This new wrinkle suggests that it’s not just time but location that matters — at least when we’re talking about sports. I can’t summarize the whole concept better than the author did, so just click through and read the piece, but the general premise is that kids from more rural areas are more likely to become professional athletes despite the fact that 52% of Americans live in cities of 500,000 people or more.

Interesting stuff. (h/t Cools)

And to the basketball junkie in me, the most interesting stuff is how much more urban the NBA is than the other major team sports. Obviously, we already knew this. But basketball has been called “the city game” so many times that it has just become cliché at this point. And like people calling baseball “the national pastime” even though most people prefer things like watching football, eating bacon and GTLing, calling basketball “the city game” just starts to seem like something to say rather than a fact-based statement.

But the percentages (which I’m sure aren’t new … but they are new to me so humor me) are staggering:

The percent of professional athletes who came from cities of fewer than a half million people was far higher than expected. While approximately 52 percent of the United States population resides in metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 people, such cities only produce 13% of the players in the NHL, 29% of the players in the NBA, 15% of the players in MLB, and 13% of players in the PGA.*

I’m not going to speculate on all the many socioeconomic, cultural and other reasons for this. But it is quite a chasm.

Monta Ellis is pretty much the reason per game numbers are all but obsolete.

At first glance, one would think Monta is a top-notch NBA player. Last year, he scored 25.5 points per game, to go with 4 boards, 5.3 assists, and 2.2 steals? Where can I sign up, right?

Well, no.

Those seemingly impressive numbers fail to convey how Monta’s 2009-10 season set records across the board as far as selfish, inefficient offense goes. I could throw out the advanced stats, if it makes you feel better. Monta led the NBA at field goal attempts per game, clocking in at 22 shots a night, while posting a ghastly true shooting percentage of 51.7% and an even worse effective field goal percentage of 47.6%. He posted the 8th-highest usage rate in the league, at 27.0, while putting up only the 78th best PER (16.74), if catch-all stats are your cup of tea. And if you still think per game numbers mean anything, he led the league with 3.8 turnovers a night (though to his credit, his turnover rate of 11.3 was better than I thought it would be while researching this piece).

But even as bad as that random assortment of digits is, things were much, much worse.

Monta handled the ball almost exclusively for the first few months of the season (before Stephen Curry was finally given the reins), and it showed. Golden State’s offense was often reduced to “dribble, Monta, dribble!” Monta, compliant as he is, dribbled and dribbled and is probably still dribbling right now.

As such, it is very hard to take his numbers with perspective.

A strong figure of 5.3 assists suddenly turns into “you have the ball every time down the court, you better find your teammates for open shots.” His 4 rebounds a night – while certainly not bad for a player standing 6’3” – becomes “anybody can run into 4 random loose balls a night when playing 42 minutes at the league’s fastest pace.”

When a player spends an entire season blatantly gunning for his own box score, effect on the team be damned, every positive move comes with a negative asterisk. So instead of remembering the games he finished with 40+ points (three), we remember those with 30+ shot attempts (also three, including a vomit-inducing 14 for 39 night against Chicago). And instead of remembering the near triple-doubles, we remember the near triple-doubles that involved double-digit turnovers.

The most discouraging part is that not long ago Monta was the golden standard for efficiency in the ever-expanding “shooting guard in a point guard’s body” category. It’s easy to forget, but Monta was a vital cog on that magical 2006-07 Warriors squad, winning the league’s Most Improved Player award after making the leap from end-of-the-bench-prospect to the speedy scoring force he is today.

Following that season, the Warriors even felt confident enough in Monta to trade star shooting guard Jason Richardson. And Monta came up huge again, averaging 20.2 ppg while shooting at superb rates (FG%: 53% FGs, TS%: 58%) that he achieved by relentlessly taking the ball to the rim and making tough layups, bankers, floaters, whatever. Of the 15.2 shots Monta took every game in 2007-08, six of them came at the rim, where he converted 66% of his shots. Again, he is a 6’3” guard. That’s unreal.

Then came two separate incidents that threw Monta’s ever promising career off track.

The first was the departure of Baron Davis. When in Golden State, Baron showed the play-making abilities that Clipper fans have been deprived of since his arrival, and Monta was a main beneficiary. Without little ball-handling responsibility, he could focus solely on getting to the rim, either drawing fouls or making shots — and often both.

But once Baron left, Monta became the team’s de facto point guard, now concerned with creating shots for others and not just for himself. For evidence that Monta’s game severely misses Baron, look no further than the percentage of shots Monta was assisted on. From 46.5% in 06-07 and 45.4% in 07-08, Monta fell to 32.5% in 08-09 and 35.8% in 09-10, further cementing Baron’s decision to play for LA’s JV team as the worst decision for everybody ever.

The second career trajectory altering factor, of course, was the bizarre moped incident that I still have no idea how to describe or digest. For those who don’t remember, after signing 6-year, $66 million extension during the summer of 2008, Monta tore a ligament in his left ankle, an injury that required surgery. Initially telling the team that he injured the ankle playing pick-up basketball, it later turned out that Ellis was injured in what was described a “low-speed mo-ped accident.” Since riding mo-peds is against the terms of the standard NBA contract (makes you wonder what other insane clauses are on those things), and of course, since Monta lied about the injury, the Warriors suspended Monta for the first 30 games of the 08-09 season (which he missed anyway), after flirting with the notion of voiding his contract for quite a while.

The active part of Monta’s 08-09 season was pretty much marred with signs of rehab – a player who relies so greatly on his superhuman speed can’t play with a bad ankle. While Monta recovered and seemed healthy to start 09-10 (he still missed 18 games with various injuries), the bad blood remained. Monta felt unwanted, see-sawing between trade requests and “I’m here to stay” statements before calming down when play actually started.

And that leads to the the biggest problem with Monta: he’ll never be a good defender, usually disinterested in the entire ordeal, accumulating steals with bad gambles andnot much else. He is by all accounts an offensive machine when playing to his strengths, asked only to be a scorer and not a facilitator, and not given the ball every time down the court.

But the constant off-court issues and questionable ability to acquire a team-first mentality are always hanging over his play.

Will He Be Traded? Should He Be Traded?

The reasons why the Warriors should trade Monta are best explained by Monta himself. Before last season, Monta publicly complained about the pairing of him and then-rookie Stephen Curry, saying they can’t play together because none of them can guard shooting guards.

This rant shows you the two main reasons why Monta and the Warriors should go their separate ways:

A) Yet another in a long line of selfish, team-killing incidents, this rant may (should) have been the last straw. With so much bad blood between Monta and the Warriors over the moped incident and all that followed. (It should be noted, however, that long-time owner Chris Cohan finally sold the team this summer, taking most of the Warriors’ self-sabotaging front office with him. Still, I find it hard to believe that there are warm feelings between Monta and the franchise.) When a player publicly bashes a team’s prized rookie, he should be on his way out.

B) Monta was absolutely right.

The Curry/Ellis back court just isn’t big enough to compete defensively. It’s not just that both players are 6’3”. It’s that both of them are a small 6’3”, weighing in at 185 and 180 pounds, respectively. If that’s not enough, both of them are very poor defenders to begin with. Despite the explosive offensive potential the two can combine for, other back courts routinely have field days facing them.

And if one of the two has to go, it should be the disgruntled, troubled veteran with four years and $44 million left on his deal, not the second-year future face of the franchise.

The only question is whether the Warriors’ new front office realizes this.

While there is no chance that they are worse than the Cohan/Riley group that held the Bay Area hostage for the past few years, they also might not be very enthusiastic to move one of their best players for the very little that should be available.

How little?

(Segue complete.)

The Asking Price

Last season, Golden State reportedly turned down a trade that would have sent Ellis to Memphis for OJ Mayo and Hasheem Thabeet, an utterly idiotic offer by the Grizzlies and an even dumber move by Golden State to say no. The chances that Ellis can draw similar package are now extremely slim. There are very few players with Mayo’s skill available, and even fewer on squads willing to move them for players with Ellis’ issues.

In fact, I’d be surprised if the Warriors can even get a prospect as good as Thabeet in return for Monta. Even though teams seem surer than ever to bring in notorious headcases – Josh Smith, Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph are coming off the heels of breakout years, and Ron Artest just won a championship for crying out loud – there is a certain threshold of talent teams will be reluctant to part with for such a gamble. In Monta’s case, that threshold might be near zero.

The Warriors have already moved Corey Maggette for cap relief this summer, and there are talks that Andris Biedrins could be moved in a cost-cutting move as well. If they can get Monta’s salary off the books, with or without moving Andris, they could be in very good shape to surround Curry and new All-Star big man David Lee with some complementary talent. As such, I think cap relief should be enough to do the trick, unless new management holds Monta in very high regard.

The Fits

Of course, any team acquiring Monta will have to pay the high price of his contract, even if only expiring contracts are needed to pull off the actual trade. Since I presume the Warriors will ask for very little, and few teams will come knocking on their door, we’ll scratch the usual fake trade bit and instead look to see if anybody will want to pull the trigger.

Now, the way I see it, there are two sets of qualifications a team must meet if it is to acquire Monta. Any possible suitor has to belong to one of two groups:

Group A

• Have a strong locker room and/or a veteran coach who could channel Monta’s game into the efficient scorer he once was while making it clear to him that he is not a first option
• Have a big point guard or an otherwise strong enough defensive squad to let Monta guard points without being one on offense
• Need another perimeter scorer enough to allow themselves a gamble
• Be strong enough financially to allow themselves the long term commitment that is Monta

Group B

• Be utterly and completely insane.

The sad thing is, that I don’t see many teams in Group A. The Lakers don’t need more scoring and they certainly don’t need more headaches; the Celtics already have a smaller, lesser version of Monta in Nate Robinson, and don’t have the minutes to offer Monta even if he came instead of Nate; the Magic could use another scorer, but they need it to come from the outside, and Monta is best utilized as a driver, not to mention pairing him defensively with the diminutive Jameer Nelson could be disastrous; the Mavs already have three undersized shooting guards, all of whom are better outside shooters than Monta and require the ball less.

As far as contenders go, there is really only one team who makes any sort of sense for Monta basketball wise: the Spurs. If Tony Parker is intent on leaving the squad, Monta could step into his shoes as the small point guard who gets to the rim and wreaks havoc. However, the Spurs are so intent on chemistry – and Parker is so much better than Ellis – that it will never happen. And to be honest, even if Tony wants to leave (and I don’t buy it), I sincerely doubt the Spurs move him, which is why you’re not going to see a Tony Parker edition in this A Walk Around The Block series.

This brings us to the crazy category.

The Grizzlies might renew their interest in Monta for absolutely no reason; the Bobcats need a point guard and might not realize Monta isn’t one, and Larry Brown could always talk himself into a Monta Captain Jack re-union before getting sick of both of them 10 games in; the post-Lebron Dan Gilbert has yet to do something truly crazy since his comic sans implosion, and can’t be counted out; and of course, David Kahn is still alive and acquiring small guards with a vengeance.

Final Verdict

Despite the large number of teams I threw out in the previous category, you’ve probably realized that I’m kind of stretching. As talented as Monta is, especially in the no-hand-check era, he brings the kind of headaches that only the league’s best coaches can afford to deal with. And those coaches are usually employed by teams that are too good to need Monta.

Chances are, if the Warriors truly want to move him, some team will be desperate enough for talent to gamble. However, the Warriors themselves don’t boast large amounts of talent on their squad (seriously, look at that roster, it’s frightening once you get past the starting five). With new management apparently content on breaking in slowly (give me another reason not to fire Don Nelson), I doubt the motivation to move Monta will be strong enough to find a partner.

(AP Photo/John Raoux)

A 6’6” wing with unfathomable athleticism, the first thing that pops into your head when you say “Andre Iguodala” is freak of nature. Not of Lebron-ian proportions, but as close as you’ll probably get. The man just doesn’t break – playing 486 games of a possible 492 throughout his career, and averaging 38.1 minutes a night. If you have Iggy, you have him 82 times a year.

In today’s injury plagued NBA, that’s almost as valuable as what he actually brings to the table.

And he brings quite a lot, on both ends of the floor. With his unique combination of size and speed, Iggy is one of the best perimeter defenders the league can offer. He can be counted on to guard the opponent’s best perimeter player night in and night out – a commitment far from trivial among today’s top players.

His numbers don’t scream defensive superstar – the 1.8 steals per night he averages over his career are impressive, and his already stellar rebounding has improved even more last season (6.5 boards a game, 5.5 defensively, up from 5.7 and 4.6 in 2008-09 despite playing one minute less), but one wants more than a block every two games from a player of his physical stature. And yet, as is the case so many times when discussing defense, the numbers hardly do him justice. Iggy has the little things down. He commits only 1.8 fouls per game despite constantly trying to stay in front of the best foul drawers this league has to offer, or getting 2.6 deflections a night (per Hoopsdata.com).

Conversely, it seems that on offense, Iggy’s stats go too far the other way. Chances are every single NBA fan had more than a few games where he or she would watch Iguodala all night and come out unimpressed, only to check the box score after the game and wonder how the hell he missed that near triple-double, before double-checking the game tape and realizing that those numbers didn’t help the team as much as they should.

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.

Iguodala has excellent court vision and is one of the best wing passers this league has, clocking in at nearly 5.8 assists per night with a mad impressive 23.57 assist ratio (0.15 better than LeBron James, for the sake of comparison). You’re probably in trouble if he’s your premier ball handler, but you could do worse than his 10.9 turnover rate. He is a monster in transition, usually dunking the ball before the other team even knows possession has switched. And yet, he is a terribly inefficient scorer, posting only a 53.5 true shooting percentage last season. As most TS%s go, this stems mostly from shooting too many threes (only 31% off 3.7 attempts a night) and long twos (39%, 4.3 attempts) while not getting to the free-throw line enough (5.2 attempts per night, which is nice, but he has already posted seasons of 6.2, 6.4 and 7.3 attempts a game, so we know he can do better).

