talent – forward Jeremy Richardson (who the Hawks seem to let walk unchallenged for some reason), big man Dwayne Jones (who is one of my favourite offence-free centres, if mainly for the moustache and crooked smile), and Mike Wilks (the point guard version of Zendon Hamilton – an NBA calibre talent who everyone overlooks, and who bounces around for a few years getting looks with many teams, yet who never gets the multi-year guaranteed contract that the law of averages should provide for them). Sham’s prediction: Jones and Richardson picked a bad team to sign with, particularly Richardson, who has the ability to play in the NBA, but who is now on a team already heavy with small forwards. Jones offers no improvement over Marcin Gortat, so he won’t make it either. Wilks should stick.
– Philadelphia committed like the camp champions that they are, signing Justin Reed, Maureece Rice, Jared Reiner, Antywane Robinson and Andre Emmett. Reed was then almost instantaneously replaced by minor league journeyman and author Cory Underwood, without a word as to why Reed didn’t turn up. Underwood, Emmett and Rice have already been waived. Sham’s prediction: An extra small forward wouldn’t go amiss in Philly, who have the class of Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young at the position, but who have no emergency third stringer there. However, they could also use a quality shooter, and Robinson isn’t it. He just plays like he is. Reiner’s best hope is for the Sixers to suffer another frontcourt injury, who have already lost J-Smoove Jason Smith for a hundred million years. If that happens, he can play emergency backup to the emergency backup incumbent, Theo Ratliff. Robinson probably has the advantage, but you need a guard that can shoot. There’s plenty out there. Look harder.
– Phoenix brought in Robert Hite and Trey Johnson, to battle Sean Singletary for what will almost certainly be only one spot on the deep bench. This is assuming that the Suns only run with the minimum of 13 players, which history suggests that they will. They also brought in big man Coleman Collins, but I’m not sure what they want from him. Sham’s prediction: Singletary will win. He’s the slightly better player than Hite, and also the finances are in his favour. Singletary has $200,000 of his $442,114 guaranteed, and Hite is a second-year player. So, if Hite were to make the team, it would cost Phoenix roughly $1.8 million (Hite’s salary of $711,517, doubled for tax, plus Singletary’s $200,000 guarantee also doubled for tax), more than double what it would cost to keep Singletary alone. And also because he’s better.
– Portland’s 15th and final spot is between rookie point guard Jayson Tatum, Luke Jackson, Shavlik Randolph and the mountain man Steven Hill. Again, points are to awarded for box ticking – between those four players, the Blazers have managed to cover every position, all manner of standards (ranging from “fringe NBA talent” to “complete project” via “who is that?”), while also bringing in a hometown guy in Jackson. This is how you play the game. Sham’s prediction: There’s not a great deal of purpose in any of the signings, to be honest. I would like to see quite where the talented Shavlik Randolph could do after two wasted seasons, but the Blazers don’t need him and never will. The depth chart favours Jackson.
– Sacramento signed a 26-year-old Chinese player called Zhang Kai. You’ve never heard of Zhang Kai before. There’s a reason for that. The Kings also signed Bobby Jones (YES! Chalk up another!) and Noel Felix (YES! Chalk up another!), apparently identifying the need for an athletic small forward on the end of the bench. Sham’s prediction: Depending on what happens with Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the Kings might have some wiggle room under the tax in the near future. But, if Shareef’s contract isn’t removed from the books after his recent retirement, then they won’t. In that event, the Kings won’t be able to afford neither Jones nor Felix without straying ever so slightly into tax territory. So even if either one of them did make the team, they’d be cut soon enough anyway. Jones is more likely to make it, though, because he’s by far the more complete player. Felix looked intriguing with his physical tools during his brief stint with the Sonics three years ago, but he hasn’t done much since then. He’s now 27, and still with the holes in his game that he’s always had. Jamario Moon doesn’t strike twice. Also note: Zhang Kai has about as much chance of making the roster as I do of getting a front office job in the NBA. That is to say, no chance whatsoever.
– San Antonio kitted out their inactive list with some class. Salim Stoudamire ($200,000), Desmon Farmer (none), Darryl Watkins ($20,000), Devin Green (nada) and Anthony Tolliver ($200,000) all signed early to various levels of guaranteed money, and the Spurs then added to those with further camp signings in Brian Morrison and their second-round draft pick Malik Hairston. (Note: Morrison was waived almost immediately for Charles Gaines.) Those seven players are fighting against each other for two spots, as the Spurs have 13 guaranteed contracts other than they, with only Jacque Vaughn being expendable. Sham’s prediction: If only for the level of guaranteed money, Stoudamire and Tolliver are the front runners for the two spots, but Desmon Farmer has NBA talent and a modicum of experience. The Spurs don’t need both Green and Hairston, and arguably don’t need either. Watkins gives the Spurs some size and shot-blocking, but they don’t particularly need either right now. What they could use is another shooter, which looks doubly good for Stoudamire, though Tolliver and Hairston can also help there. Counting against Salim is his small stature, something which Farmer isn’t burdened with. But the level of guaranteed money infers that the Spurs aren’t too bothered about that. Gaines hasn’t a chance.
– Toronto are a boring bunch, who originally vowed to go into camp with only the 13 players that they already had contract, but whom eventually plumped for a 14th in Jamal Sampson only when rookie centre Nathan Jawai was ruled out with heart trouble. Sham’s prediction: The reason they didn’t bring anyone in despite having two spots available is that the Raptors have run out of wiggle room below the tax threshold. For this reason, Sampson won’t make it, and if he does, it won’t be for very long.
– Utah brought in Gerry McNamara, Britton Johnsen (quickly replaced by Gabe Muoneke after Johnsen took an offer in the Ukraine) and Kevin Lyde for training camp. McNamara gets his first shot in the NBA after a decent college career led to a less than decent European career. Muoneke is a training camp veteran of the best part of a decade who still hasn’t managed to make an NBA game. And Lyde is a stocky former Temple player who the Jazz had in training camp last year, whom they let go partly on account of his conditioning, and who has managed to subsequently get even bigger. A strange training regimen. (Isn’t it high time someone at least enquired about Michael Sweetney?) Sham’s prediction: All three had to have known that there was simply no place for them on the Jazz roster, with 15 guaranteed contracts in place and no one likely to be cut or traded.
– Finally, Washington brought in four players to fight for one spot – Linton Johnson, Juan Dixon ($150,000 guaranteed), DerMarr Johnson and Taj McCullough. McCullough seemingly did enough with his 2.2 points and 2.0 rebounds averages during summer league play to earn a camp invite. The two Johnsons and Dixon are basically squaring off for the Wizards final roster spot – Dee Brown is only $125,000 guaranteed, but with so little point guard play in front of him, he has only himself to blame if he doesn’t make it. Sham’s prediction: Dixon makes it, unless the Wizards are suitably swayed by DerMarr Johnson’s height in an otherwise small backcourt.
I should have written this note before I did. But you’re not the boss of me. Unless you are the boss of me. In which case, hey. Sorry I’m late. Traffic was bad.
These are the camp battles that we are to watch with captivated interest. If you’re not even slightly interested, then don’t worry, because I’m intrigued enough for the both of us.
– Atlanta re-signed Mario West, and signed Marcus Hubbard, Frank Robinson and ShamSports.com favourite Olumide Oyedeji, after having earlier signed Thomas Gardner and Othello Hunter. These moves give them three shooting guards to battle for one backup spot, but Gardner has the advantage of 50% guaranteed money. Hubbard and Hunter will fight for the inactive list power forward spot, but Hubbard’s grand total of three NCAA Division i games can’t work in his favour. (If anyone can tell me why he played so little, please do.) Oyedeji has already been waived, which is a damn shame.
Sham’s predictions to make it: Gardner and Hunter.
– Boringly, Boston only signed one player for training camp, with the re-signing of Sam Cassell taking their roster to 16 players. Come on now. Even if they haven’t a hope of making the team, play the game and bring in some fringe D-Leaguers. You don’t have to give them any guaranteed money, and you get to look at players that might help you one day. Even if they don’t, you lose nothing but the tiny amount that you have to pay them for the fortnight that they’re there. Signing only Cassell, though, is still enough to give Boston a problem, for they now have 16 players for 15 spots, with no obvious cuts. Maybe the Darius Miles comeback story isn’t going to be quite as fairytale as we had hoped, for his fully unguaranteed contract looks very expendable right now.
Sham’s prediction: Sorry, Darius, but you’re a massive health concern, you have a 10-game suspension to deal with, and Bill Walker just got a four-year contract. I’m not seeing where you fit any more. Failing that, someone might remedy the situation by trading a second for Gabe Pruitt. Someone like the Thunder, maybe.
– Charlotte took on three guys, like the trooper that she is. New head coach Larry Brown has always had a thing for guards with lesser offensive skills who work hard on defence. so that, plus the Bobcats’ lack of third option at point guard, might bode well for Donell Taylor. Other camp invites Marcus E. Williams and Andre Brown have less of a chance – the Bobcats have enough players at Brown’s power forward spot, and while Williams has the ability to make it, he just so happens to play the one position that Charlotte doesn’t need any help at.
Sham’s prediction: Donell makes it. How long he lasts for is another matter.
– Chicago beautifully combined the training camp signing requisites of “fringe NBA talents” and “hometown guys to give people something to care about”, when they signed Elton Brown, Roger Powell and Darius Washington. Powell, the hometown boy, has no chance to make it as a reformed small forward, given Chicago’s present depth there. Brown isn’t exactly the calibre of post scorer that Chicago needs, but his skillset fits the team, and he has NBA talent. Washington has less of a chance, given the team’s guard depth, but the Bulls could still use an extra defender at point guard, which gives him a chance.
Sham’s prediction: Since Ben Gordon took the qualifying offer like a damn fool, the Bulls are now able to afford 14 players. So Brown should make it, along with Demetris Nichols, whose $150,000 guarantee and good outside shot serve him well. Also note – I didn’t mention Michael Ruffin – the Bulls other camp signee – at any point. There’s a reason for that; the Bulls need an extra centre, particularly a defensive one…..but they don’t need Michael Ruffin.
– Cleveland made some of the best signings ever, bringing in Ronald Dupree, Vernon Hamilton and Jawad Williams, as well as making the ultimate random camp signing in Michael Dickerson, a man who medically retired five years ago. The randomness of that group is sublime, and is the reason that I love training camp. Those four, plus holdover Lance Allred, are battling for what is more than likely only one roster spot. (Note: Eric Snow will never play again, but they can’t trade his expiring contract if they waive him, so he’ll probably prop up the inactive list until the trade deadline. Also, Lorenzen Wright is D-U-N done and shouldn’t be taking up a spot, but he got guaranteed money, so they’ll probably stick with him too.)
Sham’s prediction: Don’t know. Dickerson is (or was) easily the most talented of the bunch, and the Cavaliers could use an extra shooting guard, particularly one with decent size. But the man retired in his prime with an assortment of injuries – now 33, and after five years out of the sport, how can we accurately predict what he can offer this season? We can’t, so I’ll go ahead and assume that it’s nothing, due to a lack of alternatives. (I’d dearly like to be wrong on that.) The other invitees offer little to move the needle. Allred perhaps has the most talent, but after bringing in Wright and drafting J.J. Hickson and Darnell Jackson, the Cavaliers don’t really need an extra big man any more.
– Dallas have given themselves a pleasant predicament. After signing Gerald Green, Keith McLeod and James Singleton spectacularly early (during the moratorium, in fact), the Mavericks then added some more players, signing JaJuan Smith, Cheyne Gadson, Reyshawn Terry and Charles Rhodes for camp. Green has a guaranteed contract, so he’s in, but the rest have a problem, and there are only two spots left to fill. In this blog, I have previously mentioned how Singleton is an NBA-calibre talent and a good signing for Dallas, but unfortunately for James, so is the other power forward, Charles Rhodes. Rhodes had a fine summer league, and has shown himself to be a candidate for this year’s Craig Smith Award™ (an award annually given to the undersized power forward that either goes undrafted, or who slides into the second round, because scouts overlook their skill set, perhaps believing it to be less important than the inch or two of height that would make them ideal for their position; formerly known as the Chuck Hayes Award.) The Mavericks don’t need both players, and so it looks as though they’re fighting for one spot. Working in Singleton’s favour is that Rhodes largely duplicates Dallas’s other power forward backup, Brandon Bass; working against Singleton is the fact that he’s four years older than Rhodes. Neither can play centre, and so the Mavericks can’t really keep both, so there’s a legitimately interesting training camp battle for you there. As for the guards, JaJuan Smith’s sweet scoring stands him in good stead for a spot on the guard roster as a shooter off of the bench, as does the NBA career to date of Keith McLeod. (Gadson is irrelevant.) Reyshawn Terry may play in the NBA one day, but he chose the wrong year to come over, because Devean George just took his spot.
Sham’s prediction: Singleton beats out Rhodes due to him having guaranteed money, and Smith makes it as the 15th man. But this won’t be the last time we see Charles Rhodes in the NBA.
– The Denver Nuggets often make signings that fill one of two criteria – veterans for the veteran’s minimum, and players that are widely disliked. They achieved both this summer, as they signed Ruben Patterson, Smush Parker, Mateen Cleaves, Juwan Howard, Nick Fazekas and James Mays for training camp, all of whom are at least one of the two. Given Denver’s tendency to go with only 13 players due to their self-inflicted payroll concerns, it seems tough for anyone of the above to get in, given that the Nuggets had 13 players under contract already, but the proposed Jamaal Tinsley trade may open up one spot, and Sonny Weems is not certain to make it (albeit probable). The Tinsley trade, should it go down, will spell doom for Parker and Cleaves, whose chances of making the team are miniscule anyway. Fazekas has NBA talent, but doesn’t seem to have made the best choice of training camp to join. Howard is D-U-N done, and hopefully Denver aren’t too attached to the sentimentality that accompanies his return to the team. Patterson is also returning to one of his former teams, and he’s got to be somewhat fresh, after his career-best 2006/07 season with Milwaukee went largely by the wayside. (He has only played in 20 games since then, while on an unguaranteed minimum salary contract with the Clippers last season. This is the sort of thing that will happen when you’re on the sex offenders register – you need to be more than marginal to get into the NBA.) And Mays always has Top Gear to fall back on.
Sham’s prediction: Ask me after the Tinsley deal. If there isn’t one made, expect nothing, because there just isn’t the money for it.
– Detroit brought back their former draft pick Alex Acker for training camp, and that’s it. Boo them. Boo them loudly. Boo them now.
Sham’s prediction: He’ll be cut. Detroit highly rated Acker a few years ago after picking him with the last pick in 2005, but he did nothing for Barcelona last year with plenty of opportunities.
Sham’s prediction: The Warriors need a point guard in the worst way, but Dickau is the only one of the bunch. He’s had a modicum of success in the NBA before, but only on a bad Hornets team, and he also apparently has a bad back right now. Nelson might make the team as a point guard defender, but he has substandard offence for the position. Dowell and Kurz add little, but Morrow may be a useful shooter off the bench, even if the depth chart is against him. Williams has a shot at making it, if only for his genuine size on a team bereft of much of that. But he hasn’t developed much. I’m going to call it as being Dickau and Williams that make it, with Morrow not far behind, and I fully expect to be wrong on this.
– Houston has very little money to spend, and few spots to spend it on, but they’ve played the training camp game anyway, and God bless them for that. Along with bringing in their draft pick, Joey Dorsey, to a first round sized-contract, their camp signings are off-guard Von Wafer and late blooming big man Marcus Campbell. The Dorsey signing gives them 13 guaranteed contracts, with Mike Harris and D.J. Strawberry also on the team with unguaranteed deals, and there may also be Dikembe Mutombo to add to that. The Rockets are also tiptoeing around the tax, so it looks bleak for those on the cusp.
Sham’s prediction: Doesn’t look good for Wafer or Campbell. Strawberry was acquired specifically for his unguaranteed salary, which has bad news written all over it. And despite the Rockets’ like of Harris, his unguaranteed deal may be more useful to them than whatever few minutes he gets. But he might make it if Dikembe doesn’t return. A dump-type trade of Steve Francis, Luther Head or (less likely) Chuck Hayes might open things up for somebody, but such a trade would be sought out only to save money.
