7/18    Matched offer tendered to Kyle Lowry

7/20    Signed Brad Miller

7/28    Traded David Andersen and cash to Toronto for a 2015 protected second-round pick

8/12    In a four-team trade, New Jersey traded Courtney Lee to Houston for Troy Murphy from Indiana, who acquired Darren Collison and James Posey from New Orleans, who acquired Trevor Ariza from Houston

In the four-team swaperoo, the Rockets have essentially dumped one good youngster with offensive issues in Trevor Ariza for another in Courtney Lee.  The only real differences are position and contract.  Ariza is still only 25 but just couldn’t score at all, despite ample opportunity to do so in Houston.  Lee also had his own scoring issues (though not as bad as Ariza) but both players are way too young to assume that their offensive games won’t develop.  It seems, though, that this trade was more about dumping Ariza (who has a long term deal) than acquiring Lee.  Indeed, the Rockets already have a long-term two guard solution with Kevin Martin and, at best, Lee will be a nice role player/third guard.  At small forward, the Rockets were not loaded (Shane Battier and Jared Jeffries are in the last years of their respective contracts and Chase Budinger looked pretty good but is not a 35-40 mpg player yet).  Even if the deal was more about buyer’s remorse with Ariza, getting cap room and a decent young player is a worthwhile decision for Houston.

Indiana Pacers

8/12    In a four-team trade, New Jersey traded Courtney Lee to Houston for Troy Murphy from Indiana, who acquired Darren Collison and James Posey from New Orleans, who acquired Trevor Ariza from Houston

For the Pacers, they are starting over, again, at the point.  Collison had a very nice first season in the NBA and the Pacers had struggled filling the point guard.  At his current level of play, Collison is better than any of the Pacers’ other options.  He will also be a nice fit for Jim O’Brien’s three-happy offense.  The offense was terrible at the point where they were terrible from distance.  Here’s a quick breakdown of the point shooting from three:

Earl Watson: 53-184, .288%

A.J. Price: 60-174, .345%

T.J. Ford: 8-50, .160%

The interesting question is how much upside Collison has.  Given his age and ability, it is not impossible that Collison could develop into a top-10 point in a few years.

As for the outgoing players, the Pacers will miss Murphy but he is 30 and was very unlikely to be part of the next good Pacer team.  The fact that they could flip him for a good young player is the best deal we’ve seen from Larry Bird so far.  This doesn’t make the Pacers a playoff team but they now have a few building blocks to work with for the future, which is much better than you could say the last few years.

Los Angeles Clippers

7/18    Re-signed Craig Smith

7/28    Re-signed Rasual Butler

Butler is generic filler but Smith is a pretty good young player with some legit upside.  On the Clipps, he is slated to back up Blake Griffin and Chris Kaman but Smith could be a decent starter in the right situation.  Smith is no star but has ability in the Lawrence Funderburke/Othella Harrington-mode (which I mean as a compliment).  One of these years, Smith will convince team to give him a relatively decent long term deal.  For now, he stuck working year-to-year.

Los Angeles Lakers

7/14    Re-signed Derek Fisher

7/22    Signed Matt Barnes and Theo Ratliff

8/2      Re-signed head coach Phil Jackson

8/11    Re-signed Shannon Brown

I know Fisher had his moments in the playoffs but the numbers don’t lie here.  His game is seriously declining.  I find it hard to believe that he can be useful for more than another year, let alone two years on top of that (the contract is for two years plus a player’s option).  Fish is 36 and he doesn’t really shoot the three that well (35%), can’t get to the basket, and isn’t that fast either.  I understand that Fisher’s history in L.A. has built up a ton of goodwill and that the Heat were supposedly going to offer a three-year deal.  So, if paying Fisher $3.5 million for three years makes Kobe and the fans happy, it’s not the worst move I’ve seen.  It’s also not impossible that Fisher can get his shooting closer to his career levels (37-40%) next season but it’s more likely that the Lakers have flushed $7-10 million down the toilet.

As a side note, I wondered if Fisher in 2009-10 had the lowest PER of any championship starter.  Fisher racked up a less than great 9.3 PER (remember a PER of 15.0 is about average).  Here’s a rundown of the worst PERs for championship team starters since 1981-82 when games started were first kept as a stat (minimum 40 games started):

1981-82 Lakers: Kurt Rambis, 12.8

1982-83 76ers: Marc Iavaroni, 7.3

1983-84 Celtics: Dennis Johnson, 12.8

1984-85 Lakers: Kurt Rambis, 12.7

1985-86 Celtics: no starters under 13.0

1986-87 Lakers: no starters under 13.0

1987-88 Lakers: no starters under 13.0

1988-89 Pistons: Rick Mahorn, 12.1

1990-91 Bulls: Bill Cartwright, 11.5

1991-92 Bulls: Bill Cartwright, 10.9

John Paxson, 10.9

1992-93 Bulls: Bill Cartwright, 8.3

1993-94 Rockets: Vernon Maxwell, 12.5

1994-95 Rockets: Vernon Maxwell, 11.9

1995-96 Bulls: Luc Longley, 11.9

1996-97 Bulls: no starters under 13.0

1997-98 Bulls: Dennis Rodman, 12.4

1998-99 Spurs: Sean Elliott, 12.6

1999-00 Lakers: A.C. Green 11.2

2000-01 Lakers: Ron Harper, 12.5

2001-02 Lakers: Rick Fox 11.3

Lindsey Hunter, 9.4

2002-03 Spurs: Bruce Bowen, 9.1

2003-04 Pistons: no starters under 13.0

2004-05 Spurs: Rasho Nesterovic, 12.0

Bruce Bowen, 9.5

2005-06 Heat: James Posey, 9.8

2006-07 Spurs: Fabricio Oberto, 11.9

Francisco Elson, 11.2

2007-08 Celtics: no starters under 13.0

2008-09 Lakers: no starters under 13.0

2009-10 Lakers:  Ron Artest, 12.1

Derek Fisher, 9.3

So here are some observations:

-Fisher is bad but we find a few worse in Iavaroni at the bottom (who was only a nominal starter because Bobby Jones played the bulk of power forward minutes), Cartwright, and Bowen.

-There are a ton of starters near Fisher’s poor 2009-10 mark, so it’s not rare a feat for title team to have such a punchless starter.  The presence of so many players with PERs under 10.0 maybe an argument that PER doesn’t do justice for role players who play with offensive monsters.  PER assesses a player’s overall game but people like Bowen weren’t really asked to score or board because the team was plenty good in those areas, making him more valuable in context than he would seem in the abstract.  With Fisher, this theory doesn’t really hold water because he has been in this role for a while and never really struggled as much as he did in 2009-10.

-Quite a few of the deep 1980s teams didn’t have a single starter with a PER under 13.0.  I don’t necessarily take this as evidence that the 1980s teams were better or deeper than other teams but they were certainly more balanced offensively.

Memphis Grizzlies

8/5    Signed Acie Law

Law crapped out of Atlanta so quickly that people almost haven’t noticed how much of a bust he was.  Since being let go from the Hawks, Law spent 2009-10 bouncing around three different teams.  He showed enough last year (particularly with Golden State) to support the notion that he is an NBA guard.  He may not be a starter or a primary back up but as a fourth guard he might be okay.

Miami Heat

7/15    Signed Mike Miller

7/16    Re-signed Joel Anthony

7/17    Signed Zydrunas Ilgauskas

7/19    Re-signed Jamaal Magloire

7/20    Signed Juwan Howard

7/22    Re-signed Carlos Arroyo

7/27    Re-signed Shavlik Randolph

7/28    Re-signed Kenny Hasbrouck

8/4      Signed Eddie House

First, signing shooters like Miller and House will obviously fit very well with the Heat’s ball handlers.  The front court signings show that this is not a typical Pat Riley team.  By luck or design, championship contender Riley teams always had an All-Star level center (Kareem, Ewing, Mourning, Shaq).  Now, he has a pile of big bodies to foul with, kind of like Phil Jackson did with his three headed monster combo with the Bulls (remember Luc Wenningdue?).  It won’t be pretty but Miami has no choice but to throw Anthony, Ilgauskas, and Magloire at Dwight Howard.  This could be a problem for the Heat, since Ilgauskas couldn’t guard Howard two years ago and now Ilaguskas looks a lot older.  The hope, I assume, is that Anthony continues to develop into a decent defensive stopper but center is a position that could very well use an upgrade during the season.

Milwaukee Bucks

7/18    Signed Keyon Dooling

Dooling will be a nice change of pace guard for the Bucks, assuming he can shoot well enough to get solid minutes.  Scott Skiles is likely to take a shine to Dooling as a defender but there won’t be a ton of minutes available behind Brandon Jennings.

Minnesota Timberwolves

7/14    Traded Al Jefferson to Utah for Kosta Koufos, a protected 2011 first-round pick and another future protected first-round pick

7/21    Signed Luke Ridnour

7/26    Traded Ryan Hollins, Ramons Sessions, and a future second-round draft pick to Cleveland for Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair

7/28    Signed Nikola Pekovic

8/3      Waived Delonte West

8/9      Signed Anthony Tolliver

The evidence is continuing to mount that David Kahn is not making great decisions.  Jefferson didn’t play great by his own standards and didn’t mesh with Kevin Love but if all you can get for Jefferson is Koufos and a few pick from a good team, you may as well  keep him and hope a better deal pops up later.  Is it really such a big deal to have extra power forwards when having scores of extra point guards wasn’t a big deal?  The Wolves have traded a 20 ppg power forward for nothing and are left with Love (a good thing), Darko (not such a great thing), and Michael Beasley (a “who knows?” thing).  If anything, Kevin McHale is starting to look better by comparison.

New Jersey Nets

7/14    Named Billy King general manager and signed Jordan Farmar and Travis Outlaw

8/7      Signed Sean May

8/12     In a four-team trade, New Jersey traded Courtney Lee to Houston for Troy Murphy from Indiana, who acquired Darren Collison and James Posey from New Orleans, who acquired Trevor Ariza from Houston

While the Mikhail Prokhorov Era started on a positive note, it seems odd that a dynamic group would choose Billy King when Kevin Pritchard might have been available.  King had been mocked for some of his moves in Philly, with his main weakness being that he felt compelled to give long extensions to mediocre players, absolutely killing the cap room (Greg Buckner, Kenny Thomas, Willie Green).  On the plus side, he was not afraid to make big moves (getting Dikembe Mutombo and Chris Webber) and he did a great job trading Allen Iverson for a player who was actually better than AI in Andre Miller. The Webber move didn’t work and King struggled to find the right players to pair with Iverson, though admittedly that wasn’t actually an easy task.  No matter how you spin King’s time in Philly, even the most generous reading would not label him a hot candidate or someone that a dynamic new regime in Jersey would think of using to attract players and re-build the franchise.

But what’s done is done.  In all, King was more bad than good in Philly but he could do well in the right situation, as long as he can avoid his tendency to provide generous contracts to mid-level players.  It doesn’t bode well, however, that the signing of Outlaw to a way too long contract coincided with King’s arrival (seven years for Outlaw?).  This is somewhat counterbalanced by the Murphy trade.  Getting a solid starting power like Murphy is a perfectly acceptable way of re-balancing the roster with the necessary amount of competent forwards (those of us who watched Yi Jianlian, Trenton Hassell, and Bobby Simmons know what I’m talking about).  Trading Lee was also acceptable too since he might be okay in the future but the Nets have plenty of decent athletic guards (Farmar and Morrow) and they did not have much up front.  I would not have hired King (in fact, I didn’t even think he should have been in the running) but with cash and an open roster, he might do a decent job.  The jury will be out for a little while.

New Orleans Hornets

7/15    Re-signed Aaron Gray

7/21    Named Dell Demps general manager

8/11    Traded Julian Wright to Toronto for Marco Belinelli

8/12     In a four-team trade, New Jersey traded Courtney Lee to Houston for Troy Murphy from Indiana, who acquired Darren Collison and James Posey from New Orleans, who acquired Trevor Ariza from Houston

In this four-team deal, almost everyone turned out okay.  The one team that I think did poorly was New Orleans.  Collison was a relatively hot commodity and they accepted Ariza, a decent player, primarily so that they could dumpi Posey’s crappy contract.  Ariza is a nice defender but his offensive game has looked really weak and, in fact, may not be much of an improvement over Posey.  Well, he’ll be an improvement over Posey but he won’t be enough of an improvement to justify the fact that contract is bigger (four years and $28 million left).  Sure Posey was awful last year but Ariza can’t shoot either and the Hornets have been burned by doubling down on tepid small forwards in the past (they had Posey, Peja Stojakovic, and Mo Peterson the last few years).  The better alternative would have been to trade a marketable commodity in Collison for a bona fide need and see if Posey could be bought out his contract (two years and $12 million).  The actual trade is not awful for New Orleans but it did not maximize its assets.

New York Knicks

8/6    Named Isiah Thomas consultant (the NBA later invalidated this transaction based upon a perceived conflict with Thomas’ NCAA position)

8/10  Signed Roger Mason

The brief return of Isiah was one of the more bizarre side stories of the summer.  If you are not a Knicks fan, there is an element of fun watching a truly bad GM attempt to rehab his image so quickly.  I’m trying to remember if there is a corollary for this attempt in sports or any other area of life.  Has someone so reviled tried to return to the public eye so soon thereafter?  Post-presidential politics is the first place I thought of by analogy.  Without making my own political judgments, I do remember that both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter were considered to be poor presidents for different reasons after they left office (by most of the population).  Both were able to chip away at that perception with some segments of the population by being active and public after leaving office.  I’m not suggesting that Isiah will open up his own library or that he will go to North Korea to broker a hostage release but nothing is impossible in sports or politics.  That doesn’t mean it is a good idea in this case.  One thing is for sure, neither Nixon or Carter would’ve given Eddy Curry or Jerome James those crappy contracts that Isiah did.

Oklahoma City Thunder

7/21    Signed Royal Ivey

7/30    Waived Kyle Weaver

OKC’s focus on defense reached new levels when they signed the one backup point guard who might have been worse offensively than previous backup Kevin Ollie.  Like Ollie, Ivey can’t shoot but can defend and is known as a good teammate.  Sam Presti has decided that defense and hustle have more value than taking a shot at a player who might have a slim shot of developing into a useful regular.  I can’t argue with the strategy but I do find it an interesting trend for the Thunder in filling the roster spots and revealing of organizational priorities.

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7/14    Signed Josh Childress and traded him to Phoenix for a 2010 second-round pick

7/24    Signed Josh Powell

7/29    Re-signed Jason Collins

The Hawks flirted with Shaq but ultimately passed on him.  This gave Collins a shot to comeback as a third center.  It is hard to believe that Collins is only going to be 32, since he has always moved like he was 82.  Collins has very little left, basically designated to come in and use a couple fouls on big men in a pinch.  He’s probably not quite as bad offensively as he looked in 2009-10 (0.7 ppg, .348 FG%, and 0-2 from the line for the season) but how could he be that bad?  No doubt, Collins good nature has kept him around longer than most players with similar skill level would.

Boston Celtics

7/15    Re-signed Paul Pierce

7/19    Re-signed Nate Robinson

7/24    Re-signed Marquis Daniels

8/3      Signed Von Wafer

8/4      Signed Shaquille O’Neal

8/10    Waived Rasheed Wallace

The Celts are doubling down hoping for another title run.  In this case, the price isn’t too steep.  Robinson, Daniels, Wafer, and Shaq are all pretty useful and will make make less than $10 million combined next year.  Pierce’s deal is a bit rich (four years and $61 million).  He’ll be worth it for 2010-11 but it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll play when he hits his mid-30s.  Still, Pierce is a Celtic Emeritus and that combined with Boston’s immediate need to contend in 2010-11 makes the deal acceptable, despite the inevitable downside.

As for Shaq, his numbers look much better on paper than an objective observation of his play on the court for the Cavs.  O’Neal looked ponderously slow at times and totally useless in the running game.  Shaq can still help but there is a very good shot that his minutes will decline from a career low 23.4 mpg in 2009-10.  Some will surely decry this part of O’Neal’s career since it is worlds away from his “Most Dominating Man on the Planet” run.  Indeed, how many inner circle Hall of Famers had such a nomad phase?  This will be Shaq’s seventh team.  The only comparable situation is Moses Malone, who played with seven NBA teams (including two tours in Philly) and two ABA teams.

The funny thing is that Shaq doesn’t really get a bad rap for bouncing around teams much more often than the other greats.  While LeBron was rightfully criticized for his narcissistic television announcement when he signed with the Heat, you might recall that Shaq put the Magic through a similar ringer in the mid-1990s.  After the Lakers outbid Orlando in a huge back in forth negotiation in 1996, Shaq’s introductory press conference showed some of the same self-absorption that LeBron’s recent show did.  When asked about the bidding process at the press conference, Shaq used the opportunity to plug his endorsers and look like a hypocrite, telling the reporters:  “I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money.  I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.”   O’Neal also took the time to criticize Orlando, coach Brian Hill, and Anfernee Hardaway for no apparent reason.  But that’s Shaq.  Even when he’s coming off as a less than genuine or nice, he just has a likability that other players do not, no matter what he actually does or says.

Charlotte Bobcats

7/20    Signed Shaun Livingston

7/22    Signed Dominic McGuire

Fun facts about Livingston:

-Despite being a high Lottery pick back in 2004, he’s still only 24

-Livingston still can’t shoot the three (6-32 for his career)

-His time with the Wizards last year was his best statistical run as a pro.