There are two mitigating factors here for Iggy in all this.

First, 2009-10 was by all means a down season for him. If you go back to 2009-10, his TS% was a much better (though still troubling) 56%. One sees that throughout 2009-10, Iggy drove to the hoop much less often (4.9 shots a night at the rim in 2008-09, 3.9 in 2009-10), and converted those shots at a much lesser rate (73% and 68.5%, respectively). This is a trend that has been going on for some time; in 2006-07 Igy’s TS% was 56.3%, and in 2007-08 it was 54.3%.

I have no idea why Iguodala is less efficient in even years than in odd ones, but it does bode well for this season.

The other mitigating factor is that Iguodala is forced to create most of his team’s shots – either for himself or for his teammates. And as most NBA stars are prone to do, this leads to a certain type of laziness, where he would rather launch shots from far away than take it to the rim. The trouble here, of course, is that he’s just not a good outside shooter.

But if you look all the way back to his first two seasons in the league – way back when his shots were being created by the likes of Allen Iverson and Chris Webber, and not by himself – one sees Iggy’s best shooting percentages of his career. In his rookie and sophomore seasons, respectively, he posted true shooting percentages of 58% and 59.8%, field goal percentages of 49.3% and 50%, and three-point percentages of of 33.1% and 35.4%. Those are all by far better than his past four seasons — and they give us hope that Iguodala’s shooting can again improve around better teammates.

With two very capable young creators in Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner, Iguodala might get more open shots (of course, with Doug Collins as coach, he may be left on the isolation 30 times a night, but we’re glass half full). If he can get back to to the vicinity of those numbers from the outside, while making a conscious effort to get to the rim and to the line, and still creating for his teammates at a rate most wing players can’t even dream of,  we’re talking about a perennial All-Star, not a perennial snub.

Problems like ego and habit may stop him from changing his game back to how he played as an unproven youngster – and of course, it’s much easier to shoot better as a third option who takes 7-9 shots a game, and not as a star who takes 14-16 shots a game. But the ability is there. And the benefits that both he and his team will reap from such a mental switch would be huge.

Throw everything together and what you get is the rare type of player who is somehow both overrated and underrated at the same time. Considering the logical implications of a single entity simultaneously meeting criteria for two conflicting states of being, one would be inclined to say that Iguodala could bring the universe as we know it to an end.

I’ve always wanted to finish a scouting report with that statement.

Will He Be Traded? Should He Be Traded?

Iguodala has seemingly been on the trading block ever since his rookie deal expired and was replaced by a 6-year, $80 million contract. At the time, the extension combined with the signing of Elton Brand should have vaulted the Sixers into the East’s top group. (Read this. It will make you laugh unless you’re a Sixers fan.)

Of course, when you think you’re building a perennial contender, overpaying comes much easier than when you’re a lottery team. With Brand breaking down and the Sixers going nowhere, Igoudala quickly acquired that dreaded “he’s getting paid like a franchise player but he’s not a franchise player” label. The fact that he was supposed to be Brand’s second banana and has held his part of the bargain is irrelevant – his contract is worth more money than he his, and his team is terrible despite his presence.

This means he is the bad kind of overpaid. And what happens when 26-year-olds are overpaid on teams with high payrolls and no hope for success? Well, they should be traded.

Whether they actually are traded depends on the thinking of their front office, however. And Philly’s front office has declined to trade Iggy despite numerous potential suitors. I have no official information as to what offers were made and how serious they were, but Iggy-for-Amar’e rumors were all over the place last February (how weird is that?), the Cavs were supposedly in play for Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ then-expiring contract, and ditto for the Houston Rockets and Tracy McGrady. All throughout, there was a common theme from the men in charge: we will not trade Andre for cap relief and nothing else.

Will this change? No one knows.

On the one hand, Philly drafted Evan Turner, yet another ball-handling swingman with no outside shot. Logic dictates that if you want Turner to develop – and you want him to, because he’s a star in the making – you move the similar veteran who will take away his touches. All the more so when that veteran is making three times as much as your youngster.

Of course, on the other hand (that’s the third hand for those scoring at home), the high profile hiring of Doug Collins as coach hardly screams “let’s rebuild.” And given Collins’ former broadcasting gig – which I would assume is his for the taking whenever he wants it back – the Sixers might not want to give him any motivation to leave by moving their best player. A player who, despite making more money than he would in an ideal world, is still the biggest draw for paying fans to come see the team.

So should Andre Iguodala be traded? Yes. Just like he should have been traded last season.

Will he? That depends on how committed Philly is to building something new over treading water.

The Asking Price

First and foremost, Philly would want cap relief.

This is a team on the verge of playing the luxury tax. Next season doesn’t look much better: the Sixers have slightly under $53 million already on the books for just eight players, assuming Philly picks up Marreese Speights and Jrue Holiday’s options (a no brainer). Throw in extension-eligible players Thaddeus Young (should get an extension), Spencer Hawes (might get one) and Jason Smith (will probably be let go, barring a breakout year), and the fiscal picture seems quite grim.

As such, expiring contracts would have to be a major part of any Iguodala package. If the Sixers find anybody who would take Elton Brand off their hands, they will pull the trigger before getting off the phone. I’d assume that by now, however, the Sixers realize that’s just super-mega-gravy. Getting Andres Nocioni’s deal (2-years, $13.5 million, with a $7.5 million team option on year three) will be more realistic. If Philly can strike a deal with a team under the cap (say, the Kings/Wolves/Wizards), they might also ask that team to take on the last years of Jason Kapono and Willie Green’s pointless deals, but I assume that would hardly be a sticking point.

From here on out, the search is for as many young prospects and draft picks as the Sixers can find. Whether a deal can be struck with just cap relief remains to be seen, but with Philly’s existing young core currently consisting of Jrue/Lou Williams/Turner/Young Thad/Speights/Hawes, one must assume that they will gladly accept young talent at any position except for the point.

You know, beggars can’t be choosers and stuff.

The Fits

At 26-years-old, Igoudala is just young enough to make sense for a semi-rebuilding squad … barely. If a squad is on the verge of/one year away from Playoff contention and are only projected to get better from there, he can be the guy that puts them in the postseason. But on a team going nowhere, he’s no better than he is in Philly.

In Sacramento or New Jersey, for example, he can be a great third star to complement young pieces like Tryeke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins or Devin Harris and Brook Lopez. On a team that has very little going for it in the immediate future, however, (cough, Minnesota, cough, Toronto), he will waste away.

Of course, even if you think Iggy is the final piece in your rebuilding puzzle, at his price, you better be right. If you gamble on him to elevate your squad, and it doesn’t work out, you’re pretty much in the same situation Philly is now. All this means that, like in so many of these cases, he is best suited for a team with extremely deep pockets, preferably one that is good enough without him to afford failure.

The following are a few random ideas. And, as always, the come along with the disclaimer that nobody should take them seriously.

Trade #1 – The Rockets trade Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger, Jared Jefferies and one or two first-round picks (either their own or New York’s) for Andre Iguodala

If this looks awfully similar to the Rockets trade I suggested for Carmelo Anthony … well, it’s because it is. But that’s Daryl Morey in a nutshell for you. The Rockets have so many assets – expiring contracts, promising youngsters that they can afford to let go, you name it – that they promise to appear on most fake trade lists that A Walk Around The Block will offer.

This one pretty much gives Philly everything they need. Cap relief? Check. Youngsters? Check. Draft picks? Check. It’s a great deal for them, with the only question being whether Morey wants to give up that much. Iguodala will be a great fit with the Rockets. His driving and creating would be a perfect complement to Kevin Martin and Aaron Brooks’ outside shooting, and his defense would make him the heir apparent to Shane Battier. He can also allow the Rockets to be more of a run-and-gun team whenever Yao Ming is on the bench since he is so good in transition and both Houston point guards (Brooks and Kyle Lowry) are lightning quick.

Speaking of run-and-gun …

Trade #2 – The Knicks trade Eddy Curry, Wilson Chanlder and Ronny Turiaf for Andre Iguodala and Andres Nocioni

The Knicks are shooting high with the names they’re throwing out there, from Chris Paul to Melo to Tony Parker. As such, committing to Iggy might come as a disappointment. I see it the other way around; the Knicks’ aspirations are too high, so by going for a lesser profile name in Iggy, they could reduce the price they are paying.

Unlike the Nuggets and Spurs (and to a lesser extent, the Hornets), the Sixers actually need the cap relief that Eddy Curry’s expiring contract provides. Very much so. Throw in the willingness to take on Andres Nocioni’s contract — which expires in 2012, allowing the Knicks to maintain their delusions of signing Chris Paul – and a solid young wing player to replace Iguodala in Chandler (I would assume the Sixers can ask for Bill Walker instead and the Knicks won’t mind), and this works very well.

As for the Knicks? Iguodala would be perfect for D’Antoni ball, flying up and down the court, setting up Amar’e and Gallo, and actually playing defense for a change. With Raymond Felton and Anthony Randolph filling in the starting five, and with Tony Douglas, Roger Mason Jr., Bill Walker, Nocioni and Timofey Mozgov off the bench, the Knicks should establish themselves as a Playoff squad in the ever improving East.

Trade #3 – The Mavs trade Tyson Chandler, Caron Butler and DeShawn Stevenson for Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand

Yeah, I know I said nobody will ever take Brand. And Maverick fans are probably screaming in horror right now. But hear me out.

The Mavericks have done nothing but go all in for years. From the Jason Kidd trade to the Caron Butler trade to offering every center on their roster ridiculous amounts of money, their motto has always been sparing no expense to win before Dirk Nowitzki’s window is closed. And it’s rapidly closing anyway.

Caron Butler, brought in to be the wing man that creates offense, disappointed last season. It really isn’t fair to be disappointed – after all, he came to a new team, had to learn a new playbook and really wasn’t far off from the ability he displayed in Washington before the trade that brought him to Dallas – but the bottom line is that the Mavs didn’t go as far as they hoped the trade would get them.

You know who can fill the role Caron didn’t? Iggy. Ten fold. And along with Shawn Marion, he can give them an elite wing-tandem defensively. He can also run on the break with Jason Kidd and Jason Terry and several other Jasons of your choice.

Is this a ridiculous gamble? A financial blunder of epic proportions that even Mark Cuban would be scared to take? Of course. In fact, it’s utterly idiotic in every way. But if you’re Dallas, Michael Finley-circa-2003 isn’t walking through that door. You have to gamble for that shot at a ring, and Iggy gives it to you. And when you have probably the only owner in the league that can allow himself to take on the Brand albatross, you can take that chance. That stupid, foolish, so-crazy-it-just-might-work chance.

Final Verdict

Nobody can honestly tell if Iguodala will still be in Philly when the season ends because the 76ers have insisted on showing no sign of front office consistency throughout the past few years. From win-now moves like hiring Collins to rebuilding moves like letting Andre Miller and Samuel Dalembert go to PR moves like signing Allen Iverson to just plain “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NO! NOOOO!!!!!!!!” moves like the numerous cap-killing contracts they have accumulated over the years, they are just too random to predict anything.

That being said, I would assume that Iggy starts his seventh season where he spent the first six.

You don’t hire a new, big name coach and deprive him of his best player before seeing how they mesh. I doubt that it works well – the Sixers just aren’t good enough – but they will continue to strive for that lower seed playoff spot, as if nothing happened. If and when things go down the drain, whether it’s an early yet season-killing losing streak or friction between Iguodala and Turner on the court, numerous suitors will be waiting.

Last November, with the Nuggets starting the season on a tear behind Melo’s scoring, there were talks of him joining the games elite, that Lebron/Kobe/Wade like stratosphere. Even the phrase”MVP” was being thrown around on occasion. Premature and idiotic as those talks were – and indeed, months December through April did well to silence them – one can’t deny that as far as marketing and reputation go, Anthony is a full-blown superstar.

Of course, whether he actually is on that level is another question. The “is Melo an elite player?” debate was widely discussed throughout the blogosphere over the past few weeks. (We miss you, NBA. Please grab this stupid summer thing by the nose and banish it forever). Statistical master wizard (it’s when you’re too masterful to be just a wizard, but too wizardy to be just a master) Tom Haberstroh pointed out over at ESPN Insider that Melo’s greatest skill – scoring the basketball – is overblown because of his less-than-stellar efficiency at doing so.

“Let’s first talk about Anthony’s shot volume. It’s not exactly a secret that ‘Melo likes to shoot the rock, but his propensity to launch shots may raise some eyebrows. This past season, no player in the NBA took more shots per minute than Anthony — not Kobe, not LeBron, not even scoring champ Kevin Durant.

It may seem obvious that a player worthy of 20 shots per game would have a healthy conversion rate. But in Anthony’s case, that’s far from the truth. Anthony, in reality, had a below-average field goal percentage (.458) this past season — and his career percentage (.459) is no different. (The league average is .463.)

The sharp readers out there will point out that traditional field goal percentage doesn’t reflect Anthony’s shooting ability, since he launches a healthy dose of 3-pointers, which obviously count more on the scoreboard. That’s true. But if you’ve been paying attention, you know Anthony is not a good shooter from beyond the arc, so that doesn’t help his case. As a career .308 percent 3-point shooter, his shot from downtown ranks far below the norm (the average small forward shot .349 last season; Melo shot .316) and any progress he seemingly made in 2008-09, when he shot a career-high .371, disappeared. Even if we incorporate the added point bonus of a 3-pointer, the Syracuse product’s shooting percentages are, at best, average.”

