I Hate the NBA

Hi there. Me again. How'd you celebrate NHL Trade Deadline Day? The three sports networks here in Canada were kind enough to break from their 24 hour poker, Mixed martial arts, fake wrestling, and all-Toronto sports coverage to have live coverage that started at 5 am this morning and is still going. And Canadians are glued to their television sets. In the States? Most people don't even know what professional hockey is, let alone that the deadline is today. I wonder if it's getting a mention on KFAN today or in the local papers? Anyway, good work by the NHL to continue to reject teams moving back to Canada and keep putting them in hockey hotbeds like Houston, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. Really NHL expansion in the USA hasn't work at all, but let's keep trying it. Great idea. Gary Bettman is a genius!

Starting off with a tangent there, so let's get to the NBA. I hate it because I hate Commish Don God Father David Stern for allowing a bunch of rednecks from Oklahoma to steal the Sonics from the good people of Seattle who for some strange reason don't want to pay for a new stadium that was just renovated 12 years ago. Stern is doing NOTHING about it, and in fact, seems more likely to speeding up the project (I'll stop ranting on this since it changes nothing, but if you're from Minnesota, just think of how mad you were when Norm Green stole the Stars from you folks. That's where I'm at with the Sonics). Anyway, despite this, I can't help but follow the NBA again. I know I know I KNOW!!! I posted on here before Christmas how I had stopped following it and didn't miss it. It was true at the time, but I forgot how dead February is for sports. Plus, as the Sports Guy has pointed out, the No Balls Association finally grew a pair with some huge deals the last few months.

The last two- the Dallas deal for Jason Kidd and the Cavs/Bulls/Sonics swapperoo- were really funny to me. I can sum up the Dallas deal in one word: PANIC!!!!! Let's have a little fun with numbers, shall we? Let's compare two point guards, and you tell me who'd you rather have if you're running a basketball team:

PER PPG APG TO/G FG% REB MIN AGE SALARY SALARY 2009
Player A 18.59 14.4 5.3 2.4 .483 2.3 30.4 24 $4 mill $8 mill
Player B 16.33 11.1 10.5 4.3 .406 6.8 36.3 34 $20mill $21mill

If you exclude their ages and salaries, it's pretty even right? Player A has a better PER (which means he's more effective in his time on the floor), and scores a little more while shooting a better percentage. Player B gets twice the assists, but also has almost double the turnovers of player A, and is not a good shooter. While I wouldn't fault you for wanting player B, when you factor in the age and salary differences, would you in a million years trade player A straight up for player B? Of course not. Neither did the Dallas Mavericks. Instead they traded Devin Harris, who is player A, two solid players, cap fodder and two 1st round picks to the Nets for Jason Kidd, who's player B, and two throw-in players.

Honest to God, how does this improve the Mavs? They're not only overpaying Kidd in salary but also in players and depth, and Kidd just doesn't make them that much better than Harris did. There's just no way. Not to mention that they had to give up Desagna Diop, who is developing into a solid low-post player and who was the only real defensive presence they had in the paint (last I checked there's a couple two-three good posts in the western conference). Wonderful. You've basically dealt for what Jason Kidd was two or three years ago, but now you're saddled with a player who's declining and makes about $40 MILLION OVER THE NEXT TWO SEASONS!!!! Good luck with that Mark Cuban!

What really makes this funny to me though is WHY Dallas made this deal. Last season, the Mavs finished the regular season with an NBA best 67-15 record- and then lost in the first round to the 8th seeded Golden State Warriors. Granted, the W's were quite possibly the worst possible matchup for Dallas outside of the Spurs or Suns, but this was still the best team in the NBA against a team that just squeaked into the playoffs. It was the first time an 8 had beaten a 1 in a best-of-seven. Clearly, you would think this would be a signal to the Mavs that changes needed to be made, that as good as they were in the regular season, this was not a championship team. Blow it up! Make changes! Try something different! And what did they do last summer? NOTHING! That's right the Mavs looked at their embarrassing first round exit and, like the rest of the No Balls Association, did absolutely nothing.

