Atlanta Hawks

 

6/28    Draft Al Horford and Acie Law IV

 

Horford looks like a nice pick.  He should develop into the power rebounder that the Hawks don't quite have.  The only question is whether he develops into a solid pro (a la Otis Thorpe) or whether Horford will do some scoring.  The pick renders last year's high power forward pick, Shelden Williams, as nothing more than a reserve.  Of course, Williams does not look like he was ever as talented as Horford to begin with.

 

As an aside, Horford's father was Tito Horford, who came out early from Miami 19 years ago.  Tito, a 7'1 center, was bigger than Al but not nearly the player.  Tito ended up playing mostly internationally for 15 years (he only recently retired).  In 63 games, mostly with the Bucks, Tito blocked some shots but was inept offensively (he shot 33-110 from the field for his career).  For kicks here's how Al and Tito compared as 21-year old collegiate players:

 

Player	Age21	MPG	FG%	FT%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TOPG
Tito	1987-88	32.1	0.540	0.579	9.0	1.1	0.4	2.7	3.5
Al	2006-07	27.8	0.608	0.644	9.5	2.2	0.7	1.8	1.8

 

Even if you assume that they played against the same level of competition, which is highly unlikely given that Al was in the SEC and Tito played for Miami when it was an independent and was not affiliated with a conference, Al is a vastly superior player in every respect but shot blocking.  This is not a shocking turn of events but it was interesting to check.

 

By drafting Law, the Hawks have accomplished a couple of things.  First, they finally snatched a point guard.  Next, they have selected the second NBA player with a first name consisting of initials that is actually spelled phonetically (remember the great Acie Earl?).  As a pro, Law looks more likely to be solid than anything else but the Hawks haven't even had a solid young point guard so often since Mookie Blaylock left town.  The most intriguing thing about Law is that he shoots very well, which is rare for a college point guard.  While there is little star potential, Law can be a starter at some point.

 

The more interesting question about the Hawks is whether, as Peter Vescey reported, they really could have gotten Amare Stoudemire for the picks that turned into Al Horford, Acie Law, as well as Marvin Williams and Zaza Pachulia.  Vescey further stated that it was Billy Knight who quashed the deal and that this was never an ownership issue.  I don't know the truth of this deal but you have to think that the Hawks would be seriously scary on the break with Stoudemire and Josh Smith.  Of course the team would still be without a point guard but that is not a deal I would've turned down.

 

Boston Celtics

 

5/10    Sign head coach Doc Rivers to contract extension

6/12    Sign forward Leon Powe

6/28    Draft Jeff Green and Gabe Pruitt

6/28    Acquire Ray Allen and draft rights to Glen Davis from Seattle in exchange for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and draft rights to Jeff Green

 

Yuck.  It's hard to know that the number five pick will turn up but what I don't like is the obvious sense of desperation in this move. When Danny Ainge came to Boston in 2003, he was openly critical of a Celtics team that was ugly but quasi-effective.  Ainge was determined to create a more long lasting competitive team through youth.  Well the young players are developing decently but the last two years have been so bad that the Celts clearly feel pressure to have some short-term success.  That makes some sense when you're trying to get Kevin Garnett or maybe even Shawn Marion but Ray Allen is not quite the same difference maker at this point.  With Allen the short-term success will be, at best, modest and long-term the Celts lose a solid young player in West and the fifth pick in the draft. 

 

I like Allen very much as a player but this is not a great fit.  The Celts could use another scorer but they really need defense up front and a real point guard.  Allen has only two years left on his contract and missed 30 games last year with ankle issues.  How will Allen do these next two years?  Well, Allen is bizarrely similar to another one of my favorite players, Mitch Richmond.  According to Basketball-Reference.com, Allen's most similar player at ages 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, and last year at 31 (at ages 26 and 27, Richmond was in the top three comps for Allen as well).  Richmond was still pretty good at age 32 but really dropped quickly at age 33.

 

So what we have trading a decent young player in Delonte West and losing four or five years of Jeff Green or some other draft pick (Joakim Noah might've been a pretty nice fit) for one more star year from Ray Allen on a team that can't defend and has no point guard.  And yes I know that the Celts were able to dump Wally World's crappy contract as part of the deal but Wally was a mistake of his own making (that can be traced back to signing Mark Blount to a big extension).  Ainge did the same thing last year when he dumped Raef LaFrentz's deal on Portland as a condition of bestowing the Blazers with Brandon Roy.  I guess it's good that Ainge is smart enough to cut bait on his mistakes but don't Celtic fans want to see moves that are actually designed to improve the team long-term?  Allen's acquisition represents the Celts' scaled down low ceiling goals.  At the end of the day, the Celts have dumped top lottery picks two years in a row for the hope of getting to the second-round of the playoffs in 2007-08.  That result is far from certain and Celt fans won't be thrilled with that result anyway when 2008-09 means a return to misery as Allen and Paul Pierce enter their decline years.