The should-be-writing-much-more-often Nick Flynt then added a twist of his own, dispelling the notion that Melo is such a deadly scorer by virtue of his jumpshot:

“While I was researching this information, it came to my attention that Carmelo is known as a jumpshooter (and credited with being very good from mid-range). I assumed this to be true, mostly from anecdotal evidence. According to hoopdata.com, Carmelo Anthony actually had the 2nd most attempts at the rim of any player last season (outdone only by rookie Tyreke Evans). This is the guy known to not have the “same drive as D-Wade,” as well as being called soft, and he gets to the rim more than anyone in the league (other than one great rookie) and is one of the best rebounders at his position.

The mid-range shooter moniker isn’t totally incorrect, however, as he shot the most attempts at 16-23 feet of all swingmen (same parameters as used earlier), making just above league average at 40%. He also shot the 4th most attempts from 10-15 feet of swingmen with those same parameters.”

Finally, the one and only Zach Harper chose to analyze Melo’s game like only he can, somehow simultaneously comparing him to Kevin Durant and to dance club trilogy Step Up:

“Aside from a PER, offensive rating and win shares, the numbers are pretty even all across the board. Durant’s TS% is also much higher than Carmelo’s but considering Durant just put together a historic season at the free throw line, I don’t think you can really use that against Anthony all that much. Win shares and offensive rating are fairly damning but I still don’t believe that it disproves Carmelo being an elite player in this league.

Look to the fourth quarter of the last three seasons and you’ll see that Anthony has been far superior to Durant in clutch scoring. Yes, Durant is still so young and doing all of this at the equivalent of being a NBA toddler but it doesn’t change the fact that Carmelo bests him in a very important area despite taking a backseat to the current popular opinion of who is better between the two.”

All three make very valid points. Melo’s value as a player comes from scoring the ball first, second and third. He is an above-average rebounder for his position, a below-average defender, and an around-average ball handler and creator, depending on the night.

But he is indeed an elite scorer.

Despite the unimpressive efficiency numbers and the undeniably accurate label of a “volume shooter,” Melo possesses offensive versatility that very few players have, from driving to shooting to posting up. And with the game on the line, and that big of an arsenal, there are very few other players, if any at all, that you would like shooting the rock.

Will He Be Traded? Should He Be Traded?

If recent reports are to be believed, Anthony – long hesitant to sign a 3-year, $65 million extension that is reportedly his for the taking – wants out of Denver. If this is the case, both sides have motivation to deal him before this year’s trade deadline rather than waiting for next summer when Melo will be a free agent. And indeed, the reports indicate that both Anthony and the Nuggets have come to terms with the fact that Melo will not be a Nugget by the time the 2010-11 season ends.

From Anthony’s perspective, the motivation is financial: though he is set to become a free agent at season’s end, the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations could restrict the amount of money he could make on the open market. The Nuggets’ extension offer provides Melo with maximum cash – but then, of course, he is forced to stay in Denver. Therefore, the ideal situation for him would be to sign the extension, handpick his destination (reportedly New York, but come on, we’ve heard this too many times before), and get traded there.

As for the Nuggets, it’s the famous “we’d rather trade him over losing him for nothing” strategy that the Cavs, Raptors and Suns chose to neglect this summer (although trade exceptions are pretty valuable, so I guess that’s more than nothing). If Melo is set on leaving, then deluding yourself with visions of grandeur and contention is a waste of time – might as well get the rebuilding going now.

All of which means that, at this point, Melo seems gone.

Of course, one must still determine…

The Asking Price

Anthony’s situation is intriguing because of his impending free agency: if his contract is coming off the books anyhow, trading him for straight up cap relief is moot. This means that the Nuggets could go one of three ways (or any combination of them).

1. Uber Cap Relief
As in, you give us expiring contracts, we’ll give you Melo and our long term contracts. This seems quite unlikely, since Denver has only 4 players under contract past 2011-2012, and only two of them (Al Harrington, Chris Andersen) make more than 3 million a year (the other two are Ty Lawson and Renaldo Balkman). So unless the Nuggets are really desperate to unload their mid-level exception signings from the past two summers, I doubt they go this way.

2. We’re Still Trying to Contend
Move Melo, bring in another elite swingman instead, and keep on going. Again, unlikely, because you can’t get a player as good as Melo this way, and with the Nuggets having enough frontcourt/craziness holes as is, bringing in a player who isn’t as good as Melo but who would expect the same role will probably mean implosion.

3. Bring Me Your Young, Your Draft Picks
Pretty self-explanatory.

I would assume that the Nuggets believe that option three is better than option two, which is better than option one. Young assets are probably the key here – no deal will get done without them unless it’s a no-brainer. Cap space takes a back seat to getting serviceable players, but if such players don’t arrive, I wouldn’t be surprised if Andersen/Harrington get moved, seeing how they have no value to a rebuilding squad. Of course, this is how we expect them to act – they may just go along as if nothing happened and try to contend.

The wild card here, though, is Chauncey Billups.

Chauncey’s contract has only two more years on it – $13 million this year, and $14 million next year. With only $3.7 million of next year guaranteed, dumping Chauncey seems pointless. But with a strong point guard prospect waiting in the wings in Lawson and the Nuggets in luxury tax territory, losing that extra Chauncey cash might be just alluring enough for a salary dump that exceeds just Melo. I predict that we see a full-fledged salary dump if — and only if — Billups leaves the Mile High City along with his All-Star teammate.

The Fits

Reports are citing New York and Orlando as those atop Melo’s wish list (where have I seen those two teams on the top of a wish list before?).  The Knicks have very little to offer beyond the promise of Danilo Gallinari and Anthony Randolph, however, and the only players Orlando has on the roster who don’t posses bloated contracts (either money-wise or length-wise) are Jameer Nelson, Dwight Howard, Ryan Anderson and Daniel Orton. I’d assume the first two are unavailable and the last two aren’t enough to haul in Melo on their own. Besides, predicting what everybody else is predicting is no fun at all.

If not New York or Orlando, who else could be in the running?

It has to be at least a Playoff team, and preferably a contender. Otherwise Melo might not re-sign, and they risk trading good assets for nothing. They also have to have a somewhat stable financial foundation if they’re taking him on after he signs a 3-year, $65 million extension considering he is a player who can’t win you a title on your own. And learning from the Miami experience, one presumes Anthony would rather go to a team with another young star who he can be buddies with.

That being said, let’s throw out some hypotheticals of our own, ranging from “the least crazy” to “Ron Artest.”

(Disclaimer: In no way do I think any of these deals will happen. I’m just having fun. If you can’t deal with that, stop reading now.)

Trade #1 – The Rockets trade Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger, Kevin Martin and two first round picks (Knicks in ‘11, Knicks in ‘12) for Carmelo Anthony

This is the “of course we can compete now!” trade for Denver, which sadly, may be very very likely. Martin comes in to replace most of Melo’s scoring, and while he can’t compete with the sheer volume Melo offers, he can contribute his points more effectively. Budinger fills in at the 3, either in front, behind or next to Al Harrington (both seem to be very good off the bench). Afflalo retains the role of defensive stopper, which is why the Nuggets probably don’t compromise for similar stoppers like Shane Battier or Courtney Lee, and insist on Martin. Jordan Hill and the Knicks’ picks are for the future, though if Denver is persistent, they might get Patrick Patterson instead of Hill (I doubt Morey gives up both).

As for Houston, you suddenly have a dynamic offensive unit, with Aaron Brooks, Melo, Luis Scola, and hopefully a healthy Yao Ming. You still have your defenders in Lee, Battier, Kyle Lowry and Chuck Hayes. You have either Patterson or Hill developing in the front court. In short, you have compromised some (but not much) depth and some future assets to upgrade from Kevin Martin to Carmelo Anthony.

Hypothetical Daryl Morey runs Barter Town.

Trade #2 – The Trailblazers trade Rudy Fernandez, Greg Oden, Nicolas Batum, Joel Pryzbilla and Jeff Pendegraph for Carmelo Anthony and Chris Andersen

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

Denver gets a prospect searching for a new home in Rudy Fernandez, a potential defensive star in Nicolas Batum and cap relief by exchanging Pryzbilla’s expiring contract for Andersen’s deal. Pendegraph is filler and anything he gives will be gravy.

Of course, the big thing here is Oden. I’m still a believer in the power of Gregorious – the “BUST” cries conveniently ignore just how good he was when healthy last year. Maybe a change of scenery can do him good. Even though every indication shows that Portland has been nothing but wonderful in treating Oden, maybe losing that pressure of proving he wasn’t the wrong draft pick will do him good.

This leaves Denver with a core of Billups/Lawson/Afflalo/JR Smith/Rudy/Batum/Kenyon/Nene/Oden. A core that combines financial flexibility with unlimited defensive potential (Afflalo and Batum in the wings with Oden down low? Gulp). Oden is a risk, but I don’t think any other deal approaches this upside.

As for Portland – Andre Miller, Brandon Roy, Melo, Lamarcus Aldridge, Marcus Camby. Yeah. I know. Even if this is too much 2005 Nuggets for you (Miller and Camby aren’t any younger), this is a no-brainer.

Trade #3 – The Hornets trade Marcus Thornton, Quincy Pondexter, Peja Stojakovic and Craig Brackins for Carmelo Anthony and Chris Andersen

As much as I hate conspiracy theories, this summer has taught us that they sometimes have credence. As such, I am including this scenario solely because of the Anthony/Paul connection. This Miami super team will probably affect the league more than we realize, with All-Stars choosing to play together over staying on separate sides of the road. Since the rumors insist that Paul and Anthony want to play together, and the Hornets possess both Peja Stojakovic’s huge expiring contract and all the leverage over the squad Paul plays for next year, Melo might just end up playing in teal.

But this is still extremely unlikely from Denver’s part, because they get so little. As I mentioned earlier, cap relief for Anthony doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, and even getting rid of the Birdman does nothing to change the fact that Thornton, Pondexter and Brackins are probably not asset-y enough to get it done, beastly as Thornton may be. Maybe adding Trevor Ariza when he’s eligible to be moved again will cut it, though I still doubt Denver would bite.

Finally, the craziest deal I could think of …

Trade #4 – The Bobcats trade Erick Dampier and DJ Augustin to the Nuggets; the Suns trade Jared Dudley, Jason Richardson and Earl Clark to the Nuggets; the Nuggets trade Chauncey Billups to the Bobcats; and the Nuggets trade Carmelo Anthony and Al Harrington to the Suns

This gets a little complicated, so let’s brake it down:

Why the Bobcats Do It
Because the Bobcats have always been win now, Chauncey Billups has always been a Larry Brown guy while DJ Augustin is not, and they were going to waive Dampier anyway. This makes Charlotte much better in the short term – pretty much a Playoff lock – which is all that matters to them.

Why the Suns Do It
Because this is Steve Nash’s last shot. And as much as they love Dudley and Richardson, Melo was made for run and gun. He could finally shoot over 50% from the field with Nash giving him the ball, and he could be devastating as Nash’s new pick-and-roll guy. Melo and Turkoglu will man the two forward spots, Hill and Childress will play the 2 and the remaining minutes at the 3, and this is a scary, scary team.

Why the Nuggets Do It
Because this is how they clear the deck. Dampier is immediately waivable, Kenyon Martin, Jason Richardson and JR Smith leave after the season, probably Nene as well, and you are left with Lawson/Afflalo/Dudley/Clark as your core. If you can dump Harrington or Andersen, all the better. The biggest mistake teams make is not knowing when to call quits. With Billups and Martin aging, the Nuggets have nothing to offer in the short term without Melo. Might as well realize it.

Why Melo Does It
He gets to play with an amazing point guard in a rapidly growing city, and he eventually becomes the man when Nash retires. In the meantime, he gets to contend with a team that might be the funnest ever, competing only with every other Nash-led Suns squad. And really, what more can you ask for?

Not happening … but, ya know … it would be fun if it did.

Final Verdict

Chances are, Melo gets traded. We hear rumors like these all the time – heck, the ridiculous Chris Paul rumors are still amongst us – but this time, Melo has all the leverage, which usually ends in the player getting what he wants.

But the Nuggets have the time to hold out for a good offer. And by good, I don’t mean, “we might make the Playoffs anyway.” I mean, “we might be good again in a few years.” Because that’s the right way. In the meantime, all we can do is hope he doesn’t go to the Knicks.

Just for comedy’s sake.

It’s what keeps me alive.

Roger’s foolish decision (and the Pistons wasting a roster spot on Tracy McGrady) aside, I think it’s pretty safe to say free agency is over. Sure, some team might still decide it wants Allen Iverson to take shots away from actually productive players, and Delonte West could be a really nice prize for the team smart enough to gamble on him, but by and large, if teams want to improve from here on out, it will have to come from somewhere else – the trade market.

The aftermath of the Summer of 2010 leaves us in an odd predicament: plenty of teams gathered assets – be they cap space, young players, expiring deals or Erick Dampier – to swing a deal for a major free agent. However, with big names expected to be on the move, such as Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay, staying put – and even bigger names deciding to team up instead of spreading out (you probably know them by now) – most asset gatherers were left in the dark. Some of the smarter ones admitted defeat and went with plan C, D or E. The dumber ones grossly overpaid for bad players and are now very sad. And those who could afford to ignored that ever-so-slight tear rolling down their cheek which remembered what could have been, and once again stocked those assets in their large asset containers.

Of course, the great thing about assets is that they can be used in myriad ways.  And short of signing one of the best players in the league in July, none of those ways is more enticing than the trade market. Nothing gets one’s blood rushing faster than the prospect of trading your junk for someone else’s gold. And indeed, the trade market seemingly kick-started once again after a few quiet weeks, with a 4 team deal that sent Trevor Ariza to the Hornets, Darren Collison and James Posey to the Pacers, Troy Murphy to the Nets, and Courtney Lee to the Rockets.

