Houston Rockets
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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