The result? More of the same. A so-so first half of the season where they were clearly (at least to those outside of Big D) not only not the best team in the Western Conference, they would be fighting just to make the playoffs. Still? Nothing done. Then the Lakers fleeced Memphis for Gasol, forcing the Suns hit the panic button themselves by thinking Shaq was a good idea (3 games with Shaq- 2 losses and an AVERAGE of 107.6 points against in the 3 games. Shaq was supposed to help defensively? Whoopsy poopsy!). So the Mavs, in turn, hit their own PANIC!!!!! button and overpaid for Kidd. I don’t know much, but I do know the Mavs are not winning the NBA title with Jason Kidd. Hell at this point they'll be lucky to make the playoffs as they're currently in 6th place, but only 4.5 games ahead of 9th place Denver (you know what's crazy? We could have a 50 win team miss the playoffs in the West, and yet we'll be lucky to get 5 teams with a winning record in the East. Hey David Stern- good idea to not want to tweak the playoff system. That's working out well. Way better to have three gawd-awful teams make the playoffs and have a 50 team in the West miss out. Really, who wants to see the 16 best teams in the playoffs? It's crazy talk!)

Then there was the Cleveland/Chicago/Seattle "Holy %^&$ We Need to Make A Trade but We Can't Get Anybody Good So Let's Just Swap Our Crappy Players to Make it Look Like We're Trying!" trade (and yes that was the longest name for any trade in history. It is now unofficially official). I love how scribes and media folks out East are trying to make this look like a great trade for Cleveland. Really? Explain that to me. Yes, they got rid of Larry Hughes horrible HORRIBLE contract, but what did you get back? A slightly less horrible HORRIBLE contract in Ben Wallace when you already have Anderson Varajeo doing exactly the same thing for way less money. Great move. You give up Drew Gooden, who was a solid scoring presence, so now you're stuck with player a big white Euro Center who doesn't fit your style of play, or two power forwards who can rebound and play defense but can't score to save their lives. Awesome. Start printing those championship t-shirts!

Of course, they also got Wally World, and you know my thoughts on the most overrated all-star of the past 20 years (you also know that I once compared Adam Morrison to World and concluded that Morrison would be a much better player. We know how that's turned out so far). He was nothing more than a 3rd or 4th option in his prime, and I'm not sure he even does that now. He stills shoots a decent outside shot, but can't defend, rebound, dribble, or pass. Other than that he's pretty good. Well worth the $12 million Cleveland is paying him.

Delonte West? Yawn. Cleveland basically shipped out some role players and got some slightly cheaper slightly more valuable role players in return, and we're supposed to believe this is a championship team? Let me double check this...hang on...just a minute... yup a team with a super duper uber star and a bunch of role players has never won an NBA title. Never. And you know what? As amazing as Lebron is, the Cavs are not going to be the team to break the mold. So this trade was much ado about nothing.

For the Bulls? This just means that at the next Paxson family Christmas dinner Jim (who tried his best to run the Cavs into the ground before Danny Ferry took over) can now sit back at the grownups table, because his brother John is proving just as incompetent at running an NBA team. John did a super swell job of stockpiling assets and putting the pieces together to get a true super start. He had chances at KG, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Allen Iverson, Kobe, Jason Kidd, and Pau Gasol. Who did he end up getting? Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes everybody! Viva la Bulls! Long live Chicago! Forget MJ and Scottie and Phil, the Bulls are back baby!!!!

The Sonics continued to clear cap space and grease the wheels for their move out of town by making the team as cheap and unwatchable as possible. Just what David Stern is looking to promote!

So in summary, I just used 1600 words to say I hate David Stern, but I can't help but follow his league. I'm ornery, sarcastic, and I'm back.