The Rockets get rid of Ariza, who reportedly butted heads with Most Improved Player Aaron Brooks and was quite a luxury tax burden for a strong role player in Lee that should keep the rotation intact; the Pacers finally get a young stud at point guard for the price of a little less cap flexibility, though they have so many expiring contracts that moving Murphy’s expiring deal for Posey’s stinker is more than a good price for Collison; the Nets solve their logjam at the wings for a very solid big man who can stretch the floor for Devin Harris and Brook Lopez while allowing rookie Derrick Favors to develop at his own pace; and the Hornets, while losing a great prospect, ultimately strengthen a weak position (3) for a backup (Collison will never be as good as Chris Paul), get rid of a bad contract (Ariza’s deal is longer than Posey’s and for similar money, but Ariza is way more productive) and show their franchise player they are willing to spend. While Ariza. Really, the Hornets are the only team here that may not be on the winning side of this trade – depending on how you feel about Trevor (I’m of the camp that believes he’ll be much better in New Orleans, with a star point guard, than in Houston, where he tried to force himself on the offense) – and even there, one feels bad not because they didn’t improve, but because you feel they could have gotten more for Collison.

Of course, this deal is very very rare, not just in the number of teams it involves (even 3 team deals are hard to come by these days), but in that every team gains something basketball wise. In fact, ESPN’s trade machine, though admittedly faulty, has all four teams coming out evenly (hat tip to @incogneetus69 and anyone who retweeted/posted his screenshot). In today’s NBA, such a scene has become scarcer than a Moochie Norris reference (and yet, just like the 4 team trade, we have one). The salary dump has been gaining so much momentum over the past few years, that it seems almost every trade now falls into that category. Someone unfamiliar with the intricacies of the NBA might confuse “Cap Relief” for the NBA’s most wanted player, despite his unorthodox name.

Looking into the near future, the salary dump trend – despite the aforementioned deal – figures only to pick up speed. With the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire after the 2010-2011 season, many are anticipating that negotiations between the NBA and the players’ association will  force a lockout, after which the salary cap as we know it may be gone forever. Whether it involves a hard salary cap or a limitation on the length and value of guaranteed contracts, players who are signed to the long term to slightly overpaid contracts may suddenly become toxic albatrosses. With the unknown future lurking so menacingly lurking, one would assume rebuilding teams should have more incentive than any before to sell their goods for pennies on the dollar, not just to clear the deck, but to avoid financial oblivion.

Of course, intros never come without a but. And this particular but brings us back to the crazy summer which, until our 4 team twister, was faintly concluding into August.

Remember that thing about too many teams clearing cap space for too little players? Let’s take a very quick and non-analytical look around the league. The target: expiring contracts, regardless of how likely they are to be traded, trade exceptions, regardless of how likely they are to be used, and any cap space available. The only filter I used is that only expiring contracts/trade exceptions worth more than 1 million dollars were included, since the ones that go lower than that are hard to keep track of (minimum contracts galore) and unlikely to ever be used. Also not included are player options/early termination options (so don’t get all mad when you don’t see Carmelo Anthony here), team options on rookie contracts (Yeah, I think the Bulls will pick up that 4^thyear of Derrick Rose for 7 million, thank you very much), and guys like Al Horford and Joakim Noah, whose contracts are expiring only because their extensions have yet to be signed(All numbers from the marvelous Shamsports.com. All cap space numbers are estimations using Shamsports.com, a 58 million cap figure estimate and a calculator. All numbers in millions of dollars):

Atlanta Hawks: Jamal Crawford (10), Maurice Evans (2.5), Josh Childress Trade Exception (3.6)

Boston Celtics: Kendrick Perkins (4.6), Glen Davis (3), Marquis Daniels (2.4)

Charlotte Bobcats: Erick Dampier (13 , can be waived without compensation until the season starts with weird rules along the way), Nazr Mohammed (6.9)

Chicago Bulls: Cap space (4), Kurt Thomas (1.8)

Clevelad Cavaliers: Lebron James Trade Exception (14.5), Cap space (8), Jamario Moon (3), Anthony Parker (2.85)

Dallas Mavericks: Tyson Chandler (12.6), Caron Butler (10.5), DeShawn Stevenson (4.1), J.J. Barea (1.8), Various Trade Exceptions (4.3, 3, 2.9 and 1)

Denver Nuggets: Kenyon Martin (16.5), JR Smith (6.7)

Detroit Pistons: Tayshaun Prince (11), Chris Wilcox (3)

Golden State Warriors: Dan Gadzuric (7.25), Vladimir Radmanovic (6.9), Anthony Morrow Trade Exception (2)

Houston Rockets: Yao Ming (17.7), Shane Battier (7.35), Jared Jefferies (6.9), Trevor Ariza Trade Exception (6, not sure about this one, but Marc Spears reported they got it in the 4-team trade and if you can’t believe Marc you can’t believe anybody), Carl Landry Trade Exception (3)

Indiana Pacers: Mike Dunleavy (10.5), T.J. Ford (8.5), Jeff Foster (6.6), Solomon Jones (1.5), Troy Murphy Trade Exception (4.2, as with Ariza, not sure the Pacers actually recieved this, but @Aykis16 has alerted me that they should, and through my very minimal knowledge of NBA cap rules that makes sense, so we’ll believe him)

L.A. Clippers: Cap space (5), Rasual Butler (2.4), Craig Smith (2.3)

L.A.Lakers: Sasha Vujacic (5.5)

Memphis Grizzlies: Zach Randolph (17.7), Hamed Haddadi (1.6, listed despite being eligible for an extension because I’m not sure he’s good enough to warrant one)

Miami Heat: Nothing, but do they really need assets at this point?

Milwaukee Bucks: Michael Redd (18.3), Carlos Delfino (3.5, next year fully unguaranteed), Ersan Ilyasova (2.3, all but 400K of next year unguaranteed), Francisco Elson Trade Exception (1.7)

Minnesota Timberwolves: Cap space (8), Sebastian Telfair (2.7)

New Jersey Nets: Troy Murphy (12), Cap space (3), (Kris Humphries (3.7), Quinton Ross (1.1)

New Orleans Hornets: Peja Stojakovic (14.25), Darius Songaila (4.8), Various Trade Exceptions (6.2, 2.8, 2, though the last one expires September 9^th)

New YorkKnicks: Eddy Curry (11.3), Kelenna Azubuike (3.3)

Oklahoma City Thunder: Nick Collison (6.75), Morris Peterson (6.7), Nenad Krstic (5.5), Royal Ivey (1.5 , next year fully unguaranteed), Cap space (5)

Orlando Magic: Vince Carter (17.5 , all but 4 of next year unguaranteed)

Philadelphia 76ers: Jason Kapono (6.6), Willie Green (4), Samuel Dalembert Trade Exception (2.2)

Phoenix Suns: Jason Richardson (14.4), Grant Hill (3.2), Amar’e Stoudemire Trade Exception (5.7), Alando Tucker Trade Exception (1)

PortlandTraiblazers: Joel Pryzbilla (7.4), Andre Miller (7.3, next year fully unguaranteed)

Sacramento Kings: Samuel Dalembert (13.4), Carl Landry (3), Cap space (14)

San Antonio Spurs: Tony Parker (13.5), Antonio McDyess (4.8, 2.6 of 5.2 next year unguaranteed)

Toronto Raptors: Reggie Evans (5), Marcus Banks (4.85), David Andersen (2.5, all but 150K of next year unguaranteed), Chris Bosh Trade Exception (14.5), Hedo Turkoglu Trade Exception (2.7)

Utah Jazz: Andrei Kirilenko (17.8), C.J. Miles (3.7, next year team option), Ronnie Price (1.4), Various Trade Exceptions (6.5, 2.7, 1.4, and 1.3)

Washington Wizards: Yi Jianlian (4, see Hamed Haddadi), Josh Howard (4), Al Thornton (2.8, see Yi), Nick Young (2.6, see Yi and Al. Yes, the Wizards have a lot of questionable youngsters), Cap space (8)

Well, that was a long list, wasn’t it? Obviously, not all of these are assets – some of the players listed above are highly unlikely to be traded – but this just shows you how many teams have poised themselves for trades. And this doesn’t even include non-financial assets, such as draft picks, talented youngsters, or just good players who are stuck in a crowded rotation. So yes, some teams will be more eager to take on extra salary than others, but given the shot at improving, almost every team in the league has the assets to do it, with plenty of teams having the assets to do it more than once. But no amount of assets – no matter how creative you get with them – can get you anything without a willing partner who possesses a player you crave.

Which begs the question: what players are out there? That’s what we’ll try and determine over the next few articles. “A Walk Around The Block” will take a look at different aspects of the trading block throughout the following weeks, from individual players who seem likely to move, to teams who project to be probable buyers or sellers, be it due to financial status, a shortage/surplus at a certain position, the search after that missing piece to a contender, or their owners mood on Tuesdays. All while keeping in the back of our minds that even though we expect most deals to be money driven, something like the what we saw Wednesday could come out of the blue and clobber us in the head.

So kick back, grab a root beer (nothing but educational yet delicious drinks over here), and enjoy, all while knowing that most of what is written is as likely to happen as the Knicks re-hiring Isiah Thomas.

Oh.

“We’ll need to assess how we do in March,” Stern said. “It would not surprise me if this becomes an annual event. But I don’t want to make a commitment on it.”

To which I kindly reply: spare me.

Spare me the talks of revolutionizing the game. Spare me the tantalizing prospect of All-Star Games, playoff games, maybe even entire NBA franchises relocating to Europe on a permanent basis. Spare me the historic headlines, the sickening, contrived handshakes with fellow suits and any indication whatsoever that this is anything but your own, private pipe dream.

Before I go any further slandering this move and everything behind it, allow me a declaration of intent: the globalization of the NBA has affected and continues to affect me, an avid basketball fan living 5,522 miles away from the nearest NBA arena (Boston, by the way. No, I didn’t spend five minutes mid-rant checking this, why do you ask?), in a plethora positive ways. It has given me the ability to buy international league pass broadband, giving me full access to every NBA game without being forced to depend on international television broadcasting rights, which rarely provide the viewer with the long end of the stick. It allows me to vote for the All-Star Game every single day, while trusting that my moral fortitude is strong enough to stop me from voting for Omri Casspi (it isn’t). And while this isn’t all Stern’s doing, his league has seen it’s fan base bloom and grow to the point where I – just your everyday punk from Jerusalem who happens to have a keyboard – can instantaneously post my opinion on its every move. We are truly blessed to be fans of this sport at this time, and I count myself as such, despite the countless number of days through which I have been rendered dysfunctional by watching basketball from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.

Some of this can be attributed to globalization more than anything. I can’t tell you if the services the NBA offers the international fan – from the fantastic blogosphere I am a proud part of to the high quality internet broadcasting – is any better than the MLB or NHL or NFL, because I couldn’t care less about those (though I do enjoy my college football). But I can tell you that regardless of where other sports stand, in America and elsewhere, the NBA is in very, very good shape.

Still, Stern is taking this too far, transforming the “global NBA” fantasy from a positive vision to an all-encompassing entity that ignores the debris it leaves in it’s path.

First and foremost, this doubleheader is a major competitive disadvantage to the Nets and Raptors. In a 30 team league, you are hereby sentencing 2 of them to play one game less at home, one more on the road – quite a road at that – and to do it in conditions they aren’t used to. How this passes by any ethically sound committee, I don’t know. As for the games themselves – I don’t know if you’ve experienced a transatlantic flight before, but believe me, the last thing going through your mind when you’re walking off that plane is basketball. Unlike the preseason, when games are about getting into shape, regular season games and how you preform in them actually matter to the grand scheme of things. What happens if the Nets or Raptors are jockeying for playoff position (hey, everybody’s optimistic in August) and they get knocked off course by playing two games on wobbly legs in a different time zone? Add that to the flight back home, the presumably condensed schedule that will be thrust upon them at other points in the season (so as to enable long breaks before and after intercontinental travel), and this hardly seems fair.

Both teams will suffer financial drawbacks as well. Every NBA home game is a complete package of ticket revenue, food sales, merchandising and what not. Well, 1 out of 41 of that is gone. While I am sure that these teams will be compensated with a share of the profits from London, I find it naïve to think that the NBA won’t take the lion’s share itself. Especially when the teams involved are relatively gray squads who don’t fill your everyday fan with the insatiable drive to watch them play.

And speaking of the fans …  what about them? Why do Nets and Raptors season ticket holders deserve one home game less than their counterparts? Maybe to some people missing one game of Andrea Bargnani or Brook Lopez isn’t as bad as missing Kobe or Lebron, but from where does one draw the nerve to say that to fully paying fans, to devalue their passion for their teams to their faces?

In today’s world, one must think business first. I get that, and I find nothing wrong with it. I also fully acknowledge that for a business-thinking organization, there is always an untapped market, always another option to spread out and collect money from those silly native peasants. And as far as the participants in this trial go, everything makes perfect sense. London is a beautiful city, with a booming sports scene (I watched an Arsenal-Celtic Champions Cup qualifier match there last August, and it’s quite the experience) and a diverse population. Toronto is the NBA’s only “international” city, and boasts several international players. The Nets are possessed by the NBA’s only international majority owner, who has stated on multiple occasions that he intends expand the franchise to international icon status. Two teams of international aspirations playing in a wonderful international city.

