Reading Chad Ford is loads of fun. When he isn’t bubbling over with absurd suggestions, he’s getting other people to do it. It’s too bad I read Ford’s post in TrueHoop yesterday after I wrote about NBA teams’ salary cap incontinence, because I could have just quoted from the article, in which Ford writes:
A source close to the Nets’ thinking told me that they are concerned that if they don’t land LeBron or Bosh, they may be stuck in the same situation the Pistons were in last summer — with no elite free agents on the market, the Pistons were forced to overpay role players to fill out their roster.
“Because of our record we are going to be forced to overspend on guys like David Lee and Rudy Gay and perhaps Boozer if you can’t land LBJ,” the source told ESPN. “I don’t want to be like Detroit and spend just to spend.”’…
…The thinking is that if the Nets can land two good players now, that might be better than having to overpay to good players this summer out of desperation.
Now, I don’t know if this source is Rod Thorn’s housekeeper, but if he/she has anything remotely to do with decision making on the Nets then…wow. What is this awesome power that forced the Pistons to stupidly sign Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon? Sometimes I wonder if Joe Dumars sent them both offers expecting only one to accept. Is that possible? And regarding the Nets, to what terrible force could this source possibly be referring? Certainly not to Nets fans; there are none.
Most people who go to the Izod Center do so thinking it’s a huge mall. When they find out it isn’t one, they leave. That’s why there are so few people in the stands. And most of the handfuls of people you see in them aren’t fans; they’re extras, hired from the masses of unemployed actors in NYC. If you look closely behind the Nets bench, you’ll probably see some familiar faces, as most of them have probably asked you at one time or another whether you would prefer soup or salad with your sandwich.
Seriously, how am I supposed to take the whining of financial hardship from teams seriously when I read stuff like this. The only desperate move that’s appropriate for an owner to take is his last one. I really am caught between laughing and growling, because teams doing stupid things is almost always at least a little amusing, unless it’s my team. On the other hand, I love this sport, and the freakin’ league too. And stupid teams dilute the quality of the competition even worse than the salary cap and trade restrictions do.
Most Rockets fans I chat with these days take it as a given that the Rockets will make every effort to re-sign Luis Scola this summer. Now, as much as I like Scola, I don’t see why the Rockets would commit significant money or years to Scola when Carl Landry is going into the last year of his contract. But regardless of their interest, I think it highly unlikely Scola will be in Houston next year, because provided NBA teams come up with the necessary salary cap space, he is going to get a Larry Hughes contract. In fact, I think you’re going to see a ton of Hughes contracts this summer, and a few key Michael Redd contracts, too.
Background
To jog your memory, in the summer of ‘05 the Cavs were looking for a sharpshooting guard to compliment LeBron’s He-Can-Do-Everything-But-Shoot game. And as it happened, Ray Allen and Michael Redd were on the market (note: this is back when Redd had a full compliment of ligaments and cartilage). At that point, Cavs management was still handling LeBron like a 15 year-old on a second date with a Playmate—the range of possible outcomes stretching from a happy future in plastics to wetting oneself. And the Cavs wet themselves.
They offered Ray Allen the max, but he turned it down, taking the max in Seattle, instead. So the Cavs made a big push for Michael Redd, offering him the max as well. It would have been kind of like the Rashard Griffith deal in Orlando: hugely overpaying a player because he’s a great fit. But Redd rejected the offer, staying with the Bucks for the max. So the Cavs went out and signed Larry Hughes for $70 million over five years. God that was a terrible move, and not just in hindsight. Forget that Hughes had been an underachiever for his entire career until that contract year, the Cavs were looking for a shooter (they proclaimed it) and Hughes was a terrible shooter. He made 28% from 3 that season (he’s currently at 31% for his career) and 43% overall. And yes, his injuries while with the Cavs also played a role in his ineffectiveness, but considering that Hughes had only played 70 games in a season twice in his career to that point (they signed him after he managed only 61 games in the ‘04 – ‘05 season), his frailty was hardly a surprise.