– Indiana’s lone camp signing was their former figure of hate and love, Justin Frazier. We can make a teeny weeny allowance for their almost total ignorance of the training camp phenomena, because a summer of decent trading has left them with already 16 guaranteed contracts for only 15 spots, and probably regretting their decision to take out Stephen Graham’s team option.
Sham’s prediction: Croshere didn’t look like he had much left last season anyway, and while a redux of his would be nice, there isn’t the room for him here. It also doesn’t look good for Graham, who just isn’t required on the Pacers right now. Also note – if the Jamaal Tinsley for Chucky Atkins and Steven Hunter trade goes down as reported, as expected, then the Pacers again have to cut or move someone with guaranteed money. If they can’t get Denver to take back Graham or Josh McRoberts in the deal, then they’ll have 17 contracts for 15 spots. That would pretty much be it for Graham, and it doesn’t look great for McRoberts either, purely because of the numbers involved. This is unless a side move sees Shawne Williams moved on to somewhere where he hasn’t worn out his welcome. (Also note: if they see enough in McRoberts to keep him, contracts be damned – and they might – then Macy O’Baston is an easy cut, in spite of his $2.2 million deal.)
– The Clippers have spent their whole season reworking their entire roster, but after Jason Williams’s unexpected retirement, they suddenly have a spot to fill all over again. Always willing to play the training camp game (God bless you, Elgin Baylor), the Clippers brought in four players, ranging from point guard Dontell Jefferson, through to journeyman centre Jelani McCoy, via forwards Curtis Sumpter and David Noel. Paul Davis also has only a $200,000 guarantee, so his spot is still available on a team with no luxury tax concerns. That said, he’s probably safe – the Clippers don’t really have a third point guard, but Mike Taylor can handle the role better than Jefferson could, and McCoy doesn’t outclass him by enough to merit the spot over the far younger Davis, if at all. Sumpter and Noel have only each other for competition, but neither is needed.
Sham’s prediction: Screw it, pick one out of a hat. Jelani McCoy. There you go. (And Davis, obviously.)
– The Lakers did most of their training camp business early, signing Brandon Heath, Dwayne Mitchell and C.J. Giles long before September ended. They also brought in their second-rounder of this year – Joe Crawford – and re-signed Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, the most famous jug-eared half-Belgian half-Congolese seven-footer in the game today. (Note: former Clipper Josh Powell only has $200,000 guaranteed this season, and therefore is not a guarantee to make the team, but for the purposes of this paragraph, I’m treating him as though he is. He should be – he’s better than the others.) You will notice that those five players are all either shooting guards or centres, which gives you a clue what the two upcoming camp battles might be.
Sham’s prediction: Mbenga makes the team as the unnecessary fourth string centre (for those questioning my counting ability – Bynum, Gasol, Mihm, in that order), and all of the shooting guards lose out to the incumbent Coby Karl. The only way for one of the others to make it is for Powell to duly unimpress, or for Sun Yue to be imprisoned for heroin smuggling or something.
– Memphis signed Quinton Ross, which comes as a great relief to those of us out there to have posed the question, “Won’t somebody PLEASE think of Quinton Ross?”. Unfortunately for us Ross fans, Quinton seems to have chosen the one team that really doesn’t need a guard. (Memphis’s backcourt is small, something which Ross can help with, but it’s also deep, and in need of an extra shooter, which Ross doesn’t bring.) The Grizzlies’ other camp signings include former Blazer (for about a week) and summer league bench player, Brent Petway, and former Rockets draft pick Malick Badiane.
Sham’s prediction: Memphis needs a power forward, but Petway isn’t it. Ross has the most talent of the three, but the numbers are against him. Badiane therefore has a chance, but the Grizzlies threw several million at Hamed Haddadi earlier this summer, thereby filling up their “project centre” quota, and doing so without Badiane, a soon-to-be 25-year-old man still suffering from inherent rawness, and who runs like a pre-teen girl. (Hint: it’s in the wrists.)
– The finest quality that the Miami Heat possess is their ability and desire to sign everybody in the world of professional basketball, which leaves those of us obsessed with transactions gaping in awe. Having already waived Stephane Lasme and Bobby Jones earlier this summer, and signing Jason Richards and David Padgett straight after summer league, the Heat kept on playing the signing game, bringing in Eddie Basden, Matt Walsh, Omar Barlett and Tre Kelley for camp. Since then, the Heat have brought in Shaun Livingston, waiving Kelley to open up the spot.
Sham’s prediction: Walsh, Richards, Padgett, Barlett and Basden are all doomed since the Livingston signing, which gives the Heat 14 guaranteed contracts. The 15th man – Jamaal Magloire – has a 50% guarantee on his contract, and despite me often harping on about how poor Magloire was last year, he’s still better than David Padgett. Any role Basden may have filled has already been filled has already been taken by Yakhouba Diawara, any role Walsh may have had has already been filled by James Jones, the Heat have four point guards already that are better than Richards (who can’t take the court anyway), and Barlett…….well, he’s not got guaranteed money, or NBA talent. So I don’t think he’s making it.
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 – he was arguably the worst player in the NBA last season, and he has every chance of being so again.
Similarly, the Mavericks made two good minimum-salary signings in James Singleton and Gerald Green, yet they also brought in Keith McLeod. You need shooters, so you sign one of the worst offensive guards in or around the game? Don’t get that one. But great move on The Singleton. Hustle players and rebounding specialists who can also hit three-pointers are always welcome. Another player who should never have been out of the league.
Denver did their usual of padding out their bench on the cheap, but they did so with Chris Andersen, Anthony Carter and Dahntay Jones, all of whom are fine value for that price. All three are also decent defensive players, something which Denver sorely needs. Let’s hope that Carter doesn’t start this year, though.
Will Bynum signed with the Pistons for two seasons, giving them the backcourt shooter that they sorely need. Wait, no, that’s wrong.
The Clippers made some more value signings, getting Jason Williams for the minimum, which is good value if they get any version of J-Will other than last year’s. They also signed Brian Skinner, someone who has been criminally underrated since Billy King overpaid for him back in 2004. Paul Davis is also returning as the 15th man for whatever reason.
The Lakers had some training camp pickups of their own, namely Brandon Heath, C.J. Giles, Dwayne Mitchell and Josh Powell. Powell’s making it, but the rest have only a little chance. Unless I’m wrong. Which is highly possible.
(EDIT – They’ve since also re-signed Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, who’ll probably make it.)
Jamaal Magloire signed with the Heat, despite him not being that good any more. Along with camp signee David Padgett, plus returnees Mark Blount and Joel Anthony, there’s not now any room left for Alonzo Mourning. (The Heat also signed Jason Richards early for training camp, but he’s since torn his knee, so that’s his NBA dream over for this season.)
New Orleans went the Denver route, and padded out their bench with veterans for the minimum salary. They went for Sean Marks (OK), Ryan Bowen (purposeless) and Devin Brown (genius). So, a 50% success rate there.
New York signed one of the most one-dimensional players of all time in Anthony Roberson, but thoughtfully, his one dimension is one that they need.
Adonal Foyle re-signed with the Magic, which did little to assuage the size problems that the Magic with everyone other than Dwight Howard.
Philadelphia binged and went the veterans minimum route four times. Theo Ratliff showed surprising mobility last year for a 35-year-old big man with a history of back problems, and he likely still has something left to give as a backup. Donyell Marshall, meanwhile, likely doesn’t. The signing of Kareem Rush gives the Sixers two of the least efficient shooting guards in Western society today, but at least he is a small improvement on their outside shooting problem. Royal Ivey, meanwhile, isn’t.
Former Sixers Louis Amundson signed with the Phoenix Suns, as did former Warrior Matt Barnes. Both are good pickups and good fits in Phoenix, particularly for that price. Maybe Barnes should fire another agent, because the man hasn’t gotten paid yet.
Bobby Brown signed with the Kings for two guaranteed seasons, which gives us a new tangent of wordplay jokes if nothing else.
Anthony Tolliver and Darryl Watkins signed with the Spurs, who apparently wanted a big man who can’t make a lay-up. (Watkins, not Tolliver.) The Spurs also brought in Desmon Farmer and Devin Green for training camp, and I hereby predict that Farmer and Tolliver make it. The Spurs don’t have to penny-pinch around the tax this year, these are the luxuries that they can now afford.
Toronto brought in Will Solomon to play point guard, even though he isn’t really one, and Hassan Adams to play two guard, even though he isn’t really one. I like the way they’re thinking.
In other news, Dee Brown is back in the NBA after signing with the Wizards.
Draft picks:
Boston’s three picks saw them draft J.R. Giddens (a swingman that they don’t really need right now), Bill Walker (who everyone seems to be rating really high) and Semih Erden (who we’ll possibly never see). I’m curious to see why everyone loves Bill Walker so much. I’m not saying they’re wrong, for it would be foolish of me to have much opinion on draftees since I don’t follow NCAA basketball (note: that might make this whole section a bit dull), but I understand that Bill Walker’s game is predicated on athleticism, not skill. And Walker’s also just had his third knee surgery. To me, that doesn’t bode well. But what would I know. (I’ll tell you what I’d know: nothing. That’s what I’d know.)
Charlotte, not happy with two athletic near-seven footers, plumped for a third in Alexis Ajinca, and also plumped for a second short point guard in D.J. Augustin. I don’t think they’ve identified their most immediate holes here, but then again, they could use an upgrade basically everywhere.
Chicago didn’t have much thinking to do before drafting Derrick Rose, a sure-fire number one pick despite no one being able to draw up a clear cut list of the things he’s actually good it beyond the first two. (“Athleticism? Check! Finishing in the lane? Check! Passing? Um, well the system he played in wasn’t right. Shooting? Yes, well, he needs to improve his shooting….”) They also traded three second-rounders for one, and came away from that bizarre trade with Omer Asik, who will no doubt go on to lead a fabulous life and have an amazing career, despite having already suffered a serious knee injury since the night of the draft.
Correctly identifying that Ben Wallace is basically done, Cleveland drafted two power forwards, J.J. Hickson and Darnell Jackson. Both are post players, and both are quite good, but having watched summer league, I can’t remember either of them throwing a single pass. (A look at the stats confirms this – Hickson had 0 assists in summer league. Jackson had 3. Must’ve kept dropping it.) The Cavaliers also drafted Sasha Kaun, which I thought was a province in Canada.
Denver traded for the rights to Sonny Weems at #39, which was interesting. (Hang on, no it wasn’t.)
Detroit traded out of the first round and drafted the man they would have drafted in it anyway, Walter Sharpe. They signed him for two guaranteed years, sending all us hardened and overeager NBA addicts to Wikipedia to understand narcolepsy better than we thought we did. Sharpe won’t play much this year. Detroit also drafted Trent Plaisted and Deron Washington, who will play even less, because they’re not on the roster.
Anthony Randolph was drafted 14th by Golden State but already looks to be better than most of the people taken ahead of him. Dick Hendrix was taken 49th, and hasn’t been able to make the same boast, but he is able to boast the name of Dick Hendrix, so his life will be fine.
Houston likes three kind of players – shooters, defensive specialists, and point guards. Having drafted Aaron Brooks and signed Steve Francis last year, they’re all right for point guards, so they used the second round this year to get one of each of the other two, with defensive specialist Joey Dorsey (33rd) and Maarty Leunen (54th). They also came out of the first round with Donte Greene (28th), but that didn’t last (see below).
The Clippers drafted the best available player at their weakest position when they took Eric Gordon at #7, and that’s rarely if ever a bad strategy. In the second round, they picked up Mike Taylor (55th) and DeAndre Jordan (35th), both of whom won’t contribute much for two years, which is why they signed three-year contracts.
The Lakers’ only draft pick was Joe Crawford at #58. They’ve subsequently signed him, but they’ve also signed Brandon Heath and Dwayne Mitchell (see above), and all three are battling with Coby Karl for what looks like one spot. So they probably could have not bothered drafting Crawford. The Lakers also brought in last year’s second rounder, Sun Yue, and already are getting so wildly overexcited that they’re talking about playing him at guard sometimes.
Memphis obtained probably the best player available at their weakest position when they traded for Darrell Arthur at #27. Shame about the weed and hoes thing, though. (Readers note: Don’t be fooled. Darrell Arthur is not a keen gardener.)
Miami drafted Michael Beasley at number two, after giving the worst acting job since Keanu Reeves in Point Break when trying to convince people that they might not. In the second round, they came away with Mario Chalmers, despite not having a pick. Since when were #34 picks so devalued? How does Minnesota have the 31st and 34th picks, and not come out of it with a player for next year? Strange times. (Readers note: Minnesota drafted Nikola Pekovic at 31, who may well be good, but whom we also may never see.)
Milwaukee rightly identified that their forward spots were pretty desolate, so they drafted two – Joe Alexander (6th) and Cucumber A Moute (37th). I’ve only barely seen Mbah a Moute play, but I’ve seen more of him than I have Joe Alexander, so I’ll do us all a favour and not pretend to know what’s going on there.
At #6, the Knicks drafted a man who “will not be a superstar” (c/o Fran Fraschilla) who plays their least-needed position. So I’m going to need more convincing on the Danilo Gallinari pick.
The Thunder identified their need for a guard, and then didn’t draft the best guard available, picking Russell Westbrook at #4. Either they see something the rest of the world didn’t, or the rest of the world saw something that only they didn’t. They also moved up into the first round to draft a power forward (D.J. White, 29th), despite having about twelve already, and after already having drafted one five spots earlier (Serge Ibaka). Entering the draft with four second-rounders, they gave three away, and used the fourth on yet another big man (DeVon Hardin, 55th). Soon after the draft, they picked up Kyle Weaver from Charlotte, who obviously didn’t want him. Sam Presti clearly did, though, because Weaver then signed a four (count’em, four) year deal. The additions of he and Westbrook hopefully mean that Damien Wilkins will not get so much playing time, because no one likes a chucker. Unless you’re a Kobe fan.
Orlando brought in Courtney Lee (22nd) because they didn’t think they’d be able to keep Maurice Evans, and because they thought Keith Bogans wasn’t helping. Right on both counts.
Philadelphia drafted Marreese Speights at #16, something which led to Speights choosing #16 as his new jersey number. Not sure what role Speights will fill since Elton Brand was signed, but we won’t hold that against them, given that the chicken came before the egg.
Phoenix got a backup centre in Robin Lopez (15th), as their roster starts to assume a more traditional makeup. This is not a bad thing.
Only Portland could go into a draft night with five picks and leave with two players, Nicolas Batum (25th) and Jerryd Bayless (11th, see below). They also brought over Rudy Fernandez, thieved from Phoenix the previous season. Young quality born out of endless money and trying hard. Good MO.
Sacramento copped more stick for head coach Reggie Theus’s comments on why the team drafted Jason Thompson at number twelve than they did for the pick itself. But this doesn’t mean that they got off lightly.
San Antonio tried to give away their pick, but couldn’t, so took someone almost completely unheard of in George Hill (26th), who they’ve since signed. Backcourt scoring was apparently a priority of theirs this year. They also followed their own tradition and drafted a European in the second round (Goran Dragic, 45th), but then unusually traded him for an NCAA player (Malik Hairston, 48th). Strange times. (For equality’s sake, we should mention James Gist, picked 57th. Hi James.)
Finally, Washington drafted JaVale McGee, one of my favourite draftees this year. McGee is the next Marcus Camby. Book it. (Readers note: comparison overstated for effect.)
Trades:
Cleveland finally has the right idea, dealing spare parts Joe Smith and Damon Jones in a three-team trade with Oklahoma City and Milwaukee that landed them starting point guard Maurice Williams. Now that the Cavaliers finally have a complimentary guard that can score and handle the ball a bit, I hope they finally figure out how to use one. Elsewhere in the deal, Oklahoma City somehow got two decent players on two sizeable expiring contracts in Smith and Desmond Mason, while only giving up Adrian GriffinLuke Ridnour to do so. Meanwhile, Milwaukee gives up the best player – and one on a good value contract – in return for nothing of any significant use. I know the Williams and Michael Redd pairing needed splitting up, but not like that. And don’t give Adrian Griffin to Scott Skiles. You won’t like where that goes.