However, this feels more like exploiting these teams’ delusions of international greatness than actually handing them as much. How much exposure do we really expect these teams to get in Britain? How many people who weren’t NBA fans will suddenly be fans of the Nets or Raptors because they saw them play a jet-lagged game on March 4 or 5?

I’m sure that the games themselves will be packed, and whoever will attend them will enjoy them very much – heck, I will benifit greatly from the ability to watch two NBA games at human hours myself, and you know that if the NBA ever makes an appearance in Israel I will show up faster than you can say “two-faced hypocrite” – but international exposure comes from international broadcasting and international players, not from gimmicks that help your sales while hurting the competitive balance of the sport.

Look, I’m all for progress. And I believe more than anyone that people shouldn’t be deprived of this wonderful thing called NBA basketball just because they weren’t born/don’t live in the States. But this isn’t it. This is David Stern shoving a personal fantasy down the throats of the teams that can’t say no. I mean, come on, do you honestly think the Lakers, the Celtics, the new faced Heat, or even the Knicks will ever play a game in Europe? Hell no. There will be outcries, both from the teams themselves and their opponents (“we only get to host them once/twice a year, how dare you take that away from us?” or “you always hated us, that’s why you want us to play one less home game and you only let us win the championship three times per decade”), and it will quietly fizzle back to the realm of failed ideas.

So please, David Stern, just take this away.

This isn’t an accomplishment, this isn’t a historical landmark that will change the NBA for the better. It’s just globalization gone awry, with the added perk of screwing over two franchises who have nobody to cry out for them. At the very best, this is fodder for conspiracy theorists who can add this to their ever growing list of selfish preferences you have accumilated over the years for the cost of competitiveness. I doubt that’s what you want.

And for anyone who was a hip hop head in the 90s, this list is great nostalgia. I never went to The Tunnel myself (only moved to NYC in 2000 and it was shut down permanently within a year), but more so than some of these songs still being great today (many still are), the visceral feeling of first hearing joints like “Simon Says,” “Ante Up,” “Wild Out” and “My Mind Right” is something that stays with you. There’s really no way to describe them other than “banger.” Most importantly, while clicking through this whole list over the past five hours was the first time I’d listened to NORE’s “Superthug” in like five years. Regrettable, I know, but at least it happened.

Thanks, Cipha.

The reason this is being posted on an NBA blog is that Complex did a follow-up post featuring some of the many flyers they used to put out to promote the Sunday Tunnel parties. And one of them was the flyer below for a Sunday night party after the 1998 NBA All-Star Game in Madison Square Garden.

Wonder if Cipha (or anyone else) has any stories from that night. I’d sure like to hear one.

Maybe Arash was there …

I’ll give you ’til January.

(via The Daily What)

Let me start by saying I apologize if this piece is suddenly obsolete. In our 24/7 media world, I can only presume you have read your full share of Lebron stories with varying angles, from “THE HEATZ THEY BE ROLLING!” to “LEBRICK WILL NEVER BE KOBE!” But I found it necessary to slow down, take a look around and not let the whirlwind of it all lead me to reacting with half-baked opinions. I have no intention of waxing poetic on the same topic we’ve been hearing about non-stop over the past few days. No, you’ve seen enough of them. Think of this as a response to the general conception, as the way one man sees what we’ve all been hearing.

Public Response vs. My Response

Public Response 1

Lebron stabbed Cleveland in the back not in leaving, but in the way he did it.

Yes. Moving on.

Public Response 2

Because he left Cleveland, Lebron will never be Jordan.

Well, this one is true, but you can drop the “because he left Cleveland” part. It’s time we realize that NOBODY WILL EVER EVER EVER BE JORDAN. Let’s just stop having this contrived debate between Jordan and every dominant wing player that enters the league. It will make all of us much healthier.

Public Response 3

Because he left Cleveland, Lebron will never be Kobe.

*Screeching halt*

In no way can you make that statement right now. No freaking way. Kobe never left the Lakers? He damn well wanted to in 2007, requesting a trade after 3 years of going nowhere without Shaq. The request went so far that the Lakers actually had a deal in place with the Bulls, set to send Kobe to Chicago for a package revolving around then-promising youngster Luol Deng. Only Kobe vetoed it because, without Deng, the Bulls had so little talent that Kobe didn’t think he could contend with them. Kind of like Lebron chose Miami over all other options because he felt they gave him the best chance to contend.

Kobe never quit on his team in the playoffs? Why don’t you ask the 2006 Phoenix Suns how much easier Game 7 vs. LA was than Games 1 through 6. I guess it was much easier, with Kobe taking three shots the entire second half, making none. Or, if the 2006 Suns lack credibility in your book, ask the 2008 Boston Celtics how much easier Game 6 of the NBA finals was than Games 1 through 5.

Look, the great thing about NBA basketball is that we don’t know anything until it actually happens. Yes, Lebron has zero titles  seven seasons into his career, by which time Kobe had three. Also, Kobe took those three titles alongside arguably the most dominant player ever in his most dominant stretch ever. The best player to ever play alongside Lebron in the postseason was Daniel Gibson. So while Kobe’s career is thus far superior to Lebron’s in every which way, and anybody making an argument to the contrary is either blind or incredibly unintelligent, we must always remember that career comparisons come at the end of careers, not in the middle of them. Will Lebron ascend to Kobe’s level when all is said and done? Right now, it looks as if he doesn’t. Not when Kobe’s claim to fame is his unquenchable thirst to win and to improve, while Lebron wastes his summers on hour-long TV specials. But there is no possible way to say that he never will. Unless you can see the future. At which case I’d like to know next week’s lottery numbers.

Public Response 4

If he wanted to win, he would have gone to Chicago.

Ummm … what? How is an up-and-coming, All-Star point guard, an undersized All-Star power forward and a borderline All-Star defensive center better than a top two shooting guard and a much better, not undersized All-Star power forward? I’m sorry, but I just don’t get this line of thinking at all.

Role players excluded, Wade/Bosh is a much, much better combination than Rose/Boozer/Noah. It’s no contest defensively (yes, Noah is great, but Wade is an all-worlder in this regard, and while Bosh isn’t the best defender you’ve seen, he’s better than Booze). It’s even more of a no contest offensively, where Bosh is amongst the league’s best, and Wade is amongst history’s very best. And while Rose’s and Noah’s youth enable Lebron to grow old with them, it also means that they’re not as good as Wade and Bosh right now, which is when Lebron wants that ring. Not to mention, they will never be as good as Wade and Bosh. Both have tremendous upside (more so Rose), but this is out of their league.

The only place I see an advantage for Chicago over Miami is in depth. Rose/Boozer/Noah are three guys, Wade/Bosh are two. In addition, the Bulls have a Luol Deng/James Johnson/Taj Gibson supporting cast, while Miami has just Mario Chalmers. But that brings me to my next point, which is…

Public Response 5A

The Heat can’t win a title because they have no role players.

Let’s ignore for a second that Miami has traded Michael Beasley for nothing, which, combined with the new Superfriends all taking less money, enables signing Mike Miller. The Heat can now offer any free agent only a minimum contract … but this comes with the opportunity to play with a nearly unprecedented force in this league. Of course, some of these guys need money and won’t tag along, but plenty of others will. Ben Wallace played for a minimum deal last year, and his renaissance in Detroit would have been a huge story had the Pistons been relevant. You think he wouldn’t want to start at center for this team? What about Raja Bell, on the downside of his career? Eddie House, looking to taste that sweet victory champagne again after being let go by the Celtics? Every single bought-out guy in late February?

And even if the familiar faces choose not to join for whatever reason — we are coming off the best season ever for D-League talent. The Golden State Warriors featured Anthony Tolliver, Cartier Martin, Chris Hunter, CJ Watson and Reggie Williams as rotation players throughout the season — all D-League guys. Alonzo Gee broke into the scene in Washington. Sundiata Gaines rose to fame after making a game-winning shot against the Cavs.

The D-League is full of more of these NBA-level players just waiting to get a chance. The Miami Heat roster is full of empty spots waiting for contributors to step in. There is no reason why the marriage can’t work. The Heat have 82 games to filter through this pool of talent — a pool that we know, now more than ever, is overflowing — find the best guys and trot them out. And playing with some of the best players in the world, the chances of them finding absolutely nobody who can step up are minuscule. Add that to what the brilliant Mark Deeks of ShamSports calls “one of the best undrafted classes of recent years,” and Miami should have themselves a rotation in no time. Not to mention that Lebron made Daniel Gibson, JJ Hickson and Jawad Williams look like legit NBA contributors in Cleveland. With Wade and Bosh creating even more open looks for the other guys, that trend should continue.

Of course, there is another side to this coin that is being mentioned quite a bit …

Public Response 5B

Miami is an immediate title favorite.

Again, let’s slow down a bit.

Yes, the Heat now bolster a trio nearly unparalleled in the NBA. But basketball isn’t played three against five. And confident as I am in the Heat’s ability to fill out their roster (see 5A) there are still 29 other teams in the league that, until opening night, are tied with the Heat for the best record in the league and pose big questions.

How do the Heat stop the Dwight Howards and Pau Gasols of the world with no current defensive player in their frontcourt? How can they rival the depth of the Magic and Celtics? Even the pseudo-contenders of the East, a group that as of today consists of Chicago, Milwaukee and Atlanta in my eyes, probably have something to say to whoever is anointing Miami as Eastern Conference champs — let alone NBA champs. And we don’t even know how this trio will work on the court or in the locker room. Talk to me next April. Actually, make that June.

Public Response 6

Lebron has admitted he can’t win alone by going to be Dwyane’s sidekick.

This is probably the dumbest statement I’ve heard throughout this mess, and yet it is the most prevalent.

Yes, Lebron James failed to win a title as the leader of the Cleveland Cavaliers. But look at the rosters he had to work with over the years. NOBODY in NBA history won a title with a roster that bad. Nobody. The only All-Stars Lebron played with in their primes were Zydrunas Ilgauskas, whose skill diminished noticeably by the time Cleveland was a championship contender, and Mo Williams, who is as much of an All-Star as you and me.

And yet, he took that roster to the best record in the league for two consecutive years, carrying them night in, night out. He took them to the NBA Finals, behind one of the greatest playoff performances ever that we somehow allowed ourselves to forget. Yes, he choked against Boston. But it was his first playoff loss that was his fault, the first time in five years of overachieving that he didn’t do everything humanly possible in a playoff series. And least us not forget — Boston was the better team, and won not because Lebron was bad, but because the Cavs had nobody to guard Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett. Lebron simply didn’t do anything to counter that.

So now, when Lebron is taking less money to play on a better team — a potentially historically great team — we’re calling him out? We’re actually faulting this guy because he chose playing with an all-time great and an all-NBAer over playing with Anderson Varejao and Anthony Parker in his starting lineup? If everything is indeed about winning, and the main criticism on Lebron was that he doesn’t want to win as much as his peers, isn’t this the only move he could have considered?

As for the sidekick thing – give me a break. When Shaquille O’neal signed with the Lakers in 1996, it was Nick Van Exel and Cedric Ceballos’ team. Was Shaq the sidekick? When Tim Duncan came to the Spurs, it was David Robinson’s team. Was Timmy the sidekick? The fact of the matter is, Lebron James is still the best player in the league, and he will be the best player on the Heat even if they bring in Josh Boone in free agency. The “I was there first” argument works for standing in line at a pizzeria, not when discussing the pecking order on an NBA team. Even if the player who was there first is responsible for the team’s only title.

Besides, why do we need a sidekick anyway? Why do we need only one alpha male, only one player who takes the last shot? If the Charlotte Bobcats had a team consisting of Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki and Dwight Howard, you think that team wouldn’t win the title just because everybody would want the last shot? No, I’ll tell you what happens in the last possession: Chris Paul will handle the ball, because he’s the point guard; he will get a screen from Dwight, because he’s the best screener in the game; Dwight will roll to the basket; and from that point on, the team will move the ball to the open player, who will knock down the shot because he’s awesome.

Same here. This consensus that final possession basketball consists of an isolation play for clutch guy X is absurd. It works when you have said clutch guy, but why should it be the final option? If you have two or three guys that can all step up, why categorize them into “the guy with the ball” and “the guy who’s watching”? And why does it even matter if the team is good enough to win the game in the first 47 minutes?

The whole legacy discussion in sports is looked at the wrong way. We say titles matter the most, but players have to win the title in the predetermined mold, and each title carries different weight depending on the role said player had on the team. And that’s fine. Nobody thinks Robert Horry is better than Michael Jordan because seven is a bigger number than six. But this point of view comes with an undefined resolution. Jordan was the best guy on his title teams, and Kareem was the best guy on his, except Jordan had Pippen, and Kareem had Magic. Does this give Kareem more credit? Or Jordan? Shaq had young Kobe, old Kobe had Pau. Is Pau as good as young Kobe? Is old Kobe as good as Shaq? What about the coaches? What about the role players? We insist on pegging these guys into these rigid roles and use those roles to analyze the hell out of them. But what if we miss by just a bit? What if Pau is a tiny bit better than Manu Ginobili? Nope, they were both the number-two sidekick, so they’re the same. Please.

Besides, as much as I hate repeating this point, we have to remember that there is still plenty of basketball to be played. What if the Miami Heat win the title next year, only the finals feature Lebron averaging 40, 10 and 10 while shutting down Kobe, and Wade shoots 14%? What if Lebron is injured in the first round of the playoffs, but Wade leads the team to the title without him? What if the Heat never win a title because Kevin Durant turns into the Optimus Prime and doesn’t lose a playoff game until 2025? We don’t know what will happen, because it hasn’t happened yet. Just like in 2007, when Kobe was getting criticized by every punk with a keyboard, nobody imagined that the summer of 2010 would turn him into the guy everyone is rooting for to take down the Miami axis of evil.