As Things Currently Stand
As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, almost all NBA teams suffer from salary cap incontinence; they simply can’t hold on to cap space. They have to spend it. In this case, even though the Cavs had the rights to LeBron James for two more seasons, they felt pressured to make a splash and put some big talent (or what they believed to be big talent) next to him. But importantly, the biggest problem wasn’t the absurd salary, it was the years. A five year commitment? Insane. And you’ll see plenty of that insanity this summer, if possible.
The big question of the summer is whether teams will have enough cap space to spend as stupidly as they so desperately want to. In a normal market, unusually tight budgets and an unusually large pool of talent should drive down the price of that talent. And right now there are only a handful of teams that project to have enough cap space to get a max player. But from the gazillionty WHAT IF? NBA articles clogging the internet tubes, it seems that there are numerous legitimately plausible options for teams to create significant cap space. And if there’s anything we know about NBA teams, it’s that they will spend if they possibly can. Tomorrow I’ll take a look at some of the spending opportunities, including the opportunity to stuff the pockets of a certain long-haired Argentinian
I was talking NBA with a friend last week and he asked me what I thought of the Gilbert Arenas/James Crittenden locker room gun fun; said he was surprised he hadn’t seen commentary on my blog. First, I assure you it was entirely unrelated to the break from blogging I took for a holiday week of face-stuffing and binge drinking. Nah, I just don’t dabble much in off-the-court stuff.
Sure, when Ruben Patterson is released by the Clippers and Rockets fans on clutchfans.net wonder whether it’s a good idea to sign him, well, I generally feel compelled to argue against signing violent sex offenders who get involved in police-horse-punching incidents; but guns in the locker room is just eye-roll inducing stupidity and almost as bad as the socially conscious articles from socially conscious writers that follow. And also, it involves one of my favorite players (Arenas, not Crittenden) and ruins his comeback from serious injuries.
I just find the whole thing mildly depressing—seriously, power through a few Nicholas Kristof articles and try to tell me this incident is more than “mildly” depressing—and one more thing that sullies this NBA season, along with Tracy McGrady’s tenure with the Rockets ending and Yao Ming making babies instead of game-winners—congrats Yao, and may your first child be a masculine child.
As much as anything (a throwaway phrase I’ve always enjoyed) this incident reminds me of Jayson Williams’ foibles. No, there’s no comparison between displaying a gun and drunkenly shooting and killing your employee. But yeah there is, in the same way that there is a perfectly valid comparison between my sex life and Wilt Chamberlain’s. Arenas and Williams are/were favorite players of mine, as much for their off the court hilariousness as their hardwood successes. Both f#cked up. ReadingWilliams’ classic memoir, Loose Balls, you have to conclude that it was only a matter of time until he went completely nuts with a gun in his hand. He was a gun toting alcoholic before injury forced him to retire. After he left the game, Williams just more opportunity to booze and play with guns. Something was bound to go wrong. And Arenas? Until now, Arenas has only been silly nutty, (seemingly) not dangerous nutty.
As for the claim that he welched on a bet with Crittenden, that’s hardly surprising, given what we know of his previous gambling behavior (below). Now, this clip ishysterical, in part because he’s blatantly cheating, in front of a crowd, and being silly about it—and come on, one millionaire ripping $10K off another millionaire in a (basketball) shooting contest is funny in itself. And accusations Arenas cheating at Halo* prompted him to spend 2,300 words on nba.com, defending himself. That’s priceless, and nothing says, “I did it!” like mounting that kind of rambling defense. But breaking out the guns just spoils the joke.
*[after clicking on the link, search for "don't call me"]
I’m not quite sure what to make of the Mavericks. Their top five players have a lot of talent, but only Dirk is presently in top form. He’s a machine and doesn’t seem to have aged a bit since their Finals run in ‘06. But Kidd, Marion, Terry, and Howard have all had better days. That’s it’s least evident in Kidd speaks to his basketball genius.
The dude is 36 but he still has the motor to go at top speed for 36 minutes a game and competently defend shooting guards. And though he doesn’t score much, he’s shooting efficiently. And when he’s on the floor, the ball movement is terrific. Whatever the Mavs’ options in a given possession, Kidd will make the most of it. Unfortunately, the rest of the posse doesn’t do a ton with the opportunities.
