Transactions

Transactions 7/10-9/22 Part III

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Phoenix Suns 

7/13    Signed Channing Frye

7/20    Signed Steve Nash to a two-year contract extension

9/15    Waived Sasha Pavlovic 

As we mentioned in the Dallas comments last week, point guards tend not to age well.  On the bright side, most of the ones who have aged well have done so in recent years, a good indicator for Nash.  Indeed, despite all the talk of Nash’s durability years ago, he hasn’t missed more than 12 games in a season since 1999-00.  The stat line has gone down a little from the peak years in the mid-2000s but Nash is reasonably good bet to be useful through age-37.  The contract is little rich but we can understand the excess cost in salary is worth it because a struggling Suns team should get back a fair amount of goodwill with fans.  

Frye’s signing is not terrible either.  He’s clearly not a starter on a good team but the front court needs some scoring outside of Amare and the price is pretty cheap. 

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Transactions

Transactions 7/10-9/22 Part II

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Golden State Warriors 

7/27    Waived Jermareo Davidson

7/30    Traded Marco Belinelli to Toronto for Devean George and cash

9/2      Signed Mikki Moore

9/15    NBA fines Stephen Jackson $25,000 for making public statements detrimental to the NBA 

On the surface, Belinelli for George is a “who cares” type of trade.  Their salaries are pretty close but Belinelli is young and potentially useful as a designated shooter, while George is the definition of filler.  It’s not clear why the Warriors would want to trade even modest potential for George but we can only assume Don Nelson decided that Belinelli didn’t interest him as a player.  Similarly, Moore has not been a useful bench player for a few years now.   These moves are not the makings of great depth in Golden State for 2009-10. 

The other issue here is the fine of Stephen Jackson.  This fine surprised us a bit because Jackson’s statement did not seem like an NBA issue.  Jackson’s exact words?  According to Dime Magazine, Jax was a speaker at a party in New York and was asked about Golden State’s chances of making the playoffs.  Jackson responded : “Um…I don’t think I’ll be a Warrior next year. I’m looking to leave.” 

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Transactions

Transactions 7/10-9/22 Part I

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Atlanta Hawks

7/13    Re-signed Mike Bibby and Zaza Pachulia

7/14    Traded rights to David Andersen to Houston for a second-round draft pick, cash, and future considerations

8/7      Re-signed Marvin Williams

8/25    Signed Joe Smith

9/2      Signed Jason Collins

That was somewhat unexpected.  Not only did the Hawks bring back most of their role players but they did it at a pretty cheap price.  Of course, the Hawks had already made the decision not to overpay for their non-stars.  Nabbing Bibby ($18 million for three years) and Pachulia ($16 million for four years) are both nice deals for useful players.  Bibby will decline over the course of this deal but as a spot up shooter point guard, he will help and is tradable if Atlanta wants to go in that direction.  Pachulia is a nice body off the bench and is likely to be an asset for the life of his deal (he’s still only 25 now). 

The real big ticket item is Williams.  The Hawks have invested about $38 million over five years to see what they have in Williams.  We all remember that Williams was a really young and a really high draft pick in 2005 (and drafted over Chris Paul and Deron Williams).  Since then, he’s improved a little across the board, most notably in three-point shooting.  Williams will be 23 this year and, at worst, he’ll be a nice scorer off the bench for the life of this deal.  I don’t think that Williams will ever develop into a star but Williams could certainly be an Al Harrington-type scoring forward.  Is this worth $38 million or so?  Probably not but Williams has value and we can understand why the Hawks want to take a chance to see what they have here.

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Hall Thoughts

Hall Thoughts

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The news of the week has been the induction of Michael Jordan, David Robinson, and John Stockton into the Hall of Fame.  While there really isn’t too much to actually say about the fact that they are now in the Hall but I thought we could quickly look at the issues of the day and throw in our two cents:

–MJ’s Speech:  Apparently Jordan’s speech has been a bit of a hot button issue.  I didn’t watch the whole thing but, from what I saw, the theme of the speech was basically that MJ talked about his drive and how it was fueled by slights throughout his career and that his still remembers those slights very well, still wants to kick everybody’s ass, and is still pretty happy that he did kick most people’s asses most of the time.  He remembered his being cut from the high school team (and even invited to the Hall of Fame the guy who made the high school team over him).  Jordan also brought up Jerry Krause, Bryon Russell, Pat Riley, and Jeff Van Gundy among others and ended his speech with a quasi-serious threat that he could still play and beat everyone.

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Decade Review

Decade Review: 1980s

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We now turn to the 1980s, the first huge decade for the NBA in terms of popularity.  The decade is remembered as the time the Lakers and Celtics battled toe-to-toe for the title every year and Magic and Bird ran the show.  This isn’t an incorrect perception but is it really that simple?  Wasn’t there more to it?  Well…maybe.  Let’s take a closer look at the 1980s and see.

-Team of the Decade: While not as dominant as the Bulls in the 1990s, the Lakers do seem like the best of the 1980s, winning five titles and going to eight NBA Finals.  Boston, of course, isn’t far behind, as they won three titles and went to five Finals.  But the Celts had their share of competition, getting beat up by the 76ers in the early part of the decade and by the Pistons near the end of the decade.  In addition, the Bucks were fairly tough the entire decade too.  So, let’s take a look at the teams who made the most noise during the playoffs in the decade and their average wins during that time:

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Decade Review

Decade Review: 1990s

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Since there isn’t much going on in NBA land and we had so much fun picking the team of the 00s, I thought that we could do the same thing with the other decades.  Working backwards, we’ll start today in the 1990s.  Remember from last time, that our decade spans from 1989-90 through 1998-99.  So let’s go through the analysis:

-Team of the Decade: Unlike the 00s, the team of the 1990s has no debate.  The Bulls dominated the field, going 6-0 in the NBA Finals and looking pretty good in the other years too (except for the puke bad 1998-99 post-Jordan team).  Who is number two for the 1990s?  An interesting question.  The Pistons won the first title of the decade but proceeded to suck for most of the rest of the decade.  The Rockets were good for the most part and won the 1993-94 and 1994-95 titles but didn’t have any real dominating seasons.  The Spurs were very good and won the title in 1998-99 but had some disappointing playoff finishes and their own crappy season (1996-97).  A few non-titlist were quite good for almost the entire 10 year span too (Knicks, Pacers, Blazers, Jazz, Suns, and Sonics).  Well let’s look at how the franchises did in average wins per season (the 50-game lockout schedule in 1998-99 will be pro-rated to an 82-game season):

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