-There is reason to believe that the run is a bit fluky.  Most of Livingston’s rate stats were in line with his Clipper years but he somehow shot .535% from the field, while still being totally unable to shoot threes.  It’s highly unlikely he can sustain that rate of accuracy.

-Charlotte might not be the ideal location for Livingston.  Larry Brown is not known for his patience at the point.

In all, Livingston remains in the category of interesting player to take a flier on but still unlikely to totally pan out.

Chicago Bulls

7/19    Signed Ronnie Brewer

7/21    Traded a 2011 second-round pick to Golden State for C.J. Watson

7/24    Signed Kurt Thomas

8/11    Signed Keith Bogans

The Bulls went very defensive with this group of signings.  Brewer is the only one with any real upside.  He is still quite young (going to be 25 this season) and looked like a respectable player on Utah.  The only problem with Brewer is his biggest weakness, shooting threes (and shooting in general), was the Bulls’ biggest problem last year and may limit his playing time to bench player.

As for Bogans, he’s an older and worse version of Brewer.   Bogans is also coming his worst season to date.  He’s still only 30 but he won’t be playing much unless things go very wrong for the Bulls.

Cleveland Cavaliers

7/26    Traded Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair to Minnesota for Ryan Hollins, Ramon Sessions, and a future second-round draft pick

7/30    Signed Joey Graham

The post-LeBron hangover is going to be ugly but I like the Sessions’ move.  He is young and was a legitimately solid player before last year.  As in Minnesota, Sessions might not have a clear shot at playing time because another point is in town (in Minny it was Johnny Flynn and here it’s Mo Williams).  This is less of a problem in Cleveland because given the options at two-guard (Anthony Parker and Daniel Gibson), a Sessions/Williams  back court might be their best regular back court anyway.

Dallas Mavericks

7/14    Signed Ian Mahinmi

7/18    Re-signed Dirk Nowitzki

It was a pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Mavs would bring Dirk back.  The extension is big (four years and $60 million) and is a necessary step for the Mavs who are living for the here-and-now.  Dirk’s numbers have been steadily but slightly declining since his MVP peak a few years ago but he is still a star and should be an All-Star for most of the extension.

As a side note, Dirk is unquestionably the best player in Mav franchise history.  That got me wondering, how many other such players each franchise has on its rosters right now or even how many have a top ten player in franchise history.  When one considers statistical output, tenure, and accomplishments (i.e playoff success and awards), who are the best “franchise players” on each franchise right now?  When we play this game, remember that accomplishments are on a franchise level, so a good player who has declined might rank ahead of a younger player who been in town a short period of time.  For example, Paul Pierce, who has been a Celtic for a decade, beats KG for Boston, even though KG has been better for most of the last few years.  So here is our unscientific knee-jerk analysis by franchise of top ten franchise players currently on NBA rosters:

-Boston: Paul Pierce is the obvious answer (see above). On most other franchises, Pierce would be a top three player.   On Boston, however, Pierce is clearly below Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Bill Russell, and Larry Bird.  In addition, Bill Sharman, Jo Jo White, Sam Jones, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish all have arguments over Pierce (not to mention Boston favorites like Tommy Heinsohn and Dennis Johnson).   At best, Pierce is the fifth best Celtic ever and could rank as low as tenth.  I would put him seventh right now (behind Jones and McHale) with a shot of overtaking them if he ages well the next few years.

-New York: Absolutely no options at this point.  They hope Amare Stoudemire cracks the list in a few years.

-New Jersey: The Nets are not exactly a storied franchise but neither Brook Lopez nor Devin Harris are in the top ten yet.  If Lopez has one more good year, though, he’ll be close to the mix already (if we don’t count ABA years).

-Philadelphia: Andre Iguodala is definitely not in the top ten, though he’s been around for six years and is pretty good.  If he can log ten good years in Philly, he could stake a claim.

-Washington: Take away the gun play and the shoe dumps and Gilbert Arenas is plausibly within the Wizards’ top ten.  True, the Wiz haven’t had too many great ones over their long history but the only players clearly on top of Agent Zero are Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, Earl Monroe, and Gus Johnson.   Given Arenas’ problems, you could make a good argument that he ranks below good players who lasted a while and had no problems like Greg Ballard, Kevin Loughery, Phil Chenier, Walt Bellamy, Jeff Malone, and Antawn Jamison.   Then you have players who lasted short periods of time but were pretty effective but were injured or had their own personality issues (Rod Strickland, Jeff Ruland, Bernard King,  Chris Webber, Bobby Dandridge).  Arenas is probably in or around the back of the top ten, though I wouldn’t contest Wizards fans who think he doesn’t belong there because of all of his crap the last year or so.

-Miami: Yup, Dwyane Wade is the Heat’s best player already.  Alonzo Mourning was good but was hurt often enough that Wade has played nearly as many games in Miami, while also leading the team to a title and being a Hall of Fame guard.  It’ll be quite interesting to see where LeBron James fits into this list.

-Orlando: He’s not as good as Shaq was but the fact is that Dwight Howard has already played several more games in Orlando than O’Neal (or Tracy McGrady).  By hanging around town and dominating, Howard is number one by far.

-Atlanta: It’s still a little early to put Joe Johnson or Josh Smith on the list.  Check back in two years.

-Charlotte: Gerald Wallace and Emeka Okafor were close but Okafor has been traded and Wallace has continued to excel.

-Chicago: No one.  Derrick Rose should be their soon though.

-Cleveland: They had a pretty good player last year…the name escapes me but no one on the roster right now.

-Detroit: Both Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton are near the tenth spot.  I would say that Wallace may get the nod since his talents were a bit harder to replace when they were in their primes.  The catch here is that Hamilton is still pretty good and could pass him.  Both are fringe top ten guys.

-Indiana: Danny Granger is already in the fifth or sixth slot and still rising.  He should be in the top five by the end of 2010-11.

-Milwaukee: Michael Redd is pretty done as a player but he is still on the roster (for $18 million next year!) and he had a nice run in the 2000s.   His longevity and consistency place him close to the fifth slot in franchise history.  Andrew Bogut is also ascending but needs a few more years.

-Toronto: It hasn’t been a great time for fans when Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani are in your franchise top ten.  But in Toronto, some of the names on the list include Morris Peterson, Alvin Williams, and Doug Christie.   In this context, Calderon is probably a top five talent (though he probably will be traded soon).

-Dallas: As mentioned above, Dirk is number one in Dallas history.

-Denver: Excluding ABA years, Carmelo is probably the second or third best Nugget behind Alex English and Dan Issel.  (David Thompson had a shorter NBA career in Denver and Carmelo hasn’t had the off court issues that Thompson did).    The Nuggets depth chart is pretty slim and Nene and Kenyon Martin have an argument to come in the weak end of the top ten, though I wouldn’t quite put them in.  Chauncey Billups is also relatively close.

-Houston: Hopefully, Yao Ming can overcome his foot issues.  As it stands, he’s in the five-to-ten range in Houston.

-Memphis: A very weak franchise.  Rudy Gay is already in the top three (behind Pau Gasol and Shareef Abdur-Rahim) and O.J. Mayo and Zach Randolph already have claims for the top ten.

-Minnesota: Give Kevin Love one more good season and he’s clearly in the top ten.

-New Orleans: Chris Paul is the best Hornet ever already.  David West is about seventh in the franchise and moving up.

-San Antonio: David Robinson has a strong argument but Tim Duncan is the best Spur ever.  Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are also both in the four-to-six range.

-Utah: Stockton and Malone rule the roost but Deron Williams is already passing everyone else.  Andrei Kirilenko is about sixth or seventh.

-Golden State: Combine a rich past with a pathetic present and you get no contenders on the current rosters.

-L.A. Clippers: Chris Kaman is much higher up the list than he deserves to be on most teams.  He’s eighth or ninth right now.

-L.A. Lakers: The age old question is how good Kobe Bryant is compared to the Laker greats.  At this point, he’s really close to the top.  I still think Magic Johnson is on top but Bryant is one good season from being the undisputed the champ.  (I know Shaq was better but Kobe already has played over 1,000 games as a Laker versus 514 for O’Neal).

-Oklahoma City: Give Kevin Durant a few years and he’ll be number one but the Sonics had enough very good players who played for a long time to knock KD back to about fifth so far.

-Phoenix: Another deep franchise but Steve Nash has a claim for the number one spot.  Nash is no worse than third Sun now (Alvan Adams, Walter Davis, Shawn Marion, and Kevin Johnson still were very good and had longer Sun careers).  Nash will be the undisputed number one within a year at this pace.

-Portland: Brandon Roy is excellent but he’s been injured and he really needs to accrue some more good years to crack this squad.  Roy is arguably in the eight-to-ten range now.

-Sacramento: No one here.  Way too soon to talk about Tyreke Evans.

So there you have it, most of the NBA has a player on its roster who is a franchise elite, though only five are arguably the best in franchise history.

Denver Nuggets

7/15    Re-signed Anthony Carter and signed Shelden Williams

7/15    Signed Al Harrington

Harrington will either be a nice bench player or a replacement if Denver trades Carmelo.  Speaking of Melo, what should be done about his prospective free agency?  The ideal for Denver would be to convince him to take an extension now.  He’s apparently refusing and the Nuggets’ best hope is to play out the season and hope to convince him to stay during the free agency period.  The Nuggets are not a young team outside of Anthony and if he really is going to leave, there is an argument that they should play out the season and risk his leaving and hope that they do well enough in the playoffs to either convince him to stay or to make enough cash that it’d be worth it anyway.

But the Nuggets should not be afraid to trade Anthony.  Remember, Anthony is quite good but he is a more of a scorer than an all-around star, closer to Dominique Wilkins as a player than the uberstars like Michael Jordan.  Hell, Anthony hasn’t quite done as much as Nique yet (Anthony’s best PER so far is 22. 2, while Nique broke that number seven times–MJ and LeBron are in another stratosphere).  Melo’s a great talent but not once in a generation and trading him will not wreck the franchise.

Having no insider knowledge on Anthony, it seems to me that they should not be afraid to trade or keep him.  Pragmatically, they must assess the key questions: (1)  how well they are playing and (2) how much they could get in trade for Anthony.  I don’t see the Nuggets likely as serious contenders and I don’t think Anthony is good enough that Denver should desperately load up on payroll like the Cavs did with LeBron in an attempt to convince Melo to stay.  So, the situation is quite fluid and Denver needs to keep a level head and react when the clouds clear in a few months.  If I had to guess, it seem most likely that some team will overbid for Anthony in the trade market and Denver won’t be good enough to resist the deal (Derrick Favors, Devin Harris,  and picks?).  Of course, George Karl is not know for wanting to give up his stars.  Given the Nuggets recent front office strife, it’ll be interesting to see if they play this one correctly.

Detroit Pistons

7/30    Re-signed Will Bynum

8/4      Re-signed Ben Wallace

8/16    Signed Tracy McGrady

Having watched T-Mac last year, it just didn’t look like his body could make it through an 82-game season.  The legs were not there and the athleticism was not what it was.  Hopefully, McGrady comes back with a little more than he did right off of rehab.  I’m not too optimistic and Detroit is a poor place to take a shot since they have a bunch of two guards already.

6/22    Traded Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric to Golden State for Corey Maggette and the 44th pick in the 2010 draft

6/25    Traded a 2012 second-round pick to New Jersey for Chris Douglas-Roberts

7/8      Re-signed John Salmons and signed Drew Gooden

Unquestionably, the Bucks have won the talent exchanges here.  Maggette is still a pretty good player but is owed about $30 million over the next three years, while Bell and Gadzuric will be pretty much gone after 2010-11 (Bell is owed $4 million in 2011-12).  So, Maggette is essentially a free agent pick up for the Bucks, giving them the extra scorer they need.  The only downsides with Maggette are injury concerns and his lack of defense, a weakness that does not always work with Scott Skiles teams.  Douglas-Roberts could also help in the scoring department but between Maggette and Salmons there isn’t much playing time left over for a lower budget scoring type.

The Gooden signing is also a nice talent move, though the contract terms appear a little long (five years and $32 million).  Like Maggette and CDR, Gooden will also scoring as his primary ability, challenging Skiles to assimilate a different kind of talent base to his core.  The addition of more scorers correctly identifies the right problems with the Bucks.  Even so, I don’t see the Bucks making a big jump forward.  At best, this will be a consolidation year to make sure the gains of 2009-10 carry forward.  It should be noted that consolidation is worthy goal since Skiles last three winning season were followed by struggles the following year:

-2000-01 Suns, 51-31:  Slipped to 25-26 the next season and Skiles was fired.

-2004-05 Bulls, 47-35:  Fell to 41-41 the next season

-2006-07 Bulls, 49-33:  Started out 9-16 the next season and was fired.

So, history indicates that Skiles is due for some regression.

Finally, this will be Gooden’s ninth NBA team already, putting him on a nice pace to eventually catch Tony Massenburg and Chucky Brown for playing for the most franchises.

Minnesota Timberwolves

6/24    Traded Ryan Gomes and the draft rights to Luke Babbit to Portland for Martell Webster

7/12    Traded 2011 and 2014 second-round picks to Miami for Michael Beasley; Re-signed Darko Milicic

The Darko signing is mystifying.  I know that the Wolves are excited about rehabbing Darko into a serviceable backup center but fundamentally he’s still not that good and it’s not clear there was a market for him in the NBA anyway.  Even if Darko outperforms the deal (four years and $20 million) this was a waste of salary space.  The Beasley acquisition, on the other hand, was a worthwhile move, since he was essentially dumped for nothing.  He’s only 21 and reminds me very much of Glenn Robinson, another big man guy who was really a perimeter scorer.  A front line of Beasley, Kevin Love, and Darko doesn’t exactly strike fear in anyone’s hearts but is not valueless.  While Love and Al Jefferson struggled to defend together, this front line also seems pretty soft.  In short, the Wolves will look different but will still be bad.

New Jersey Nets

6/25    Traded Chris Douglas-Roberts to Milwaukee for a 2012 second-round pick

6/28    Waived Keyon Dooling

6/29    Traded Yi Jianlian and cash to Washington for Quinton Ross

7/10    Signed Johan Petro and signed Anthony Morrow to an offer sheet; Traded a conditional second-round pick in 2011 and a player exception to Golden State to complete a sign-and-trade for Anthony Morrow

So this is what happens when you whiff on the big free agent signings…you get some seriously unfun consolation prizes.  Petro will defend but can’t do much else.   Morrow fills a serious shooting need for the Nets, who were terrible from the perimeter. Outlaw is a wild card, who may add some scoring but the terms of the deal (five years and $7 million) are ridiculous for a guy who missed over half the season last year.  In all, this is not a great haul but acceptable given the lack of depth the Nets suffered last year.  Still, there is no quicker path to mediocrity than overpaying for guys like Outlaw or Petro and Billy King made similar mistakes in Philly that were killers (Willie Green, Kenny Thomas, or Greg Buckner).  Hopefully, the Nets are careful with the rest of their cap room.

New Orleans Hornets

6/7    Named Monty Williams head coach

6/24  Traded Morris Peterson and the rights to Cole Aldrich to Oklahoma City for the rights Craig Brackins and Quincy Poindexter

I will always remember Williams as a rookie for the Knicks.  He didn’t do much but he had moments whenever I was around.  He played particularly well one game at the Garden I happened to go to in 1994-95.  Then in 1995-96, when I happened to be shooting around at the Suny Purchase basketball court, Williams (nicely) kicked me off the court so that he could practice his free throws. I hadn’t thought much of him since that time but he apparently made a strong enough impression to that he will get the chance to try to turn around the Hornets.  This will be a tough start with Chris Paul looking to be traded and only a few other assets around N.O..

The Hornets have been smart so far with Paul and tried to defuse the tension here.  They seem to understand that they hold all the cards for right now.  Paul can’t force a trade unless he refuses to play (won’t happen) or he whines so loudly that they have to get him off the roster (probably won’t happen because of the collateral damage it might do to his reputation).  On the other hand, as time elapses, the Hornets will lose their leverage.  The key here, if Paul really wants out, is to actively shop him without being under the gun to maximize return.  So, a deal should be made but only under the right circumstances.

New York Knicks

7/8    Acquired Amare Stoudemire from Phoenix for a trade exception and a draft pick

7/9    Signed and traded David Lee to Golden State for Kelenna Azubuike, Anthony Randolph, Ronny Turiaf, and a 2010 second-round pick

7/10  Signed Raymond Felton

7/13  Signed Timofey Mozgov

The LeBron James Plan ended up fizzling out but the Knicks, for the first time in a long time, are on the right track.  Nor should the last few bad years where management pared payroll and gave up on winning be considered a failure without signing LeBron.  The fact is that the Knicks had to get rid of all the crappy overpaid players accrued under Isiah Thomas regardless of whether LeBron was coming to town.  Amare is not a riskless player (he is a poor defender and has had some significant injuries) but he is better than Lee and a nice first building block.  Some have noted that Lee isn’t that much worse than Amare.  Let’s put their per-36 minute stats side-by-side:

There is a pretty good argument that Lee is as effective as Amare.  The key difference, however, is that fact that Stoudemire gets to the line a ton, while Lee does not.  Sure the Knicks will lose boards but they were the third worst free throw drawing team and Amare fills a more dire need and has a more unique skill-set.