Jason Terry can’t shoot straight this year. I don’t know what’s up with that. Actually, his three-point shooting has been going downhill the last few years—maybe he lost a half step and doesn’t get quite the same space that he used to get?—but whatever the case, he hasn’t been able to hit the side of a barn this year. And since like 80% of his value is in his shooting, that’s something of an issue.
Marion is still a good player, but he’s not nearly the big rebounding versatile defending combo forward anymore. Sure, he’s still got some bounce, but at this point here’s just…good. And Jason Terry can’t shoot straight this year. His three-point shooting has been going downhill the last few years. Whether he’s lost a half step and can’t get the same space to shoot that he used to, I don’t know. But whatever the case, he can’t hit the side of a barn this year, and since like 90% of his value is in his shooting, that’s something of an issue. And then there’s Josh Howard. Yeah, sure, he’s coming off surgery, will get better, yadda yadda, but even healthy he too is merely a good player. I note this because in the Mavs’ run to the Finals in ‘06 he was terrific and I thought he looked good to stay at that level. But it didn’t happen. He shot very well from outside for two years, but he can’t shoot straight anymore either, regardless of his health.
Really, Jose Juan Barea is the only Mavs player other than Dirk who’s having a great year. He has real value as long as he continues to shoot the lights out and do a decent job of staying in front of point guards. But it’s not like he’s an up and coming game changer.
I guess I see the Mavericks as contenders by default, merely because neither Denver nor Phoenix are for real. The Mavs have a decent shot at the Western Conference Finals, I suppose, but that’s their upside. And the weird thing is, I think of the Mavs as being such a smart franchise, but in a salary cap NBA, flexibility is the truest expression of management smarts (after wins). But they signed Jason Terry to a butt-ugly that clogs up their cap space for the next few years. And yeah, Dirk’s a machine, but how long can he do that for another two, three, four years? Maybe. Probably not.
If the Rockets want to trade Tracy McGrady, they’ll trade him, (despite my quiet, irrational protests). But I’m not really sure how they’re going to be able to do it and stick to their healthy obsession with maintaining roster flexibility. Presently, the Rockets have 11 players under contract next year, for about $40 million. That will put them about $10 million to $13 million under the expected salary cap, enough to buy a 6-bedroom townhouse on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, all of Montana, or a very good NBA free agent.
Among the 11 players already next year’s roster, 9 are bonafide rotation guys, and 5 or 6 of them are starter-for-playoff-team-level guys. And excluding Yao’s salary, Daryl Morey and company has the lot signed for $22 million. This is all to say, if Yao successfully comes back from his injury (and Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ success after the same surgery is very encouraging) the Rockets are very well positioned for the future. But the T-Mac thing makes everything very foggy.
Now, most of the time you try to figure out what an NBA team is going to do, you have to figure in the intelligence gap. That is, you have to dumb yourself down to think on an NBA management level. A good technique is to look at a list of the 30 highest paid players in the NBA and try to justify the contracts of each of them. Sometimes it’s pretty easy, “Who knew Jermaine O’Neal was going to break in half?” Sometimes it’s not so easy, “Sure, we overpaid Rashard Lewis by at least $8 million, but he’s a really good player and a perfect fit with Dwight Howard.” Sometimes it’s just impossible. The Rockets, however, are mad smart, and you really can say, “What would a really smart team do in this situation?”
As much as it pains me that T-Mac will be leaving the Rockets, it’s kind of exciting to see what Morey is going to do, because the Rockets aren’t just mad smart; they’re mad smart and have access to a crack research team and metrics that I don’t. But in this case… Thing is, unless McGrady does something to demonstrate that he can be a serious contributor, he’s just a giant expiring contract. Who want one of those? Well, lots of teams, like the Rockets. A $23 million expiring contract is extremely valuable chip and something a smart team would only trade for something really, really valuable. Like what? Well, pipe dream trades that will not happen and…nothing. There’s nothing else out there. If the Knicks had their 2010 draft pick, the Rockets could deal with them… if Portland had a healthy roster… If the Wizards had top notch young talent… If Toronto hadn’t gone all-in to keep Chris Bosh… If Amare Stoudemire publicly declared he absolutely would not re-sign with the Suns… Nah, I really don’t see anything, at least nothing straight up. Sure, I could conceive of stuff with Sacramento or Golden State that NBA 2K GMs would go for, but in the real world the Rockets just have to find a sucker, or someone on the verge of bankruptcy. Otherwise, T-Mac is more valuable to them than anything they can get. But yeah, the Rockets are mad smart, and they have 6 weeks to find a sucker.