I get the need to write some of the stuff that we’ve been reading. You don’t sell papers by telling people to wait for the games to play out. But the bottom line is that we’re discussing the sport of basketball, not the sport of offseason moves. And as such, legacies are built in the games themselves. Lebron James still has plenty of basketball to play. History shows he’s very good at it. That doesn’t change just because his jersey has different colors or because he’s no longer playing in a city that recognizes the concept of cold weather.

I’m not trying to defend Lebron. Though his decision to leave was perfectly legitimate, he handled the entire situation in the worst possible way, and I, too, hoped he would stay in Cleveland and prove he could win over there. But I do think that this backlash has been overdone.

Has Lebron shown that he’s a narcissistic human being with little to no awareness as to how his decisions affect the millions that idolize him? Yes. But this decision does nothing to diminish the fact that he is the best player in this league, that his MVP awards were blowouts of the 1992-Dream-team-against-Angola proportions, that he single-handedly carried the worst NBA Finals team ever within four wins of an NBA title or that, from a skills-only standpoint, he might be the greatest player to ever play basketball.

That much we know, because it’s in the past.

The future? It could go anywhere.

The true beauty of this league is that less than an hour after Lebron’s much-criticized Decision, the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors completed a trade that both teams hope will improve their chances at a title of their own. And less than a day after that, the Charlotte Bobcats re-signed Tyrus Thomas. And the Chicago Bulls signed Kyle Korver. And the New Jersey Nets signed Johan Petro. Each for their own reasons. (Tyrus has ridiculous upside, the Bulls need a shooter, and I have absolutely no idea) Each with their own dreams of success.

Good as the new-look Heat may be, we still have 29 teams — lead by the defending champions, least you forget — that want a title just as much. Who will win it? We have no idea.

Which is why, come late October, I will be watching.

(AP Photo/ESPN)

In related news, it seems like a good time to revisit this. I feel like Paul Pierce could be the next mayor of Cleveland if he made this his campaign ad. Maybe throw in a dramatic effigy burning image with some sweet, CGI explosions.

But … it seems that all these people who barely even watch the league are very interested in which team they won’t watch play will get LeBron James, the best basketball in player in the world that they will occasionally see in commercials and highlights.

There’s not a lot of logic to it.

Anyway, I’ve read/seen a grand total of two interesting things related to LeBron(insert witty suffix here) aka “The Decision.”

The first is this Shoals/Ziller joint on FanHouse. Good times. And while I get that Sophie’s Choice, conceptually, was a good pick here and an amazingly difficult choice for the character, I just finally saw that movie a few months ago and it’s not all that great aside from Meryl’s amazing performance. FYI.

Great piece though, gents.

Nearly as good was The Basketball Jones investigative report, “Who Is ‘Multiple Sources’?”

Enjoy.

The Suns have agreed to sign Hakim Warrick to a four-year, $18 million deal. Seeing how Warrick plays Amar’e’s position, and given the financial burden of signing him and retaining Channing Frye with a five-year, $30 million deal, Amar’e is pretty much out. As of Friday, July 2, it seems as if he will be going to the New York Knicks with a shiny new five-year, near-$100 million contract. However, given the nature of these things, that is hardly set in stone. Amar’e could still end up in Miami, Chicago, New Jersey or some weird sign-and-trade destination (Houston and Cleveland have reportedly shown interest). Anywhere but Phoenix, really. Maybe even the moon.

But honestly, I don’t care about that.

I don’t care about 27-year-old power forwards who spend 8 years with one franchise, see that franchise stick by them through one of the most daunting operations in all of sports (microfracture surgery) and another, bizarre injury that leads to them playing with goggles (goggles!), see that franchise give them the best teammate humanely possible and the best possible playing style (excluding that awful Terry Porter stint), allow that teammate and that style to mold them into one of the best big men in this game, and then bolt because their pride was hurt when they were only offered $96 million to play basketball for the next five years. Those insolent, Phoenix McScrooges. How dare they.

To be fair, though, I also don’t care for the Suns in this saga. I can’t condone a franchise who dangles a young man back and forth for years, almost trading him for everything from Kevin Garnett to Al Jefferson to J.J. Hickson, repeatedly throwing him under the bus while still holding on with one arm, and reminding him that every dollar he gets is another dollar they refuse to use to enhance the supporting cast around him and the aforementioned teammate.

No, I don’t care for either side here. Both of them are right so little and wrong so often, that the antagonism flows like money to an unproven power forward in the summer. What I care for is the short, floppy haired, Canadian two-time MVP, who — at age 36, with no ring to his name or in his near future — is once again forced to make something out of nothing.

The greatest movie of all time starts with the immortal Scar saying “life’s not fair.” Well, sports are rarely fair either. If they were, we wouldn’t be talking about money and championships, because every single player in the league would finish every single season with a participation trophy, a popsicle, and a pat on the back. But sometimes, the best guys are thrust into the worst circumstances, and we are left with no alternative to sulking in the corner and complaining.

And you know what the worst thing about this is? That while you, me, every Suns fan, every Steve Nash fan and every proponent of justice will do just that, the only one who will refuse to sulk in the corner and complain is Steve Nash himself. If anything, Steve will look even happier, express his gratitude towards Amar’e for 6 years of fruitless cooperation, and say he’s looking forward to playing with Hakim Warrick.

And he’ll mean it. He loves the game, loves his teammates that much. Heck, he could actually pull off this Hakim Warrick crap. If Warrick averages 25 points and 12 rebounds a game next season, while suddenly shooting 62% from three-point range, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. That’s what Steve Nash does. He makes his teammates happy, turns rosters from barren fields into booming, blossoming crops of talent.

However, it’s just not enough. Because to win titles, you need more than a magician. You need those lucky breaks that Steve never had, for whatever reason. It’s fun to say that the true greats always get those breaks, always get the right teammates, always luck into walking on the golden path instead of falling into the insurmountable abyss. If you decorate your statements with enough exclamation marks and capital letters and words like “FACT” or “PERIOD,” people might even buy it. But the truth is that sometimes luck is just that: luck. A statistical fluke. A coin that lands on the same side five times in a row, only to land on tails when you finally call heads.

Well, Steve just lost the coin toss. Again. The fluke to end all flukes. For the fourth time, an All-Star teammate has walked out on his team because … well … um … I have no idea. Just think about that. How many players even get to play with four All-Stars in their lifetime? Well, Steve fell on the four whose priorities have “I have no idea what I’m thinking” over winning, over playing with the best teammate of our generation. This comes after a run in which his team has sold multiple draft picks/productive role players for nothing, let go of a revolutionary coach in Mike D’Antoni (although we’re still not sure if that was to the detriment of the team or not, given how good Alvin Gentry has been at the helm), and has been knocked out of the Playoffs by Joe Johnson breaking his face, Amar’e’s microfracture surgery, two suspensions, a Tim Duncan three-pointer and a Ron Artest putback off a Kobe Bryant airball. Not to mention the multiple gashed/broken/severely deformed noses, the hip-check-into-the-scorer’s-table, and the black-eye-swollen-shut that he suffered while trying to win anyway.

Steve Nash. Where lightning strikes again and again and again and again.

So yes, Amar’e is leaving. The longtime co-pilot has followed the path of many a former wingman, seeking greener pastures but — if history holds — on the verge of failing miserably. The only current Phoenix Sun who was on the squad when the Dallas Mavericks let Nash go is Leandro Barbosa, whose best years seem behind him (I use the word “seem” because I like Leandro and hope that his diminished form truly is the result of ankle injuries that are now in the past).

But even though the biggest constant of Nash’s second Phoenix Suns stint is now gone — and at 6’10”, 249 pounds, Amar’e is a pretty big constant — things are still the same. The Suns will play the happiest basketball in the league, everybody will be shocked at how good their seemingly average role players are, Hakim Warrick will get several most improved player votes, and the Suns will walk into the playoffs with an abundance of “IS THIS THE YEAR?!” stories, before suffering a heartbreaking loss. And they will lose. You know it, I know it, they know it. Hakim Warrick is just as capable of losing track defensively of Pau Gasol as Amar’e was, just as capable of missing huge rebounds and going 7 for 20 in the deciding game of the Conference Finals. And next summer, they will lose another key contributor (Grant Hill to retirement? Jason Richardson to free agency?) and we will be in the exact same spot.

Steve Nash will still be smiling in the US Airways Center, whether it’s after a marvelous pass to a cutting Robin Lopez or lying on his back on the sidelines, rooting for that plucky bench unit. He will continue to do things we never thought possible, playing basketball at the highest level into his late 30s, making nifty layups over the tallest athletes in the world, prompting millions of “OMG I LOVE STEVE NASH HE’S THE BOMBZ!!!!111” articles and tweets by the hour.

And he’ll do it without winning his ring.

No, this is not the end of the Amar’e era. It’s the continuation of the Steve Nash era. An era responsible for some of the funnest basketball in all time — and for the six-year lump in my throat.

Sadly, it seems that road might soon be counted on to carry the weight of John Hammond’s money heavy shoes.

The NBA’s reigning executive of the year has reportedly agreed to bring John Salmons back to his Milwaukee Bucks for the next five years at the hefty price of 39 million dollars. This after signing Drew Gooden to a 5 year, 32 million deal, and trading for Corey Maggette’s 3 year, 31 million deal.

It should be noted that I hate what I’m writing right now. Basically, I’m criticizing the Milwaukee Bucks for spending money. This coming one year after they elected to give away three fifths of their starting lineup for nothing, just to get out of paying money. You shouldn’t be reading these words, comprehending this premise. No, this should be a celebratory piece, one that welcomes the Milwaukee Bucks back to our league, one that applauds owner Herb Kohl for his newfound lust for aiming high over sitting in the corner, counting how many losses have been cut.

It’s not like I don’t like the moves individually, too. Each of these three veterans adds quite a bit to this Milwaukee squad. Maggette is one of the best in the business at getting to the line, while Milwaukee was the worst in the league at that very category last season. Gooden is the secondary big body/post scorer/rebounder that the Bucks sorely need next to Bogut. Salmons was great for Milwaukee after arriving at the trade deadline, providing scoring and a primary defensive wing. Throw in the acquisition of yet another wing scorer in Chris Douglas Roberts – a young one at that – and the Bucks have suddenly addressed their biggest problems.

And yes, except for Douglas Roberts, every Bucks acquisition is now overpaid. But come on. You’re the Milwaukee Bucks. You were supposed to be the worst team in the league last year. A miraculous turnaround behind a surprising rookie, an Australian center gone wild, and a coaching job for the ages doesn’t suddenly turn you into a desirable free agent destination. If you’re going to improve, you’re going to overpay, and realizing that is a huge huge step.

That being said, even overpaying requires thinking. “Yeah, we can spare a million here. We need this guy to be happy, we’ll pay him for a year or two past his prime”. Those are legitimate considerations. Not “you know what we’ll need in 2014? John Salmons and Drew Gooden combining for 14 million dollars a year!”

And that’s before thinking about your coach. Because, you see, Scott Skiles is the wacky type of character that needs to be fully coordinated with his GM, or his teams implode. Skiles gets in his players’ face for every minute of every practice or game, can pull out his star player for a blown rotation or a bad shot attempt. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. And masterful as his 09-10 campaign was, you can’t just ignore the shortcomings of you’re coach and bring in players that he’s prone to clash with. Like a disinterested defender who once clashed with part of his staff (Gooden, with current Bucks assistant and then Bulls interim coach Jim Boylan), or a guy who has made a career of hogging the ball and losing (Maggette).

So yes, try to improve your team. Bring in talent, bring in scorers, bring in whoever you can to flank these two great talents you have in the toughest positions to fill in basketball. But don’t delude yourself. Don’t bury your head in the sand and pretend that one year after giving away serviceable young players to save pennies, you don’t care about shelling out nickels and dimes for players who are, at best, on their way out of their primes. Because what happens in two years, when Salmons, Maggette and Gooden are two years older and are still getting this money? Will you give away Jennings? Will you give away Bogut? Will you give your fans the “hey, we tried?” treatment or will you admit to misjudging the situation?

I wish it were different, Milwaukee. John. Herb. I wish I could be the one saying “they’re trying again! Look out, NBA! Fear the Deer!”. God knows I planned on it after the initial Maggette deal. But as of right now, I can’t shake this nagging feeling that barring a major development (say, trading Michael Redd’s expiring deal for a superstar), this move means treading water. Moving up for a year or two before tumbling down in three or four. Getting to the second round this year before the team tunes out Skiles and returns to the lottery.

Which is a damn shame, because I wouldn’t mind the 09-10 Milwaukee Bucks becoming a playoff fixture for years to come. Believe me, the joy this team caused me last year was as surprising and as powerful as a lightning bolt to the forehead. And if these guys prove me wrong – prove they were worth the money, worth Hammond’s gamble – I’ll gladly eat my portion of crow. Probably won’t even notice the taste if I eat it during a Bucks game. I mean… on paper? Jennings-Salmons-Maggette-Gooden-Bogut? That’s a pretty sweet team.

Just not at 102 million dollars for the middle three.

Earlier today, the invaluable @jose3030 was recounting some of the worst contracts ever handed out to terrible players. His main message was that everyone should remember these lessons (not) learned before they get too excited about any deals their favorite teams make this Summer that don’t include LeBron, Flash or CB4. And I have to presume the impetus was the completely illogical and insane five-year, $32-million deal that Milwaukee just gave to Drew Gooden.

Since I’m such a helpful guy, I wanted to make sure he didn’t forget about the deal that New Jersey gave The Original T-Mac, Todd MacCulloch, a decade or so ago. I recalled the contract being in the the neighborhood of Gooden’s deal but had to Google search it first. As it turns out, the MacCulloch deal was closer to five years, $25 million — I think; I never actually bothered to confirm that fact after being distracted by this nugget of gold on Todd’s Wikipedia page.