 

Charlotte Bobcats

 

5/25    Name Sam Vincent head coach

6/28    Draft Brandan Wright and Jared Dudley

6/28    Acquire Jason Richardson and the draft rights to Jermareo Davidson from Golden State in exchange for the draft rights to Brandan Wright

6/29    Waive Brevin Knight

 

Richardson had a rough season trying to come back from knee surgery but he looked pretty healthy by the playoffs and he fits the Bobcats' needs, a team that actually has big forwards and needs scoring guards.  You could quibble with Richardson's contract, which has $61 million due over the next four years but he'll provide the team some backcourt scoring that it needs and the contract, while a bit rich, does not go into Richardson's decline years.  Finally, the Cats' are so far under the cap that they actually can afford the cap hit.  It'll be interesting to see if the team will also try to re-sign Gerald Wallace, who had a great season and could make the team pretty formidable.  But the Cats have generally been pretty cheap so the feeling is that they will let Wallace walk and try to plug in Dudley and Adam Morrison, which will be a bit of a comedown in terms of talent.

 

The hiring of Sam Vincent was also an interesting story.  I know he's worked his way up as a coach but he actually played with Michael Jordan for a couple of years in Chicago in the late 1980s.  He came to the Bulls from Seattle in the middle of the 1987-88 season and was handed the starting point job.  Vincent played well (13 ppg, 8.4 apg) that year and the Bulls went 19-8 with him at the helm and the team went 50-32 overall.  The Bulls and Vincent slumped a bit the next year and the Bulls let Vincent go in the expansion draft to Orlando.  Didn't think that Vincent had left much of an impression on Jordan in that time but apparently it their time together wasn't so bad.

 

Chicago Bulls

 

6/28    Draft Joakim Noah, Aaron Gary, JamesOn Curry

 

Noah wasn't exactly what the Bulls needed but he was the best player available at that slot and you know he will fit into a Scott Skiles team.  It won't be long before Skiles employs a Noah-Ben Wallace front line for uber-defense.  Ultimately, Noah's emergence could lay the ground work to trade Wallace but for the short term it'll be fun to watch.

 

Dallas Mavericks

 

5/11    Exercise contract option on center Desagana Diop through 2007-08

6/28    Draft Nick Fazekas, Renaldas Seibutis, and Miolvan Rakovic

6/28    Trade draft rights to Milovan Rakovic and cash considerations to Orlando for the draft rights to Reyshawn Terry

 

The Mavs were essentially out of the drafting, taking some fliers on second-rounders.  Fazekas is obviously the best known name.  He probably has a chance to stick as a role player.  As Ed Weiland noted, however, Fazekas rebounded quite well in college and well above the big man shooting specialists he has been associated with like Matt Bullard or Brad Lohaus.  In fact, Fazekas does have some ability and may get to fill Austin Croshere's role next year.  Seibutis and Terry are less likely to be on the roster next year.  Seibutis is sure to be stashed over in Europe and Terry has some ability but how many role players in college actually make it in the NBA?

 

Detroit Pistons

 

6/15    Acquire second-round draft picks in 2009 and 2001 from Toronto for Carlos Delfino

6/25    Chauncey Billups opts out of his contract

6/28    Draft Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, and Sammy Mejia

 

Stuckey and Afflalo are brought in with a clear mandate to make the team younger and more athletic.  Will they actually play on a team like the Pistons?  It's hard to say.  We certainly remember that Tayshaun Prince got to play but besides Prince, the Pistons have not drafted a player who became a regular starter with Detroit since Grant Hill back 1994.  My sense is that Stuckey should get some real playing time, replacing Flip Murray.  Afflalo has it a little tougher time because he doesn't board, pass, or block shots very well. 

 

Finally, dumping Delfino puts an end to the Pistons' overseas drafting program from the early 2000s.  In 2001, the Pistons nabbed Mehmet Okur with a second-rounder in 2001.  Okur had two solid years as a bench player for the Pistons but they let him go because they didn't want to match the big deal that Utah gave him in 2004.  The rest of the Pistons' foreign excursion was the 2003 draft when they famously took Darko Milicic second overall but also drafted Delfino later and even took a flier on Greek seven-footer Andreas Gliniadakis.  As we all remember, Darko was buried on the bench because he was so young and raw and the team was pretty deep up front.  Gliniadakis was just a gamble on a big body but he never came over and actually spent some time in the NBDL last year.  Delfino actually steadily developed with the Pistons.  Just like Okur and Darko, however, the Pistons did not feel comfortable to consider paying him for a non-rookie contract. 