A great man in his own mind once wrote, “Most NBA coaches are hired to be fired.” I could just as easily have put it, “Nearly all NBA coaches…” Phil Jackson’s job is safer than anyone’s this side of Mike Krzyzewski and Gregg Popovich and Jerry Sloan are also untouchable; but no other coach in the NBA has real job security. And though Paul Westphal is this year’s early leader for NBA Coach of the Year (along with Rick Adelman), he still spends every day on thin ice, along with the rest of his peers. There’s no better example of this than Westphal’s own coaching history.
As an up-and-comer in the early 90s coaching the Phoenix Suns, Westphal’s teams won 62 games, 56 games, and 59 games (including one loss in the Finals and two losses in the Western Semi-Finals). In his fourth season with the Suns, the team got off to a slow start and Westphal got the ax before the all star break. Why did they start slowly? Well, it didn’t help that Charles Barkley came into the season fat and took a while to get going. Other than His Plumpness, the team consisted of Kevin Johnson, rookie Michael Finley, and a bunch of guys who couldn’t score. They had never played defense (A.C. Green and Dan Marjele were the only consistent defenders on the roster during Westpal’s tenure) so when they stopped scoring, they stopped winning. Also, I don’t know if it’s true, but I read at the time that Westphal was (is?) a gentle, easy going guy who never ever cussed, and that after three successful seasons, suddenly that was a problem.
Two years later (‘98–’99, the strike year) Westphal got another shot with the Supersonics—but not really. Westphal was hired as a placeholder for the just-retired Sonic Nate McMillan, who also started that season as assistant coach. The Sonics started the ‘00–’01 season 6–9, and that was it for Westphal; he was canned and McMillan took over.
Look, I’m not saying Westphal is some beautiful genius; he seems like a good coach—nothing special, but a good coach. But like nearly all coaches, his win-loss is almost entirely dependent on his roster. Sure, a new coach sometimes gets the troops moving faster, and a coach can also lose his team. But if you look at multi-year samples; the rosters tell you almost everything. (I’ll write about Sacramento’s roster tomorrow). Understand, I’m not saying Westphal is going to get canned anytime soon; he won’t. Coaches aren’t fired when their team is exceeding expectations. But that success just raises expectations, and makes the ice all the thinner.
I avoid reading deeply into advanced basketball metrics the way little kids avoid booster shots or broccoli: I’m told they’re good for me, but they hurt, and taste lousy. Also, since much of the readily accessible stuff that passes for advanced metrics (like John Hollinger’s PER) is complete and utter bullsh*t, and the stuff being utilized by smart teams like the Rockets and Mavericks is proprietary, getting useful information means wading around in the mire of the basketball blogosphere—or crunching the numbers yourself. And I find it so tedious.
This makes me feel weirdly guilty, like I’m copping out. And I hear this guilt-inducing voice in my head—specifically the voice of Han, the badguy from Enter the Dragon. After Bruce Lee is captured by Han’s minions and brought out to the courtyard, Han wants Roper (the obligatory white good guy) to fight him. But Roper refuses (in a way that doesn’t make him look wussy, a sort of “I won’t be your puppet” thing) and Han says to him, “So! There is a point you will not go beyond.” That’s what I hear each time I don’t want to go what feels like the extra mile. And the thing is, I don’t know if I can answer that in a way that doesn’t make me sound wussy. I mean, right after Roper refuses to fight Lee, he whups like twenty guys, fighting with Lee. There’s nobody for me to whup.
I was thinking of these things because I was just writing about the Mavericks and why they aren’t contenders. Some of it is observation, but I think some of the raw numbers support these observations, and I’d like to take a slightly (slightly) deeper look into it. But each step you take begs more questions, and more and more, and the whole thing makes me sleepy. But maybe I’ll take a nap, and when I wake up (like, tomorrow) I’ll try to find the patience to address some of the questions. We’ll see.