Milwaukee’s other trade involved somehow being gift-wrapped Richard Jefferson by New Jersey for the tiny cost of Bobby Simmons and Yi Jianlian. Why New Jersey wanted that package, I do not know. Simmons expires a year sooner than Jefferson, and – crucially – in time for the 2010 offseason, but he’s not an expiring contract, and Yi Jianlian is now but one of a number of many young big men on the Nets roster. He’s also not that good. Can you trade a 20 ppg in-his-prime All-Star, not get a starter back, not get an expiring contract back, nor even a draft pick, and be happy with your return? I’d like to think not, but I think it just happened.
Again on draft night, Toronto threw all their eggs in one basket, trading T.J. Ford, Macy O’Baston, Rasho Nesterovic and the rights to Roy Hibbert to Indiana for Jermaine O’Neal and the rights to Nathan Jawai. O’Neal and Chris Bosh should pair effortlessly, much more so than Ford and Jose Calderon did, and the Raptors now have the best frontcourt pairing in the East. (Even better than “Dwight Howard and anybody.”) Yet they still have largely forgettable wing players, and a very weak bench. They have a fine front three, but very little in support of them. And they’ve run out of money to do too much about that. Indiana, meanwhile, saves a good amount of money, and gets two young talented players at their biggest positions of need. That can’t be bad. They’re not going anywhere, but that’s not a bad way to retool.
Golden State picked up Marcus Williams for the cost of a first-round pick, despite two years of nothing but injuries and bad play hitherto. It’s a gamble worth taking, but one with an element of risk. Williams has shown next to nothing so far, albeit while playing often out of position.
Ron Artest finally left Sacramento, going to Houston along with recently signed draftees Sean Singletary and Patrick Ewing Jr in exchange for prospect forward Donte Greene, a pick, and the expiring contract of Bobby Jackson. Houston’s defence is now mega, and they even made sure to save some money on the deal by dealing Ewing to New York for the meaningless rights to Frederic Weis, and dealing Singletary to Phoenix for D.J. Strawberry in a move that saves both teams money. Meanwhile, Sacramento’s somewhat going for the ol’ addition by subtraction thing, which may or may work out. (Donte Greene, by the way, put on an absolutely disgusting performance in summer league. Yes I know he scored 40 in one game, but HOLY SWEET JESUS CHRIST ELLA will you pass the sodding ball.)
Denver took a break from their minimum salary policy to get a younger, cheaper and better version of the departed Eduardo Najera, when they traded the peripheral expiring contracts of Taurean Green and Bobby Jones to New York for Renaldo Balkman. New York then waived both Green and Jones instantly. A no-brainer for Denver, even with their self-inflicted budget concerns, and when factoring in the fact that Balkman will always be a backup. But what were New York doing? You have a lot of small forwards, yes. But get rid of the worse ones. Also, don’t trade a small forward on account of the fact that he’s a “bad fit” and that there’s too much competition in front of him, just to later trade for Patrick Ewing Jr, his cheaper but inferior replacement. If you want to save money for two years, don’t sign Chris Duhon to that deal. There. Sorted.
The Clippers filled their cap space with a few trades, most notably getting former DPOY candidate Marcus Camby for nothing. (It’s just not right, is it? Some teams out there are throwing away their MLE’s, and some teams get gifted the league’s better big men in their prime, entirely through circumstance. The NBA is a stupid game anyway.) The Clippers also later traded for Steve Novak, seemingly seeing something in him that Nick Fazekas couldn’t reproduce. They also conspired with Utah to complete one of the most pointless trades ever, acquiring their former player Jason Hart in exchange or Brevin Knight. The contracts are basically the same, the players are basically the same, and while Knight is slightly better, he’ll play fewer games. Yet neither should actually play at all, barring a typhoid outbreak. Great trade.
An eight-player trade went down on draft night, but only three players in it mattered. Memphis and Minnesota swapped their draft picks a few hours after making them, with Kevin Love going to the Timberwolves, and O.J. Mayo going to Memphis. Also involved in the trade were Mike Miller, Antoine Walker, Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins, but of those few, only Mike Miller is a productive player. Essentially, Miller was Minnesota’s asking price for swapping the two, and in exchange for Miller, Memphis made some salary swaps that gives them roughly $7 million more in cap space next offseason. For both parties, the question is, did they get the better part of the prospect swap. I’m going to cop out and say that I don’t know enough about Kevin Love to judge. This is what you can do when you’re an amateur blogger.
Indiana and Portland also made a prospect swap, switching the draft rights of Brandon Rush and Jerry D. Bayless, while also including Josh McRoberts, Ike Diogu and Jarrett Jack. In terms of the other three players, Portland got hosed, but since Bayless is apparently the better prospect, that makes it all right. (Again, I refuse to say. I’ve watched summer league, but I’m not making an impassioned opinion solely off of that. Nor should you.)
Finally, in the biggest news of the offseason, Minnesota managed to blag a first-round pick off of Philadelphia for the less-than-arduous task of taking on the contracts of Calvin Booth and Rodney Carney. Talk about easy decisions. Carney is still a cheap prospect, even though he hasn’t done anything yet, and Booth earns the minimum. Not even Minnesota says no to that.
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 agreed to leave Golden State for the Clippers after Brand’s verbal commitment, but stuck to his promise even after Brand didn’t. So he’s going to heaven. His five-year, $65 million deal is comparative value, in a world where one in every two players averages $15 million now. (Sort of.) Monta Ellis got six years and $66 million to replace Davis at point guard, even though he isn’t one, and already he’s torn his ankle up in suspicious circumstances. So that made for a good start to the Warriors offseason.
Golden State also paid Andris Biedrins $54 million over six years, a comparative bargain in a world where people will overpay for unproductive centres in the hope that they start producing. But before both of those re-signings, they brought in Corey Maggette on a five-year, $48 million contract. This despite having drafted a small forward (Anthony Randolph) with a hell of a lot of promise, while also having Al Harrington, Stephen Jackson, Marco Belinelli, Kelenna Azubuike and Brandan Wright to get some 2/3/4 minutes. Corey Maggette is a good player, and the price for which he has signed represents decent value, but I still don’t see the point here. Now you have negative mismatches in your starting line-up. There’s not much to say about a starting guard line-up of Monta Ellis and Stephen Jackson. Play, Randolph.
Washington threw a load of money at re-signing Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison, committing themselves to a core consistently good enough to not win the East. Here’s hoping for another big leap from Caron Butler, but I don’t think he’s got one more in him.
Josh Smith signed an offer sheet with Memphis after his negotiations to re-sign with Atlanta got sticky and underwhelming. The offer sheet was of good value to Memphis. Unfortunately, precisely because of that, Atlanta matched it immediately.
Luol Deng went through the rather awkward process of setting an artificial deadline date for his negotiations, but disaster was averted when the Bulls overpaid to keep him.
Emeka Okafor turned a year of improved health and worse play into a six-year, $72 million contract from Charlotte, the details of which are not listed on this website purely because I forgot. That’s how we roll around here.
Toronto re-signed Jose Calderon quickly and easily to a five-year, $45 million contract. In the opening stages of free agency, the players signed are almost always overpaid. See also: Toronto, Jason Kapono, last year. But this time, that’s not the case. I’m teary eyed.
Chris Paul and Deron Williams both agreed to max extensions, in possibly the easiest negotiations in the world.
“How many years do you want?”
“Four.”
“OK, done.”
Easy. Cuts the heartache out of it.
Andrew Bogut took a five-year, $60 million extension from Milwaukee, one which he’ll justify if he makes an improvement like last year’s.
Reasonably big deals:
The Mavericks gave the full MLE to DeSagana Diop, without changing their core at all. Their core was never good enough, and yet all they did to change it is add Diop, a backup centre who may well start under some misguided “tempo” concept. So when you were nearly good enough to win a title, Diop wasn’t enough to get you over the hump, yet now that you’re nowhere near one, he’s all you need? I don’t understand that. Nor do I understand why a man who has never scored above 10 points in a game deserves $32.4 million. And I’ve tried to understand that, I really have.
Cleveland retained shooters Delonte West and Daniel Gibson for noticeably less than the MLE each. Alternatively, you could say that they’ve both been retained for the cost of one Rick Snow. Either way, I’m worried about this new version of the Cavs. You know, the one that does good business sometimes. And which has some idea of what decent guard play is.
J.R. Smith re-signed with Denver, and George Karl will be gone before J.R. is. Which should please both of them.
Joe Dumars surprised us all when he signed Kwame Brown to a two-year, $8 million deal. Come on, Joe. You’re better than that.
Never bound by society’s conformities, the Golden State Warriors filled their backup centre hole with Ronny Turiaf, a power forward. This might not be the best idea, but it’s a better idea than using Al Harrington there. In overpaying to make sure that the Lakers didn’t match, the Warriors overpaid.
The Lakers paid Sasha Vujacic three years and $15 million after three seasons of nothing and one season of fine jump shooting. Paying someone on the basis of one season is always a risky proposition, and it sure didn’t work out for Vujacic’s namesake, Sasha Pavlovic. But then again, Vujacic didn’t subject himself to an embarrassing holdout, and probably won’t show up to camp 25 pounds overweight like Pavlovic did. This will help stave off any dramatic Pavlovic-like demise.
James Jones signed a five-year deal with Miami that has only two years of guaranteed money, which seems like a rather odd thing to do, but which has 2010 on the brain. His presence will once again ensure that Dorell Wright never actually plays, which seems to be a priority for the Heat.
Minnesota re-signed Ryan Gomes to a very similar deal to that of Jones, with the added advantage that Gomes is comfortably the better player.
New Jersey has enough forwards already, but that didn’t stop them giving a four-year contract to Eduardo Najera, either unaware of oblivious to the fact that four-year contracts to 32-year-old forwards who were never needle-movers anyway are usually bad news. They gave a similarly sized but shorter contract to Keyon Dooling in a sign-and-trade, meaning that a man who averages 3.9 assists per 48 minutes is now their backup point guard. I’m not sure what they’re trying to achieve.
New Orleans were lauded for giving James Posey the full MLE for four years, but we’ll see how they feel in two years time, when a soon-to-be-34-year-old Posey will have two years and $13.4 million remaining. Lest we forget – his importance was magnified due to the Celtics’ championship run, but Posey himself is past 30 and beginning to decline. Get as much as you can out of him next year, because that’s the sole year of value.
New York gave Chris Duhon the full MLE for two years, under the misguided idea that he’s the type of player that will reverse their fortunes. Such logic was used on Jared Jeffries, and such logic was wrong. Like Jeffries, Duhon is offensively flawed. He’s only pass-first because he’s a poor offensive guard himself, and he only has such a nice assist/turnover ratio because he rarely attempts even slightly tricky passes. Don’t go around thinking that this man is foundational for your halfcourt offence. He isn’t. And if his defence doesn’t come back to where it once was, you’ll be wondering what you just signed.
Robert Swift took the qualifying offer to return to the Thunder, one which was rather generously extended given that Swift has played only 96 out of a possible 7,872 minutes these past two seasons. (That’s 1.219%, percentage fans.)
Orlando rather foolishly gave Mickael Pietrus the full mid level exception for four seasons. The Magic are a franchise that have to severely limit their own budget from here on out after the Rashard Lewis contract, and yet now they’ve gone and overpaid for Pietrus, a marginal player who also happens to play a position where the Magic already have two vastly superior players (Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu). If Orlando has any aspirations over playing Pietrus at shooting guard, they’re about to find out the hard way what an idea that is. I don’t care how good Turkoglu is – you can’t have Jameer Nelson and Pietrus as your backcourt. Not unless you want Tony Battie to handle the ball-handling duties.
Louis Williams re-signed with Philadelphia for a bargain price of five years and $25 million. That is less than half of what Monta Ellis got from Golden State, and Williams is not less than half the player that Monta Ellis is. Not sure how they got this done.
Sacramento gave their full MLE to Beno Udrih, on account of his “breakout” season, overlooking the fact that 12.8 points and 4.3 assists with a less than 2:1 assist to turnover ratio is decidedly unremarkable from a starting point guard.
San Antonio, finally with money to spend, replaced the aging Brent Barry with another shooter in Roger Mason, as well as bringing back Kurt Thomas. Both contracts are slightly too big, but both are for only two years, which makes it worthwhile. (Readers note: such logic is also the saving grace of the Chris Duhon deal, and would have been the saving grace of the Mickael Pietrus deal had Orlando gone that route.)
Oklahoma City’s first free agency splash involved throwing a lot of money to the unproven C.J. Miles. The contract was surprisingly large at four years and $14.8 million. Even more surprisingly, Utah matched it. Almost immediately after doing so, though, owner Larry Miller voiced concerns about the Jazz’s proximity to the luxury tax in the near future. Yes, well, you should have thought of that before you matched the Miles deal. The saving grace is that Jerry Sloan will have to actually play Miles now.
Small, non-minimum deals:
The Clippers signed Kelenna Azubuike to a reasonable three-year offer sheet, which Golden State matched once Maurice Evans turned his back on them. Keeping Azubuike represents decent value for Golden State, but after the Maggette signing, one of either Azubuike or Marco Belinelli is going to once again be nailed to the bench, neither of whom should be there. Evans then went to Atlanta for a cheap price, where he’ll do a reasonably decent job of replacing Josh Childress in the rotation.
Soon after signing Evans, Atlanta then signed Ronald Murray, a man without an obvious role on this team. If you want him to be your backup point guard, good luck.
Seemingly sure that they’ve got enough, Dallas re-signed Devean George, Antoine Wright and Juan Jose Barea for a combined $11.6 million. Why they keep paying Devean George is beyond me. The others are all right.
Walter Herrmann re-signed with Detroit for only one year and $2 million, and now that Jarvis Hayes has gone, they might actually play him.
Houston’s sole free agency signing has been giving the LLE to Brent Barry, giving them an extra needed shooter but doing nothing to resolve their point guard problem. The Rockets are saving their MLE for Carl Landry, who remains unsigned for whatever reason. (Can you hear me, Memphis? Indiana? Charlotte? So what if they match; you can try, right?)
(EDIT: Well done, Charlotte. Now watch Houston match because of how small that offer sheet is.)
Ricky Davis signed with the Clippers. The money’s good ($2.3 million next year), but the depth it gives them could be both a blessing and a curse – with Eric Gordon and Cuttino Mobley also at shooting guard, and Tim Thomas and Al Thornton getting small forward minutes, where does Ricky get his minutes? If he’s not going to get any, why sign him? Still, it’s good to have options.
Memphis signed Marc Gasol and Hamed Haddadi to replace Kwame Brown and Jason Collins at the centre spots, successfully ensuring that Darko Milicic is now their most experienced centre. Doesn’t sound good when you put it like that, but as young centre projects go, these two are worthwhile.
Needing a starting point guard, the Heat brought back Chris Quinn, who is in no way a starting point guard. However, resigning Quinn is a decent failsafe move, unlike what any pursuit of Stephon Marbury will be. The Heat also brought in Yakhouba Diawara, because you can never have too many awful offensive guards, and they also brought back Dorell Wright on a two-year deal so that he can sit behind the two other small forwards that they brought in this year. It’s weird that they do this.
Milwaukee made three rather cheap but odd signings. They brought in Francisco Elson as a tiny upgrade to Dan Gadzuric, in spite of Elson’s bad season last year. They brought in Malik Allen, apparently not satisfied with their quota of sub-45% shooting jump shooting ‘power’ forwards. And they brought in Tyronn Lue as a second or third point guard, in spite of the fact that he shares that same weakness as his peers Ramon Sessions and Luke Ridnour – he can’t defend his one position much. It doesn’t seem to me like they’ve correctly identified their flaws from last year. Still, it was a nice trade that they made. (More on this later.)
Sebastian Telfair turned a season of poor shooting, mediocre defence and often meaningless assists into a three year, $8.1 million contract. If nothing else, last year was an improvement over what went before, which doesn’t say much, though there is still upside there. Aside from that, the Timberwolves also re-signed Craig Smith for the bargain price of two years and $4.8 million, meaning that Smith will experience unrestricted free agency at the earliest possible opportunity. One of the better backup big men in the league, and he’s signed for that cheap with no real suitors? Why do people keep selling Craig Smith so short? He should never have fallen to the second round, and he should never be signed for less than players such as Francisco Elson and Kwame Brown. So what gives? Who cares that he’s a slightly rotund 6’7? He’s good.