Pinball career

MacCulloch played pinball whenever he could growing up, at malls, arcades and bowling alleys around town. He began buying up pinball machines when he signed as a free agent with the Nets in 2001 and got his first house. His collection is now greater than 60 pinball and non-pinball arcade games.

MacCulloch has played in several pinball tournaments. He competed in the European pinball championship in Stockholm in 2007, and he played in the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association tournament from 2005 to 2007 and again in 2009, where he qualified for finals in the B Division. MacCulloch has played several matches against two-time world champion Bowen Kerins.

Between his height and his foot condition, MacCulloch is forced to play pinball sitting on a stool. MacCulloch says there are indeed some similarities between pinball and basketball. He relates: “Hand-eye coordination is really important in both, and maintaining your focus is definitely important. I’ve been in some pressure situations in big [basketball] games, and nerves wouldn’t affect me, but I’ve found that in pinball tournaments, I can’t seem to keep those nerves at bay. My heart beats faster, my chest gets tight. Competition is competition, and I thought I’d respond well, but I haven’t been able to rein that in yet.”

I was immediately enthralled.

But since I had never heard about this post-career, professional pinball life of T-Mac, I was skeptical. Sure enough, however, this actually happened. And it is presumably continuing to happen even today. Todd MacCulloch is a pinball wizard. Apologies if you already knew all this, but I honestly had no idea. I mean, this makes Rik Smits’ motocross after-life seem sorta-not-nonsensical by comparison.

And, yes, before you ask, at this point, I consider passing along this information way more interesting and useful to you than anything surrounding the NBA free agency period that began today. I mean, I love the NBA offseason. It’s cool. It’s exciting. And it legitimately re-shapes the league every year in ways that matter.

But it’s not great.

Basketball is great. The NBA Playoffs are great. The NBA Finals are especially great.

Business decisions, agent negotiations and people changing jobs is not great. It’s just not. It’s interesting, it’s intriguing, it’s frenzied, it’s often comical and it’s perhaps hope-inspiring, sure. But it’s not that great.

By the way it’s now covered by pretty much every sports outlet in existence, however, you would think it truly was. Obviously, this year is even crazier than most given the players who are up for grabs, but it was similarly over-speculated-upon, over-hyped and run into the ground thoroughly in all of the past few years that it has ceased being particularly cool to me anymore.

Truly great things can’t be ruined by over-exposure.

Radio, TV and media tried to destroy Jay-Z’s latest single “Empire State of Mind.” It didn’t work. That track is still ill. In the Summer of 2000, I had the pleasure (seriously) of working in a window shade factory out in Southern California, and we listened to Power 106, LA’s most prominent rap radio station, all day, every day as I stood at a table packing window shades into cardboard boxes for shipping. Without exaggeration, every single day, they played a combined 16-ish different tracks off of Dr. Dre’s 2001 and Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP. “Explosive,” “Forgot About Dre,” and “Bitch Please II” were the most popular, getting at least three spins each during my eight-hour shift. I’m not going to lie, as incredible as the drums on “Xxplosive” are, they do begin to wear on you and sound tedious after that kind of exposure for multiple months. But none of those songs were ever ruined. They were all great and, thus, unruinable. (Sidenote: “The Real Slim Shady” was perhaps played more than any other song except “Xxplosive” and since I barely dug that song after hearing it like ten times, hearing it an estimated 1,357 times in three months made me wanna murder bunnies.) When I was like nine years old, I watched the movie The Toy with Richard Pryor after school like every other day for two months whenever I was done playing outside. Admittedly, that movie wasn’t “great.” I thought it was when I was in second grade though so I’m counting it for these purposes. In my college years, it was Anchorman. I have seen this movie dozens upon dozens of times and at every party I went to for a solid four years, douchebag frat boys (and also myself) would quote it ad nauseum. By all accounts I should now hate this movie. But I don’t. It didn’t matter. It’s still great.

NBA free agency is not great though. So with the exposure, hype and discussion it has now been receiving, it has been ruined

And yall ruined it. Thanks a lot, everyone.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

… it seems like a good time to re-visit this Trey Kerby classic.

Well played, Mr. Z.

If you’ve been watching these NBA finals, that’s probably your go-to reaction.

A series overflowing with unlikely heroes, statistical oddities and failing superstars took another turn towards the bizarre on Thursday, with Boston winning game 4 behind the superb 4^th quarter effort of it’s bench. Yep, the same bench that was thought to be a major weakness, nowhere near that 2008 unit that proved so crucial. The bench that consists of an overweight 35 year old with a propensity for not trying, an overweight 24 year old who missed six weeks of basketball after injuring his hand while punching a friend, a 5’8” shooting guard who once shot at his own basket, and a player whose two signature moves are losing the ball and missing layups.

This coming one game after the Lakers saw their best player play a terrible game of basketball, their second best player repeatedly ignored on offense, and yet won the game behind 10 4^thquarter points from their 36 year old point guard, whose regular season was notable almost exclusively for setting new records of washedupiness.

Yeah. I know.

All this leaves us with a series that can go anywhere, anyway. The Lakers could win the next two games behind 50 point performances from Kobe Bryant, or behind Pau Gasol triple doubles, or behind Sasha Vujacic transforming into a killer robot. The Celtics could win behind another Ray Allen 3 point circus act, behind Rajon Rondo weaving his way into the paint time and time again, or behind Brian Scalabrine’s fiery hair growing out limbs that enable him to block all Laker shot attempts. And every one of those scenarios is just as likely as the scenarios that determined the previous 4 games.

This makes the rest of the series very hard to predict. There isn’t a single rotation player on any squad who has yet to play a good game, and there isn’t a single rotation player who has yet to play a bad one. However, if there is one thing that we can take from the first 4 games and into the last 3 (hopefully), it’s that Andrew Bynum’s knee is the most important knee in recent NBA history.

By simply standing on the court and being tall, Bynum changes the entire game. On offense, he serves as a fix-it-all last option, always ready to get the ball on a last-resort dump or off the offensive boards. And while this may seem trivial, that couldn’t be farther from the truth: it is truly a skill, a feel for the game, that enables Bynum to finish these broken plays with 2 points at a time. Not to mention the matchup advantage he presents – his sheer size pretty much forces Boston to defend him with Kendrick Perkins, moving Kevin Garnett over to Pau. And while Garnett is still a very good defender, Perkins seems to bother Gasol much more, bumping him and not allowing him to get good positioning.

On defense, Bynum’s lengthy presence in the paint forces Boston players to rethink every interior shot. Rajon Rondo, in particular, has struggled with Bynum in the paint, taking away his oft-used penetrating game. Stopping Rondo is an absolute necessity for the Lakers, since without him creating shots for others, Boston’s offense can go cold. Bynum has also been key against Boston’s new favorite reserve, Glen Davis. An undersized big man, Davis does most of his damage with interior shots off cuts and offensive boards. However, since he is small for a big and lacks crazy hops, Bynum’s length often bothers him from getting those shots off. In game 4, Davis enjoyed his best game of the series, scoring 18 points – most of those with Bynum off the court.

Last but not least, Bynum is crucial to the Lakers’ success because they have no one to replace him. L.A.’s frontcourt rotation consists of  Pau, Bynum, Lamar Odom, and very little else. Bynum supplies not only everything listed above, but a capable minute sopper. Without him, Pau and Odom might have to play the entire game, which would prove disastrous not only due to fatigue (Gasol, together with Bryant, looked exhausted down the stretch of Game 4), but due to foul trouble. Odom has been in foul trouble in both games 1 and 2, and if he can’t stay on the floor, and Bynum isn’t there, L.A. is pretty much screwed.

Bynum is expected to play Sunday after having his knee drained, and reportedly feeling much better. Stay tuned.

On Boston’s side, the key was and still is who can put the ball in the basket. With Rondo struggling, Boston lacks players who can create shots. Normally, that man would be Paul Pierce, but Pierce has been having a hard time getting past Ron Artest. However, in Game 4 Pierce played much better, scoring 19 points on 12 shots (albeit 10 of them in the first quarter).

So far, the Celtics have won games in which they get good offensive contributions from multiple directions (Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo in Game 2, Pierce, and the bench in Game 4), and have lost when not (in Game one, only Pierce and Garnett scored well, but 13 of Pierce’s points came in a garbage time 4^thquarter, while in Game 3 Garnett was more or less on his own). The Celtics know they can defend with the Lakers – but putting up points is just as important as denying your opponent of theirs.

Now, if you’re anything like me, as you’re reading this, you’re probably asking yourself: “Did this guy just write 300 words on how weird this series is, 400 words on Andrew Bynum, 160 words on the Boston offense, and that’s it? Nothing about – AHEM – Kobe Bryant?” Look, folks, I don’t get it either. Kobe should have been the story in this series, just like he is in every series he participates in. And yet, he hasn’t been. After playing well, but not incredible in Game 1, Kobe has been incredibly quiet all series, from his foul plagued Game 2, to his horrendous Game 3. He bounced back in Game 4, scoring 33 points on 22 shots (6 threes, by the way), and yet never seemed to have his imprint on the game, too willing to defer late.

This has got to stop.

For all of Ray/Tony Allen’s great defense so far this series, Kobe stoppers always were, and still are nothing but an amusing myth. Great offense always beats great defense. That’s how this game goes. And Kobe, at his best, is great offense. Maybe not in as far as the playbook is concerned – no, the playbook says that feeding Pau Gasol down low is much smarter than a steady diet of mid range jumpers – but as far as results? It’s on number 24. 

And yet, here we are, discussing how Kobe has yet to take over a single game in this series.

The Lakers need this to change. They need the Kobe Bryant who tears the opposing team’s heart out, unleashing a bombardment of psychotic looking glares every which way. They need the Kobe Bryant who laughs in the face of the coaches that try to stop him with bench players and 36 year olds. They need the Kobe Bryant who prompts main stream columnists and love-blinded Laker fans to make arguments – utterly ridiculous as it may be – for that GOAT title.

So far, that Kobe hasn’t shown up. If it stays that way? Then yes, Bynum’s knee, and the Celtics’ bench, and Rondo/Pierce/Garnett/Ray, and Pau/Odom/Artest could decide what happens here. The Lakers can still win it without him – Pau is that great when actually given the ball – but Kobe playing the way he has so far leaves it up to chance.

If the real Kobe stands up to the plate and knocks it out of the ball park?

It’s going to be that much harder to see banner number 18 in Beantown.

Check it early and often.

As long as you remember that formula, you should be good to go in life.

The best finals shooting performance ever? That would belong to Ray Allen, who made his first 7 three-point attempts before missing one to end the half. 7 threes, which — just in case you were abducted from earth 2 days ago and hadn’t seen this — tied an NBA record for an entire game. Ray, ever the humble minimalist, needed only 1 three-pointer in the second half to break the record and got just that.

Yes, Ray bounced back perfectly from his foul-plagued Game 1, single-handedly keeping the Boston Celtics in the game in the first half. It might be weird to read the words “kept in the game,” given how Boston had a 6-point lead at half time, but make no mistake – without Ray’s ridiculous first half, Boston isn’t close. The Cs had no first-half offense other than good ole Jesus Shuttlesworth, who weighed in at exactly half of their points (27 of 54 after two quarters). None. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

And they paid for it. All game long. They paid for it in the first half, when Ray going nova was just enough for that 6-point advantage, and nothing more; and they paid for it in the second half, when the Lakers suffocated Ray, limiting him to just 5 points, with no other Celtic in enough of a previously established rhythm to count on.

And so it became that, with a bit over five minutes to go in the game, with the greatest three-point shooting performance in NBA Finals history on their side, Boston found itself looking up at a 3-point deficit, on the road, against the defending champs — the same guys who haven’t lost on their home court this postseason. Only this time, Ray was all dried out, and those Los Angeles Lakers came knocking on the Celtics’ door, saying “we’re going to take this game now.”

The only thing LA wasn’t expecting was for Rajon Rondo to answer the door, and say this:

I mean, he probably didn’t call them Dutch, and the crazy part was most likely directed exclusively at Ron Artest, but you get my gist.

Yes, Rajon Rondo took this game over in every which way and drove it home. It wasn’t just the 10 points in the final six minutes (though they surely helped) or the gaudy numbers (19, 12 and 10 – his fifth career postseason triple double). It was the game-long control of the tempo (somebody had to find Ray Allen on those semi-transition three point shots). It was the willingness to have the ball in his hands late in the game, poor free-throw shooting be damned. It was blocking Derek Fisher’s potentially game-tying shot. It was knocking the ball out of Kobe Bryant’s hands to seal the deal with 39 seconds left.

And most of all, it was the ridiculous — yet undeniably true — notion that in a game pitting a team full of savvy, experienced veterans who know how to win against another team full of savvy, experienced veterans who know how to win, the most savvy player, the one who knew best how to win, was the young point guard with arms as long as the Mississippi.

Ironically, the Ray and Rondo show had help from everybody except Boston’s other two stars. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were terrible yet again, with Pierce being a nonfactor on offense (2 of 11) and Garnett once again seeing limited action due to foul trouble (24 minutes in which he accumulated 5 fouls to 4 rebounds). In fact, KG’s only meaningful contribution came in a form we haven’t seen from him in a while: absolutely gorgeous passing. Garnett had 6 assists – 3 in the fourth quarter – and repeatedly found his teammates in the lane, taking full advantage of the space created by Allen’s early barrage. Even this comes with a hint of sadness, though, when one remembers that KG used to average 6 assists a game during his peak. Oh well.