Donnie Walsh also did a nice job of getting back some real talent for Lee in Randolph, a good young forward.  Suddenly, the Knicks are pretty big and athletic at forward for the first time in years.  As for Felton, he is a pretty average point guard but is an improvement over Chris Duhon.  It’s clear that the Knicks really need one more good player to be a decent playoff team but should be in the running for a low rung playoff position.  It’ll be up to Walsh to get that one more player to make New York interesting.

Oklahoma City Thunder

6/23    Traded the 32nd overall pick to Miami for Daequan Cook and the 18th overall pick in the 2010 draft

6/24    Traded the rights Craig Brackins and Quincy Poindexter to New Orleans for Morris Peterson and the rights to Cole Aldrich

OKC has always done a nice job of getting draft picks as a bonus for taking other teams bad contracts.  Cook isn’t a bad contract but Miami needed to clear all iffy players to sign the Big Three and get veteran role players.  OKC also got Eric Bledsoe who they later traded to the Clippers for a future first-rounder, which could turn out well since any future Clipper draft pick has some potential value.  As for the New Orleans trade, Mo Pete looks pretty done but the Thunder were able to get a potentially good center in Aldrich just for assuming Peterson’s $6 million salary this year.  Neither trade may matter long term but there is only upside to these deals for the Thunder and eventually at least one of them should pay off well.

Orlando Magic

7/8    Signed Chris Duhon

7/13  Signed Quentin Richardson

Orlando is just rounding out its bench with Duhon and Q-Rich.  Duhon is being used in place of Jason Williams.  Duhon is a better defender but not necessarily a better shooter or passer.  Duhon is not as good a player, though Williams, at 35, does run a risk of collapse that Duhon should not.  Despite this risk,the Duhon deal is a bit long (four years and $15 million) so Orlando was probably better off taking Williams year-to-year than holding onto Duhon until 2014.  Overall, the players are close enough, though, that the Magic are net flat on the trade in the short term.

Q-Rich comes in place of Matt Barnes, who apparently wanted a big contract.  Richardson showed new life with Miami, though I get a sense that the improvement came mostly from flukey shooting from three (.397% last year when he is a career 360% three-point shooter).  Richardson doesn’t get to the line at all anymore either (1.2 free throws per 36 minutes, a career low).  Orlando apparently wanted Barnes but he had demanded a big deal and, instead, gave Richardson three years and $7.5 million.  Ironically, Barnes ended up signing for much cheaper (two years and $3.6 million).  As with Duhon, the Magic slightly downgrade and overpay a little.  It shouldn’t affect the team too much either way in 2010-11 but both deals are mild losers.

Philadelphia 76ers

4/15    Fired Eddie Jordan

5/21    Named Doug Collins head coach

6/18    Traded Samuel Dalembert to Sacramento for Spencer Hawes and Andres Nocioni

I thought Jordan was a bad fit for the 76ers style but was surprised to see him canned so quickly.  Unhappiness with coaches in Philly seems to be a running theme.  It’s not clear if this is because they have testy players, a management that worries too much about making players happy, or they really have hired poor coaches.  Certainly it seems that the answer seems to be all three to some extent.  In any case, the cost of constantly firing coaches is having to constantly start rebuilding from scratch.  Now, the 76ers are going with Collins, a coach who is quite competent and a defensive coach but is also known for flaming out because he is not exactly a cool customer.

Here are Collins’ offensive, defensive, and pace rankings as an NBA coach:

There you have it.  Collins wants it slow, slow, slow, and, ideally, defensive too.  The funny thing is that Collins engenders such strong sentiment from people.  Some think he is a total spaz and others love his passion.  His coaching career has been quite eventful too.  Here’s the rundown in case you’ve forgotten:

-Chicago Bulls: Collins started out with the Bulls as an up-and-coming 35-year old coach, whose star playing career ended early because of injuries.  He helped the Michael Jordan Bulls gradually improve from fringe playoff team to solid contender.  After taking the heavily favored Pistons to six games in the 1989 Eastern Conference Finals, however, Collins was canned by management.  There were all sort of rumors about the motivation for Collins’ firing.  Some said there were personal life issues, others thought MJ didn’t like him, Jerry Resindorf claimed that they needed a new voice to get to title contention level, and Jerry Krause claimed that Collins was fired not for personal reasons but because his style of play didn’t fit the team.  Sam Smith provides a very credible explanation in “The Jordan Rules”:  “[Resindorf}  had seen [GM Jerry] Krause and Collins battle desperately over trade possibilities, with Collins going over Krause’s head to Resindorf and even trying to get Krause fired.  This proved fatal in the long run to Collins, for Reinsdorf hadn’t wanted Collins as coach in the first place, and only agreed to hire him after a desperate appeal from Krause.”

As for Collins emotional side, Smith noted that Jordan didn’t hate him but that “Collins became desperately controlling, calling every play and privately blaming Jordan for his inability to get the team to play a fast-breaking transition offense.”  Smith also told this amusing story: “Once at a charity exhibition, Jordan sat with players from around the league, swapping stories, when the subject turned to coaches.  Everyone had something to add, from Dominique Wilkins telling about Mike Fratello’s demonic rages to Isiah Thomas telling about willful exchanges with Chuck Daly.  So everyone had a good laugh, but there was silence after Jordan said, ‘You may think you’ve got problems with your coaches, but, well, mine cries every day.’”

It’s clear that Collins’ style wore on the Bulls but would the Bulls have won with Collins eventually?  The Bulls went on to dynastic heights within a season after Collins was let go.  Had Collins stayed put, they definitely would’ve won something, as they were peaking at the time.  You do wonder, however, if Collins had the calming hand that the Bulls needed when faced with the bruising Knicks teams in 1992 and 1993, let alone getting through the tough mental grind of winning the last three titles while the team was older and heavily scrutinized world-wide.  I think it’s fair to unscientifically estimate that a Collins coached Bulls team probably would’ve won maybe three titles versus the six that Phil Jackson racked up.

-Detroit Pistons: Collins took off six years to broadcast (very successfully) before returning to try to rebuild the Pistons in 1995-96.  Collins had nice building blocks in young Grant Hill and Allan Houston but not much else.  Collins improved a 28-win team to 46-36 and improved the league’s worst defense to the 7th best in the NBA.  The Pistons lost Houston to free agency after the season but improved even more in 1996-97 to 54-28.  Just as it looked like Collins was going to lead the Pistons to contention, the team slumped to 21-24 the next season and he was fired again. In February 1998, Jackie MacMullan wrote an article for Sports Illustrated that reported that Hill had turned on Collins: “At the center of Detroit’s storm was Collins, the fanatical coach who demanded perfection and was relentless in his pursuit of it. No one questioned Collins’s exceptional knowledge of the game, but players found it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to respond to his frenetic style. Sources told SI that in at least two meetings with owner Bill Davidson, Hill recommended a coaching change.”

Despite the reporting of Collins as a bit overbearing, “Money Players”, a book written by Armen Keteyian, Harvey Araton, and Martin F. Dardis about the 1995-96 NBA season, painted Collins as a bit high strung but a guy who was too caring and was being unfairly hurt by the self-centered world of the NBA: “In many ways, it had been a season of absolution, a chance for a passionate coach to cleanse himself personally and professionally, to break away only to come back full circle.  Back to the game, and the people he loved the most….As he prepared to walk out the door that night [after the final game of the Pistons' season], Collins was a man at peace.  His wife and his sense of team, his belief in process, were back….’I got one tonight,’ he said.  ‘I got one.’  He was talking about Allan Houston, and what he meant was that he’d gotten another star he could count on, build with.  He had himself another Money Player, or so he thought.  Soon it would be time for Houston to get paid.  And in the New NBA that Collins didn’t always understand, or accept, wads of cash were much, much thicker than the loyalty a coach wanted too much to think he deserved.  Than blood that was shared.”  Houston, of course, left that summer for New York and the implication was that Collins, who cared too much, was hurt by this betrayal for cash.

-Washington Wizards: Collins returned to broadcasting before being called back into coaching by his old foil Jordan, who was making his second comeback in 2001-02.  At the time, I was surprised that MJ was going with Collins because the entire rebuilding plan was built around high schooler Kwame Brown and I wasn’t sure that Collins had the temperament or patience to coach an 18-year old.  Also, I wasn’t under the impression that MJ particularly like Collins since he probably could’ve saved Collins in Chicago if he truly wanted him as a coach.  Still, Michael Leahy wrote in “When Nothing Else Matters” that MJ liked the fact that Collins turned the Pistons around so quickly and Jordan believed he could keep Collins from going off the deep end like he seemed to have in Detroit.  Collins had his combative moments but, for the most part, he had to let Jordan (his boss, superstar, and global icon) make most of the major decisions.  Jordan was only a good player by 2002 and the roster wasn’t great.  Both MJ and Collins were canned after the 2002-03 season by Abe Pollin.  In the end, the Wiz adventure for Collins didn’t add much to his coaching legacy or take anything away, he was just Jordan’s proxy.  Though some blamed Collins for failing to develop Kwame Brown, this is not fair.  Identifying Brown as a star and developing him were both Jordan’s jobs.  MJ was wrong about Brown the player and didn’t exactly help Brown develop either and the failure to develop should rest at MJ’s doorstep and not with Collins.

Going forward, Collins’ resume indicates that we should be seeing a slow-paced squad and improved defense with 76ers.  It will be interesting to see how Philly handles Collins’ inevitable tantrums, since management and players seemed pretty sensitive in the past (they dumped Tony DiLeo despite his success in 2008-09).  On the bright side, Collins has done a pretty good job developing young players and improving teams overall. It is pretty clear, however, that Collins won’t last more than two or three years here.  I probably would’ve looked for a younger coach than Collins who won’t burnout so quickly but Collins is not a bad solution short term.

Phoenix Suns

7/8    Re-signed Channing Frye

7/8    Signed Amare Stoudemire and traded him to New York for a trade exception and a future draft pick

7/8    Traded a 2011 second-round pick to Chicago Hakim Warrick

Frye received a perfectly fair contract for a pretty average center (five years and $30 million).  Frye remade his game in Phoenix, focusing on the perimeter but was basically as effective as he was in Portland two years ago.  The difference now is that Frye has lost some rebounds but traded them for a little more passing and blocking.  Though his shooting has migrated to the three-point line, Frye is scoring at the same rate as he was in 2007-08 too.  At 27, he is a fairly good bet to remain adequate through the life of the deal.

The Suns are also hoping that the athletic Warrick will replace a fraction of Amare’s production.  On a general level, Warrick might work.  He’s fast and athletic and can finish, which is a good fit for Phoenix’s run-and-gun.  Warrick probably won’t be a star but he should be getting a bump in touches and minutes in Phoenix.

Portland Trailblazers

6/24    Traded Martell Webster to Minnesota for Ryan Gomez and the right to Luke Babbit

6/25    Fired Kevin Pritchard

6/29    Waived Ryan Gomes

7/10    Signed Wesley Matthews to an offer sheet

I’m not sure what I can add to the Pritchard situation that wasn’t already said better by Kevin Pelton over at Basketball Prospectus.  In a nutshell, Pritchard’s reputation may have surpassed his actual results but he looked to be a very good GM.  2009-10 was a bit of a lost year for Portland because of injuries but they are well-positioned to contend for the next five years and I do not believing in changing management in such a situation unless there is something going on that we are not privy to.

Sacramento Kings

6/17    Traded Spencer Hawes and Andres Nocioni to Philadelphia for Samuel Dalembert

The price of dumping the unhappy Nocioni was giving Philly Hawes, a young player with some potential.  In terms of salary, Dalembert will be off the books after 2010-11, while Philly will still owe Nocioni almost $7 million 2011-12.  Clearly, the Kings have decided that Hawes is not going to develop into a very good player, otherwise, it would be inane to trade him just to lose Nocioni.  In looking at Hawes’ stats, we see that he has some potential but shown very little improvement, as his rate stats have stayed pretty even in three years in the NBA.  I don’t see Hawes as a star either but he is quite young (still only 22) and does enough that he could develop into a Raef LaFrentz-type of big.  The Kings had a glut of forwards but dumping a decent young player isn’t the best way to go about fixing it, when Carl Landry had more value and probably won’t be here long term anyway.

San Antonio Spurs

7/10    Re-signed Matt Bonner

7/12    Signed Tiago Splitter

The Spurs have been waiting a while for Splitter, who was once a very hot international prospect.  Splitter is a fun player to watch, a bruising and active forward, who can board and get to the line.  Splitter is still only 22 and had nice stats last year (13.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg, and 5.5 free throws per game all in only 26.7 mpg).  If there is a negative with Splitter, it is the fact that he doesn’t block shots, which limits his defense presence.  Still, he gives the Spurs some more depth up front after Tim Duncan (they already have DeJuan Blair and Antonio McDyess).  So the Spurs have quietly improved here.

Toronto Raptors

7/8    Re-signed Amir Johnson and signed Linas Kleiza to an offer sheet

7/9    Signed Chris Bosh and traded him to Miami for two first-round picks in 2011 and a trade exception

As with Dan Gilbert in Cleveland, Bryan Colangelo’s sour grapes about losing his franchise player seem a bit unbecoming.  Bosh may have left but he didn’t really quit on the Raptors.  With Toronto floundering badly, what point was there to bringing him back to play out the last few weeks of the season to get slaughtered as an eight seed?  Nor does signing Johnson for too much make Raptor fans feel any better.  In short, the Raptors are starting over again and there isn’t much talent in the stable.  If any one mishandled the free agency grind it was Toronto.  If it was that clear that Bosh was bolting, they really should’ve traded him and replenished its stable of assets.  As they stand now, the Raps are built around Andrea Bargnani and DeMar Derozan, which is not an inspiring thought.

Utah Jazz

7/8    Signed and traded Carlos Boozer and a second-round pick to Chicago for a player exception

As we’ll talk about next time, the Jazz did a great job of getting some value for Boozer and also finding a reasonable replacement for almost nothing.  They are the only team ithis summer to lose an All-Star-type player and come out of it basically intact.

Washington Wizards

6/29    Traded Quinton Ross to New Jersey for Yi Jianlian and cash

7/8      Traded the draft rights to Vladimir Veremeenko to Chicago for Kirk Hinrich, the draft rights to Kevin Seraphin and cash

7/13    Signed Hilton Armstrong

The transactions aren’t great but Hinrich has value and can probably play with and tutor John Wall if need be.  Yi isn’t really any good but is not a horrible end of the bench guy and I’m sure Andray Blatche will enjoy torching him in practice.

7/7    Named Vinny Del Negro head coach

7/8    Signed Randy Foye and Ryan Gomes

7/9    Signed Brian Cook

In the best and worst of times, there is a certain sense of futility we all get when we hear that someone is going to be new coach the Clippers.  It is true that all coaches are hired to eventually be fired, the Clippers seem to stack the deck against a coach’s ability to have long term success more than most.  This got me wondering where Clipper coaches come from and where they go from Clipperdom.  Here’s a list of the Clipper head coaches hired by Donald Sterling and how it went for them:

-Jim Lynam, 1983-84: The Clipps were Lynam’s first head coaching gig.  He went 30-52  the first season before being fired after a 22-39 start in 1984-85.  This job wasn’t a dead end for Lynam, who parlayed it into work with the 76ers (1987-88 to 1991-92) and the Bullets from 1994-95 through mid-1996-97.  Neither later stint was a rip roaring success but Lynam  did win one division with the 76ers and Charles Barkley at his best in 1989-90.

-Don Chaney, 1984-85: Chaney made his head coaching debut with the Clippers closing out the 1984-85 season.  He was given two more full season before being fired after a miserable 12-70 campaign in 1986-87.  Like Lynam, Chaney had more coaching in his future.  Chaney went to Houston (1988-89 to 1991-92), Detroit (1993-94 to 1994-95) and New York (2001-02 to 2003-04).  Chaney won Coach of the Year in 1990-91 when he led the Rockets to 52-30 while missing Hakeem Olajuwon for much of the season.  Chaney hasn’t made the playoffs since that season (where the team was swept in the first round).

-Gene Shue, 1987-88: Before coming to L.A., Shue had a storied coaching career leading the Bullets and 76ers to the NBA Finals in the 1970s.  After being fired from the 76ers in early 1977-78, Shue’s career stagnated a bit.  He spent two mediocre years with the old San Diego Clippers (1978-79 and 1979-80) and returned to the Bullets, who were not quite the same team without Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld.  Shue’s new Bullets bounced around .500 from 1980-81 to 1985-86.  He looked done until Sterling tabbed him in 1987-88.  The Shue Clippers were an abysmal 17-65 that year and he was fired after a 10-28 start the next season, ending his head coaching career.  Shue is apparently still scouting for the 76ers now.

-Don Casey, 1988-89:  Casey received his first opportunity to be a head coach with the Clipps.  His record wasn’t awful by Clipper standards, going 30-52 in 1989-90.  He was fired anyway as the Clipps had amassed some real talent (Ron Harper, Danny Manning, Charles Smith) and expected better results.  Casey returned to life in the NBA as an assistant until he got another interim gig that turned permanent with the Nets in 1998-99 when John Calipari flamed out.  Interestingly, Casey’s single full season in Jersey went about the same (31-51) and he was fired and he was never an NBA head coach again.