New Jersey signed Jarvis Hayes, even after trading for Bobby Simmons and agreeing to terms with Eduardo Najera. I don’t know why they did this. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Hayes is an efficient outside shooter; he isn’t. And if it’s an outside shooter from the forward spots that you want, make Keith Van Horn start turning up. He probably won’t be much use, but…..well.
Anthony Johnson signed with Magic, replacing Carlos Arroyo as the backup point guard. Bill Walton once said about him, “if Johnson ever gets a jump shot, who’s going to stop him?”. Well, Johnson now has one, so I guess he’s now unstoppable. Getting an unstoppable player is not bad for the Bi-Annual Exception.
Toronto brought in their former draft pick, Roko Ukic, to be their backup point guard. Ukic is about to turn 28, and isn’t nearly the prospect that we think he is, yet his 12.7 scoring average as a shoot-first point guard is apparently enough to be a primary NBA backup point guard. We’ll see
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 do you pair him and Randolph on offence? Pairing Randolph with a man who plays within three 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, 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.
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 a redeeming factor, 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 will have only five 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 tempting 24 points and 10 rebounds a game. The one who wasn’t as bad as usual on defence. 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 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…..it’s Zach Randolph.
There follows a list of the remaining unsigned NBA free agents, and what they’re currently rumoured to be doing about their jobless selves. Most of these players are marginal, because we’re over a month into free agency now. Yet this list may still serve as a useful resource if you’re sifting through the remaining chunks of free agency vomit, looking for gold dust and/or your brand new watch, relentlessly apologising for ruining the whole party and vowing never to mix Bourbon and Gaymers again. Maybe.
NOTE – decent free agents from other leagues not listed partly because this is an NBA website, and partly because I don’t want to.
Point guards:
– Kevin Ollie: Recently anointed a role model for reasons other than just the moustache, that video is possibly the only thing on the internet that suggests that some teams want to sign Ollie. By the way, did you know that that’s how he spoke? I didn’t. I thought it’d be deeper than that. Ho hum.
– Shaun Livingston: Still not cleared to play basketball. In spite of this, the Clippers have talked to him about re-signing anyway, and Miami and Phoenix both also showed an interest. And why wouldn’t they?
– Sam Cassell: Said he intends to play one more year before becoming an assistant coach. “Expects” to stay with the Celtics, who don’t seem to be reciprocating quite as much. Cassell also recently either was or wasn’t a judge at a pole dancing competition, depending on whether you believe the Boston Globe or Sam himself.
– Jannero Pargo: Apparently on the cusp of signing with the San Antonio Spurs, which seems like an odd decision. Firstly, they don’t have much money to give him, which is the reason why Jannero has opted out of contracts two years in a row. Secondly, the reason that they don’t have any money is because they spent it on Roger Mason Jr, and why would you want to pair Jannero Pargo and Roger Mason Jr? Even if you start Mason – an idea fraught with danger – and persevere with bringing Manu Ginobili off of the bench, you still get a load of duplication from those two. So what’s the point?
– Darrell Armstrong: His agent says that Armstrong has turned down “multiple” coaching opportunities in favour of one more go-around as a player. (If that makes sense.) Orlando were mildly interested. The Nets….less so.
– Dan Dickau: Is considering signing with one of several European teams. He has to – the money’s good, and the NBA offers are sparse. More importantly, Dan Dickau is also to host a celebrity poker tournament, sweetened by the deal-breaking offer of a gift bag. So get famous and sign up.
– Damon Stoudamire: The only team with reported interest is Phoenix. It doesn’t seem surprising that no one’s looking at Damon, given how slowed he looked with the Spurs last year, and also because of the giant salad fork sticking out of his back.
– Jason Williams: My great idea for him to re-sign with Sacramento doesn’t seem to be working out, given that they brought back a different old boy instead in Bobby Jackson. Williams has had offers from at least one European team, but he doesn’t sound too keen on the idea. Shaq wants him in Phoenix, which doesn’t really mean anything.
– Chris Quinn (restricted): Hot, apparently. The Timberwolves, Clippers, Hawks, Warriors and Wizards have apparently all expressed an interest, and the Heat still have a qualifying offer out there. Life is good for Chris Quinn, even if he is technically unemployed.
– Lindsey Hunter: Hasn’t yet decided it he wants to play one more season. If he does, it’ll surely be with Detroit.
– Blake Ahearn: Says that Minnesota “really likes” him after his performances for their summer league team, but hasn’t signed anything yet.
Shooting guards:
– Ben Gordon (restricted): Wants a payday like the one Luol Deng just got, in spite of the fact that he has no free agency suitors other than the Bulls, and also that he isn’t as good as Deng. The Bulls want him back – or at least say that they do – and talks are ongoing. But, in the words of fabled philosopher Timbaland, it’s gone get ugly, if it hasn’t done so already.
– J.R. Smith (restricted): Denver have said that they will match any offer, but Cleveland are apparently about to test that resolve with a full mid-level exception offer. Jesus, people.
– Michael Finley: His agent Henry Thomas says that Finley has turned down some fairly lucrative European offers in favour of a final turn in the NBA. His agent also claims that several “championship-calibre teams” want Finley, which means there’s no chance of a return to Dallas.
– Delonte West (restricted): Cleveland are negotiating with him, while also trying far harder to sign J.R. Smith, and simultaneously bringing in Tarence Kinsey as an insurance policy. That can’t make West feel good. Boston were supposedly interested in taking him back, and a well-paid European offer is on the table, as it is for basically everybody. In fact, it might make more sense for me to merely say who ISN’T being offered big money from Europe.
– Devin Brown: He’s not going back to Cleveland. Dallas, New Orleans, Denver and Atlanta are his suitors.
– Gordan Giricek: Wants to return to Phoenix, the team with whom he enjoyed a decent cameo to end last season, but the Suns won’t offer more than the minimum, which Giricek won’t take. There’s a lucrative European offer on the table – obviously – and also some NBA offers from teams that no one wants to name. They must be embarrassed at themselves or something.
– Ronald Murray: Cleveland “enquired”, and that’s all we’ve got. Is it me, or are the Indiana press totally disinterested in reporting the potential destinations of their free agent guards? We know they’re not going back to Indiana, but play the game, at least.
– Kirk Snyder: Minnesota didn’t offer him a QO, then acquired Rodney Carney to take his place, and no other teams seem to have showed interest? He’s not THAT bad.
– Quinton Ross: Renounced by the Clippers, ignored by everyone else. Kareem Rush gets signed early, yet Quinton Ross can’t even find a suitor.
– Fred Jones: In keeping with our recent little string of “decent shooting guards getting unfairly overlooked”, Fred Jones is unsigned and unloved. Come on now. These players aren’t starters. But they’re decent players, being dealt the disservice of being stuck at the NBA deepest position. I demand that they be signed.
– Von Wafer: Played summer league with the Knicks, but won’t make their roster.
– Shannon Brown: Couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get a summer league spot. He’s gone.
– Casey Jacobsen: Memphis waived Tarence Kinsey for this guy, don’t you know? Jacobsen isn’t going back to Memphis, and has no NBA interest to fall back on.
– Yakhouba Diawara: Denver is considering re-signing Diawara, despite just replacing him with the superior Dahntay Jones. Well, good for them.
– Eric Piatkowski: In recent weeks, Piatkowski has lit the torch at the 24th Cornhusker State Games (whatever they are). However, there’s no news of another NBA contract, despite how much Pike wants it. Nonetheless, in that first link, we are treated to the finest Eric Piatkowski quote of all time:
I refuse to not be successful in everything I do.
Apart from double negative usage classes, you never will not be.
– Mario West: Stayed with Atlanta for summer league, but, without a qualifying offer, it doesn’t look too likely that he’s going back. No one else has said much.
– Ronald Dupree: Went to Oklahoma City’s summer league team wearing Seattle Supersonics-coloured shoes, albeit probably not on purpose. Unlikely to return, but the man remains confident.
– DerMarr Johnson: Being arrested for DUI didn’t do much to strengthen his position as a fringe NBA player.
Small forwards:
– Andre Iguodala (restricted): Negotiations with the Sixers are still in “limbo”, but…come on. He’s going back there. Where else is he going? The man will fight for the biggest payday, but we all know that he’ll get one eventually. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
– Bonzi Wells: Surprisingly overlooked. New Orleans would rather bring back Ryan Bowen than Bonzi, which is the worst insult that you can give a man. The six-year contract from Sacramento that Bonzi turned down two years ago is getting ever more hurtful.
– Devean George: Has “several” suitors, but the Clippers are no longer among them, and Dallas apparently aren’t either.
– Dorell Wright (restricted): The Heat are “open” to a sign and trade, but to who? No one seems to have expressed an interest.
– Jeremy Richardson (restricted): You can pretty much pencil him in for the Hawks training camp.
– Louis Amundson: A month ago, it seemed a matter of time before Amundson signed a contract with the Golden State Warriors. But then it didn’t happen. And now I don’t know what’s happening.
– Demetris Nichols (restricted): With no suitors and a qualifying offer out there, he’ll almost certainly be going to the Bulls training camp, to battle for a spot with players cheaper than he.
– Awvee Storey: Had his team option declined by Milwaukee, but played on their summer league team anyway. Didn’t play very well.
– Michael Gelabale: No one seems interested, which is probably due to his bad knee injury more than anything.
– Ryan Bowen: See above. A league in which Ryan Bowen has more suitors than Quinton Ross is a very strange league indeed.
– Marcus Williams: Renounced by the Clippers, not courted by others.
– Linton Johnson: It would make sense to return to Phoenix for the minimum, but that’s just me theorising, and not a breaking news report.
– Kasib Powell (restricted): Played well for the Heat in summer league, and looks destined to at least go to their training camp, if not make the regular season roster.
Power forwards:
– Josh Smith (restricted): Still unsigned, as well you know. But it’s hard to imagine Atlanta screwing this one up.
– Carl Landry (restricted): The Rockets are idiots if they don’t re-sign him. Given that they’re clearing out some salary by dumping Steve Novak, it looks as though they intend to.
– Austin Croshere: Theories abound of a Golden State return, but nothing is certain.
– Paul Davis: The Clippers renounced him, but were talking about re-signing him anyway, until news of the impending Steve Novak trade. So that probably rules Davis out.
– James Augustine: Waived by Orlando. If anyone can explain to me how a man that wasn’t under contract was able to be waived, let me know.
– Othella Harrington: The knees don’t work any more, so don’t expect a return.
– Shavlik Randolph: Randolph didn’t look too bad in his rookie season but has barely taken the court since. No suitors, as you’d expect.
– Sean Marks: Can you believe that Sean Marks has been in the league for eight years now? How many games has he played in that time? Can’t be more than about 14, surely. Things don’t look good for a ninth year, but Phoenix seem to love veteran offensive players on minimum-salary contracts, so a third year there is still plausible.
– Pat Garrity: His agent said that he (Pat, not the agent) will probably retire if he doesn’t re-sign with Orlando. So he’s basically destined to retire.
– Robert Horry: The Spurs don’t seem to want to play him any more, which leaves Horry dangerously short of options, unless the Celtics need someone to mentor Brian Scalabrine.
– Nick Fazekas: The Clippers eventually retracted his qualifying offer – with his consent – which makes Fazekas a free man. Or, if you look at it another way, a homeless man.
Centres:
– Jake Voskuhl: Doesn’t even register. NBA people barely acknowledge his existence. There is always a rush in September to sign tall “defensive” veteran centres, so Voskuhl may get work then, but any dreams of a contract similar to last year’s $3 million one from the Milwaukee Bucks have gone by now.
– Jamaal Magloire: See Voskuhl, but change it to $4 million. Maybe people are starting to recognise that he hasn’t been good for about four years.
– P.J. Brown: I have no evidence to back this up, but given that he just won the title, wouldn’t this be a good moment to call it quits?
– Dikembe Mutombo: His agent says that he won’t play for the minimum, which doesn’t bode well for his chances of a return to the cost-cutting Rockets. That’s OK – they’ll still have the best defensive team in the NBA even without him.
– Francisco Elson: Was rumoured to be talking to Denver about a possible return, but the Nuggets signed Chris Andersen instead because he was cheaper. Negotiating with the Clippers.
– Robert Swift (restricted): Oklahoma City seem keen to keep him, as evidenced by the qualifying offer that they gave him, despite how little he has played in two years. Other teams seem more perturbed by Swift’s incessant knee problems, perhaps rightly so. Personally, I hope it all works out great for him.
– Michael Doleac: His agent offered Doleac’s services to Orlando, but do they really need another backup big man? Does anyone, in fact?
– Chris Richard (restricted): Kevin McHale makes it sound as though Richard’s definitely returning. The cheap price and the lack of suitors seem to confirm this.
– Theo Ratliff: I swear I read somewhere during midseason that he intended to retire after this season, but I can’t find it now, so forget that I said anything.
– David Harrison: The Pacers have ruled out re-signing him, leaving Harrison with roughly zero options.
– Earl Barron: The Heat are out of room, and Barron’s not 18 years old any more. No suitors.
– Alonzo Mourning: Said “one more season” for about the fifth time, but hasn’t signed yet.
– Scot Pollard: Unsigned, and not courted, which probably has something to do with the reconstructive surgery on both ankles.
– Dwayne Jones: Not expected back with Cleveland, which leaves him out of luck. Shame.
– Michael Ruffin: No news is normally good news, unless you’re Michael Ruffin and you’re awaiting news from your agent of possible contract offers from NBA teams.
– Didier Ilunga-Mbenga: Might be invited to the Lakers training camp, or he might not. It’s going to be inconsequential either way.
– Lorenzen Wright: Considering how bad he was during his two years in Atlanta – when he had 186 points, 253 rebounds and 230 fouls – I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no one will sign him. I’ve got a crow ready and waiting, but I think he’s safe.
Down one in the closing stages of a summer league game, new Washington 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 three.
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 potential 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 bad 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 therefore 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.
Here’s what I know about Joey Dorsey – he likes to talk. 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 #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 a mouth. 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.
Giving Away Marcus Camby Should Not Be The Sum Total Of The Plan
July 16th, 2008
The Denver Nuggets traded former DPOY Marcus Camby to the L.A. Clippers yesterday, for, essentially, nothing. The Nuggets got no more than the right to swap second-round picks with L.A. in 2010, a year in which the Clippers will have the lower pick anyway, meaning that Denver won’t be exercising the option. That’s it. That was their return. That was what they got.
That was what they got for Marcus, freaking, Camby.
Marcus Camby is a former DPOY award winner. He may have another one left in him yet, too. Camby is a high calibre player – last year, he averaged 13.1 rebounds and 3.6 blocks a game. 13.1 rebounds per game is a lot of rebounds. And 3.6 is a hell of a lot of blocks. He can pass, and also shoot 20-footers, if you give him a week to load them up and 40 feet of elbow room.
Camby is a rare commodity in this league; he is a centre that isn’t static. He is at the peak of his career, and strangely also at his peak physical condition, having set his new personal best for games played in a season with a commendable 79 appearances last year. Without wanting to go overboard and do something silly, such as calling him a dynamic two-way player, it’s safe to say that Camby is one of the best at his position, the position that is so hard to fill that General Managers will consistently try anything to try and strike gold.
In a league where most executives would willingly sacrifice their closest family members to get an elite centre, the Clippers now have two. And they’re not even overpaid. They got one of them for freakin’ nothing.
How does Marcus Camby fit alongside Wolfgang Kaman? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to better their team simply by not being Aaron Williams. The Clippers just bagged a huge infusion of quality to their team, and all they had to do was not overpay Luol Deng. If they can now trade for Vince Carter using little more than Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas to do so, then suddenly they’re dancing. A front seven of Carter, Camby, Kaman, Baron Davis, Al Thornton, Quinton Ross and Eric Gordon could break 50 wins, even without Elton Brand or a bench.
And yet, somehow, Denver couldn’t even get a first-round pick for him? Is that even possible?
