Transactions

Transactions 7/10-9/22 Part I

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Atlanta Hawks

7/13    Re-signed Mike Bibby and Zaza Pachulia

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

8/7      Re-signed Marvin Williams

8/25    Signed Joe Smith

9/2      Signed Jason Collins

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

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

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Hall Thoughts

Hall Thoughts

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

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

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Decade Review

Decade Review: 1980s

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

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

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Decade Review

Decade Review: 1990s

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

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

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Quick Thoughts

Quick Thoughts

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1.    Leaders of the 00s: What do we call the decade from 2000 to 2009?  Calling it “the 2000s” makes it sounds like we’re referring to the whole century and the aughts, the technical name for the decade sounds a little silly.  Perhaps the 00s makes the most sense?  Not really sure but we’ll stick with the 00s today.  In any case, this decade is coming to a close and I was debating with a friend who exactly is the team of the 00s?  The first thing to determine is when this decade actually started.  Because each NBA season encompasses parts of two calendar years it isn’t totally clear.  Did the 00s being in 1999-00 or 2000-01?  Arguably 1999-00 is the first year of the 00s, as the title technically was won in the year 2000 and slightly more than half of the regular season was played after January 1, 2000.  In my mind, however, there is something cleaner about the decade starting in with the first year of the decade (i.e. 2000-01 rather than 1999-00).

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Uncategorized

The Roy Tarpley Saga

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Roy Tarpley’s NBA career has been closed for 14 years and his subsequent lawsuit against the NBA was also recently closed.  What is forgotten was how great a player Tarpley was when he was healthy.  I thought we could take a look back at Tarpley and his lawsuit against the NBA and see what exactly happened before, during, and after Tarpley’s fall from the NBA and see if a re-examination now yields some new perspective.

The College Years

Tarpley started out as a center at college with Michigan in the mid-1980s.  Tarpley first really looked like a potential star when he helped Michigan win the NIT in 1983-84 as a sophomore.  Tarpley didn’t win the NIT MVP (future solid pro center Tim McCormick did) but Roy looked like a key player for the next Wolverine teams.

A Quick Sidebar to the NIT

As an aside, have you ever wondered what the NIT ever offered in the way of pros?  Since the NCAA expanded the tourney to 64 teams in 1984-85, the NIT has been the place to find the 65th (and now 66th best) team in the country.  That’s not exactly the truth but certainly the tournament has stench of also-ran to it and you wouldn’t expect huge stars to participate in it.  To test his notion, I thought we could take a look at all the NIT MVPs since 1984-85 to see how may serious pros we have.  Let’s break down the group into the following categories: (1) NBA Hall of Famers, (2) very good NBA players, (3) solid NBA players (starters or bench guys who play), (4) fringe NBAers (including both busts and guys who only had cameos), and (5) the non-NBA guys.  Here’s how the the 25 MVPs of the NIT since the NCAA expanded sort out:

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