-Mike Schuler, 1990-91: Schuler had been the head coach of the Clyde Drexler Blazers as they were starting to look like a real threat in the late 1980s.  Schuler was fired in 1988-89 and the Blazers took off with new coach Rick Adelman.  Schuler left the Blazer gig as damage goods too.  Sports Illustrated wrote a feature in 1989 detailing Schuler’s inability get along with the players, particularly Drexler: “‘It’s not just that Mike and I are different,’ says Drexler. ‘It’s that we’re total opposites. It was hard for us right from the beginning, and I’d say it’s getting worse, not better.’” Schuler basically duplicated Casey’s 1989-90 effort, going 31-51.  In 1991-92, Schuler started out better (21-24) but was abruptly fired when Larry Brown became available.  Schuler never was a head coach again.

-Larry Brown, 1991-92: LB was well ensconced in his brilliant but nomadic career when the Clippers hired in 1991-92.  At the time, Brown had left the Spurs abruptly after a fight with ownership (it’s not clear if Brown was fired or whether he quit).  Brown was a friend of Sterling and was snapped up quickly.  Brown led the Clipps to the playoffs in 1991-92 and 1992-93 and as seven seeds, they took better seeded teams to the brink before losing deciding Game 5s in the first round.  Brown’s relationship with Danny Manning, the Clippers’ best player (and Brown’s star player at Kansas) hit the skids.  Manning demanded a trade in 1993, which he retracted.  But the tension was enough (combined with the usual Clipper chaos as to whether Manning we re-sign in 1994) to get Brown wandering again and he left the Clipps after 1992-93 to go to the Pacers.

-Bob Weiss, 1993-94: Weiss was one the first re-treads that Sterling had hired.  Weiss had a few non-playoff years in San Antonio (1986-87 and 1987-88) before two .500ish years in Atlanta (1990-91 to 1992-93).  Weiss hoped to keep the success that Brown had going but just was not as good a coach. Some of the good players of the Brown Era were already gone (Harper, Smith, Mark Jackson) and Manning was approaching free agency and clearly intended to bolt, throwing the team into flux.  Weiss famously explained that he knew this was a short-term job as detailed in this story by Mitch Lawrence in 1995 in the Daily News: “When Bob Weiss became coach of the Los Angeles Clippers before last season, he never bothered to get a California driver’s license.  But he had a stock answer in case he was pulled over.  ‘I’m not going to be here long enough,’ Weiss would explain, ‘I’m the Clippers’ coach.’”  Weiss was fired after one year, and returned to the assistants ranks.  Weiss did get one more chance at head coaching in 2005-06, which ended after a 13-17 start.

-Bill Fitch, 1994-95: Like Shue, Fitch was an accomplished coach on his last legs when he got to L.A..  Fitch was known for rebuilding teams but driving the players crazy with his hardcore style.  The Clippers were in a terrible place, having lost all their former stars to free agency but Loy Vaught.  Fitch did a credible job, lasting four years and even getting the Clipps to the playoffs in 1996-97 with Vaught and few very good players (fringer Darrick Martin was the starting point).  Still, the Clipps were mostly bad for Fitch (99-229) and he was fired after 1997-98 and never coached again.  Fitch’s career eneded with a 944-1,106 coaching record (he had been 845-877 when he arrived in L.A.).

-Chris Ford, 1998-99: Ford had coached previously with the Celtics (1990-91 to 1994-95) and the Bucks (1996-97 to 1997-98) and been decent.  He entered the Clipps at another low point, as they tried to integrate new lottery picks (Lamar Odom, Michael Olowokandi, Maurice Taylor) into a team.  Ford was not known as a great coach but was hampered by the Clipps blowing the first pick on Olowokandi when Mike Bibby or Vince Carter would’ve been much better (not to mention Dirk Nowitzki or Paul Pierce).  Ford was fired midway through 1999-00 with a collective 20-75 record in two years.  Ford has had only one more head coaching shot since (as an interim coach for the 2003-04 76ers).

-Alvin Gentry, 2000-01: Gentry’s previous coaching experience was an interim job with Miami in 1994-95, which was terminated after the season and an interim job  with the Pistons in 1997-98, which he parlayed into two more decent years as a head coach.   Gentry rallied the the Clipps to 31-51 and 39-43 his first two seasons.  When L.A. Struggled in 2002-03, Gentry was fired after a 19-39 start.  Gentry returned to the assistant role until he used another interim job (when Terry Porter was canned) in 2008-09 to get the Suns’ permanent job in 2009-10 and made the Western Conference Finals, making him the most successful post-Clippers coach besides Brown.

-Mike Dunleavy, 2003-04: Dunleavy was probably the most acclaimed pre-Clippers coach to take the job.  (Fitch and Shue won more previously but were not hot commodities when they came to Clipper Land and Brown hadn’t actually had much playoff success in the NBA at that time (Dunleavy had had more extended playoff success in the NBA than Brown at that point).  We all remember Dunleavy having the best season in L.A. Clipper history in 2005-06 (going 47-35 and winning a playoff series) before he petered out the next three seasons.  It will be interesting to see where Dunleavy’s coaching career goes from here.  His Clipper career is a net negative for his resume but could get another shot..

So data leaves us with the following:

-Of the 11 coaches hired, five were re-treads (mediocre veteran coaches or good older coaches with no recent success), three were assistants, one was an interim coach/re-tread (Gentry), and two were well-known and more highly esteemed.  Perhaps coincidentally, the two most highly esteemed (Brown and Dunleavy) had the best tenures.

-Not including Dunleavy, three of the group never coached again and an additional three only had brief or interim post-Clippers head coaching jobs.

-The only two coaches to have had any real success after spending time in Clipper Land are Brown and Gentry and Gentry’s post-Clipper success happened by a confluence of odd circumstances.

What does all this mean for Vinny Del Negro?  Del Negro fits nicely into the decent re-tread category of guys who showed some coaching ability but didn’t bowl anyone over.  As we mentioned, these guys haven’t exactly blossomed in Los Angeles or in their careers afterwards.  We’ll be rooting for Del Negro (after the Bulls treated him so poorly) but history is not encouraging.

Los Angeles Lakers

7/8    Signed Steve Blake

Blake is a competent point guard and has been able to blend into any system he’s thrown into.  The Lakers are an interesting challenge because Blake is a good passer and runs a traditional offense pretty well but Phil Jackson has very little use for traditional passers in his triangle offense.  It’s a bit superficial analysis but to highlight the differences, here are the assist per games of each of Jackson’s starting points:

1989-90 Bulls: John Paxson, 4.1 apg (5.1 per/36 min)

1990-91 Bulls: John Paxson, 3.6 apg (5.4 per/36 min)

1991-92 Bulls: John Paxson, 3.1 apg (4.5 per/36 min)

1992-93 Bulls: B.J. Armstrong, 4.0 apg (4.8 per/36 min)

1993-94 Bulls: B.J. Armstrong, 3.9 apg (4.2 per/36 min)

1994-95 Bulls: B.J. Armstrong, 3.0 apg (3.4 per/36 min)

1995-96 Bulls: Ron Harper, 2.6 apg (4.0 per/36 min)

1996-97 Bulls: Ron Harper, 2.5 apg (4.0 per/36 min)

1997-98 Bulls: Ron Harper, 2.9 apg (3.8 per/36 min)

1999-00 Lakers: Ron Harper, 3.4 apg (4.8 per/36 min)

2000-01 Lakers: Ron Harper, 2.4 apg (3.6 per/36 min)

2001-02 Lakers: Derek Fisher, 2.6 apg (3.3 per/36 min)

2002-03 Lakers: Derek Fisher, 3.6 apg (3.8 per/36 min)

2003-04 Lakers: Gary Payton, 5.5 apg (5.7 per/36 min)

2005-06 Lakers: Smush Parker, 3.7 (3.9 per/36 min)

2006-07 Lakers: Smush Parker, 2.8 (3.3 per/36 min)

2007-08 Lakers: Derek Fisher, 2.9 apg (3.8 per/36 min)

2008-09 Lakers: Derek Fisher, 3.2 apg (3.8 per/36 min)

2009-10 Lakers: Derek Fisher, 2.5 apg (3.2 per/36 min)

Outside of Payton (who Jackson tried to accommodate based upon his unique scoring abilities), Jackson points barely ever break 4.0 apg. Blake is coming off of a season (6.2 apg) that would be the best ever for a point gaurd in PJax’s career.  Of course, Jackson doesn’t love passing points.  The chart above indicates that what he wants are spot up shooters and big guys who can defend big guards.   Blake can shoot the three, so he fits in that regard but he is in for a very different experience with the Lakers.

Another interesting side note: Fisher’s five best passing seasons (per-minute) were with the pre-Phil Lakers and the Warriors.  Armstrong’s best passing season came with the Warriors and Payton ticked up to 6.6 assists per 36 minutes the season after he left the Lakers (he had been at 7.4 the year before he went to the Lakers).  Jackson’s offensive style is so different from the rest of the NBA that one must learn to value players differently for the Lakers.  Obviously, the triangle isn’t some impossible to learn offense but it clearly affects point guard penetrators greatly.  It probably will never happen but I’d love to see how Jackson deals with a very good young penetrating-based point who is not a great shooter and can’t defend big guards.  Would Jackson discard such a player or would he try to utilize his strengths?  We probably will never know the answer because Jackson would never want this type of player but I suspect Jackson would sit such a player on pine.

Memphis Grizzlies

7/8    Re-signed Rudy Gay

Five years and $84 million?  Really?  I like Gay but I have no idea what the Grizz are trying to accomplish with this roster.  To me, having O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay doesn’t work that well and Gay’s offense prowess is overblown (he can’t/doesn’t pass, doesn’t shoot great, and isn’t a great defender).  Gay can create his shot and takes a good amount of foul shots (400 for the season and 4.5 per game).  In addition, he is young and has shown remarkable durability.  The question is whether it is worth paying Gay maximum dollars to stay on a mediocre team that can’t play defense and has cheaper players that duplicate his strength.  I don’t think so but you can’t say that the Grizz overbid if they really wanted to keep GAy.  The buzz we saw indicated that whomever lost out on the LeBron bidding was going to throw big money at Gay.  This would probably be a mistake but the Grizz had to choose between losing Gay and overpaying him and chose the latter.  I suppose this isn’t an awful choice for fans, who need some feeling that management is actually trying to win.  In addition, Gay is young enough that, barring injury or some huge changes in the collective bargaining agreement, will actually be tradeable too.  But any big deal signed by the Grizz will be looked at against whether the signing/acquisition was favorable to keeping and paying Pau Gasol.  Viewed from this context, the Gay signing kind of sucks.  You’d much rather have Pau back in town if that really was the choice.  But the past is gone and going forward, we’ll give the deal the most mild of thumbs up.

Miami Heat

6/23    Traded Daequan Cook and the 18th overall pick in the 2010 draft to Oklahoma City for the 32nd overall pick

6/29    Waived James Jones

7/9      Traded two first-round picks in 2011 and a trade exception to Toronto for Chris Bosh

7/9      Traded first-round picks in 2013 and 2015, a 2012 second-round pick, a future second-round pick, and a trade exception to Cleveland for LeBron James

7/9      Re-signed Dwyane Wade

7/12    Traded Michael Beasley to Minnesota for second-round picks in 2011 and 2014

7/12    Signed Udonis Haslem

That’s not a bad off-season.  As noted in part one of our transactions column, James AND Bosh are two of the best players to switch teams at their peaks.  We have a lot of interesting questions for the Heat, many of which won’t be answered until next season.

-Can they cobble together a supporting cast?

Probably, since vets are desperate to play with stars for the possibility of rings and exposure.  Penny Hardaway was kind enough of to offer his services already (Keith Askins jokingly said that he could do it too if Penny could).  I’m sure Shaq probably wants back to Miami now too, though he burned some serious bridges on the way out of town not so long ago.  Regardless, there will be plenty of good players taking discounts to go to Miami (already Haslem is back at a discount).

-Are the Heat favorites to win the NBA title?

This will depend how good the supporting cast is but certainly they have as good a chance as anyone if they get even average role players and good health from the stars.

-How will sharing the ball affect the stats of Wade, LeBron, and Bosh?

That’s a great great question, since this type of pairing of young stars is so unprecedented.  Just for fun, here’s how the some of the other trades.signings of stars affected the usage rates of the stars and the incumbents:

Here, we see how MVP Moses took a huge tumble in shots when he came to Philly but Dr. J ended up giving up even more shots.  It worked out pretty well for all involved and Malone was still considered the best player in the NBA and Erving was still very effective.

T-Mac’s move to the Rockets knocked down his stats a little but had no effect on Yao.  An interesting footnote is that McGrady’s usage bounced back up to 35% the next two season (same as his Orlando heights) but his PER fell from 30.30 in 2002-03 to 22 range for Houston.

Barkley totally changed his game to blend with the Rockets but remained just as effective a player, focusing on rebounding and even raised his effective field goal percentage slightly in this new arrangement.  Hakeem and Drexler were not affected too much statistically by Barkley’s presence.  Hakeem lost some shots and boards (though it’s not clear if age was a factor too).  Ironically, Drexler was the one who supposedly did not like Barkley but his shots were not reduced by the fact that Sir Charles was in the game.

When the Lakers acquired Payton and Malone, everyone’s stats took a tumble across the board.  The ultimate results were positive (the Lakers went 56-26) but you can question whether it made sense to take possessions away from Shaq and Kobe.  Payton was a player of limited utility as a role player since scoring was such a big part of his value, while Malone did a pretty nice impressions as role playing forward.  Again, however, perhaps a Kurt Thomas/P.J. Brown would’ve done most of the same without taking too many shots from Shaq.  The upshot is that scoring has value but in diminishing returns depending personnel.  This is why a Kerry Kittles or Charles Oakley can have value, see they can fill roles well without shooting much, in the right context.  It’s not that Oakley is actually better than Malone but he can do most of the same things Malone was asked to do without the need for the ball.

As for the 2010-11 Heat,  I think we can expect to see the biggest drop in usage from Bosh first and foremost and a slight drop from James and Wade.  It’ll be absolutely fascinating to watch how this will work.

Bye Bye Beasley?

He was totally superfluous to the Heat’s plans going forward so the giveaway made sense.  This doesn’t mean he’s a total bust but he’s no superstar either.  The last time a number two pick in the draft was traded after two years was Marcus Camby, whom the Raptors dumped with prejudice because they considered him soft and a malcontent.  Camby thrived thereafter.  Hopefully, Beasley can do the same.   But Beasley is nothing like Camby looks like another good scoring but not great rebounding forward.  Usually good versions of these players end up being Glenn Robinson, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if Beasley can get there.

Does this conclusively mean Pat Riley was correct?

You may be wondering what we’re talking about.  We are not referring to Riley’s conclusion that a team of Wade, LeBron and Bosh is a good idea.  It is a good idea but we are referring to Riley’s New York years.  When Pat Riley bolted New York in 1995, he claimed that he wanted to acquire all sorts of potential stars to move the Knicks over the top (Mitch Richmond, Clyde Drexler, or Dominique Wilkins) but that management squashed the deals.  Since coming to Miami, Riley has decisively found stars and hot names in the trade market/free agent market (Alonzo Mourning, Jamal Mashburn, Tim Hardaway, Eddie Jones, Briant Grant, Lamar Odom, Elton Brand, Shaquille O’Neal, Antoine Walker, and now LeBron and Bosh).  The signings/trades haven’t always worked out for Riley in Miami but I think Knick fans can’t help but think that they would have LeBron right now had Riley been given full control so long ago.

5/14    Fired Mike Woodson

6/13    Named Larry Drew head coach

7/8      Re-signed Joe Johnson

From a decision-making perspective, Atlanta is one the weirder franchises in the NBA.  First, Mike Woodson apparently wins a power struggle with GM Billy Knight right about the time when it was clear that the Hawks had built a pretty good team.  Now, the team is looking pretty good and Woodson is shown the door too.  Knight was apparently fired because he was unable to lead the team past the second-round (they were swept out of the second-round both years).  If that is the main basis for firing Knight, it strikes me as a little obtuse.  The Hawks have done nothing but improve with Woodson.  Sure, it’s not fun to be swept but the teams that swept them (Cavs in 2008-09 and Magic in 2009-10) were much better.  Woodson isn’t irreplaceable or the main reason the team improved so much over the last five years but usually it is better to err on the side of stability and keeping a competent coach over canning him because of unreasonable expectations.

Hopefully, Drew will show himself to be a good coach and take the team to the next level.  Drew has been a well-regarded assistant for a long time and has paid enough dues to get this job.  On paper, however, Atlanta looks like the same second-round team they were the last few years. 