Is instant salary relief really THAT important? Why has this come up now? Why could they not have used the Warriors’ and Sixers’ cap room, before they spent it, as leverage for a better deal? Not even Memphis’s? They couldn’t take back even a BIT of salary if it meant getting some assets, like young players or draft picks? You mean to tell me that a team heading in no particular direction and capped out can afford to give away its best players for absolutely no return whatsoever? How can any team out there justify spending $23 million on a fourth choice power forward while already nursing one of the league’s highest payrolls, paying $60 unnecessary million to a guy who played three minutes the season before, as well as giving Chucky Atkins $13 million to do scant little, can now somehow justify giving away its first-round draft picks and frittering away quality players like confetti?
This from a team that made the ultimate let’s-give-itt-a-shot trade only 18 months ago?
Something seems systematically wrong. Either Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke woke up with the arseache and ordered General Manager Mark Warkentein to do a dramatic about-face and cut payroll immediately at all costs, or Warkentein does not value Camby like I do. Or both.
Whichever it is, the Nuggets caused more problems than they solved. They’re still cap strapped, they’re still a lottery team, they still have no exciting internal future, and they’re still a misshapen veteran team that isn’t getting anywhere, When teams make bad personal moves to save money, purely as collateral damage from their own previous stupid move, then the fans become the victims to the folly that is the NBA and its old boys network.
However, I’m going to try and think positively. The sole solace for the Nuggets in this deal is the $10 million traded player exception that this deal created. This is only of use if it is used, and, given the above about their payroll even after this deal, it will probably go unused. However, if the Nuggets let Allen Iverson expire this summer, they will finally (barring widespread changes) be out from the tax territory in which they currently reside. If that happens, they will still have the TPE to use until July 15th, 2009. And at that point, they’ll be able to add salary again. Whether they do this or not is another matter, but the ability to do so remains. And that’s a small solace that Nuggets can take away and keep.
Who knows, they might even use it to bring Camby back.
–
By the way, while we’re sort of on the subject of the Clippers and Elton Brand, let us tangent for a minute as you explain something to me. As I understand it, the time line of events in their negotiations go like this;
1 – Brand opts out.
2 – The Clippers and Brand verbally agree to a new deal rather quickly.
3 – The Warriors top this offer, just to see if they get lucky. The Sixers follow suit.
4 – Brand and his agent David Falk take news of this new offer to the Clippers, looking to use it as leverage with the Clippers to make them increase their offer slightly.
5 – The Clippers say no.
Now, why would the Clippers do this? By all accounts, they had a verbal agreement for a very reason 5 year, $65 million offer. Why would they be so inflexible in renegotiating that slightly? $13 million is a good price for Elton Brand – if you’re overpaying him at the end of the deal, you’re underpaying him at the start, so it works out. Why wouldn’t you add a few million if it kept him here? Why wouldn’t you discuss a sixth year? Why would you extend qualifying offers to Marcus Williams and Nick Fazekas, keep the unguaranteed Josh Powell around unnecessarily, and even more unnecessarily sign first-round draft pick Eric Gordon before completing your cap space adventure, needlessly costing yourself almost $1.5 million in cap room, a figure which could add over $10 million to the value of a five-year contract? A $10 million that would have meant the re-signing of your best player, and a hell of a good starting five to build upon?
Maybe they didn’t know signing Gordon would cost them cap space. Or maybe they think Fazekas is vital in some way. I couldn’t say. But I think the Clippers, in doing this, nearly managed to one-up The Juan Carlos Navarro Experience of this past season.
– Pick 16: The awesomely-named Marreese Speights goes to the Sixers. But I missed this pick, too, due to more connection difficulties. Hmmmmm. I should probably move to America if I’m going to take Stu Scott’s job. This whole streaming thing isn’t getting it done.
– Pick 17 is made by Toronto for Indiana, as a part of the Jermaine O’Neal deal, which is now being reported as “done”, even though it isn’t. (I’d like to think that Maceo Baston’s inclusion was a deal-breaker.) The Raptors select Roy Hibbert out of Georgetown, and instantly, a video fires up showing Hibbert performing the oft-celebrated Grandad Run™. This can’t be good news, because as we know, grandad runners are not stars, merely gamers who come home every night with mud on their uniform. So if Hibbert isn’t athletic, his life is basically over. But still, at least he’s not Undershirt David Harrison.
Of all the people that were invited to sit in the Green Room – a name that seriously needs reviewing, since it’s neither green nor a room – only Darrell Arthur remains. ESPN uses the short interval after the Hibbert pick to take the time to focus on Arthur’s misery, and to really reinforce his humiliation in front of an international audience of millions. I wish they wouldn’t do this.
(Someone I know went to the draft as the personal guest of Adam Silver. They inform me that Doris Burke was genuinely concerned about Arthur, comforting his family off-camera, and waiting until after they had had their “moment” to interview them after he was finally drafted. God bless Doris Burke and all who sail within her.)
– Pick 18:JaVale McGee goes to the Wizards. David Stern announces that McGee is not here. Question: if you were guaranteed to go in the first round, as McGee was, then why WOULDN’T you go to the draft? What could possibly be a better way to spend the time? You get to introduce yourself to an audience of millions in the suit of your choice, shake hands with David Stern, and have a picture of that moment to take away forever. Never again in your life will you suffer from the classic “what picture should I put about the fireplace” quandry that my mum still suffers from to this day. So why wouldn’t you do this?
Ric Bucher interjects, and announces a trade. The Blazers and Pacers have agreed to swap Jerry D. Bayless and Brandon Rush, which at least makes sense from a depth chart point. The other elements of the trade slowly come to light over the course of the night, and were eventually announced as being Jarrett Jack and Josh McRoberts going to Indiana, with Ike Diogu going to Portland. Therefore, in terms of the peripherals, Portland got hosed. So Bayless had better be comfortably better than Rush. I’m assured that he is, which is something.
(By the way, I say this about Bayless not due to some unrequited love for Jarrett Jack, but because Diogu has been pretty ineffective. Jeff Van Gundy disagrees, saying that Diogu was “underused” in Indiana, but Van Gundy rates Stephon Marbury, so. And anyway, Diogu was only underused because he was always injured. This is a part of what made him ineffective.)
(Oh wait, I just made the realisation that everyone else had already gotten beyond: Brandon and Kareem Rush are on the same team now. Hooray! Score one more for the family theme permeating every transaction tonight. However, bad times are going to ensue when Kareem realises that his brother just took his roster spot.)
Andy Katz has the unusual (for him) task of re-interviewing Brandon Rush, asking for his views now that he is going to be a Pacer instead. Rush makes it painfully obvious in his interview that he doesn’t know the name of the Pacers head coach, Jim O’Brien. Additionally, earlier in the evening, a soundbite captured how new NetBrook Lopez didn’t know who Lawrence Frank is. See, this is the problem that I have with my addiction – why do I care more about the NBA than the people in it?
– Pick 19: The Cavaliers pick J.J. Hickson of North Carolina State. As above, I don’t know about the draftees, but I sense that Darrell Arthur may have been a better pick here, no?
Also, Hickson’s draft profile from ESPN offers up the most stunning quote of the night:
Must Improve: Work Ethic
Would you draft someone about whom this was said? Isn’t this a problem that should be found out in due course, rather than known about in advance? It must be a pretty damn bad work ethic for it to be cited as the biggest weakness of a player drafted outside the lottery. Not since the drafting of Ian Mahinmi back in 2005, which gave us the sensational capsule quote “Must Improve: Overall Skills”, have we had such a sweeping condemnation of a player. Good stuff.
– Pick 20 was sold by John Denver to Charlotte Church the day before the draft, as the Nuggets continue to cut costs to avoid adding to their already enormous payroll.(That Reggie Evanscontract looks really sensible now.) Charlotte uses the pick to take someone called Alexis Ajinca from France, who takes to the stage with great aplomb. You see, JaVale McGee? Ajinca could be bothered to be here. He even crossed the Atlantic for a day. Make an effort, man.
Fran Fraschilla then pisses on Ajinca’s chips by stating that he “has not been productive in the French Pro A league”, a claim backed up by a caption that shows Ajinca averaged 5.0 points and 5.6 rebounds last year. So seemingly, the burn-a-first-rounder-on-a-raw-athletic-Euro trend is not completely beyond us. Makes you wonder why Denver didn’t just pick Ajinca themselves.
Ajinca doesn’t even get a “Must Improve” draft capsule from ESPN, which has got bad news written all over it.
– Pick 21: The Nets are up again. Jay Bilas takes this opportunity to praise them one final time for picking Brook Lopez at #10 – had Lopez slid any further, we might have seen the most graphic on-air suicide since Christine Chubbuck. The panel praises the Nets for “trying to get better”, which seems like a weird thing to praise any team for, particularly one that just traded for Bobby Simmons.
The Nets use the #21 pick to draft Ryan Anderson, who I am reliably informed is this year’s Token Jumpshooting Combo Forward Who Can’t Defend Either Position Or Do Anything Other Than Shoot Threes. Or, as I like to call it, the Steve Novak pick. Pat Garrity has a lot to answer to, for he started this trend.
– Pick 22 sees Courtney Lee drafted by the Orlando Magic. This All-Porno Rookie team is really coming together now, so to speak. Brook Lopez, Robin Lopez, Courtney Lee, Kevin Love. Three girls, one guy, and possibly one horse (unlisted). They could make beautiful films together.
By the way, the draft is WAY more fun when you don’t know anything about anyone.
In keeping with the Ryan Anderson stereotype theme, Sandy Koufos is now this year’s Esteban Batista, and if you don’t know what the hell I’m on about, look here. But if Koufos can hit a hook shot, as his highlight reel suggests, then he already has a leg up on the competition.
– Pick 24 belongs to the Seattle Supersonics, whose new GM Sam Presti acquires draft picks masterfully, but who then uses them less masterfully. In only two seasons, Presti had made more than his fair share of picks, and managed to trade away the only one that amounted to anything in Carl Landry, whom Presti stole at #31 last year, before gifting him away to the Rockets for what amounts to nothing more than the #56 pick this year. There must be some added scepticism, then, after Presti takes someone called Serge Ibaka at #24. Still, it’s no wonder really – the Sonics didn’t pick a tall athletic raw foreign big man last year, after years of spectacular attempts (Johan Petro, Mouhamed Sene, Peter Fehse), so they needed to get back with the programme.
Sorry, I was just looking for a bit of logic in this. Came up empty. Ibaka is the youngest player in the draft, who won’t join for at least two to four more years, and who, if his highlight video is to be believed, can’t score outside of dunking. I don’t think this is the second option that Kevin Durant was looking for.
Ibaka’s draft capsule highlights that he must improve his “experience”, to which Jeff Van Gundy comments “how do you improve your experience?”. He has a point, in a way. Stu Scott then tells us that Ibaka has 17 siblings, and then Jeff Van Gundy interviews his brother Stan. It really is very secular today, isn’t it?
ESPN livens up the now-slightly tepid proceedings with a camera that shows what goes on behind the elaborate façade of the stage. I’d just like to say that I’d really like to be there. Hopefully one day, I will be. Don’t know how, though.
Doris Burke asks Darrell Arthur how he’s coping with his “emotional issues”. Bless her. Caring she may be, but perfect choice of words every time…maybe not.
– Pick 25:Houston picks Nicolas Batum, who exploded onto the scene late into last season’s draft build-up, before dying away to the 25th pick that we now know him as. Fran Fraschilla chimes in, saying that Batum has “no escapability” when dribbling, and that he also has “super-duper athleticism”. He either single-handedly just raised the bar for the other analysts, or drunk it dry.
More is made of Darrell Arthur’s plight, as Ric Bucher reveals that teams are passing on Arthur due to an apparent kidney problem that showed up in routine checks. We also learn that Arthur’s mum is a truck driver, who gave up her wonderfully satisfying job to travel the country and “support” Arthur. Fair enough.
Another Wendi Nix interview seems Mike Dan Tony self-satirising his teams lack of defence. That was fun. And suddenly I’m left pondering whether David Stern dyes the sides of his head, or the top.
– Pick 26: Who is George Hill? I don’t know. But San Antonio just picked him at #26, after spending all morning trying to get rid of the pick. No one mentions how many players have previously been drafted out of Hill’s college, the fabled IUPUI, so I’ll assume it’s 0.
George Hill doesn’t have a draft capsule on Yahoo Sports. That in itself is a damning slant on quite how unexpected this pick was. Even Serge Ibaka got a Yahoo Sports draft capsule. This has bad news written all over it.
– Pick 27 was originally that of the New Orleans Hornets, but it is announced that the Portland Trail Blazers are buying it off of them. Let us please inaugurate a new addition into the Draft Night Traditions list: the Blazers buying a low first-rounder. I bet Dick Vitale goes before this does.
In typical style, they use it to select Darrell Arthur. Figures. Let the record show that the fact that the team with the best young talent in the league is also the team most willing to take risks and get involved in the draft, is in no way a coincidence.
It’s at this point that I first notice Darrell Arthur’s tash. And now I don’t feel bad for him any more. Indeed, more misery wouldn’t go amiss. That’s a baaaaad moustache right there.
– Perhaps coincidentally, my online stream cuts out at this moment, ne’er to return. As a result, I miss picks 28 (Memphis selects Donte Greene) and 29 (Detroit selects D.J. White, for Seattle). So if something hilarious happened here, and you wanted to see my slightly less hilarious take upon it, then I’m sorry. But these are the cards that I was dealt.
I used this time to draw up a list of things that I need to do tomorrow, as well as to write a note to the person whose house I had just let myself into, explaining my gratitude and extending my sincerest apologies. To-do list available upon request.
– I find a new link just in time for pick 30, and rejoin the action just as Stu Scott is shouting “GET A LIFE!”. I don’t know who he shouted this at, or why, so write in with details, if they are interesting.
At 30, Boston selects J.R. Giddens, a player who plays with one sock pulled up and one rolled down. Needless to say, I like him already. Giddens’s draft capsule states that he must improve his “professionalism”, which, given that he’s gone from an amateur to a professional, seems somewhat obvious, but no less troublesome.
This signifies the end of the first round, and thus it’s time for Dick Vitale’s second airing of the night. This time, Vitale gives quite an interesting speech about the new age limit, and about how wrong it is. It’s the first time that I’ve listened to Vitale without tuning him out within seconds, although if you do tune him out, you will tend to notice just how grandiose his constant hand movements are. If you’re deaf, the Vitale segments must cause all kinds of confusion.
It also signifies the lack of first-degree interest towards the draft on my part, and so the entire second round will be bullet-pointed, just as the first round should have been.
33rd pick Joey Dorsey apparently “Must Improve: Concentration”, which seems like a statement that is impossible to quantify. When teams are sitting in their war rooms, do you think that they are privy to these one-line ESPN summaries, and if so, do they factor them into their roster decisions? I hope so. I’d like to know if my player is going to be easily distracted by the arena lights before I draft him. It’s sensible management technique.
34th pick Mario Chalmers has had two cousins already play in the NBA – Chris Smith and his namesake Lionel Chalmers. I felt this was worth mentioning, as it is in keeping with our no-outsiders-allowed undertone of the evening.
35th pick DeAndre Jordan has the most impressive DraftExpress weaknesses list that I’ve ever seen.
• Not productive
• Poor fundamentals
• Extremely limited w/back to the basket
• Lacks strength to hold spot on block
• Mediocre footwork
• Struggles finishing through contact
• Poor passer/Black hole?
• Atrocious free throw shooter
• Not incredibly active
• Defensive awareness
• Pushed around in post
• Not a shot-blocker
• Mental/Physical toughness?
• Maturity/Intangibles
• Long ways away from contributing
• High bust potential
I don’t see “jumping” there, so I’ll assume he’s good at that.
Picks 38 through 40 all apparently need to improve their shooting consistency, the guilty parties being Kyle Weaver, Sonny Weems and Chris Douglas-Roberts. This becomes something of a theme for the second round, and it rears its ugly head again at pick #43, when Patrick Ewing Jr (more family ties!) is drafted by Sacramento. It’s not who you know in this business, it’s who your dad had sex with.
Larry Bird is interviewed about halfway through round two, looking decidedly cross as always. He then refuses to talk about the players he just acquired in trades, as the deals were not “done” yet, and instead lauds the praises of those outgoing. Play the game, Larry. Why else did you think they were interviewing you?
The FinallyFast.com adverts annoy me, although it’s funny the first time you see it. Because we people talk to themselves like that all the time, don’t we?