The rest of the Celtics, though, were there all night. Nate Robinson had 7 straight points to set up Rondo’s final stretch. Sheed was arguably the best Boston big man on the court before fouls got the best of him. Glen Davis hustled like mad, occasionally getting him a basket. Kendrick Perkins recovered from trying to do too much in the first half, instead settling into a more fitting role of getting the ball near the rim and dunking it/laying it in. Tony Allen managed to play 12 minutes without turning the ball over even once. A fine all-around effort from the green supporting cast.

The Lakers missed that equivalent supporting effort very much. The “other” Lakers were atrocious, ranging from doing nothing (Lamar Odom had 5 fouls in 15 minutes) to taking simply awful shots (Derek Fisher: 2 of 8, JordanShannon BrownFarmar: 3 of 9, Ron Artest: Ron Artest.). Worse than those terrible numbers, they wasted a phenomenal performance by the ever-so-x-factorish Andrew Bynum. Bynum did everything one could ask from him. He scored 21 points without needing the ball in his hands, instead doing his damage off last-second lobs, loose balls and offensive boards. He blocked 7 shots and altered many more. And most importantly, he stayed on the court for an amazing 39 minutes. The Lakers cannot afford to waste games like that from Bynum. With the current state of his knee, you have to fully utilize anything he can possibly give.

Another Laker player who didn’t give his share was Kobe Bryant. Kobe was as out as he’s ever been recently, scoring only 21 points on 20 shots and adding 5 turnovers to boot. And while Laker fans will point to his bogus 3rd and 4th fouls — which clearly weren’t fouls by any stretch of the imagination – the truth is that he just wasn’t there. He didn’t make the shots that he usually makes and didn’t play the smart type of basketball that was there for the entire Phoenix series.

What smart type of basketball? That would be passing the ball to Pau Gasol — and fast.

Pau continued to dominate, scoring 25 points on 10 — TEN!!! — shots, throwing in 8 boards and 6 blocks for good measure. If you’re looking for an explanation as to why the best power forward in the game continues to watch his teammates run their offense without him, there is none. Nothing more to say on this subject.

All in all, you get a series that is much, much closer than it was two days ago — and not just because of the scoreboard. The Lakers have yet again demonstrated a self-sabotaging tendency to waltz away from their optimal game, while 50 percent of Boston’s core stepped up its effort dramatically. This leaves us in a situation where we don’t really know what to expect anymore. The tight officiating, the inconsistent superstars and the wild bench fluctuations mean that this series could go absolutely anywhere.

Last time around, I said that the Celtics need to kick the door open if they don’t want it to close on them. Well, they didn’t kick it, but they applied enough pressure for the Lakers to open it for them. And tough as the 2-3-2 system is for the team hosting those middle 3, the Celts now have homecourt advantage. It’s on the Lakers to play to their strengths and take it back.

If not, they could be left in the dust, wondering why they didn’t give their shaggy Spaniard the damn ball.

Sadly, it was downhill from there.

Unless you’re a Laker fan.

Because the one thing we can take from an ugly game that developed absolutely no rhythm at any point is that these Lakers are every bit as good as expected, and then some. Ergo, ridiculously, absurdly good. And even though I usually take the “let’s not overreact, we have 6 games to go, anything can happen” stance, and I openly snickered at the surprisingly common pre-game notion that “game 1 is the series!” – and for the love of god, stop telling me that Phil Jackson has never lost a series after winning the first game, we get it – I can’t shake the feeling that this infinitesimally small 1-0 Laker lead is insurmountable.

My immediate, devil’s advocate response to that statement – as I’m sure will be the response of many a Bostonian – is this: gimme a break. It’s one game. One game in which the Celtics played terrible, terrible basketball all across the board. It’s concerning, but it’s hardly damning. And indeed, other than a brilliant albeit short lived stretch by Rasheed Wallace to start the second quarter, no Celtic played anywhere near their full capabilities.

Rajon Rondo was hesitant at best and reckless at worst, constantly getting lost between a sea of long limbs in the paint and throwing up awkward, low probability layups (Kelly Dwyer had a fantastic piece about this very subject that, if you haven’t seen yet, you should probably read right now). Paul Pierce scored his 24 points, but 12 of them came from the line, mostly during a semi-garbage time 4^thquarter. Kevin Garnett was non-existent, not only incapable of scoring one-on-one against the increasingly underrated Pau Gasol’s lengthy defense (again, I must recommend reading Dwyer’s piece about the power forward matchup), but also incapable of scoring at the rim. Last but not least, Ray Allen was plagued by foul trouble all night, managing only 8 shots in 27 minutes. Common sense says that in no way do all of Boston’s key players continue to play poorly.

What common sense is frantically trying to cover up, though, is that there is indeed a way. And not only is it possible, it’s probable. Because this goes beyond Boston’s guys being out of sync. This was L.A. taking Boston’s Big Three plus Rondo – and thus, the entire Boston offense – off their games. And that’s something that might not change as the series progresses.

Rondo had trouble finishing in the paint? Well, guess what: 2 seven footers will be waiting for him in the lane next game, too. Pierce had trouble scoring on Artest? I don’t think he’ll be guarded by DJ Mbenga next time out. Garnett couldn’t get get by Pau Gasol and was forced to take tough, contested jumpers with the Spaniard in his face? That 2004 first step isn’t walking through that door.

Really, the only member of Boston’s elite group that can definitely improve his game is Ray Allen. And even then – will he? Somebody still needs to guard Kobe Bryant. If Ray is the one, he’ll get called for fouls, and he’ll exhaust himself out of form offensively. That’s how the game goes, especially with Kobe making a conscious effort to get to the rim. And while on paper, the Celtics have two better defensive options in Paul Pierce and Tony Allen (Kevin Pelton’s breakdown of Kobe’s game 1 does a fantastic job with this question), both of them have their drawbacks. Pierce’s offensive contributions are too important to lose, and lose them Boston shall if he needs to guard a player as good as Kobe (see the Cleveland series). And can Boston’s struggling offense really afford to play Tony over Ray or Pierce for so many minutes – let alone on a bad ankle?

Speaking of Kobe, we now get to L.A.’s side of the equation – they weren’t exactly at the top of their game either. Kobe had an off night by his recent standards (which shows you just how high he’s been setting the bar recently), going for “only” 30, 7 and 6, and shooting under 50% for what suddenly feels like the first time ever. Lamar Odom woke up on the wrong side of his life-long roller coaster, scoring only 5 points and being generally non-existent. The bench as a whole only gave L.A. 15 points on 16 shots.

Of course, things weren’t as bad as the Boston side. L.A. still got major contributions from several players. Artest continued his strong shooting with 15 points (2 threes). Gasol dominated every aspect of the game despite seeming a bit timid to start the game (I specifically recall him throwing away a pass early in the first quarter, and me thinking “wow, he’s still afraid of these guys”. He sure shut me up) with 23 points and 14 boards (8 offensively). Andrew Bynum stayed on the floor for 28 minutes with half a knee, displaying his garbage man-like qualities for cleaning up broken plays.

But while it seems hard to say the L.A. offense struggled when they were seemingly incapable of not scoring on any given possession during their 34 point 3^rdquarter, the fact of the matter is that L.A. didn’t play it’s best game. And while the Lakers may have been the beneficiary of Boston countering L.A.’s mediocrity with it’s absolute worst, one must keep in mind that for every adjustment Boston makes, the Lakers are more than likely to come up with an effective counter adjustment, whether it arrives from the get go, or at halftime.

So yes, the door is still open per se, but it’s much closer to ajar. As in: it won’t be open much longer if the Celtics don’t forcefully kick it open themselves. The Lakers are just too good for us to dismiss this game as a flukishly weak performance by Boston. The only way Boston wins this series – they need four games out of six, lest anyone forget, and if history is any indication, at least two of those have to come on the road – is if all four of it’s key players raise their play dramatically. Because as of right now, the Lakers are employing the two best players in the league in their respective positions. And that’s hard to deal with. Can the Celtics do that? Of course. It’s impossible to count them out, not after beating the two best team’s in the league this regular season. Will the Celtics do that? We find out tonight.

The Wizards pulled John Wall out of their hat. Excuse the terrible pun, but in all essence, that’s really what happened Tuesday night. Seacaucus’ greatest spectacle was in full swing, just in time for Abe Pollin to have his final revenge on the living, willing the Wiz to the NBA’s most bittersweet achievement: the number one overall pick.

Just because the Wiz won the pick doesn’t mean they’re even relevant though. The franchise is still a wreck. They’ve got four more years of Gil plus no Caron or Antawn, which, as we’ve learned in the past month, may not be a terrible thing. Mostly, DC is an island of misfit toys with a bit of cap space — enough for one max deal, but no one is signing there.

Basically, they needed this pick. It represents a fresh start, one they desperately need. They can go one of two ways with it: John Wall or Evan Turner.

Wall is the sure thing, a point guard out of the mold of Derrick Rose or Tyreke Evans. Yeah, those guys have different games, but there is a constant: the Calipari point guard. In the last couple of years, the guy has churned out talent, especially at the #1 spot that so many teams covet. Just ask LeBron how important a high-usage distributor is. Wall is the total package, and he hasn’t even found three-point range yet.

Turner, on the other hand, is this draft’s number-one franchise player. He’s a shooting guard/small forward hybrid, capable of scoring, passing, guarding four positions and, most importantly, a great leader. I see him as a franchise player, your Wade/Roy kind of guy.

Either guy could be number one overall. The Wiz have a tough decision to make. Do they take Wall, hoping that Gil will play shooting guard or come off the bench? Or do they draft Turner to be their primary option, hoping Arenas can turn his career around?

If I’m Ernie Grunfeld, I’m taking Wall. He’s a sure-thing, can’t-miss prospect. Turner is attractive, but I think the Arenas situation would be difficult for his psyche and development. Wall won’t have to deal with it, he can play and watch Gil try to become a shooting guard — or ride the bench.

Philadelphia, who jumped up four spots to number two, is praying Grunfeld echoes my sentiments. Evan Turner would be a blessing for this team. Andre Iguodala is a decent player but is getting alpha-dog money and playing like a second banana. Turner would come in to play small forward or sixth man. He could excel at either one until he matures to the degree that he can begin to assert himself as the leader of that team and back court mate of Jrue Holiday for the future.

If the Wiz take Turner, Wall would not be the pick here. DeMarcus Cousins or Wesley Johnson would. Philly already has decent young point guards in Holiday and Lou Williams. There’s no need to take Wall and sacrifice what they could gain from another wing player or center.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Nyets fall to number three. New owner Mikhael Prokhorov’s influence clearly could not force Stern’s hand into rigging the lottery for them. No matter, they still get a pretty good cancellation prize: Georgia Tech power forward Derrick Favors.

The big knock on Favors is that no one really has a good idea of how good he is. A lot of people have made a big deal about how bad the guards he played with in college. News flash: Devin Harris is still a pretty good player. I’m not totally in love with the guy, but I think throwing the ball into Favors and Lopez would be pretty comforting and effective. On the defensive end, the Nets can evolve into an enormous front court and eliminate Yi Jianlian from having to run from rebounds like they’re Africanized bees or playing matador defense anytime wants to drive to the hoop.

Fourth is the Timberwolves. The biggest story for me with this team is that Kevin Love and Al Jefferson can’t play together. It’s a ridiculous thought, in my mind. Yes, they’re both 4s and present a match-up problem for teams when Minny is on offense. And both guys rebound and sometimes contest shots. But, much like Washington, this team is all messed up. They need a player who can score 25 points and use Johnny Flynn’s distributing skills.

Enter Wes Johnson. He’s the other franchise G/F in this draft. His glaring deficiency is that his last game in college was a major disappointment and that may provide a glimpse into how he plays in big games. Nonetheless, the Wolves need someone to play on the wing and Johnson is the next best guy to do so after Turner. Even if they use their cap space to make a run for a guy like Rudy Gay, Johnson fills a huge whole left by Corey Brewers’s corpse.

Rounding out the top 5 is the Kings, who fell backwards and may have missed out on Johnson at this spot. They’re very young as team and somewhat soft, but they have Tyreke Evans. And he’s pretty damn good. What this team lacks is not size, as evidenced by this excellent piece of work over at HP, but effective use of their size. DeMarcus Cousins would be a good fit as a 6′ 11″ bruiser with a 7′ 4″ wingspan. Yeah, he’s immature and may be a bust due to character reasons, but if he harnesses his talents and matures as a man, he can be a force down low and punish anyone in the league that isn’t named Dwight. His size and talent makes him worth the risk, his coaching staff will determine how far it takes him.

The Kings could also go a different direction and try to get better wing players, namely Al-Farouq Aminu or Avery Bradley, who would really help Sacramento score the basketball. They really only have one effective play right now: “Reke on 5.” They traded Kevin Martin and lack a true shooting guard right now. Bradley would be a reach here, but he’s talented and fills a huge void for the Kings.  I foresee them trying to trade this pick to a team willing to part with a wing player that is in need of a true center like Cousins, unless the Kings really fall in love with him.

As far as a top five goes, this is a pretty strong draft. Unlike last year, which was dominated by point guards, this draft is full of bigs, which are usually very hit-or-miss. Hopefully for the teams drafting in the top ten, these players are hits.

There is a deleted scene in the 2007 movie The Jane Austen Book Club where the character Dean Drummond goes on a humorous tirade about Tim Duncan. The fun behind this scene is that the actor who plays Drummond is actually Marc Blucas, one of Duncan’s former teammates at Wake Forest. In fact, Blucas was at San Antonio’s first round home playoff games against the Dallas Mavericks.

I have nothing further to add, but an additional sentence seemed appropriate beneath the excerpt.