If you were looking for some sort of collateral indicating as to whether Atlanta’s coaching move made any sense, the signing of Johnson does not bode well.  The Hawks needed and should’ve tried to keep JJ…but at $119 million?  There may have been some risk that someone would have overbid for Johnson during the free agent frenzy but smart teams just do not invest max money on 29-year old shooting guards who are merely pretty good.  This is not as egregious as the Knicks overpaying for Allan Houston back in 2000 because JJ is a better player than Houston was.  Still, one would think that Johnson could’ve been had for much less.  (I would have valued Johnson at about $70-80 million over six years).  We all know that most non-superstar two guards tend to age quickly.  Johnson is better than just good but he’s not quite good enough to assume that he can keep up his current production level for more than one or two years and his contract runs six years.  Just for fun, here’s a list of the PERs for other two good-to-great guards from ages 28 to age 34:

Johnson’s PER in 2009-10 was a respectable 19.3.  He falls square in middle of the above group.  The stars stayed quite good but JJ’s peers, at best, stayed okay by age-32 (with the notable exception of Richmond, who had a nice second wind at ages 31 and 32).  None of this proves that Johnson will be a huge albatross but the odds aren’t great for him being above-average after age 31.  The overpay on Johnson won’t make the Hawks a title team in the next two years and may even hinder efforts to pay the more valuable Al Horford (or retain Horford and Josh Smith, both of whom are more valuable than JJ).  The Hawks can work around this issue (their payroll isn’t huge) but why give away $40 million in salary cap flexibility when you probably didn’t have to?

Boston Celtics

7/10    Signed Jermaine O’Neal

7/13    Re-signed Ray Allen

The Celtics are all in for another veteran run for the title.  These types of runs are fun but often can end abruptly when the stars become old or injured.  The problems snowball when all the veteran role players surrounding them seem a bit worthless without stars to complement their particular skill sets (see, e.g., the Rockets of the late 1990s).  Still, if a team is going to go this route (and the Celts may as well milk Kevin Garnett as long as possible), signing O’Neal and Allen aren’t bad ideas.  Both deals are short term and relatively fair.  O’Neal may not be the player he was in 2003 but he was effective for Miami. He can’t create his own shot like he used to but the defense is still there and he’s only 32 (even though it seems like he’s been in the NBA forever and moves like it too).  At two years and $11 million, this is likely to be a favorable deal for Boston.

As for Allen, he reportedly took two years and $20 million from Boston when better deals were on the table.  As noted above, shooting guards can age poorly and Allen is coming off his weakest year in a while.  The scary thing for Boston fans is that Allen very likely will hit the brick wall and will no longer be a slightly above average two guard anymore.  The question is whether it happens in 2010-11 or 2011-12.  The difference of one year matters greatly to Boston.  If Allen gives Boston one more good year, the deal works.  Indeed, Allen, even if not playable in 2011-12, would be quite tradable to teams looking to clear cap space.  Finally, I suppose this shouldn’t figure into the equation too much but to the extent that Allen has been a classy pro and a quasi-local player, this is the type of player franchises are well-served to pay a little extra to keep around.

Charlotte Bobcats

7/10    Signed Dominic McGuire

7/12    Re-signed Tyrus Thomas

7/13    Traded Tyson Chandler and Alexis Ajinca to Dallas for Matt Carroll, Eduardo Najera, Erick Dampier, and cash

For the Bobcats, this was not a value-for-value deal.  While Dampier and Chandler match up as salary slots (both make around $13 million 2010-11), Dampier’s deal is non-guaranteed.  This means that the Cats can merely cut Dampier and save about $13 million or use him as a trade chip to acquire a good player that another will want to dump to save money.  The move isn’t totally free, as the Bobcats must take back Carroll and Najera, who have two years left on their contracts.  This is Carroll’s return engagement to Charlotte, where he was a competent role player.  His playing style won’t mesh with Larry Brown but he could really work on teams needing shooters (Miami or Chicago?).

For Charlotte fans, this deal will be ultimately be judged by how the team utilizes Dampier.  If this ends up being a straight salary dump, fans might feel a bit discouraged.  Chandler has his issues but he is enough of an asset to keep around over an empty salary slot.  I’m a bit skeptical that Michael Jordan wants to spend the cash right now but we shall see.

Chicago Bulls

5/3    Fired Vinny Del Negro

6/23  Named Tom Thibodeau head coach

7/8    Signed Hakim Warrick and traded him to Phoenix for for a 2011 second-round pick

7/8    Traded Kirk Hinrich, the draft rights to Kevin Seraphin and cash to Washington for the draft rights to Vladimir Veremeenko

7/8    Traded a player exception  to Utah for Carlos Boozer and a second-round pick

7/10    Signed Kyle Korver and signed JJ Reddick to an offer sheet

Under the radar, the Bulls have had a very nice off-season.  They didn’t get too wrapped up in the LeBron Sweepstakes and then took the steps to address their weaknesses.  First, the Bulls addressed the defensiuve issues by getting a proven defensive mastermind in Tom Tihbodeau.  Next, they landed the best low post scorer on the market after Chris Bosh in Boozer.  The Bulls now have the makings of a very formidable team next season.

But there are some things for the pessimists to latch on to here as well.  First, the Bulls treated Del Negro horribly, he was the ultimate a lame duck, despite the fact that he actually seemed to improve as a coach (particularly defensively).  Thibodeau has a nice background but he is not a guaranteed improvement since he has no head coaching experience as a pro.  Also, Boozer, as good as he is, is not a slam dunk.  He has had plenty of injury issues himself the last few years and may not age well.  Assuming both Thidobdeau and Boozer both workout as planned, neither move addresses the Bulls terrible three-point shooting (28th in the NBA at .330%).  Combine this with the fact that the Bulls have lost three of the four most prolific three-point shooters on the roster from last years already (Kirk Hinrich, John Salmons, and Brad Miller) and there are still holes to fill.  [Ed. note: Korver and Reddick should be a nice star].

Cleveland Cavaliers

5/24    Fired Mike Brown

6/4      Fired Danny Ferry and named Chris Grant general manager

7/1      Named Byron Scott head coach

7/9      Signed LeBron James and traded him to Miami for first-round picks in 2013 and 2015, a 2012 second-round pick, a future second-round pick, and a trade exception

Yuck.  In retrospect, it seems that the Cavs never had a shot to re-sign LeBron no matter what they did.  He had made the decision to get out of town and play with his buddies.  Had James won a title in Cleveland it might’ve changed things but even that is not guaranteed, since his need to have a global following wouldn’t have been sated by playing the balance of his career in a non-glitzy town.   Cleveland also has a legitimate gripe with the way that James treated his departure like a sleazy daytime television show.  LeBron was the philanderer who confronts his current unsuspecting spouse and tells him that he is leaving her on national television for someone else that he may already be shtooping, just to ensure that the break upo is as humiliating and degrading as possible.

Unfortunately, Dan Gilbert has also stuck to the script by acting the role of the shunned spouse on these shows by going ape-shit insane upon hearing the news.  Gilbert’s invective letter posted on the Cavs’ website did not make him seem the most sane person.  If LeBron is a prima donna and a quitter, why the hell did you want him back before anyway?  The anger is justified but expressed in a silly form.  Focus on the future.  No player is bigger than a franchise and time will go on.  If Cleveland plays well and gets a little lucky, they can contend again.  If there is any consolation, Byron Scott has been a nice good luck charm for the Nets (they obtained Kenyon Martin, Jason Kidd, and Richard Jefferson early on his tenure) and the Hornets (they got Chris Paul).

In case you’re wondering, LeBron has the highest single season PER (31.10) of any player ever to change teams.  Here’s the list of the highest PER players to switch teams during or after a season of a 25.0 PER or higher:

-LeBron James, Clev. 2009-10, PER 31.1: Signed with Miami Heat.

-Wilt Chamberlain, S.F. 1964-65, PER 28.3: Traded to Sixers during season.  The Sixers made the conference finals and the Warriors missed the playoffs.  Ultimately, the Sixers won a title with Wilt but the Warriors quickly rebuilt to a good but not great team with Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond.

-Moses Malone, Hou. 1981-82, PER 26.8:  Signed as a free agent with the Sixers.  Philly immediately won a title and the Rockets tanked.  Long term the Sixers didn’t keep it up and the Rockets used their futility to draft Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon in successive years, which led to three Finals appearances and two titles.

-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mil. 1974-75, PER 26.4:  Kareem forced a trade to the Lakers, also desiring a larger market to play in.  The Lakers were decent for the rest of the 1970s and launched in the 1980s when he was paired with Magic Johnson.  Milwaukee stayed around .500 for a few years before becoming formidable again in the early 1980s with Sidney Moncrief.

-Shaquille O’Neal, Orl. 1995-96, PER 26.4: Signed with Lakers.  The Lakers, of course, won three titles.  The Magic were a lower rung playoff team without Shaq.

-Tracy McGrady, Orl. 2003-04, PER 25.3:  After the Magic struggled and T-Mac seemed indifferent, management traded him to Houston.  The Magic were mediocre in 2004-05 but parlayed their struggles into Dwight Howard in the draft.  The Rockets were better with McGrady and Yao Ming but never got out of the first round (until McGrady was injured).

-Chris Bosh, Tor. 2009-10, PER 25.0:  Signed with the Heat.

Dallas Mavericks

7/9    Re-signed Brendan Haywood

7/13  Signed Ian Mahinmi

7/13  Traded Matt Carroll, Eduardo Najera, and cash to Charlotte for Tyson Chandler and Alexis Ajinca

For Dallas, a Haywood/Chandler center spot looks like a nice pairing.  Sure, Chandler at $12.5 million is a bit pricey but Mark Cuban is willing to spend to contend.  Assuming the stay healthy, this center platoon gives Dallas both size and speed defensively (neither player is too great offensively).  In addition, if Chandler doesn’t perform, he has value as a trading chip with an expiring contract or can simply be jettisoned after the season.  The Haywood contract is a bit rich in length (six years and $55 million) but for three years,  $9 million is fair for a league averageish center.  Again, Cuban can afford to pay him through age-36 but a little restraint might’ve helped here.

Golden State Warriors

6/22    Traded Corey Maggette and the 44th pick in the 2010 draft to Milwaukee for Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric

7/9      Traded Kelenna Azubuike, Anthony Randolph, Ronny Turiaf, and a 2010 second-round pick to New York for David Lee

7/13    Signed Dorell Wright; signed and traded Anthony Morrow to New Jersey for a conditional second-round pick in 2011 and a player exception

If you can figure out what’s going on here, the more power to you.  First the Warriors trade one of their best players in Maggette for trinkets.  The deal is more of a salary dump but Maggette is good enough to stick around on merit (three years and $30 million left on his deal).  The savings are nice ($16 million in 2011-12 and 2012-13 combined) but this money and more was immediately invested in Lee, a no-defense power forward who isn’t particularly young and doesn’t fill a serious need.  The net gain here?  Some rebounds, Lee’ amiable personality, and not much else in terms of wins.  I know Anthony Randolph is young and not exactly polished but he has the talent to do at least as well as Lee at a much cheaper price.  On a rebuilding team, Randolph is precisely the type of player the Warriors are supposed to give a shot to. If the goal is to build around Stephen Curry, a collection of hard-nosed defensive forwards and centers were the proper target and not Lee.  This is not to say Lee is a waste of money but he does not represent progress to the (presumed or hoped) Warriors goals of creating a contending team.

2/19    Traded a protected first-round pick to Utah for Ronnie Brewer 

The Grizz were able to nab Brewer for little because of the Jazz’s luxury tax situation.  Unfortunately, Brewer won’t help much for the playoff run since he has promptly tore his hamstring.  Going forward, however, he is a nice defender but might have the ugliest jumper for a shooting guard/small forward I’ve seen in recent years.  On Memphis, he can surely help because they don’t need scorers and they do need defenders.  There is some implication that he is the fallback position if Memphis decide not to pay Rudy Gay as a free agent this summer.  Long term, Brewer’s lack of scoring will probably relegate him to role player status but for now he is not a bad hedge. 

Milwaukee Bucks 

2/18    Traded Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander to Chicago for John Salmons and 2011 and 2012 second-round picks

2/19    Traded Jodie Meeks and Francisco Elson to Philadelphia for Royal Ivey, Primoz Brezec, and a 2010 second-round pick 

The Salmons deal helps because the Bucks have struggled offensively between Brandon Jennings shooting slump and the general lack of scorers on the roster.  Salmons is not a great scorer but he has his moments.  The Bucks hope to catch Salmons on one of his hot streaks to propel them back into the playoffs.  It has worked so far, as Salmons has over 20 ppg since coming to Milwaukee.  The Bucks do add salary in the move (Salmons has one more year at $5.8 million while Warrick and Alexander are free agents) and the payroll for 2010-11 is currently near the cap ($55 million according to HoopsHype.com) but the commitment is not terrible and the Bucks aren’t usually players in free agency anyway. 

The Meeks/Elson for Ivey/Brezec deal doesn’t do much for the Bucks but save the $760,000 in salary guaranteed to Meeks in 2010-11 (all others will be free agents).  Ivey can help certain teams on defense but Milwaukee is precisely the team where is not needed, as he duplicates all their strengths (defense) and weaknesses (offense), though Scott Skiles will probably love to have him around at practice time. 

Minnesota Timberwolves 

2/17    Traded Brian Cardinal to New York for Darko Milicic and cash 

The Wolves apparently want to give Darko a lchance to play for the rest of the season.  Milicic had been sent away from the Knicks and announced his intention to return to Europe next season but the chance to play in the NBA has lured Darko back from exile.  For all the jokes that Darko has been subjected to, he can block shots and the Wolves are lacking in this area.  It is clear, however, that his decent boards/blocks numbers overstate his impact.  But Milicic might be effective in small doses on a team like this.  This is fine for a no risk/low reward play for the Wolves and for Milicic.  Unless, he plays great, however, it won’t change Darko’s plan to go back to Europe. 

New York Knicks 

2/17    Traded Darko Milicic and cash to Minnesota for Brian Cardinal

2/19    Traded Larry Hughes to Sacramento for Sergio Rodriguez; Waived Brian Cardinal

2/19    Traded Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, a protected 2012 first-round pick, and the right to exchange first-round picks in 2011 to Houston for Tracy McGrady

2/19    Traded Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry to Boston for Eddie House, J.R. Giddens, Bill Walker, and a future conditional second-round pick 

Part of the problem with admitting you want out of cap hell is that the present really doesn’t matter.  Even when the Knicks are competing hard, the transitory sense of the roster the last two years definitely has worn on the fan base.  But the purge is still very necessary and these bad Donnie Walsh Knicks are infinitely more watchable and have a much more positive aura than the awful Isiah Thomas Knicks.  Even so, the overall goal of financial freedom for the future has and will continue to undermine the present.  In this case, that means dumping a recent lottery pick and another pick to dump Jeffries.  Jeffries would be a useful player in the right circumstances put paying the luxury tax for his services on a bad team is vomit-inducing.  

The question was really whether the Knicks had to give up so many potential assets (Hill and two first-rounders) to dump Jeffries.  We don’t really know the answer to internal directives but we do know that the Knicks were assuming some big payments to T-Mac, who was a dead roster spot.  Walsh is a veteran GM with many great moves in his pocket in Indana, so we have to give him some benefit of the doubt.  Yet, I have to think that the Rockets extracted a bit more than was necessary to get the deal done.  On some level, trading Hill isn’t too big a deal because the Knicks seemed convinced that he wasn’t a good fit.  One would have to think that the Knicks are convinced that they can sign a big free agent this summer and thus trading Hill was worth that chance.  I guess we’ll see but the price is steeper than I expected.  Incidentally, the last time a top eight pick was traded by his team before the end of his first season (not including draft day deals) was Drew Gooden back in 2002-03 when he was traded to Memphis for Mike Miller. 

Finally, please ignore all the talk about how T-Mac can help the Knicks.  If he was anywhere close to his pre-knee surgery ability the Rockets wouldn’t have banished him to begin with.  It’s still worth taking a look just in case he can play but McGrady’s primary purpose is to make Jeffries’ contract go bye-bye. 

Oklahoma City Thunder  

2/22    Signed Antonio Anderson and waived Matt Harpring 

It’s fair to say that Harpring’s career is probably over, as most players do not start their careers as studio commentators if they are physically able to play AND still under contract with an NBA team.  Harpring deserves to be remembered for the useful player he was.  I expected him to be a bust in the NBA but he turned in a workman like career.  Let’s take a look at his career in a nutshell: Harpring was drafted in the middle of the first-round of the 1998 Draft.  He earned significant minutes with the Magic as a rookie in 1998-99 and he helped the Chuck Daly-led squad tie Miami and Indiana for the best record in the East.  Harping then missed most of 1999-00 with injuries and was traded to Cleveland for Andrew DeClercq.  After a decent return in 2000-01, the Cavs flipped Harpring to Philly for Tyrone Hill.  Harpring continued to pay well in Philly in the 2001-02 season, starting 81 games and putting up 12 ppg and 7 rpg.  Harpring signed with the Jazz  that summer to fill in the small forward role to go with aging John Stockton and Karl Malone.  Harpring had his career year in 2002-03 for Utah (17.6 ppg, .511 FG%, 6.6 rpg, 19.3 PER) and the Jazz went 47-35 before losing to Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs. 

In 2003-04, Stockton retired, Malone signed with the Lakers, and Harpring was injured and missed 51 games.  When he returned in 2004-05, Harping was able to put up solid rate stats but his minutes gradually retreated with injuries and Utah’s growing front court depth.  Despite these facts, Harpring was able to be a solid reserve from 2004-05 to 2007-08 (averaging about 75 games per year and having 16 pts and 6 rebs per-36 most of the time).  In 2008-09, Harpring still could do all right per minute but the minutes had dwindled to 11 per game (though he did get in 63 games).  This takes us to 2009-10, where Harpring’s knee wouldn’t let him out of training camp and he went to the NBA-TV channel to become a talking head.  He has since been traded as a salary slot to Oklahoma City and will likely call it a nice but too short NBA career at age-33. 