Chris Mullin is valiantly defending his right to a crew cut, but at some point he should just accept that all hope is lost and shave the thing. That time might be right now, in fact.
Someone named Dick Hendrix was drafted at pick 49 by Golden State, hereby completing our rookie porn star starting five, and also making it decidedly interracial.
Jay Bilas thinks that everyone drafted in the second round is “solid”, apart from the white guys, who are “very solid”.
The draft night highlight occurs at pick 52, when Dallas selects someone called Shan Foster. Foster, knowing that he might get drafted, apparently recorded a song celebrating this event. This song was then broadcast loud and proud to the dozens of people who were still watching the second round. And, due to the magic of YouTube, we can bring you it again right now.
That’s all I have to say about that. Bye.
(P.S: The O.J. Mayo/Kevin Love swap was made after I’d stopped watching, which is why it didn’t factor into what I said. Also, re: that trade – people who belittle it for Minnesota need to bear something in mind. If they wanted Love, they could have just taken him at three. However, doing it this way, they managed to also get a quality player in Mike Miller out of it, while giving up nothing of any value. They didn’t even make their salary situation any worse, giving out basically the exact same amount of money that they took on. So the trade itself, in terms of the peripherals, was heavily in Minnesota’s favour. However, feel free to mercilessly berate their decision that Love was better than Mayo.)
(Take the capitals out of that last sentence and it adopts a whole new meaning.)
(P.P.S: It has also been brought to my attention that at least two of the jokes used in this draft diary also appeared in that of ESPN writer, Bill Simmons. I assure you that I didn’t read his first, and still have not. Of course I didn’t copy jokes from him. I only copy them from people you haven’t heard of.)
It took an intervention of sorts, but I am willing to admit it: I am addicted to the NBA. Even when it’s boring. Even when it’s corrupt. Even when my team sucks. Even though I’m in the wrong continent. Even when doing so is to the direct detriment of my sleep pattern and general health. I am addicted to suckling every molecule of informative fecal matter from the grand protruding arse of NBA factoids, garnering even the most boring information about these people that I’ll never meet, who just so happen to play a sport that I love, despite my never having played a game of it. This isn’t something I’m proud of. I’d definitely rather have a gambling addiction, or a relatively sedate heroin problem. But, so be it.
Nothing is more indicative of the grip of my addiction than the annual NBA Draft. I make no secret of the fact that I don’t know anything about the potential draftees. I do not get to watch NCAA games, and so I will not pretend to know about them/formulate broad sweeping generalisations of these players based off of the opinions of others. No, that would just be silly. Instead, I prefer to typecast people based off of my first impressions, a fleeting couple of minutes to judge the worth of the person presented to us. Who doesn’t love doing this? This is why, as a species, we go speed dating. We are all prone to prejudice based on appearance. Let’s just learn to accept it and make sure that we take it out on sportsmen – the ultimate punching bag, serving only as an outsource for our prejudice, immune from retribution. (Perfectly healthy behaviour and in no way a projection of our own inner emptiness,)
This year, I went for a slightly different approach. Instead of spending the evening before the draft starts smearing my body in the veritable bounty of rumours made public, Scrooge-McDucking it up amongst their unmeasurable riches, I decided to stay off of the internet until the draft started so that there’d be an element of suspense for me in an otherwise increasingly predictable experience. (The other reason for this is that I fell asleep.)
Added drama hit the ShamBulls household on this particular draft night, as an as-yet-undiagnosed internet problem has left us with an unusably slow DSL connection, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to watch the draft online, or even listen to it. (You wouldn’t believe the number of Americans who told me to “go to a bar or something”, as their remedy for this crisis. Oh you silly, silly fools. If it were possible to watch the draft on a TV set, don’t you think I’d start there?) So, to watch the draft, and to be able to write the following anti-climactic piece, desperate measures were called for.
As a result, I drove to my friend’s house at 1am, let myself in, and watched the draft in her front room for 5 hours as she slept upstairs. Now THAT’S how you feed an addiction.
(I then sold her TV for crack.)
I finally got a stream working about 90 seconds before the Bulls made the first pick of the night, and it is from there that My Totally Boring Draft Diary begins. (Written in real time, even though it isn’t. Not sure why.)
– The first shot I see is one of the Bulls “War Room”, in which General Manager John Paxson can be seen sitting down, biting his nails, surrounded by a lot of anonymous men in anonymous suits. I have only three questions:
a) Why do we have to do this War Room tradition every year?
b) Why are we pretending that some intense last-minute decision making is going on in there, when it’s clearly a bunch of men in suits watching themselves on the telly, their minds made up hours if not weeks ago?
c) Why do we only get the War Room for the team picking first, when clearly that’s the ONE room in which nothing frantic is going to be happening?
Also, where is Steven A. Smith? He seems to have been bumped from the analysts panel, and regardless of how much or how little you think of Mark Jackson, you surely know that Smith’s removal is a good thing. Less of a good thing are Stu Scott’s glasses, recently borrowed from Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon on what we can only assume was a lost bet. Which is pretty much how Maddon got them from Joe 90 in the first place.
– Pick 1: A few seconds after leaving the war room shot, Commissioner David Stern walks up to the podium – to more cheers than he got at the NBA Finals trophy presentation – and, sure enough, he announces that the Bulls take Derrick Rose first overall in a move that shocks literally no one. Instantly we are thrown back to the green room, just in case the cameras accidentally caught something interesting. They didn’t. The Bulls men in suits awkwardly clap themselves, and a single handshake is offered up by whoever sat nearest the camera. Yep, that green room camera was totally worth it. Let’s do it again next year.
Derrick Rose’s interview offers up four interesting discoveries.
a: Steven A. Smith is seemingly doing the interviews this year. So we weren’t finally free from him after all.
b: Rose’s nickname is “Pooh”, which is odd, but somewhat synonymous with roses at least.
c: He talks slowly, deeply, with extremely simple and formulaic diction, and saying not one single solitary word worth remembering.
d: His mum has exactly the same voice as him.
This was enough to make me apprehensive about the pick. Name the last player who was completely impersonable to lead his team to a championship. It’s quite hard, isn’t it? Garnett, Shaq, Rasheed Wallace, Jordan…..I guess you have to go back as far as Olajuwon to find the most recent example, and he wasn’t that bad. And Hakeem has the ol’ English-as-a-second-language fallback that Rose will never have. This bugs me. (Tim Duncan doesn’t count, by the way, because he’s brilliant in ways that Derrick Rose never will be, and also because counting him invalidates my already-tenuous point.)
This brings us neatly into pick number two…..
– Pick 2 …..where the highly personable Michael Beasley is taken by Miami, who idly threatened not to pick him for a few weeks. If you bought into any of that bobbins, shame on you. Really. A plague on both your houses. It was the least convincing acting job since Val Kilmer in Top Secret, and if you thought there was any legitimate chance of them picking anyone other than the instant 20ppg scoring forward, then you really need to re-think how much you trust people.
Jay Bilas chimes in, touting Beasley’s “second jump ability” as soon as he opens his mouth, which seems like a weird place to begin praising the most sure-fire star in this draft. (Well, so I’ve heard.) Beasley bounds up confidently to the stage, but then lets us all down by not signing David Stern’s head.
Doris Burke – who is to spend the whole evening conducting green room interviews, flexing her biceps, and looking genuinely concerned and/or relieved at all times – interviews Beasley’s mother, Fa-TEE-ma Smith. Doris congratulate Fa-TEE-ma on raising five kids by herself – the obvious connotations of this aside – but neglects to mention the infection in her first name. I’d open with it, it’s a new one.
– Pick 3 sees the Minnesota Timberwolves – who didn’t have to try hard to suck this year – pick O.J. Mayo, who treats us to the first three-piece suit of the night, as well as Sam Mitchell’s glasses. This news breaks Jay Bilas’s heart, as his “Best Available” list sees Brook Lopez confidently listed as the third best player in this draft. As Jeff Van Gundy comforts Bilas off-camera (maybe), Stu Scott asks the panel about the Jermaine O’Neal trade.
Woah, hang on: Jermaine O’Neal trade? Can someone please elaborate? Some of us were asleep and missed this. Don’t assume that we know. Help me!!!
(No one elaborates. I am left floundering.)
There follows a brief O.J. Mayo interview, in which he awkwardly stares directly at the camera while describing how he will do whatever it takes to help the team win (a cliché that’s currently appeared in all three draftee interviews), before we cut to a video conference with an extremely tired-looking Pat Riley overdubbing a video clip of Michael Beasley’s vertical leap test. Hasn’t anybody told them? Beasley is 6’9! He’s too small to be a power forward in the NBA. Even I know that, and I don’t know anything. (Note: that bit about 6’9 being too short? That was satire.)
– Russell Westbrook is chosen by Seattle with Pick 4, in a move that draws audible stares from the panel, and a startled noise of bewilderment from the crowd. Jay Bilas confidently weighs in to fill the airtime void, exclaiming “who would have thought, this time last year, that Westbrook was a possible top four draft pick?”. He probably could have changed “year” to “week”.
Stephen A’s interview with Westbrook lasts for precisely one question, before he is forced to throw it over to Doris Burke, who is subconsciously challenging Kevin Durant to an arm wrestle. The television executives believe that we, Joe Public, really want to hear Kevin Durant’s views on his team’s decision to draft Westbrook. And if Durant had something negative to say, they’d be right. But, unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Durant smiled, said words so meaningless that I can’t even remember them, and the world continued to spin. While I love the drama of the draft, purely for the way that the entire NBA landscape can change within four hours, it could definitely be better television. Maybe there could be some monster truck racing between picks.
– Pick 5:Kevin Love goes to Memphis. I guarantee you, GUARANTEE YOU, that I thought of the Gay/Love jokes before you did. That thing was instantaneous, I swear to God. As was the subsequent Hakim Warrick for Luther Head trade idea. Stern hadn’t even got the word “Love” out and I was concocting “Love Gay Head” blog posts. Good times. Between Kevin Love and Lopez twins, we have the outlines of a fine All-Porn Star Rookie Team here.
The subsequent Kevin Love analysis has warning flags all over it. Bilas begins the ultimate he’s-not-that-good cliché round-up (“he knows how to play the game, he has a great feel for the game, and he’s strong”), and as footage, ESPN choose to show Love’s ability to hit 80-foot three-pointers, before flashing up the polarizing caption “Must Improve: Explosion Ability”. Is that even possible? I’d be worried about this pick right now if I was a Grizzlies fan. Add it to the list of things to worry about down there.
Then, things improve. First, we learn that Kevin Love’s uncle Mike is the lead singer of the Beach Boys (I looked up whether Mike’s name was Mike Love, and it was, so that’s good news), and then both Kevin and the rest of “The Love Family” are interviewed. Kevin shows himself to be eloquent, friendly, and not firmly adhered to the interview chair like most other draftees, while his father Stan Love nervously twirls what looks like an iPod during his turn, apparently threatened by Doris Burke. Following this, Stu Scott tries to build up the drama, for the hometown Knicks are picking next, but he is undermined slightly by the camera cutting to a shot of a Knick fan yawning. This was a good montage.
– Pick 6: The Knicks surprise and annoy their travelling faithful by picking Danilo Gallinari to a resounding chorus of boos, which Gallinari overlooks with good grace. Even the panel had to backpedal, having talked about the Knicks selecting every candidate other than Danilo before the pick was made. Fran Fraschilla interjects with the soothing declaration that Gallinari “will not be a superstar”, which didn’t help to assuage the rising angst of the gathered New Yorkers. (At #6, wouldn’t you at least pick a guy with an outside chance of this happening? If only a faint one? Especially if you’re the Knicks? And why another small forward when they can’t shift two of the four that they already have? Still, it’s good news for the current Jared Jeffries bet that I have got going, which I stand to win unless Jeffries averages 9.5 points a game. Basically I’ve won it already.)
Stu Scott tries to brighten proceedings, by announcing that Gallinari already has a personalised shoe, called the “Reebok Rooster”, helpfully pointing out that “Galli” is Italian for rooster. Thus, if you didn’t already know, Gallinari is forever after known as “The Italian Cock”. Good times.
(EDIT – “Nari” is an Italian name, meaning “Happy”. Thus, Danilo Gallinari is, literally, Cock Happy. I’m going to tell this joke over a million times in the coming days.)
SAS’s interview with Gallinari focuses on little else but the booing Knicks fans, which seems unfair. (You could say that Steven A. Smith was trying to manhandle The Cock. In fact, I will say that.) Gallinari copes with it well, citing the fact that he will win them over when they see that he “plays hard”, a cliché now invoked of five of the six interviews so far. I’d like to see more “I will give it only the merest token effort during my time here” interviews, just to mix it up a little.
– Eric Gordon is chosen by the L.A. Clippers as Pick 7, taking to the stage in a get-up that I originally wrote in my notebook as “sharp”, before crossing it out in favour of “bad”.
White jacket, black trousers, black and white stripy shirt with a plain white collar. How very…..something.
It is pointed out that five of the first seven players chosen are college freshman, but at no point does anyone mention why. (Has this 19-year-old age limit really changed anything?) There follows an Eric Gordon montage, featuring him shooting jump shots from around his right ear, a commentary that describes him as a small two guard, plus a screenshot that cites “ball-handling” as a weakness. So my first impressions of Eric Gordon are unflattering at best.
We leave this high octane moment to cut to someone called Wendi Nix interviewing new Knicks president Donnie Walsh (I see what they did there) who is wearing Pacers colours. Walsh, looking a lot like a Mafia capo tonight, lets down this image when he speaks without an Italian-American New York drawl. Still, he’s in the right place for it now. Maybe he can develop one.
Jeff Van Gundy explains that the Knicks don’t need point guard help because they have Stephon Marbury. Everybody is stunned into a submissive silence.
– Pick 8:Joe Alexander goes to Milwaukee. I don’t know who he is, or what he’s about, but I’m calling him “Diamond”, because all people with the name Joe get that prefix. Similarly, all Petes are “Pistol”, all Daves are “Dynamite” and all Marios are “Super”. These things write themselves.
The compulsory montage offers the viewer the chance to see Joe Alexander’s baby pictures, which must be something that he consented to, but for reasons that I cannot possibly fathom. Clips of his play show that Alexander is a keen proponent of The Grandad Run™, the ultimate warning sign for any draftee. (FYI, The Grandad Run™ is a run defined by absolutely no arm movement, even when running at full tilt.) Name two players who star in this league, even when burdened with The Grandad Run™. You can’t. Yao Ming is one, but the second….he just doesn’t exist.
Alexander then changes the very fabric of society in his interview, by saying that he will “work hard”, as opposed to the usual “play hard”. SAS responds, saying “you know the trade that the Bucks made today”, and before I have time to excitedly mouth “NO!”…..my online streams cuts out. Terrific. So I’m still none the wiser. Note to self – don’t miss the build-up next year.
– Pick 9: After a quick scramble, the feed comes back barely in time to see Jay Bilas plugging Brook Lopez once again, just for Charlotte to disappoint him by picking D.J. Augustin. The pick is greeted by a consensus congratulations from everyone except Jay, who openly wonders why Charlotte wouldn’t go big, but instead went for the 5’11 guy. Jeff Van Gundy begins his analysis with the sentence “the big thing is, what are they going to do with Gerald Wallace,” thereby making it painfully obvious that he knows absolutely nothing about D.J. Augustin. By the way, I always get a jolly when I find out that I’m taller than an NBA player, and I don’t know why.
The fact that Richard Jefferson was traded earlier today is idly mentioned in the build-up to the Nets picking tenth. Would someone please put me out of my misery and tell me about all these trades, please? Was Jefferson traded to Jermaine O’Neal or something? What have the Bucks got to do with this? Don’t ever assume the public are clever. We’re not. And we have afternoon naps sometimes.
– Pick 10: Brook Lopez goes. Jay Bilas lives.
Here’s what I know about big men from Stanford – Mark Madsen is one. As are the Collinstwins. I shouldn’t hold them against the Lopez brothers, but I will.
Jay Bilas’s main selling point on Brook Lopez is how “tough” he is. One question – if you’re far bigger than all of your peers, more athletic, and also “tough”, why would you only average eight rebounds a game?