I’m an optimist. When I was six and the Princess in Voltron dove into the pool and her top surfaced before she did, I was fairly confident that something wonderful was about to happen, network television or not. I’m even confident that there are women somewhere in the world (somewhere) who might be a little turned on by the previous sentence—in a way that’s OK. But I cannot conceive of a scenario in which the ‘09-’10 Denver Nuggets make a believer out of me. I haven’t had any faith in the organization since they traded three first-round picks for the privilege of paying Kenyon Martin a max contract. It took me all of two games watching the Carmelo/Iverson duo to part with any faith in that pair, and I didn’t last season, even after they acquired Chauncey Billups and began to play with a modicum of control. In the playoffs, up 15 in the fourth quarter against Dallas, despite shooting under 30% from three, I still thought the Mavericks were a fair bet for a comeback.
I just can’t believe in anything that Denver does. Year after year, regardless of the composition of their roster, they’re the same team; they’ll play well enough to convince themselves and some others that they can make noise in the playoffs. But they can’t, and they don’t. This is like their fifth or sixth date now, and they still haven’t even copped a feel. Me, I need to know what’s what by the end of the second date, or I’m likely to blow up the roster and rebuild around my franchise player (that’s me). I mean, you can work the trade market, or try to spend your way to the promised land (if you have the cap space), but if the foundation isn’t there, free agency is more likely to give you VD than a championship banner.
It’s never been adequately explained why the Memphis Grizzlies are still called the Grizzlies, when they clearly should be the Memphis Blues. That name was available for years and now it might be too late. The Memphis Blues of the World Basketball Association Exposure League emerged in 2008. But who knows? In this economy, what are the chances that the Grizzlies could purchase the name from the sputtering WBAEL for a lunch special order of ribs and some souvenirs from Beale Street. It’s worth more than that to Memphis fans, whether they know it or not. It’s hard to not feel stupid rooting for a team that sounds or looks stupid. Trust me, I know; Hakeem Olajuwon’s career with the Rockets concluded in this uniform.
Anyway, hereafter I will refer to the Memphis Grizzlies as the Memphis Blues.
NBA VIEW: Memphis Blues
The Memphis Blues look like they’re really going somewhere, but it’s illusory. And it’s not because Rudy Gay is signing with someone else this summer, (though he will). A team can’t go anywhere giving a ton of money to a guy who doesn’t pass or play defense. And all the “he’s still young” stuff doesn’t float. In his fourth year, Gay still doesn’t defend and misses being the least willing passer on his team only because he plays with the least willing passer in the league: Zach Randolph. And do you really see progress with his offense? I see a few more shots falling for him. Is he going to the rim more often? I’d like to know, because that would be an indication of progress, but NBA’s hotspots isn’t working for me now. Whatever the case, Gay is a faulty foundation; better to live in a tent.
Among the Trailblazers, Rockets, and Thunder, two will make the playoffs. San Antonio will knock one of them off. Fortunately, I think it’s the Trailblazers who are most likely lotto bound. They’ve had a cupcake schedule and without Oden they’re a bubble team. The Rockets and Thunder have faced some real competition thus far, and both have done respectably. What’s fairly clear though is that the Rockets aren’t going to improve a great deal this season, and the Thunder can.
I always wondered about Aaron Brooks’ upside, because I couldn’t think of anyone Brooks’ size who could finish at the rim consistently—ever—other than Allen Iverson. I figured, nearly every shot he takes within 15 feet of the rim is going to be heavily contested for the rest of his career. And that meant he’d have to consistently shoot over 40% from 3 to be a starter in this league. So far I’ve been quite happily wrong about Brooks. But I think my reasoning was sound, in general, and it’s part of the reason the Thunder have such upside on defense. Four of their five starters (excluding the unfortunate looking Nenad Kristic) are extremely long-limbed and very athletic. When they’re active, nearly ever shot the opposition takes is heavily contested. Like the way people talk about shot-blocking centers “changing” more shots than they block, I think the physical advantages of those four players makes every shot the opposition take just a little bit harder.
only #bobcats #knicks tonight, a conspiracy by #nba to make me watch #charlotte. been avoiding it not just because of the ugly grey uniforms 2010-01-08