Philadelphia 76ers 

2/19    Traded Royal Ivey, Primoz Brezec, and a 2010 second-round pick to Milwaukee for Jodie Meeks and Francisco Elson 

A negligible trade for the 76ers.  They assume a little more salary in Meeks for 2010-11 but gain the chance that he might develop into a useful cheap reserve.  Early returns are not encouraging, as Meeks, who was a scorer in college, can’t shoot in the pros yet. 

Portland Trailblazers 

2/16    Traded Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw, and cash to L.A. Clippers for Marcus Camby and Ricky Davis; Waived Ricky Davis 

A great trade for the Blazers.  Camby is still a very effective player even approaching 36.  So far, he has struggled to fit in offensively but this is not a big deal because defense is Portland’s real problem right now.  Both Blake and Outlaw are decent players but Portland has plenty of depth (a logjam even) at these positions.  In short, a total win trade for Portland.

Sacramento Kings 

2/19    Traded a future second-round pick and cash to Washington for Dominic McGuire

2/19    Traded Sergio Rodriguez to New York for Larry Hughes

2/19    Traded Kevin Martin and Hilton Armstrong to Houston for Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey; Waived Kenny Thomas

2/23    Waived Larry Hughes 

The Kings are in rebuild mode and obviously thought that Kevin Martin wasn’t worth keeping around and playing with Tyreke Evans.  Some commentators felt that the Kings could’ve extracted more value for Martin than Landry but I like the deal.  As mentioned in our evaluation of the Rocket side of the deal, Martin has not exactly been the picture of health the last three years.  The Kings are going nowhere in the short term and have reportedly have cash problems.  Why not trade  in Martin a little early rather than risk injury later?  As for the return, Landry is pretty good but probably won’t be part of the next good Kings team.  Still, he is cheap salary-wise and only 26. 

San Antonio Spurs 

2/19    Traded Theo Ratliff to Charlotte for a protected 2016 second-round pick 

When you look at draft prospects, you’ll speculate who will be good and who will be a bust.  We never guess who will last in the NBA forever.  When I watched the 1995 Draft, there was talk of Ratliff’s worth but did you think one day he’d be traded for a 2016 pick?  As for his present value, he doesn’t have much other than as a 5-10 minutes defense guy.  The Spurs don’t really need him so they saved a few bucks and sent Ratliff to his old foil Larry Brown (who amazingly is playing Ratliff 20 mpg and starting him!). 

Utah Jazz 

2/19    Traded Ronnie Brewer to Memphis for a protected future first-round pick

As noted, the Jazz are looking to save money.  You hate to give up decent young players for nothing but if trading Brewer (and Eric Maynor) mean the Jazz will keep Carlos Boozer for the stretch drive, it’s not as bad as it seems at first blush. 

Washington Wizards 

2/13    Traded DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and cash to Dallas for Quinton Ross, Josh Howard, James Singleton, and Drew Gooden

2/18    In a three-team trade, the L.A. Clippers traded Sebastian Telfair to Cleveland and Al Thornton to Washington for Drew Gooden

2/18    Traded Antawn Jamison to Cleveland for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the draft rights to Emir Preldzic, and a first-round pick

2/19    Traded Dominic McGuire to Sacramento for a future second-round pick and cash

2/24    Signed Mike Harris to a 10-day contract

2/25    Waived Zydrunas Ilgauskas 

Shouldn’t they have been doing this last summer?  Long before we knew that Gilbert Arenas brought guns into locker rooms or reportedly crapped in people’s shoes, we were still mystified why the Wiz felt the need to lock in the aging core of a team that was, at best, mediocre.  It took a total debacle to get the Wiz on board but they are now in full dump mode (no pun intended).  Jamison, Butler, and Haywood were all traded for virtually nothing and Arenas should be next at some point.  On the bright side, the Wiz were bad enough before that the young guys (Andray Blatche, Javale McGee) have looked solid since the trade.  Combine this fact with the huge money off the cap on 2010-11 and a good draft pick and Washington could be on express rebuild mode.  I’m sure Wiz fans may have a little less faith in the tea’s ability to choose/sign the right players based upon its utter failure to recognize that they needed to rebuild earlier but at least they are now in the right frame of mind.  Better to rectify a mistake quickly than keeping to double down on a flawed plan.

2/19    Traded Eddie House, J.R. Giddens, Bill Walker, and a future conditional second-round pick to New York for Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry 

As Boston tries to hold onto contender status, getting Nate for Eddie House is a clear upgrade.  Robinson is a better player in nearly every facet of the game and is even shooting threes about as well as House is this year. The net gain is not huge and doesn’t change Boston’s larger age/injury issues that seem to be conspiring to end their title contender status.  Still, Robinson can score in many ways and Boston’s offense needs points pretty badly (currently 13th in offensive efficiency).  

On a completely side note, Robinson’s trade probably hurts his value going into free agency.  Despite all of Robinson’s fights with Mike D’Antoni, the Knicks were offering Robinson plenty of shots and minutes.  Instead, Robinson’s final two months will make him look like a 20-minute per game role player on a slow paced grind offense (barring injury to Ray Allen).  I’m sure Robinson would rather experience the playoffs than chuck away on a bad Knicks team but this drawback does remind us that self-interested decisions by NBA players aren’t always crazy because this trade may have a monetary cost for Robinson.

Chicago Bulls 

2/5    Signed Chris Richard to a 10-day contract

2/15  Signed Chris Richard to a second 10-day contract 

2/18  Traded John Salmons and 2011 and 2012 second-round picks to Milwaukee for Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander

2/19  Traded Tyrus Thomas to Charlotte for Ronald Murray, Acie Law, and a future first-round pick; waived Chris Richard 

For the Bulls, these trades are mostly about clearing cap room.  Salmons is a competent bench player who could help the Bulls down the stretch but he is on the books for another year at about $5.8 million, while Warrick and Alexander are free agents at the end of the year.  With the Bulls looking to be players in free agency, the marginal benefit of a bench player guard/small forward isn’t worth another year of Salmons at too high a salary.  Moreover, I happen to like Warrick’s ability to replace Thomas’ athletic forward role.  

Turning to Thomas, this trade jettisoned a potentially good player that Chicago had no intention of re-signing.  Now the Bulls get a first-rounder and avoid the headache of deciding whether to tender a decent player when the cap money could be used elsewhere.  While Chicago might have some trepidation that Thomas does develop into the star his rate stats hint he might become, the chances are not high enough to forget his complaining and the looming free agents who can be signed with his salary slot.  

Charlotte Bobcats 

2/19    Traded Ronald Murray, Acie Law, and a future first-round pick for Chicago for Tyrus Thomas

2/19    Traded a protected 2016 second-round pick to San Antonio for Theo Ratliff 

On Charlotte’s side, Thomas is an interesting pick up.  He is a good player and still very young.  The problems in Chicago seemed to center around his perceived inability to mesh into a coherent system and having his athleticism translate into a good player.  Thomas will fit in short term as a the shot blocker and runner in place of the injured Tyson Chandler and help Charlotte with the playoff push.  

The move is not without downside.  Thomas is a restricted free agent and the Cats must commit $6.2 million to bring him back.  Currently, Charlotte’s 2010-11 cap number would be about $60 million with Thomas.  Unless they can clear some room, the team would be maxed out cap wise with a decent core.  But the slotsare filled with some questionable and not very fungible contracts (Boris Diaw, Stephen Jackson, DeSagana Diop).  Further the Bobcats surrendered a first-rounder in the deal.  We don’t have the exact details of the pick but Bulls GM Gar Forman said the pick could be exercised in any one of the next five years and that the protection decreases with each season.  Getting Thomas would be worth a mid to late first-rounder but the Bobcats are precisely the type of team that could crater some time in the next few years and end up giving up a high pick.  Given how eager the Bulls were to dump Thomas, you have to wonder why Charlotte had to offer a first-rounder to lock this deal up.  Hopefully for Bobcat fans, this doesn’t come back to bite Charlotte in the ass a la the Knicks with Stephon Marbury.

Cleveland Cavaliers 

2/18  In a three-team trade, the L.A. Clippers traded Sebastian Telfair to Cleveland and Al Thornton to Washington for Drew Gooden

2/18  Traded Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the draft rights to Emir Preldzic, and a first-round pick to Washington for Antawn Jamison 

The Cavs would’ve been perfectly fine not making any moves but the opportunity to get a player for a title run for virtually nothing (Ilgauskas will be back after being waived) is not to be passed up.  In this case, the Cavs are desperate (rightly so) to keep LeBron happy with his pending free agency.  In reality, though, Jamison is only a cherry on the sundae here.  He’ll be the scorer off the bench and also allow the Cavs to go small ball at center if match ups dictate.  In addition, Jamison has thrived in the sixth man role before.  In fact, his most efficient scoring season came as a bench player for the Mavs in 2003-04, so he has shown an ability to adjust to whatever his teams have needed in the past. 

On the downside, Antawn isn’t having a great year by his standards and he is not young (33) and could be dead weight in 2010-11 and 2011-12 (when he is due an average of $14 million per year).  But if the Cavs win a title and LeBron is convinced to stay then who really cares?  The trade does harken back to the 1988-89 mid-season deal by the Pistons when they traded for Mark Aguirre, another smooth scoring small forward, who probably wasn’t needed but did help the team to a title.  Obviously, Jamison, who is known as a great teammate, doesn’t compare with sometimes surly Aguirre but they do seem similar in their niches as veteran scorers going to reduced roles on better teams.  What really surprises me is that Jamison is so much older than Aguirre was back in 1989.  At the time, it seemed that Aguirre was vet coming off of his peak but he was only 29 while Jamison is already approaching 34.  Maybe it reveals my own age but Aguirre always seemed old to me and Jamison will always seem young. 

Dallas Mavericks 

2/13    Traded Quinton Ross, Josh Howard, James Singleton, and Drew Gooden to Washington for DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and cash

2/24    Signed Von Wafer to a 10-day contract 

This is the ultimate Mark Cuban deal.  On paper, getting Butler for Howard and adding Haywood is a real improvement.  The improvement, however, is not enough to make this team a title contender. In such cases, almost any other owner in the NBA wouldn’t sign off on the extra salary because it likely won’t materially affect the team’s success (the Mavs could end up making the Conference Finals or losing in the first round depending upon draws and luck).  The Mavs have acquired Juwan Howard, Raef LaFrentz, Antoine Walker, Antawn Jamison, and Jason Kidd at various times for short term boosts.  Being a Nets fan, I can definitely appreciate an owner willing to spend to win, even if the relative cost (particularly when you figure the luxury tax assessment) is probably not commensurate with the benefit.  

Golden State Warriors

2/6    Signed Anthony Tolliver for the remainder of the season and waived Speedy Claxton

Tolliver is perfectly competent and a decent find for the Warriors.  He is not a great player but is doing a decent Channing Frye-lite routine for the Warriors.  If Tolliver could shoot a little better he would be perfect for a Don Nelson team.  Tolliver was a reluctant three-point shooter in college, Tolliver is now averaging over two a game from the center position but only hitting 29%. 

Houston Rockets 

2/8    Signed Garrett Temple to a 10-day contract

2/19  Traded Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey to Sacramento for Kevin Martin and Hilton Armstrong

2/19  Traded Tracy McGrady to New York for Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, a protected 2012 first-round pick, and the right to exchange first-round picks in 2011 

The Rockets have been lauded for their deadline maneuvering.  Common wisdom indicates that Darryl Morey bluffed/stared down the Knicks into giving up rookie Jordan Hill and a some first-rounders for salary cap relief when it seemed that the Rockets probably should’ve been willing to dump a big contract for savings without getting so much talent back.  Next, the Rockets nab Martin for a small price in terms of talent.  Certainly, getting the Knicks to cough up so much for T-Mac was a big win in the bluff game.  

I also do like Martin but I hate to give up Landry.  Landry was, by far, the Rockets best scorer this year and is a cheap low post scoring forward.  Houston theorized that between Luis Scola and the returning Yao Ming, Landry was a luxury and not a necessity while getting a real two-guard was important.  There is truth to this but Martin is not a sure thing.  After his breakthrough 2006-07, Martin missed 50 games the next two season and has missed about 30 games already this year.  Martin’s contract going forward is not unreasonable (three years and $45 million) but this deal probably could’ve waited until the off-season.  The Rockets are a fringe playoff teams this year.  Why not make the Kings bear the burden of showing that Martin is back 100% from injury?  Why not see what other assets were available in the summer?  I’m nitpicking perhaps a little but I see Martin as a less of a slam dunk than some.   

Los Angeles Clippers 

2/4    Announced that Mike Dunleavy has stepped down as head coach and named Kim Hughes as interim head coach

2/16  Traded Marcus Camby to Portland for Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw, and cash; Waived Ricky Davis

2/18  In a three-team trade, the L.A. Clippers traded Sebastian Telfair to Cleveland and Al Thornton to Washington for Drew Gooden 

A ho-hum mediocre Clipper season just ended a little earlier than usual.  The Clipps had some theoretical shot at a .500 season but none for a playoff birth so it is hard to fault them for punting a little earlier, trading Camby saves a few dollars (Blake and Outlaw will both be free agents).  In fact the only player in the deals with a contract for next year was Thornton.  The only question is whether Clipps fans are dismayed at dumping a younger player like Thornton for savings.  I don’t have too much of a problem since Thornton is a decent scorer but of limited upside.

The other news is that Dunleavy has bailed as head coach but is apparently keeping GM power.  Bill Simmons has been killing Dunleavy for years.  Not being a Clipps fan, I view Dunleavy with less antipathy but admit he hss been, at best, mediocre during his long run with the Clipps.  Simmons did note that Dunleavy’s overall career record as a coach is pretty bad (613-716 for a .461% winning percentage).    How did Dunleavy amass so many losses?  Let’s take a look at his career and remind ourselves how we got to this day.  Dunleavy’s career can be broken into segments: 

-Los Angeles Lakers (1990-1992) 101-63, .616%:  Dunleavy took over the Showtime Lakers as a rookie head coach in 1990-91.  He did a nice job the first year, leading the Lakers to a 58-24 record and upsetting the Blazers in the Conference Finals.  They were promptly thrashed by the Michael Jordan Bulls but Dunleavy’s stock as a coach was quite high from beating a younger Blazer team.  In the “Jordan Rules”, Sam Smith noted that Dunleavy reduced the classic Magic Johnson fastbreak, “having seen how the aging Lakers were run out of the playoffs by Phoenix in 1990, had changed the team’s style.”  Indeed, the Lakers were 25th in the NBA in pace factor in 1990-91.  It should be noted, however, that the Lakers were not a real running team in Pat Riley’s last season, they were only 20th in the NBA in 1989-90 pace factor.  In addition, the Lakers were no better than ninth in pace factor in any season since 1983-84. 

As a totally unrelated side-note, reading the “Jordan Rules” reminded me of LeBron getting some flack for dancing during some blowouts, which teed off their opponents greatly this season.  James is not the first player to do this.  None other than MJ pulled the same trick during a blowout of the Lakers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.  Smith wrote that “[t]he fans in [Chicago] Stadium were dancing, and so was Jordan, so much so that at one point Lakers assistant coach Randy Pfund had to restrain Dunleavy from going after Jordan. Jordan had started mocking opponents during the Detroit series, and the practice would carry over to the Los Angeles series as he began to taunt the Lakers’ bench after baskets.”  So the side lesson here is to not let the old-timers lecture you about how to conduct yourself on the court–or at least not let them lecture you that they were any better about the issue even when they are right from a common sense angle. 

Returning to Dunleavy, his job went from nursing a contender in Los Angeles to an also-ran when Magic Johnson was diagnosed as HIV positive at the beginning of the 1991-92 season.  The Lakers quickly fell to a .500 team (43-39 actually) and were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs as an eighth seed. It was a credible job under the circumstances (Sports Illustrated picked them as their coach of the year) 

-Milwaukee Bucks (1992-1996) 59-105, .360%:  Despite a nice run, Dunleavy surprised the Lakers by resigning after the 1991-92 to take an eight-year contract with the Bucks as Coach/GM.  The L.A. Times called the move “shocking” and the players all professed surprise.  Michael Cooper, then an assistant to GM Jerry West said that “I’m very surprised. I know it was a decision he had to make, and I know everyone’s kind of sad now. . . . I don’t know what to say. Usually I have a lot to say, but this caught everyone totally by surprise.”  Dunleavy had spent most of the 1980s playing in Milwaukee and he was getting total control of the franchise while the Lakers looked to be old and rebuilding.  Seems hard to believe someone would walk away from one of the marquee NBA franchises to coach the Bucks but it was a better deal at the time.  Jim Murray framed the decision this way: “Rejection by a coach is like rejection by a girl with buck teeth and glasses at the school hop. Makes you want to run to the mirror and see what’s wrong.” 

