Free Ballin’

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.