Jason Richardson

Philadelphia's utter determination to cut salary and start again has been well documented, and they make no apologies for it. In acquiring Nerlens Noel and Michael Carter-Williams in this year's draft, they theoretically landed two big pieces for this future, yet they still required a great deal more help and positioned themselves to go backwards in order to get where they'd ultimately like to be -- contention. The 76ers entered this season with only two players born before 1988 (Jason Richardson and Kwame Brown), neither of which they want.

[...] The fact that the injured and ineffective Jason Richardson is not tradeable, due to his committed salary for next season, perhaps makes the desire or perceived need to trade Young slightly stronger. Young is signed for two more seasons at more than $9 million per -- if Richardson's contract is a problem, dealing Young's might be the solution, as he is an asset rather than the burden of J-Rich. Dealing Young might not be the best move forward for the franchise, as he is a quality player who will not be easy to replace, and the acquisition of quality players is always to be prioritized.

The All-Star weekend of 2003 featured one of the better slam dunk contests ever. Save for a tame effort by Richard Jefferson — in which he managed the rare feat of doing an elbow dunk that didn’t involve use of an elbow — it was a high caliber affair that culminated in a showdown between 2001 champion Desmond Mason and 2002 champion Jason Richardson, both pushing the other to produce their A-games, crescendoing beautifully with J-Rich’s final clincher:

[...] The choice of Jackson over the other candidates was deliberate, and only slightly motivated by cost. Andre Iguodala is better at small forward, ball dominant, not nearly as good of a shooter as he thinks he is, and not nearly the calibre of half-court creator he so desperately wants to be.²⁶ A backcourt of Derrick Rose and Monta Ellis cannot stop anybody, and while it would thrive in the open court, it effectively mitigates itself in the half court. J.R. Smith can't be trusted, and was once traded by the Bulls for Adrian Griffin and Aaron Gray, which is no endorsement at all. Anthony Parker is no longer starting calibre. Michael Heisley has seemingly made the cost of acquiring O.J. Mayo unnecessarily prohibitive, particularly for one so average. Jason Richardson no longer wants to dribble, defend, or do anything much to get open without the ball. Vince Carter is emphatically done. Denver should (or ought) match a full MLE deal to Arron Afflalo. Courtney Lee won't come for anything less than Omer Asik, which is not a deal worth making. The Daniel Gibson, Jamal Crawford and Leandro Barbosa-types would be most useful, but only as hard-to-acquire backups. And Richard Hamilton is.......well, no.