A lot is also made of the fact that his twin brother Robin Lopez will be drafted at some point tonight too, making them the third set of brothers currently in the NBA (but soon to be one of four – read on, captivated viewer!). This, when combined with the well-defined fact that half of the NBA is in some way the other half’s cousin, makes the NBA one great big family love-in. Who said that the sport had lost its appeal to the white American audience?
Someone FINALLY throws up a caption showing the Bucks trade mentioned earlier: Milwaukee acquires Richard Jefferson for Bobby Simmons and the Chinese anticlimax, Yi Jianlian. In the unlikely event that you hadn’t noticed, that trade is staggeringly bad for New Jersey. You mean to tell me a 21-foot jump shooter and a contract so bad that it’s not even expiring is the best value that you can get for a 28-year-old 22 ppg scorer in the prime of his career? Really? You couldn’t even get a future pick out of them? Not even a second? A meagre second wouldn’t offset the rest of the deal, but you surely need to leverage at least something.
– Pick 11 sees Jerry D. Bayless go to Indiana, in a move that baffles the announcers, who proclaim that Indiana doesn’t need a point guard. Either they weren’t watching last year, or Jermaine O’Neal was dealt for a point guard. Rather than wait it out like the Jefferson thing, I looked it up, and saw that O’Neal had been traded to Toronto for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, Macy O’Baston, and the number 17 pick. Good trade for Indy, that. Too much from Toronto, but it might be all right. Scott helpfully points out that Jamaal Tinsley is now “for sale”, the implication being that he wasn’t before.
In his interview, Bayless says he’ll play wherever he is needed. So that’s nice. Bayless is apparently really good at golf. So that helps. He’s also apparently not very good at passing, but really, which of these two skills do you need more in your point guard? It’s clearly the golf.
Now, when I say that I don’t know anything about the draftees in any given year, I’ve usually at least HEARD of them. With Jason Thompson, I am stumped. I’ve never heard of him, nor his college (Rider), nor even his conference (the MAC or something). It would be immature of me to hold my ignorance against Thompson, but what else am I to do? This is a night for snap judgements and first impressions, after all.
David Stern tells us that Thompson is “not here”. So it follows either this wasn’t a ‘promise pick’ by Sacramento, or Thompson declined the offer to turn up, as he didn’t want several thousand people staring at him, mouthing “who the hell is that?”. That seems reasonable.
A table is quickly fashioned by ESPN, showing us that the selection of Thompson ties the record for the lowest that the first senior in any draft has ever been drafted. His company on that table is made up of Melvin Ely, Rafael Araujo and Acie Law. A list with those three in it can’t ever be good.
– Pick 13:Brandon Rush is selected by the Portland Trail Blazers, ostensibly to back up the back-up to his namesake, Brandon Roy. So confusing is the names thing that Stephen A. Smith immediately asks Rush what it will be like to back up Brandon Rush, which I claim as vindication. This marks the second time tonight that a pair of brothers have joined the league, as Brandon’s brother Kareem Rush is an Indiana Pacer for at least five more days.
At this moment, my feed cuts out again, freezing irreparably on a screen that shows “Sacramento: Pick 12 (Jason Thompson). Fan Grade: F”. Tough crowd.
(You know, there’s only been one Euro drafted so far. Maybe that trend of picking completely unready Euros way too high is finally gone for good.)
– Pick 14: I missed pick #14, busy trying to find a new stream, when Golden State drafted somebody named Anthony Randolph. This marks the second straight year that they have drafted a 6’10, 200lb forward.
Dick Vitale makes his first appearance of the evening, in one of draft night’s more annoying traditions. I have no problem with Dick Vitale – his name is Dick Vitale, after all, and no amount of deliberate mispronunciation of his surname will hide this fact. And he’s passionate. But do people really have to encourage the “baby” thing? Let the baby have his bottle, but don’t make the problem worse. We may as well get Scotty Nguyen in the booth if this is how it’s going to be.
– Robin Lopez goes to Phoenix at Pick 15. That leads to this happening:
And that’s unfortunate.
Also, let’s get this out of the way now. Robin Lopez has big hair. OK? We get this. As a result, it is now obligatory to compare him to the other players with big hair, Anderson Varejao and Joakim Noah. Brian May. Charles the First. So let’s get it all out of the way early so that we need not bother with it again.
(By the way, his mum is called Deborah Ledford. Ledford is a baaaaaad name for a basketball player.)
Coming up soon: Part 2. I only broke it down into two parts because, as you can see – it’s way, way too long. But I’m not sorry.
It turns out defence does indeed win championships
June 18th, 2008
In the unlikely event that you hadn’t noticed, defence wins championships.
In the six games of this NBA Finals series, the Celtics ran about two perimeter isolation plays, not including ones at the end of quarters. They didn’t need to run any. The offence took care of itself from running only the simplest stuff. All they had to do was push the ball off of Laker misses and turnovers, occasionally post up Kevin Garnett, have the shooters run to the wings on the break, and keep setting screens. As well as let Ray Allen shoot open threes.
The defence is what won it. L.A.’s offence was contained with relative ease. The only times the Lakers could get the ball in the paint in the last three games were on entry passes to Pau Gasol, and Pau’s options from there were limited to the extra-pass, the re-feed, or staggering to the rim like a drunk teenage girl. They became nothing more than a turnover, a shot-clock waster, and a back-rimmer respectively as Boston routinely denied the Lakers every option possible from their multi-option playbook.
Kobe Bryant could not get to the rim. The best player on the planet at contorting his body and knifing his way through holes that the defence did not know they that had left, suddenly found a defence that hadn’t left any. All but a handful of Bryant’s points came from contested jump shots, a resource which dries up eventually, no matter how good you are at plundering it. Whenever the Lakers attempted to make the skip, extra or entry passes that Boston made so routinely, a turnover ensued, as a Celtic defender always managed to get a hand in the way. Not a single thing came easy. And that’s how it should be. The Lakers defence had no such boast. Instead, they had Vladimir Radmanovic.
This is the mock-up with which to style your team. Get yourselves some athletes, who know the meaning of defensive rotation. Then teach them how to make jump shots like Ray Allen.
Congratulations to the Celtics on the most bipolar 24 months in NBA history. It’s nice to see you finally get rewarded after being such a historically barren franchise. I will now ooze maximum resentment towards a team that I don’t especially like, but one that I respect highly, and whom thoroughly deserve the crown of the best team in the NBA. Contrived celebrations all around.
By unpopular demand, I won’t talk about baseball. Instead, I’ll talk about basketball. I shall retread the observations of the hundreds of other writers who are covering the subject, while adding no unique spin. It’s how we roll around here.
1) There’s no reason why Lamar Odom shouldn’t be able to defend Kevin Garnett better than he does. None whatsoever. He has the length to bother his jump shots as well as anyone can bother them, the athleticism to prevent any easy drives to the basket, and the reasonable man-to-man post defence to cope with the rare times that Garnett plays back to the basket. But he doesn’t do it that well. And not only does he struggle at it, but he doesn’t do it much at all, as Pau Gasol seems to end up with the assignment a lot of the time. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Also, this is somewhere where Andrew Bynum would come in handy.
2) Something that also doesn’t make a lot of sense is Vlad Rad starting and playing as much as he is. I understand the Lakers’ need for shooting and spacing. I do. But Radmanovic is bad in all other aspects of the game. (His rebounding numbers in this series have been quite good, but try and think of a single Radmanovic rebound. You can’t – they were all gimmies that his replacement could have gotten, too.) And when you’re matched up against a team that starts Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Garnett at the 2-3-4 spots, you’re left with the unattractive prospect of having Radmanovic guarding one of those three, particularly when Kobe Bryant spends so much time on Rajon Rondo. And Radmanovic just can’t do that. Leave him in as a token starter if you must, but don’t actually PLAY him. Trevor Ariza can’t shoot, but he still needs these minutes. Note – this is also a situation where Andrew Bynum would come in handy, as Radmanovic wouldn’t be a starter.
3) This is more of a general point than a Finals specific point, given his performance thus far, but people should probably stop calling the “Celtics Big Three” by that name. Ray Allen never was as good as his two peers, and unlike those two, Ray Allen has also lost something. He’s a great third option to have, but the label “Big Three” implies some kind of parallel between all parties, that everything is equal, and that each is as important as the others. And that’s wrong. Maybe they should switch it to Rondo instead.
4) In the fourth quarter of game three, Kevin Garnett hit a long jump shot, one that boosted his shooting percentage to about 84%. The camera cut to Garnett running back on defence, and showed him puffing his cheeks with gusto, like a man who had just narrowly avoided driving into his own mother. Perhaps there’s something in this “Garnett not clutch” thing. (Still, at least it wasn’t a fall-away.)
5) Kobe picked up a technical in the first half of game three. At some point in the fourth quarter, when Kobe protested a rather obvious foul call made against him, he complained for a minute, and then walked away. Mark Wunderlich (great name by the way) walked after Kobe, yelling aggressively, almost as if he was goading Kobe into his second technical. Am I the only one who saw this? Is this really kosher? It seems unlikely that Wunderlich wanted to T him up given the Donaghy accusations out this week, but still.
6) Last year, Sasha Vujacic couldn’t dribble and run at the same time. He couldn’t shoot, pass, play defence, or generally avoid screwing up. Now he’s the second-best player in the NBA Finals. How did that happen? I will now go grow my hair out long, hone my jump shot, and give myself an Eastern European girls name. Hi, I’m Martha.
7) Sam Cassell’s play in this series is startling, weird, and amusing if you don’t like the Celtics. Every time he touches the ball, he winds up shooting it, and whether he hits the shot or not, it wasn’t a good one to take. Essentially, Sam Cassell is out there playing like Eddie House…..on a team that also has Eddie House. (Insert Anchorman quote beginning “Take it easy, Champ”.) Doc Rivers finally figured this out in game three, gave Cassell the quick hook, and let Eddie House himself play the Eddie House role, but not before Cassell had managed to get up four shots in seven minutes. Hooray for heady veteran play!
8) Speaking of heady veteran play, congratulations to P.J. Brown for needlessly starting on Jordan Farmar, travelling, setting moving screens, being unable to get his lay-ups above rim height (that old quandary) and generally doing little worthwhile apart from one frozen rope jump shot. It was certainly the signing that put the Celtics over the top. And I heartily endorse having P.J. stay out there for 18 minutes in game three doing little worthwhile as Leon Powe watches on the sidelines, wondering quite what he did wrong in game two where he had more points scored than minutes played. I heartily endorse this because I want the Celtics to lose.
9) At some point in this series, there’s going to be a game where the Celtics score 21 in the fourth quarter, and Kobe scores 23 by himself. It may be tomorrow. You need to remember this.
10) You know that thing where a player runs into a cameraman while chasing a loose ball, there’s a few seconds of silence as the director whispers into the announcer’s ear, and then the announcer (now aware of the man’s name) goes on to congratulate the cameraman’s professionalism while generally acting all buddy-buddy towards a man whose name he didn’t know until ten seconds previously? We could probably do without this.
11) The announcing crew for these games has been awesome. Mike Breen is the new industry standard, Jeff Van Gundy is FAR better than I ever would have thought possible, and Mark Jackson is a lot more comfortable when you give him a third guy to work alongside. They have been intelligent, humorous, and fair. The presentation has been good in general, although bear in mind that I don’t get to see the ESPN studio line-up with Jon Barry and friends. We even managed to get through game three without a single unnecessary Michael Jordan comparison. Good times.
If they could stop the courtside celebrity shots, particularly those of Jack Nicholson, then we’re onto a winner.
And why wouldn’t he? A free agent this offseason, Navarro has been roundly stiffed by Memphis, who have managed to mismanage his situation rather spectacularly, in the way that only they know how. Let’s recap:
1: Memphis traded a protected first rounder to Washington for the draft rights to Navarro.
2: They then sign Darko Milicic to a big deal, taking up most of their cap space.
3: Then, the Grizzlies completely inexplicably sign Casey Jacobsen and Andre Brown to minimum salary deals before completing negotiations with Navarro, as well as sign Mike Conley to his rookie deal (thus making his cap number 120% of the scale, not the 100% that was billed before he signed.)
As a result, they were left with only just above the minimum left from their cap room to give Navarro ($538,050), after he had already sealed his buyout with Barcelona. Navarro, as a result, had to take the only offer that Memphis could give him – one made unnecessarily poor by those inconsequential Jacobsen and Brown signings – and wound up playing for an overall financial loss last season.
Memphis then sucked all year, and also traded away Juan’s mate, Pau Gasol.
In the end, Navarro left Europe to come to the NBA, where he was treated with less money, less minutes, less acclaim, less wins, and less friends than he had just left his native country for.
So no, I shouldn’t imagine that he’s entirely sold on the idea of coming back.
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’ve seen before.
To be completed in an order best described as “Random”.
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:
Re-sign Okafor, but don’t overpay – let him find out how weak the market is the hard way. Get better backup guards, 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.
The first 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’ve seen before..
To be completed in an order best described as “Random”.
(* = has incentives. Hughes’s salary listed WITHOUT incentives, that are dependent on win totals, and thus won’t be considered likely. Hinrich’s salary listed WITH incentives, which probably won’t be considered likely either.)
Ben Gordon (qualifying offer – $6,404,749, cap hold – $14,645,007) Luol Deng (qualifying offer – $4,452,574, cap hold – $9,961,017) Demtris Nichols (qualifying offer – $886,517, cap hold – $512,596)
Draft picks:
First round: 9th pick, subject to lottery results. (Cap hold – $1,840,800) Second round: 39th pick (no cap hold)
Cap room/exceptions:
Nada room, MLE, BAE, and a $5,205,000 trade exception.
Let Chris Duhon go. Gas Larry Hughes. Don’t lose Gordon and Deng for nothing – either re-sign them, or get value in a sign and trade. Try and wriggle out from under Simmons’s final guaranteed year. Add a veteran centre and a veteran point guard. DON’T BLOCK THE YOUNGSTERS. Explore the possibility of debilitating widespread roster overhaul, but don’t for the love of God make a losing trade involving a young player whose value is way below its best. Not again.
Do NBA Players Ever Actually Accept Their Qualifying Offers?
April 16th, 2008
If your team didn’t agree to an extension with its starlet young player this past offseason – such as is the case with the Atlanta duo of Josh Childress and Josh Smith, the Chicago duo of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, amongst others – then you’ve probably experienced a modicum of conversation as to whether that player will take the one-year qualifying offer this offseason rather than the security of a long-term deal, leaving the distinct possibility that your team will lose a key player and important asset, for nothing in return. Talk of this possibility happening is particularly widespread in the case of Gordon, who hasn’t done much to deny it.
Let me try and set your mind at rest – it’s really not that likely.
Or rather, it should be really unlikely. It might happen, but history suggests that it shouldn’t. This is a list of all the rookie scale players to have accepted the fifth-year qualifying offer in recent times, and how that went for them.
Season before free agency: 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 51% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 3.0 points, 1.8 rebounds, 36% shooting Season after that: 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 47% shooting
Melvin Ely has had one year of average NBA production in seven attempts. That one season was, conveniently, the final one of his rookie contract. Never justifying his draft position, that one year gave Ely the chance to make a bit of money, especially given that it was probably his only other chance at a multi-year contract. (Ely was 28 at the time, after joining the league at age 24. Ely took Charlotte’s one year QO of $3,308,615 (which may or may not have been the only contract that they offered) in preference to taking Phoenix’s multi-year offer, or one from the Warriors.
Unfortunately, Ely’s play then regressed, and he is now on a minimum salary contract with the Hornets.
Season before free agency: 11.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 9.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting Season after that: 6.6 points, 3.3 rebounds, 42% shooting
Seattle dodged a bullet when Radmanovic turned down their exceedingly generous offer of a six year, $42 million extension. Why he did this, I don’t know. Maybe he thought he was worth more, or maybe he just hated Seattle. Either way, Seattle reacted, dealing him to the L.A. Clippers for Chris Wilcox, a better player whom they managed to re-sign for half of what Radmanovic turned down.
Radmanovic did still manage to receive a full MLE contract from the L.A. Lakers, a contract which totalled five years and $30.427 million. But, when combined with his qualifying offer of roughly $3.1 millionish, Radmanovic managed to lose almost $10 million on the deal, as well as save Rick Sund from himself.