In Milwaukee, Dunleavy was also starting from square one.  Dunleavy attempted to rebuild a team with zero young talent (the best players were 36-year old Moses Malone, and 31-year old Dale Ellis) and played a painfully boring style.  His goal was to rebuild through the draft and the drafting results were not horrible but the team on the floor was.  Here is Dunleavy’s drafting record in Milwaukee: 

-1992:  The Bucks picked eighth and took Todd Day, who was a star in college.  The 76ers, picking ninth took Clarence Weatherspoon, a clearly better player but probably wouldn’t have changed the Bucks’ destiny.  The only very good player left in the draft was Latrell Sprewell (no, I don’t consider Robert Horry really good) but Dunleavy wasn’t going to find a game changer in this draft.  The draft was illustrative of terrible planning by the previous Bucks administration.  The 1991-92 Bucks were clearly going nowhere.  Signing Moses Malone to try to make the eight seed when every one knew that both Alonzo Mourning and Shaquille O’Neal were coming out of college is a classic example of misunderstanding when to tank and when to go for it.

-1993: Milwaukee, again in the late lottery, hit well with Vin Baker at the eighth pick.  We tend to remember the out-of-shape post-lockout Baker but he was a very good player for the Bucks and as good a pick as they could’ve reasonably made under the circumstances (sleepers like Sam Cassell and Nick Van Exel went much later and only Allan Houston was any good of the picks immediately afterwards).

-1994:  This was the draft that may have broken Dunleavy’s Bucks.  They had the first overall pick and their choice of Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd, and Grant Hill.  I can’t recall if Robinson was the consensus number one at the time but I do remember that he was considered the next great prospect after Chris Webber.  Checking with Sports Illustrated at the time we find that there was not much debate: “Robinson is polite if not quite engaging, controlled, very much a professional in interviews. He seems inured to the moment. Maybe he is overwhelmed, although there was never a doubt he would be chosen first..” 

So, Dunleavy can’t be faulted from a conventional sense for drafting Big Dog.  Let’s take a look at the numbers of the Big Three and see if they tell a different story:

There are some question marks on Big Dog’s rate stats, particularly his lack of blocked shots and assists.  Both Hill and Kidd have robust secondary numbers that are indicators of athleticism and NBA stardom.  Kidd’s boards/assists/steals, in particular, were really impressive for a 20-year old college guard.  Still, taking Robinson was not a crazy decision stat-wise.  Robinson ended up being pretty good, just not nearly as good as Kidd or Hill (pre-injury) and the Bucks jumped up to 34-48 in 1994-95, not great but a big improvement.

-1995: The Bucks drafted a shooting guard, Shawn Respert, to go with his bookend forwards. Dunleavy also went for it by matching Baker and Robinson with vets like Johnny Newman, Sherman Douglas (traded for Todd Day early in the season), and Benoit Benjamin.  Respert struggled mightily and the veterans were underwhelming.  The Bucks fell back to 25-57, suffered a 15-game losing streak, and Dunleavy was fired as coach but kept his GM title, but clearly was neutered of any real decision-making power.  Dunleavy stayed one more year (they did a nice job drafting Ray Allen in the 1996 Draft though it isn’t clear who made the call) before resigning as GM. 

How did Dunleavy’s leaving as coach compare to the same thing with the Clippers?  Here’s what Dunleavy said in 1996: “Needless to say, I’m disappointed about not being back as coach next year. It’s certainly a situation where I understand the move and I am going to go forward with this job like I do anything else, in a professional way.” 

This February, Dunleavy framed the decision as more as one of his own volition: “I’ve had several conversations with our owner [Donald Sterling] concerning what we think is best for the team overall. We have discussed the possibility of my concentrating only on basketball operations. That option has always been available to me.” 

-Portland Trailblazers (1997-2001) 190-106, .642%:  Dunleavy’s stock after the Milwaukee experience was strong enough that he earned a five-year contract to coach the Blazers.  Portland had a talented team and were looking for a veteran NBA coach after their previous coach, college coach P.J. Carelsimo, struggled dealing with the personalities in the locker room (particularly Rod Strickland).  Carelsimo left Dunleavy with a pretty good team (49-33 in 1996-97) and ownership willing to sink tons of cash into the payroll (they gave big contracts to Kenny Anderson, Brian Grant, and later acquired Scottie Pippen).  Dunleavy did a nice job getting the Blazers to two Conference Finals (1998-99 and 1999-00), including the painful loss to the Lakers in Game 7 of the 1999-00 playoffs when Portland blew an 18-point lead.  In 2000-01, the Blazers went 50-32 but were swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the Lakers.  The first round loss was considered a disappointment and the team struggled with internal problems (Shawn Kemp had a drug problem, Bonzi Wells and Rasheed Wallace kept popping off in public, including an incident when he threw a towel in Arvydas Sabonis’ face in the huddle, and Damon Stoudamire also had a pot bust).  Despite his nice run, Dunleavy was fired for losing to the Lakers, which probably wasn’t a fair standard. 

Next stop was the Clippers, where Dunleavy struggled most of his tenure (with the notable exception of 2005-06).  So, that’s how a coach gets to hang around long enough to lose 700 games.  Coming off his second mostly ugly run as coach/GM, Dunleavy will probably have to go back to the assistant realm if he wants to stay in coaching but his name is in the pipeline so you never know when we’ll see him coaching again.  His body of work, however, suggest a coach/GM of very average ability.  Not as bad as Simmons suggests but certainly not great.

1/5    Waived Othello Hunter

1/12   Signed Mario West to a 10-day contract

1/22   Signed Mario West to a  second 10-day contract

2/1     Signed Mario West for the rest of the season 

West hasn’t done much this season for the Hawks to remedy their short bench but he is a good athlete and a local guy.  The Hawks have also used West to fill out the bench the last few years too.  West’s stats in college and in the pros show no indication that he’s really pro level (his career high in college is only 5.2 ppg).  Atlanta can likely get a little more upside in its bench but is content with a name they know.

Boston Celtics 

1/6    Waived Lester Hudson

Hudson hadn’t done much for the Celts.  The speculation is that the Celts will use the open roster spot to find a vet that they desperately need for the playoff stretch run. Given how bad the bench has been, the need is at pretty much every position so don’t expect a point guard necessarily to replace Hudson.  

Chicago Bulls 

1/25    Traded Aaron Gray to New Orleans for Devin Brown 

In terms of talent, Brown for Gray is pretty ho hum.  Gray was useful the prior two seasons but was terrible so far this year.  Brown is a non-descript shooting guard/small forward and offers an alternative to the struggling John Salmons.  

Cleveland Cavaliers 

1/6    Waived Coby Karl

1/23  Signed Cedric Jackson to a 10-day contract

2/2    Signed Cedric Jackson to a second 10-day contract 

Jackson is another local guy (Cleveland State) getting a shot.  He was not particularly good in college (10.9 ppg, .391 FG%, .306 3FG%, 5.8 rpg, and 5.4 apg as a senior in 2008-09) and still can’t shoot in the pros but he is active and passes well and rebounds well for a point guard.  Ultimately, he’ll have to seriously improve his shot to stick. 

Dallas Mavericks 

1/11    Traded Kris Humphries and Shawne Williams to New Jersey for Eduardo Najera 

This trade doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Dallas.  I understand the logic here, I just think it was flawed.  Management thought Humphries was a bit passive at times and were comfortable with Najera from his hustling days in Dallas from 2000 to 2004.  Najera is 33, hasn’t been healthy for two years, and hasn’t been nearly as effective as Humphries. Humphries is no star but you may as well keep the active 24-year old. 

Golden State Warriors 

1/4    Waived Mikki Moore

1/10  Signed Cartier Martin to a 10-day contract

1/17  Signed Anthony Tolliver to a 10-day contract

1/20  Signed Cartier Martin to a second 10-day contract

1/27  Signed Anthony Tolliver to a second 10-day contract

1/28  Signed Coby Karl 

This is an object lesson why you don’t invest too much in older declining centers.  Moore looked as done as can be last year but the Warriors took a shot with him only to see that he still had little left.  Tolliver, as his replacement, promptly gave similar numbers at a fraction of the price.  Tolliver doesn’t look very good so far but if he can just show a little improvement, he’ll be a decent NBA bench player.  

It’s also interesting to see Nellie take a shot on Coby Karl.  Nelson and Coby’s father George Karl have had a complicated relationship over the years.  Nelson gave Karl a shot in Golden State in the 1980s, only to promptly fire him in when things got bad.  They apparently worked out their differences at that time and Karl would feed CBA players to the Warriors late 1980s (most notably Mario Elie) only to run into other issues in the mid-1990s, particularly after Karl’s Sonics upset the Warriors in the 1991-92 Playoffs.  I’m not sure the state of the Karl-Nelson relationship now but signing Coby Karl probably isn’t a bad indicator.  As for Coby the player, he is not a total nepotism case.  He showed some ability with the Lakers previously and plays most facets of the game to be a decent 11th or 12th man.

Houston Rockets 

12/22    Signed Mike Harris

1/6        Waived Mike Harris

1/28      Signed Will Conroy 

When choosing players from the waiver wire, a team has a wide range of options.  It seems that Houston does a bit better job turning the NBDL fodder into potentially useful assets.  Both Harris, who was waived, and Conroy have very nice stat lines in college and the NBDL, which may reflect Darryl Morey’s stat focus.  Conroy, in particular, is a nice passer and scorer from the point slot.  He likely won’t get much of a shot playing behind Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry but there is a shot Conroy could stick.  This is more than can you say for some other teams who give the 12th man gig to local college guys who really shouldn’t be in the NBA. 

Los Angeles Clippers 

1/22    Signed JamesOn Curry to a 10-day contract and waived Kareem Rush

1/26    Traded a conditional 2014 second-round pick to New Orleans for Bobby Brown

1/26    Waived JamesOn Curry 

The Clipps get a decent young backup point for almost nothing because the Hornets were looking to pare payroll.  Brown is pretty non-descript at this point and duplicates Sebastian Telfair (who is actually the younger player).  If Telfair is injured or traded, Brown might get a shot but is nothing more than a third point guard for now. 

Memphis Grizzlies 

1/8    Signed Lester Hudson 

After getting cut by Boston, Hudson was snapped up by Memphis.  The Grizz are jammed at point with Mike Conley, Jamaal Tinsley, and Marcus Williams already.  It’s not clear why they need Hudson too but everything has worked for Memphis this year so maybe this will too. 

Miami Heat 

12/14    Waived Shavlik Randolph

1/5        Traded Chris Quinn and a 20129 second-round pick to New Jersey for a 2010 second-round pick

1/7        Signed Rafer Alston 

Essentially, the Heat swapped Quinn for Alston.  This reflects a Pat Riley tendency to go with vets and defense over all else.  Quinn is a decent young point.  He’s not a great passer or scorer but Alston’s inability to score has become more and more pronounced.  It’s not crazy to think that Alston’s scoring issues were magnified by playing with the punchless Nets but things have looked as bad for him in Miami and may be his new level of ability.  In short, I don’t see Alston as a viable starting point option for the Heat.  While I wouldn’t weep over losing Quinn, he is the better player.  If the options were Alston or Quinn, the Heat should’ve seen if there was another option out there. 

Milwaukee Bucks 

1/4    Waived Roko Ukic

1/18  Signed Jerry Stackhouse 

Nice to see Stack back in the NBA.  Here he replaces Michael Redd, who unfortunately tore his knee up again.  Stackhouse has been struggling with injuries since 2006-07 and looked very done last year.  I frankly doubt Stack has much left.  His major strength, getting to the foul line, isn’t what it was (he was getting nine free throws a game at his peak in the early 2000s) but he might fill some need if he is still above average in this area.  

Indeed, the Bucks’ free throw drawing ability has been abysmal and they have been destroyed by opponents in this area.  Milwaukee has allowed 1,344 free throws (third most in the NBA) and have drawn only 967 free throws (the worst in the NBA).  The two main scorers, Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut seem to have problems drawing fouls.  I can understand Jennings problem–he shoots way too many long jumpers (the Bucks have shot almost 300 more threes than their opponents).  As for Bogut, I have no idea why he doesn’t get more free throws as an inside player.  No matter the cause, the inability to get an average amount of free points is killing the Bucks and they need to do something to fix this to keep their playoff hopes alive.  Even if Stack pans out a little bit the hole will still be glaring in this area. 

Minnesota Timberwolves

12/29    Traded Jason Hart to Phoenix for Alando Tucker and a second-round pick  

After one game, Hart was shipped off to the Suns to enable Phoenix to cut him and get some cap relief.  At the same time, the Suns paid off the Wolves with a little cash to facilitate the deal.  Getting Tucker was just a little throw-in.  Tucker has scored a little bit for Phoenix in his cameos.  We’ll see if the Wolves give him a chance to score off the bench where the other small forwards are pretty poor scorers. 

New Jersey Nets 

1/5    Traded a 2010 second-round pick to Miami for Chris Quinn and a 2012 second-round pick

1/5    Waived Rafer Alston

1/11  Traded Eduardo Najera to Dallas for Kris Humphries and Shawne Williams

1/11  Waived Sean Williams

1/15  Waived Shawne Williams

It’s been an ugly season but the moves of January were not terrible.  First and foremost, Humphries is a decent player and is worth that much more on a team like the Nets that is so thin up front (particularly when the trade is for the perpetually injured Najera).  Similarly, the Quinn for Alston swap is small win too (Alston’s scoring problems were discussed above).  None of this is enough to turn around the Nets season but small changes might help when the goal is to make it to 10 wins for the season. 

Finally, this is the appropriate time to write the epitaphs for Sean and Shawne Williams, two talented players who weren’t nearly good enough to put up with the baggage they carried.  Sean looked like a nice shot blocker center in his rookie year in 2007-08 (11.5 pts, 9.1 rebs, and 3.0 blks per 36 mpg and a 13.9 PER).  Since then, it’s been all downhill.  Sean’s mannerisms on the court would instantly turn you off to him as a player and his problems with fouls and shooting combined with some off-the-court issues just were too much for the Nets.  He’s only 23 but I doubt we see Sean in the NBA again.  Shawne, a nice athlete when he was in shape, is even less likely to be back in the NBA.  Whereas, Sean has had some minor incidents with the law in the pros, Shawne, who had past drug issues, was recently indicted on more drug charges shortly after his release from Jersey.  

New Orleans Hornets 

1/11    Traded Hilton Armstrong and cash to Sacramento for a 2016 conditional second-round pick

1/25    Traded Devin Brown to Chicago for Aaron Gray

1/26    Traded Bobby Brown to the L.A. Clippers for a 2014 conditional second-round pick 

Not much to see here but the Hornets’ desperate attempt to get under the luxury tax threshold.  The Armstrong trade saved about $1.4 million (half of his salary for the year), the Brown-Gray trade was almost cap neutral (a small savings), and the Brown deal saved about $350,000.  Usually, salary slashing can be disheartening to a fan base but the Hornets gave up little of consequence and if this saves  New Orleans from trading a serious contributor like David West to save money, it was well worth it.  

New York Knicks 

12/13    Signed Jonathan Bender

Definitely an unanticipated move.  Bender had been out of the league for years with knee issues and his career was deemed done long ago.  Donnie Walsh was obviously curious to see how his old lottery pick from the Pacers was doing.  As a role player, Bender has looked okay on occasion.  He’s still a 6′11 jump shooter, who can’t rebound and shoots lots of threes (essentially a worse version of Danilo Gallinari).  I don’t see where the Knicks are going with this move, other than to sign a decent player to a short term deal and avoid long contract entanglements.  This whole affair does remind us of the Grizz’s dabbling with Darius Miles last year (without the whole Blazer complaining angle).  Unlike Bender, Miles looked pretty good in his return, putting up a 16.1 PER in 34 games.  Miles did not get another NBA gig this year and I assume Bender’s signing will also be a one shot deal. 

Oklahoma City Thunder 

12/22    Waived Shaun Livingston and Mike Wilks

12/22    Traded the rights to Peter Fehse to Utah for Eric Maynor and Matt Harpring 

OKC’s favorable cap situation allowed it to steal Maynor from the Jazz.  The Jazz wanted Harpring’s contract off the cap (Harpring’s career is over and is covered mostly by insurance) and the Thunder could handle the cap hold.  Maynor was the reward.  He’s not a star but Maynor looks like a capable rookie with an outside shot of being a decent regular NBA player. 

Phoenix Suns 

12/29    Traded Alando Tucker and a second-round pick to Minnesota for Jason Hart; Waived Jason Hart 

As mentioned above, the trade was purely to get Tucker’s contract off the books and save a little cash.  Hart will probably be seen somewhere again. 

Sacramento Kings 

1/11    Traded a 2016 conditional second-round pick to New Orleans for Hilton Armstrong and cash 

Armstrong is one of the more underwhelming lottery picks of the last few years.  He was not considered a great player coming into the pros and played pretty much up to expectations, a warm body to foul and rebound.  Unfortunately, he’s better at the fouling than the rebounding so far.  Still, Armstrong is an NBA level player and makes an adequate fourth big man off the bench.  

Just in case you kill the Hornets for taking Armstrong so high in the draft (12th overall), remember the picks taken around 12: 

9.  Patrick O’Bryant (GS)

10. Saer Sene (Sea)

11. J.J. Reddick (Orl)

12. Hilton Armstrong (NO)

13.  Thabo Sefolosha (Phi)

14.  Ronnie Brewer (Uta)

15.  Cedric Simmons (NO)

16.  Rodney Carney (Chi)

17.  Shawne Williams (Ind)

18.  Oleksiy Pecherov (Was)

19.  Quincy Douby (Sac)

20.  Renaldo Balkman (NY)

21.  Rajon Rondo (Bos) 

While Rondo would’ve helped, the Hornets already had Chris Paul.  If you assume (rightly) that another point made no sense, Armstrong is better than most of these guys.  So, remember that Armstrong’s potential bust status is not a fair label.  Given another shot, the Hornets obviously would’ve taken Rondo and traded him.  Taking away Rondo, Paul Millsap was the pick but everyone else passed on him too.  Eliminating those two, most of those mid-first rounders were very average or below. 