 

The Pistons were pretty gung ho about drafting Euros back in 2003 but haven't grabbed one sense.  Do the Pistons' reflect a larger NBA trend away from drafting foreign players?  The last time no foreign players were drafted in the first two rounds was 1988.  Since then, the number of draftees has varies.  Here's the list of non-American trained players drafted the last few years:

 

Year	Lottery	Late 1st	2nd Round	Total
1989	0	1	1	2
1990	0	0	2	2
1991	0	0	1	1
1992	0	0	1	1
1993	0	0	2	2
1994	0	0	3	3
1995	0	0	3	3
1996	0	4	0	4
1997	0	1	5	6
1998	1	3	1	5
1999	0	1	3	4
2000	1	4	5	10
2001	1	1	4	6
2002	3	2	8	13
2003	2	7	12	21
2004	1	5	8	14
2005	1	2	9	12
2006	3	3	10	16
2007	1	4	8	13

 

As one can see, 2003 was the apex of foreign draftees for the entire NBA and not just the Pistons.  We've seen a little retreat since then but there are still plenty of talent to be found overseas the only question is how best to find it.

 

Golden State Warriors

 

6/28    Draft Marco Belinelli, Jermareo Davidson, and Stephane Lasme

6/28    Acquire the draft rights to Brandan Wright from Charlotte for Jason Richardson and the draft rights to Jermareo Davidson

 

Do not be shocked that the Warriors would dump a playoff hero so quickly.  As we noted a month or so ago, Nellie has been quick to trade stars, even shortly after their best moments.  From Sleepy Floyd to Mitch Richmond, Nelson has been happy to make changes.  Of course, both the Floyd and Richmond trades both ended up badly (receiving an injured Ralph Sampson and an overrated Billy Owens).  In this case, the rumor was that Wright was going to be used as a barter piece for Kevin Garnett or Yi Jianlian.

 

Assuming that Golden State keeps Wright, he'll improve team size greatly.  Unfortunately, his college stats have him pegged as poor boarder and shot blocker and much more of a scorer/slasher.  So, it's an open question whether Wright, even if he ends up as a good player, whether he gives the Warriors something that they don't have.  Still, it's a good deal for the Warriors in that Richardson made a ton of cash and the team has plenty of cheaper two guards.  So the deal is a nice low-risk proposition for the Warriors.

 

In addition, I really think Lasme can help the Warriors.  He is a monster shot blocker and, while no star, can at least be a Lorenzo Williams-type presence for a small offense-only squad.

 

Houston Rockets

 

5/23    Name Rick Adelman head coach

6/28    Acquire the 54th pick in the 2007 NBA Draft for cash considerations

6/28    Draft Aaron Brooks and Brad Newley

 

The Rockets just went from one coaching extreme to the other.  Adelman's always been known as an offensive guy versus Jeff Van Gundy's slowdown attack.  How true are these perceptions?  Let's take a look at each coach's resume.  Here's a list of each coach's points scored and allowed per game, as well as their per 100 possession numbers, and their pace factors:

 

Rick Adelman

Year	Team	PPG	P/100	OPPG	P/100	Pace Factor
1989-90	Blazers	114.2	110.9	107.9	104.0	4th in NBA
1990-91	Blazers	114.7	113.0	106.0	104.0	4th in NBA
1991-92	Blazers	111.4	111.6	104.1	104.0	6th in NBA
1992-93	Blazers	108.5	108.7	105.4	104.8	8th in NBA
1993-94	Blazers	107.3	108.6	104.6	105.1	3rd in NBA
1995-96	Warriors	101.6	108.8	103.1	109.5	6th in NBA
1996-97	Warriors	99.6	107.3	104.4	112.1	7th in NBA
1998-99	Kings	100.2	102.6	100.6	103.2	1st in NBA
1999-00	Kings	105.0	104.6	102.0	102.6	1st in NBA
2000-01	Kings	101.7	105.6	95.9	99.7	2nd in NBA
2001-02	Kings	104.6	108.9	97.0	101.3	1st in NBA
2002-03	Kings	101.7	105.8	95.2	99.2	1st in NBA
2003-04	Kings	102.8	110.1	97.8	105.1	4th in NBA
2004-05	Kings	103.7	110.6	101.6	108.1	8th in NBA
2005-06	Kings	98.9	106.6	97.3	105.2	9th in NBA

 

Jeff Van Gundy

Year	Team	PPG	P/100	OPPG	P/100	Pace Factor
1996-97	Knicks	95.4	105.0	92.2	100.4	15th in NBA
1997-98	Knicks	91.6	103.3	89.1	99.9	24th in NBA
1998-99	Knicks	86.4	98.8	85.4	97.3	24th in NBA
1999-00	Knicks	92.1	102.4	90.7	101.0	29th in NBA
2000-01	Knicks	88.7	101.2	86.1	98.1	29th in NBA
2003-04	Rockets	89.8	100.9	88.0	99.1	25th in NBA
2004-05	Rockets	95.1	106.2	91.0	101.6	24th in NBA
2005-06	Rockets	90.1	101.6	91.7	103.3	25th in NBA
2006-07	Rockets	97.0	106.6	92.1	100.0	21st in NBA