Season before free agency: 11.1 points, 4.5 rebounds, 49% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 7.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, 44% shooting Season after that: N/A
Despite his physical profile, Pietrus has always been a flawed player, but with the onset of the new Warriors system under Don Nelson, many of these were able to be reasonably well covered up. In the fourth season of his rookie deal, Pietrus turned in comfortably the best season of his four-year career, and was courted heavily by Miami. His agent claimed to have had four teams offer their full MLE to Pietrus, which makes it doubly odd that he didn’t take any of them.
In the end, Pietrus was stuck with the one year, $3,470,771 qualifying offer from Golden State. From there, the inevitable has happened – he has regressed. His stats are backwards, his weaknesses are no better than they were, and his team just missed the playoffs. Suddenly, Pietrus’s package seems less attractive.
Season before free agency: 9.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 47% shooting, 1.5 blocks Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 10.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, 45% shooting, 1.5 blocks Season after that: 8.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 49% shooting, 0.8 blocks
Two key things to remember with Stromile’s choice to sign the QO:
1) It was for $6.2 million, more than he would have gotten on the open market for the first season of any contract.
2) Memphis made it clear that they would match anything, and wouldn’t entertain many sign-and-trade offers.
3) He really, really didn’t want to be there.
(That’s three things, but you get the idea.)
Financially, Stromile either breaks about even by turning down the QO and signing a four-year MLE deal (which was the deal he signed with Houston after the QO year expired), or he’s maybe even slightly ahead on the deal. Unlike most players, his play didn’t decline under the QO, and while his numbers have suffered slightly in the last three years, his play remains pretty good.
He did not get his wish for getting out of Memphis, though, as he was traded back there after only one season in Houston. Tough break.
–
Aaaaaand……..that’s everyone this decade. I would go back further and include players such as Michael Olowokandi (a pretty resounding example of why not to turn down extensions), but it becomes too difficult to find the right numbers, so I won’t. Those four are the only rookie scale players to have taken the qualifying offer since the year 2000.
They’re 1-4, with only Swift making the right move.
HALF-BAKED CONCLUSIONS FROM HALF-BAKED ANALYSIS:
First off, it’s pretty obvious that four people in four drafts is not a huge amount of people to accept the qualifying offer. That goes without saying, given that 124 people were drafted in the first round of those four drafts. But I said it anyway.
Secondly, note that the only one to have made a decent decision to take the qualifying offer was a second overall pick, which had a huge impact on the size of the offer in question. For reference’s sake, here is a list of all the qualifying offers for those fourth-year rookie scale players from the 2004 draft who did not get extensions:
(Everyone else either got an extension, or have already been waived.)
Not all of these players will get a qualifying offer, because the team will not want them for that price, or indeed any price. In two cases (Swift and Livingston), the qualifying offer might actually be an advisable route, given the serious injuries from which both are struggling to recover. But only in a few cases is the qualifying offer of a significant threat to be a viable option: Emeka Okafor (who turned down a five year, $60 million extension), Ben Gordon (who turned down a five year, $50 million extension), and maybe some of the lower-down players (Allen, Telfair).
Bizarrely, Okafor and Gordon have both had worse years since turning those extensions, which could mean anything. It could make them more likely to take the security while they can still get it, or it could make them more liable to have a third attempt at a successful contract year push.
The other factor here is the deep free agent class, that affects everybody in this list. Pessimists theorise that this may mean more players take the one year QO and make themselves available for the 2009 free agent market instead. Optimists might say that instead, because of the lack of money out there, those offers from their current teams suddenly look a lot more lucrative and sensible. You can probably guess which of those two schools of thought I subscribe to.
Either way, it’s extremely difficult to imagine those two (plus others, such as Deng and Iguodala) turning down $50+ million, twice. Especially since they haven’t done much to justify turning it down once.
There is not a lot of recent history on which to deduce whether taking the qualifying offer is a wise/probable decision or not. This, in itself, is indicative of the fact that it’s a highly unlikely scenario. And when what little precedent there is shows the move to be a generally unwise one, that only reaffirms the idea that the likelihood of a player choosing to accept the qualifying really is nothing to fear.
The only bits worth keeping from the long-deleted 2008 Where Are They Now series
April 14th, 2008
Andrei Fetisov is the ultimate “who the hell”. A draft choice by the Bucks back in the dark ages of 1994, Andrei never made it to the NBA. Given that he’s now 36 years old and retired, the dream is probably dead. Still, the Bucks do still own his rights, for he hasn’t been retired for long enough yet for them to lose them.
This is worth elaborating on, actually. You’re probably wondering, why are Milwaukee keeping onto his rights, when they have no intention of signing him at any point? Well, the answer is that they’re using him for his trade value. That probably seems like a stupid statement, given that the draft rights who will never join the league have about as much use as a chocolate teapot. But it’s not about the value of the rights per se: it’s more of a technical issue.
In trades, both teams have to give up something. What that something is, is up to them. A player, pick, or cash are options. But sometimes, they don’t want to (or can’t) give those things up. So they have to give up at least something, even if only as a token gesture. That’s where these draft rights become useful. They can act as the “something” given up in a trade. A team can give up the draft rights to a player as their outgoing half of a trade, and add in nothing more if they so wish (or are so able).
That may sound like it’s farfetched, and would never happen. Yet it does. It’s rare, but it does occasionally happen. For example, when Peja Stojakovic left Indiana to sign with New Orleans, Indiana asked New Orleans – with a cash incentive to convince New Orleans to help them – to make the transaction a sign-and-trade, rather than an outright signing. The act of doing this garnered Indiana a mahoosive trade exception, which allowed them to promptly acquire Al Harrington, something that they could not previously have done without the trade exception. However, the trade had Indiana giving New Orleans some cash and Stojakovic, but New Orleans not giving out any players or draft picks back to Indiana. (And why would they add any? They’re the ones doing Indiana the favour.) This meant that they had to give up something else in the trade, and the thing that they wound up forfeiting were the draft rights to Andy Betts, a beautiful and fantastic Englishman drafted in 1998 who won’t play in the NBA. It’s not much, but it’s ‘something’. And that’s all that they needed it to be.
Another recent example, from this past trade deadline, saw the Memphis Grizzlies as the third team in a two-team trade between Houston and New Orleans (again). The Rockets traded Mike James and Bonzi Wells to the Hornets for Bobby Jackson, in a move to get Houston under the luxury tax threshold. New Orleans welcomed the new players (well, Bonzi, at least), but they needed to give more outgoing salary to make the trade work for them. So they needed to include the minimum salaries of Adam Haluska and Marcus Vinicius. Houston could afford to take back Haluska, but not Vinicius as well, for that would put them back into the tax territory and make the whole move rather pointless for them. In stepped Memphis, who took on the salary cap number of Vinicius to make the trade possible, and who then promptly waived him. However, to take on Vinicius, the rules, as always, said that Memphis had to give up at least something to make the deal work. The ‘something’ that they chose were the draft rights to Sergei Lishouk, drafted in 2004 and who will never join the NBA. Had they not held Lishouk’s rights for all of these years, they wouldn’t have been able to deal them, and thus they wouldn’t be a part of the trade.
(Why Memphis wanted to be in this trade in the first place is a bit baffling, given that they didn’t get any cash, players, or a pick for their troubles, and just seem to have taken on someone else’s committed salary without getting any incentive to do so. Strange times. But hey, Memphis has made strange moves this season. See also: the Pau Gasol trade, and the bizarre decision to sign Casey Jacobsen and Andre Brown to minimum salary deals before signing Juan Carlos Navarro, which left them with only enough cap room to sign Navarro to a near-one year deal, which left J.C. signing for only one year, which means they now run the risk of losing him or having to overpay to keep him.)
(Also, note that Memphis actually got back some draft rights, too – since Lishouk was their only player whose unsigned draft rights they held, they asked Houston for one back, and got those of Malick Badiane. Badiane won’t ever join the NBA, but the 0.05% possibility of him joining is ever so slightly more attractive to Memphis than the 0% certainty that Venson Hamilton will ever join the NBA, and so that’s why they asked for Badiane’s instead.)
Very rarely, retaining these rights is worth something. For example, this past summer, Washington bagged a first-round pick from Memphis for the rights to the aforementioned Navarro, and San Antonio used the value of Luis Scola’s rights to be able to weasel their way under the luxury tax. Sacramento tried to get a first-round pick for Dejan Bodiroga back in the early part of this decade, and the Bulls could turn Mario Austin’s rights into maybe something of value if they wanted to do so. For the most part, though, these players attached to these draft rights are redundancies from an NBA perspective, and thus the value of the rights in trades is used only as a technicality.
To retain these draft rights, all the team has to do is extend them a contract offer by a certain date every season. With the exception of unsigned first-round draft choices, of which there are only six, (Joel Freeland, Petteri Koponen, Rudy Fernandez, Frederic Weis, Tiago Splitter and Fran Vazquez), these offers can be – and in practice, always are – fully unguaranteed one-year minimum salary contracts. (In the case of the first rounders, the minimum is 80% of the rookie scale contract for their draft slot that season, with the usual guarantees of any rookie scale contract.) The players can in theory sign these contracts if they want, but in practice they don’t. There’s no point. In the case of the truly fringe players, the NBA franchise will just waive the player before their plane even arrives. As such, these player’s rights continue to be held by the NBA teams for as long as the player keeps playing in professional leagues other than the NBA. (The teams lose the rights to the players exactly one year to the day after the expiration of the player’s most recent professional contract. So if they keep playing, and the team keeps extending the offers, then the player’s rights continue to be held.)
It has happened before where such offers are accepted when they aren’t supposed to be. It rarely ends well. After the 2006 draft, the Lakers heavily advised their second-round draft pick J.R. Pinnock to go to Europe, for there was no way he was going to make the roster that year. They extended the minimum offer of the one-year unguaranteed minimum salary contract, but told J.R. not to bother signing it, for it was futile. Pinnock nevertheless signed the contract, went to camp to battle for his place, lost, got waived, and now his rights – and his ticket back to the NBA one day – are gone forever. The same situation happened this summer with Demetris Nichols, who went to the Knicks despite them asking him not to, just to get waived. (His story has a happier ending – he was subsequently claimed off waivers, twice, once by Cleveland and once by Chicago, and ended up seeing out the season.) However, sometimes, it’s been productive – Chris Duhon signed with the Bulls against their wishes, went to training camp, won his roster spot fair and square, beating out the two rival point guards with guaranteed contracts in Jermaine Jackson and Mike Wilks, and Duhon wound up starting most of the year for them and earning himself a $9 million contract. Carl Landry of Houston is also staring down a very nice payday after taking the same risk and succeeding. But generally, it’s not common practice to accept these offers.
– Norm “N” Richardson is fantastic, and I tracked his career like an avid fan should. After falling out of the NBA, N went to the D-League with the now-defunct North Charleston Lowgators, where he played out of position for the greater good of the team (professional!) and made Karim Shabazz look better than he was. N then went to France, where he won some kind of cup, and then announced his retirement “to pursue business interests” during the celebrations. It may have gone south, though, because four months later, N unretired and signed in Venezuela. Since then, he’s been around the block, got a training camp invite one time with the Toronto Raptors, and continues to try and prove the world how brilliant he really is. This season, Norm was playing for Polonia in Poland alongside Paul Miller, where he averaged 15.5 points, 5 rebounds and 3.5 assists, demonstrating the all-around game that made him world famous.
– Carlos Powell was signed by the Warriors for training camp this season, but was an early cut. They may have made a mistake there, though. The Warriors ended up preferring players as Austin Croshere, Troy Hudson and Chris Webber over Powell, all of whom did little for the team. Meanwhile, Powell went to the D-League, played for the Dakota Wizards, and absolutely beasted, averaging 22.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game on 49% shooting, including 40% from three-point range. That’s some pretty epic numbers right there. The four turnovers a game that go with all that are a lot, but if he was perfect he wouldn’t be in the D-League. I’d kind of expect a training camp invite after a season like that, and a greatly-improved chance of sticking around this time.
– Keith Langford finally got a look-see in the NBA this season, joining up with the Spurs for a few days. This was back when the Spurs were going through a phase of signing lots of people for very short periods of time as emergency injury cover. It wasn’t something that was particularly profitable – the Spurs had it all calculated so that they could afford to do this while staying under the tax threshold for the season. However, after Tony Parker got injured, the Spurs then had to sign Damon Stoudamire as cover a bit earlier than they wanted to, which put them back into the tax territory by a mere few thousand dollars. This meant that they had to make another move to get back under it, which they did with the Kurt Thomas trade.
In a roundabout way, I’m saying that Keith Langford cost the Spurs a first-round pick. Just saying.
Anyway, still laden with the guilt of sabotaging such a well-oiled machine (maybe), Langford is playing for Angelico Biella in Italy, averaging 15 points and 6 rebounds. He is playing alongside B.J. Elder, who is a guard that you may have heard of, and which is also a mighty welcome alternative Christmas present for your grandparents than the usual shortbread that you give them.
– Olumide Oyedeji averaged 18.0 points and 15.2 rebounds for the Liaoning Panpan Hunters in China, the country’s second-best team. For the sake of reference, let it be known that Soumalia Samake averaged 18.2 and 15.2 rebounds.
Also, here’s some bonus Olumide Oyedeji information – one of the obscure satellite TV channels over here is called “BEN”. I think it is supposed to be a rip-off of the more famous “BET”. Either way, all this channel seems to air is home video footage of people arguing loudly while a TV blares in the background. (BEN seems like the kind of broadcasting ably suited for the role of “TV background noise”, so maybe that’s why.) At least once a month, they have a show called, simply, “Basketball”, which does what it promises. A few years ago, this segment used to feature ABA games, which helped hone my knowledge of such basketball pioneers as Ace Custis, Willie (not Wilson) Chandler, and Darryl Dawkins’s wardrobe. In recent times, though, they have taken to showing the same game over and over again – Nigeria versus Egypt, from 2004. This game is amusing to watch, which is probably why they air it so much. All of the action is brought to us from the same one camera angle, in a completely empty gym, filled with a strange haze. It’s kind of like watching summer league. The Nigerians play the game like it’s netball for the entire game, while the Egyptians repeatedly use about five seconds of each shot clock before getting a brick in the air. The calibre of the basketball on offer is enough to make Hemingway weep. And in this game are Olumide Oyedeji, and Gabe Muoneke.
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.
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 three minutes after waking up.
It is now a permanent blot on the NBA landscape. The situation Minnesota found themselves in – not good enough to make the playoffs, not bad enough to bottom out without trying to – left them deliberately trying to lose games. It needn’t have done, but General Manager Kevin McHale had already trded away Minnesota’s first rounder that season, as it was owed to the L.A. Clippers along with Sam Cassell in exchange for Lionel Chalmers and Marko Jaric. 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 regularity 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 lesser players do whatever the hell they wanted, in what then-head coach Dwane Casey called “letting them have some fun” (to be read as “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 fifth would face the 60-22 Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, without homecourt advantage, but whoever finished sixth 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 socialist 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 moan 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 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.
A lot of people (four) have either e-mailed me about this or asked me about it on t’internet in recent days, about when players have to sign with a new team by in order to be eligible for the playoffs. Apparently there’s some confusion on the issue, particularly surrounding the March the 1st date.
So let’s clarify.
There is NO SIGN-BY DATE for playoff eligibility. You can sign whenever you want – even on the last of the regular season if you like – and still be eligible for the playoff roster.
The only stipulation is that you cannot have been on another team’s roster – or on waivers from another team – at close of business on March 1st. This makes the March 1st date a waive-by date, not a sign-by date. And that’s why players frequently get waived in the run-up to it, (such as Jamaal Magloire, Brent Barry and Flip Murray have so far) then sign with a new team after it, and still appear in the playoffs.
An example of this is Anthony Carter last season with the Denver Nuggets. He and Von Wafer both signed with Denver just before the end of the last regular season, because the Nuggets needed some insurance guards for the playoff push and didn’t want to sign them earlier because they were so deep into luxury tax territory. Vaekeaton didn’t then play in a playoff game for them, but Carter did, and the Dallas Mavericks and Kevin Willis did the same thing.
33rd pick 