San Antonio Spurs 

1/22    Waived Marcus Haislip 

Haislip was waived to take shot at a deal in Europe.  Hope it works out. 

Utah Jazz 

12/22    Traded Eric Maynor and Matt Harpring to Oklahoma City for the rights to center Peter Fehse

1/5        Signed Sundiata Gaines to a 10-day contract

1/15      Signed Sundiata Gaines to a second 10-day contract

1/25      Signed Sundiata Gaines for the remainder of the season 

The Jazz also have to feel fortunate that they found another good back up after having to trade Maynor to save a few bucks.  As a result of the deal, they signed Gaines out of the NBDL, where he was playing great (23.9 ppg, .522 FG%, 6.9 apg).  Gaines’ story is the stuff of legend.  He hit a game winning shot his first game against the Cavs.  Since then, Gaines has continued to player pretty well too (15 PER).  Gaines can create shot, defend, and pass.  His major problem is an inability to shoot the three.  He is 1-7 from three in 10 games so far and was only 32% from three in the NBDL.  If he can improve this small hole, Gaines looks like he could be a legit player.

11/20    Signed center Chris Hunter 

Hunter is an NBDL call up for the Warriors.  He was a decent role player in college at Michigan but has scored quite well in the NBDL (19 ppg last year).  It’s not clear how good he will be but an active and cheap big man in his mid-20s is always worth as look.  The Don Nelson Warriors are not the ideal place for a big man to break in but it is definitely better than playing in Fort Wayne. 

New Jersey Nets 

11/29    Fired Lawrence Frank and name Kiki Vandeweghe head coach 

I was a bigger Frank fan than most.  There were legitimate questions as to whether Frank was creative offensively but his teams almost usually played hard and were prepared.  He also got about as much out of the talent as one would reasonably expect each season and survived crises pretty well.  Frank did a nice job getting the team to compete during the whole Jason Kidd injury and Alonzo Mourning rebellion in 2004-05, the team-wide malaise in 2006-07, Kidd’s rebellion in 2007-08, and keeping the team in playoff contention with a very little in 2008-09.  The only truly disappointing moment of significance was the Nets’ inability to hang with the Heat in the 2005-06 playoffs, when they were considered pretty equal in talent (the Heat lost Game 1 at home and blew away the Nets in the next four games).  In retrospect, that wasn’t necessarily fair criticism but this was the only year the Frank Nets’ slightly underperformed (they probably should’ve taken the Heat six or seven games before losing). 

Despite all that solid history, it was time to pull the plug Frank.  The Nets were defending and playing hard for Frank this year but they couldn’t score at all and to make him struggle through a season like this as a lame duck (new management was sure to can him and put in their own choice no matter what happened) didn’t make sense.  In the end, Frank is one of the better coaches in Nets’ history and hopefully will get another gig somewhere. 

As for Frank historically, he leaves New Jersey as the Nets’ leader in wins (NBA division) and its longest tenured coach (again NBA division only).  The top three are as follows: 

-Lawrence Frank: 225-241, .483% (Frank was exactly at .500 as Nets coach coming into 2009-10 and the team’s epic struggles).

-Byron Scott: 149-139, .517% (Scott was fired and replaced with Frank because Kidd and others reportedly were not Scott fans.  The firing felt abrupt at the time, coming off of two NBA Finals appearances.  Based upon how poorly the Nets were playing for Scott at the time of the firing it was the right move because, for better or worse, the team did seem to quit on him).

-Kevin Loughery: 129-234, .355% (Add in his ABA years with the Nets, and Loughery is easily the team’s wins leader, as he won at least 55 games in his three years in the ABA, and two titles.  When the Nets came to the NBA, Loughery found himself without Julius Erving and he suffered through four and half years of struggles). 

Oklahoma City Thunder 

11/25    Waived Ryan Bowen

11/26    Signed Mike Wilks 

Without Kevin Ollie, the Thunder turn to undersized Wilks as the back up point.  Wilks can’t defend like Ollie but he’s probably a better offensive player, albeit marginally.  I don’t see much aggregate difference between the two players. 

Philadelphia 76ers 

12/2    Signed Allen Iverson 

We’ve wasted a lot of breath on AI all ready but it is nice to see that his career didn’t end with memories of him going AWOL on Memphis.  Taking away all the hoopla and emotional stories about Iverson, this is a good deal for the Sixers.  Iverson is cheap and an improvement as a scorer for the 76ers backcourt.  The hope is that AI will give Philly some veteran playmaking and scoring like Andre Miller did the last few years.  Iverson isn’t Miller as a playmaker but this is a decent improvement.  Not enough to distinguish Philly from the tons of other fringe playoff squads but he makes things a little more interesting.  

But let’s return now to the hoopla part of this signing.  One can’t help but remember that only three years ago, Philly was so wary of Iverson’s temper that they sent him away from the team before they found a trade partner because they thought he would be too disruptive to go about his business and play until a deal was done.  A lot has happened to AI since that time.  It’s possible that Iverson can now handle not being the alpha dog (Andre Iguodala is clearly the best player on the roster) but another blow up always seems possible with AI. 

Finally, the prodigal son aspect to this story is also compelling.  Can Iverson end his second tenure in Philly more happily than the first?  Not sure but I was wondering how often we’ve seen Hall of Famer return to his place of former glory and attempted to recapture some of that feeling when they he was past his prime.  I ran through the list and only came up with a few: 

-Moses Malone:  Moses’ peak either came in Houston in the late 1970s and early 1980s or with the Sixers in the mid-1980s.  Moses was traded to the Bullets in 1986 and bounced around for several season before returning to Philly for the 1993-94 season.  Malone was 38 by then and only a bit player, but was a fairly effective back up center for Philly in 11 mpg.  Moses helped back up and mentor top rookie center Shawn Bradley on an otherwise bad team.  Malone ended up playing a few games in San Antonio the next year before retiring.

-Gail Goodrich:  This isn’t quite like the scenario described above but Goodrich started his career with the Lakers as a decent role player before being plucked after two seasons by Phoenix in the 1968 expansion draft.  Goodrich was only in his mid-20s at the time and emerged as a star in Phoenix.  He returned the Lakers in 1970-71 in a trade for Mel Counts.  Goodrich was then 27 and in his peak and continued a nice seven-year run with the Lakers that helped propel him to the Hall of Fame.

-Elvin Hayes:   Probably the best remembered prodigal son story is Hayes’.  He came up with the old San Diego Rockets in 1968-69 and was an instant star there for four years (the last of which was in Houston, as the team moved in 1971-72).  Hayes did not really endear himself to management and was sent to the Bullets, where he continued to put up numbers for almost a decade.  When Hayes turned 36, in 1981-82, the Rockets re-acquired him for his golden years.  Hayes could still score a bit but was not a great defender and really shouldn’t have been playing regularly.  The Rockets kept Hayes for three years anyway and he is best remembered during this time for coincidentally geting a lot of playing time in 1982-83 when it seemed that Houston had incentive to lose to earn a shot at top pick Ralph Sampson.  Hayes retired after the 1983-84 season with Houston when he barely played (5 ppg in 12 mpg).

-The ABA Guys:    Both Rick Barry and Billy Cunningham jumped over to the ABA in the 1970s, despite their star status in the NBA.  Barry was only 23 when he left the Warriors to go to the ABA.  The NBA hit Barry with litigation that forced him to miss the entire 1967-68 season.  He then spent four years in the ABA before returning to the Warriors in 1972-73 at age 28.  Despite all the acrimony, Barry returned and played great for the Warriors for six years and led the team to a title and regular contention (though he was still detested by some after his return).  Cunningham was a little older (29) when he left the Sixers for the Carolina Cougars in 1972-73.  Cunningham played one good year in the ABA and one injured year.  He returned to the Sixers in 1974-75 and had a good season before suffering a career ending injury the next season and jumping right into coaching with the Sixers.

-Return to town:    A few players left town and later returned to town only to a new franchise:  Wilt Chamberlain started out for the Philadelphia Warriors and later returned to the 76ers in 1965.  We all remember how this turned out: the Sixers won the 1966-67 title (which was book ended by two bitter losses to the Celtics in the playoffs) before Wilt forced a trade to the Lakers.  Ed Macauley started out with the St. Louis Bombers in 1949-50 but went to Boston when the Bombers folded.  He later returned to the St. Louis Hawks as part of the Bill Russell trade, playing two more full seasons, including snagging a title his final full season in 1957-58.

-Scottie Pippen:  He’s not in the Hall just yet but Pippen did return to the Bulls for his final season in 2003-04, at the time when injuries set in and ended his career (he played only 23 games that final year).

11/16    Traded Raja Bell and Valdimir Radmanovic to Golden State for Stephen Jackson and Acie Law 

As dysfunctional as the Warriors may seem, the Bobcats have a good bit of weird in their moves too.  In this case, the Bobcats clearly win the talent exchange and there is a rational basis for the trade but something still seems odd here.  Jackson is pretty good all around player and better than Bell in most areas (except defensively).  In exchange for getting the better player, Charlotte has agreed to assume Jackson’s contract extension ($28 million over the next three seasons after 2009-10) while Bell is a free agent after the season and Radmanovic only has a player option for $6.8 million in 2010-11 (which he is sure to exercise).  Moreover, the Bobcats definitely need scoring and, as a hapless expansion team, they have more reason than most teams to pay a little more cash to make a push for the eight seed if only to show the fan base some tangible improvement.

But Jax is really not a great offensive player and investing in from age-32 to age-34 seems risky.  If scoring was the issue, the Cats could have just kept Jason Richardson last year (he’s due $14.4 million next season, the last year of his deal), who is younger and better than Jax.  Hell, they also could’ve kept Emeka Okafor too, who was dumped precisely because the Cats didn’t really want to spend money on salary.  So, frankly I don’t quite understand how the Bobcats got to Jackson considering what they had before in talent and the previous stance to avoid adding payroll.  Putting that aside, however, it’s a decent deal but it is vexing that the Bobcats organizational philosophy changes by the day. 

The other questions (which is largely academic) is whether Jackson is leaving Golden State with his reputation intact.  It’s easy to see why Don Nelson’s apathy might goad Jackson into such angry public responses.  Nellie is obviously mailing it in and seems not to care whether the teams wins or not.  But Jackson was bestowed a ridiculous extension by the same apathetic coach and the pot shots SJax and his agent took at Nelson to force an quick trade were probably not worth the collateral damage.  Jackson ended up on a mediocre Bobcat team anyway and his whining when viewed in conjunction with his issues in other venues make look worse than even the lamentable Nelson in this case. 

Golden State Warriors 

11/16    Traded Stephen Jackson and Acie Law to Charlotte for Raja Bell and Vladimir Radmanovic 

As mentioned, Jackson’s whining after an extension was less than classy.  But this isn’t what Warriors fans should be talking about.  No, they really should be asking why the hell management decided to give a decent player with a spotty behavior history the extension to begin with?  The Warriors can act indignant but this was a pretty bad idea even if Jackson had been a good soldier, which he obviously is not.  The fact that the Warriors were somehow able to get out of most of the deal by taking on favorable contracts doesn’t mean this never happened.  The decision making process here ain’t looking pretty. 

Houston Rockets 

11/13    Waived Pops Mensah-Bonsu 

Mensah-Bonsu didn’t play much on the Rockets, who are loaded with undersized center types already, and he is reportedly heading back to Toronto.  

Memphis Grizzlies 

11/14    Signed Jamaal Tinsley

11/16    Waived Allen Iverson 

We touched on this a few days ago but AI’s flameout in Memphis was not pretty and there is a reasonable shot that no other NBA team will want him.  The lesson here is that a team’s willingness to accept a difficult player is directly related to that player’s ability to contribute.  When Iverson was playing at an All-Star level, the teams were able to accept his demands for shots, playing time, and his skipping practices but that leeway disappeared as soon as AI was merely an above-average player.  Other players have learned this the hard way too (Stephon Marbury and Latrell Sprewell) and have had their careers end while they still had ability to play.  Iverson may end up elsewhere but his complaining will make it unlikely that a non-desperate team will take a chance on him and he will have to have an epiphany about his current place in the NBA Universe. 

Tinsley is the beneficiary of Iverson’s decision making.  Tinsley had a similar useless battle of attrition with the Pacers last year, where he was paid to stay away from the team, even though he was relatively good NBA player.  Can he still play?  When Tinsley last played in 2007-08, he had a bad year (11.9 ppg, .380 FG%, 8.4 apg, 12.8 PER).  Now he is 31 with over a year having elapsed since his last NBA game.  If the time off didn’t effect him adversely, Tinsley should function as a decent point guard, something that can help a team where Mike Conley has been awful so far.  Tinsley’s pass-first inclinations should also fit in well with the chuckers in the Grizz lineup too.  This all assumes that the time off hasn’t hurt Tinsley because there is also a chance that Tinsley is shot as an NBA player.  Remember that Marbury was in the same situation last year and had nothing left when he came back.  Still, the cost for Marbury then and Tinsley now is minimal so both signings were/are no-lose situations. 

New Orleans Hornets 

11/12    Fired Byron Scott and named Jeff Bower head coach and Tim Floyd assistant coach 

Scott was on a short leash after the Hornets didn’t really compete in the playoffs last year.  Once the team got off to a slow start, Scott’s fate was sealed. While I thought two pretty good seasons in 2007-08 and 2008-09 bought Scott a little more of a chance to turn the team around, I can’t argue too vehemently with the decision.  Scott had been in town quite a while and the team did appear headed backwards for a variety of reasons (some of which were outside of Scott’s control, notably the decision to overpay for three mediocre small forwards).  The odd thing here is that the Hornets are replacing Scott with GM Bower and bringing back Floyd, the man Scott replaced in 2004-05, indicating that they were more concerned with firing Scott than finding a coach going forward.  If Floyd will be the ultimate successor to Scott, we’re not sure what they see in Floyd now that they didn’t in 2003-04, when he was fired after a single 41-41 season.  If not, hopefully the Hornets will find a coach who can work on their defense, which has been terrible so far this year. 

As for Scott, his tenure in New Orleans should be looked at as mostly successful.  He picked up the Hornets at the absolute bottom (18-64) and knew enough to ride Chris Paul immediately, which lead them to the most wins in a season in franchise history in 2007-08.  Unlike in New Jersey, Scott had no vocal enemies in New Orleans at the end but with a feeling that he was a pretty neutral factor to the team’s chances.  Coming off this tenure, Scott should be in the pipeline for another job at some point, even if he’s not a red hot candidate.  

Finally, Scott’s firing prevented him from notching the career franchise victory mark, as he leaves only a few wins short of Paul Silas and Allan Bistrow.  For those curious Hornets fans, here is the W-L list:                       

                              W-L       Win%

Paul Silas           208-155     .573

Allan Bristow     207-203    .505

Byron Scott        203-216    .485 

Sacramento Kings 

11/4    Signed Ime Udoka

11/5    Waived Desmond Mason 

The Kings’ misadventures with Mason as a starter didn’t make much sense to begin with.  Mason doesn’t score nearly enough at this point in his career to be more than a role player.  The Kings cut the cord really quickly and really hard.  Rather than just keeping Mason as a bench guy, he went from starter to released.  I can only remember one other instance of a player going so quickly from opening day starter to the waiver wire.  That was in 2003-04 when Doc Rivers decided to try a 24-year old rookie Britton Johnsen as his opening day forward.  Johnsen played poorly (2.1 ppg, .288 FG%, 2.6 PER in 14.5 mpg) after four starts.  He played 16 more games before Rivers cut him.  Johnsen had a cameo with Indiana the next season but hasn’t been in the NBA since (he’s currently playing in Europe). 

As for Udoka, he is also a defensive specialist and pretty much the same age as Mason.  Udoka is not really as athletic as Mason but can shoot a little better, particularly from three (Mason hasn’t made a three-point shot since 2005-06 and hasn’t made more than one three-pointer in a season since 2003-04).  The difference is marginal but Udoka is probably a better choice for Sacramento.

Toronto Raptors 

11/12    Waived Quincy Douby 

Douby shot well in his short time in Toronto in 2008-09 (55%) but management obviously considered this a fluke, given his career .389% shooting in Sacramento.   He was not given any playing time this year before being cut last week.  Douby is young enough to get another shot but will have to improve his shooting if he really wants to stick. 

Washington Wizards 

11/11    Signed Earl Boykins and waived Paul Davis 

Boykins return is a welcome surprise.  He spent last season with Virtus Bologna in Italy, riding the waive of European clubs offering competitive salaries for NBA bench players.  In Italy, Boykins was his usual self (14.4 ppg, 48 FG%, 42% 3FG%, 5.5 apg), scoring and running.  He did not get an offer from an NBA team this off season and I had figured that once he left the NBA in his 30s, he wouldn’t be back now.  Boykins has his weaknesses (too small to defend most guards for long periods of time) but if DeShawn Stevenson and Mike James continue to shoot horribly, Boykins might earn some time here.