The Arizona Republic is suggesting that the Sixers could do a three-way deal that would send Amare Stoudemire to Detroit instead of dealing directly with the Suns.
Possibilities with Philadelphia could be stronger with two fronts, a deal between bringing in swingman Andre Iguodala for Stoudemire with perhaps young power forward Marreese Speights or a three-way deal involving Detroit with Pistons guard Ben Gordon winding up in Philadelphia and the Suns getting Iguodala and Detroit power forward Chris Wilcox. The rub with Iguodala, a 26-year-old former Arizona star, is inheriting a contract that will pay him $56.5 million over the next four seasons.
This sounds like wishful speculation. First, both Marc Stein and Chad Ford have confirmed that it’s the Sixers holding up an Iguodala-and-Dalembert for Stoudemire deal, so why would Philly give up the promising young Speights instead?
Secondly, why would they trade Iggy, an elite defender who can score, for Ben Gordon, an excellent shooter but just a mediocre defender? It’s not like Gordon’s contract (four years, $48 million) is that much better than Iguodala’s (four years, $57 million). Not enough to justify the drop off on defense, anyway.
While I love the NBA trade deadline, I’m ready for it to get here already. The amount of misinformation and speculation that happens on a daily basis is mind-boggling.
NBA.com’s David Aldridge does not like to write trade columns, but fans love them, so he relented. Here are a few of the more interesting tidbits:
…by this time next week, it’s almost a certainty that Caron Butler will be gone from Washington, and highly likely that Tyrus Thomas will no longer be a Bull. By the 18th, Indiana’s Troy Murphy and Philly’s Andre Iguodala are certain to have new addresses as well, though those teams may well go right up until the 3 p.m. deadline to max out their suitors’ offers.
Not a bad start. Aldridge predicts at least two stars (Butler, Iguodala) and two starter-quality players (Murphy, Thomas) will be on the move. Here’s what he says about Butler:
The Wizards’ desire to move Butler has only increased in recent days, since they found out they will indeed get some cap relief from the NBA this season after losing Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton to suspension for the rest of the season. Washington’s cap number will be reduced almost $4 million, according to sources — pro-rated amounts of the remainder of Arenas’s $16.1 million and Crittenton’s $1.47 million salaries — taking its cap number to a little more than $74 million. The cap threshhold is $69.9 million, meaning Washington could avoid paying tax if it can pare another $4 to $5 million in salaries off its books.
That means Butler, though I suspect the Wizards will ask inquiring teams to remove Mike James and/or DeShawn Stevenson from their payroll as well.
Butler winding up somewhere in Texas is most likely, with Washington probably deciding between Dallas’ and Houston’s competing offers before next week’s All-Star Game. The Wizards are determined to get a young player back, though, and the Mavericks’ only non-geezer is rookie guard Rod Beaubois — while Houston has a young guard like Kyle Lowry and an expiring big man contract in forward Luis Scola to pair with McGrady’s $22 million expiring deal.
With the way Antawn Jamison has been playing (22-10-2 in February), some consider him to be the Wizards’ most valuable trade asset. But at 33 years old and with a tough contract to swallow (two more years at the tune of $28.4 million), I believe Caron Butler is the better acquisition. Butler is four years younger and has just one year remaining ($10.6 million). Butler has had his ups and downs this season, but he’s a swingman in his prime and he proved he still has it in a brilliant 31-point, nine-rebound effort against the Magic the other night.
From a pure personnel standpoint, the acquisition of Butler makes more sense for the Mavericks, who would like to upgrade from Josh Howard. A small-ball lineup of Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Caron Butler, Shawn Marion and Dirk Nowitzki would be pretty scary.
The Rockets already have Trevor Ariza and Shane Battier at small forward, so Houston’s interest seems to be more of the “buy low” variety, and that’s not a bad way to go about things. Daryl Morey has T-Mac’s $22 million expiring deal and several young assets — Lowry, Carl Landry and Chase Budinger — to dangle.
Chauncey Billups hit 9-13 from long range en route to a 39-4-8 night against the Lakers. The win is mightily impressive, especially considering the Nuggets were without Carmelo Anthony.
Oh, and Ron Artest almost punched Joey Graham. Almost. Take a look…
In his Rookie Watch: Midseason Awards (Insider subscription required), Thorpe says that Thornton is the next best rookie scorer after Tyreke Evans.
There are a few obvious choices here, but I think Thornton is the most deserving simply because of what he’s done in difficult circumstances. Despite being pulled into and out of the rotation, playing for two coaches already and often getting paired with another rookie in the backcourt, he has been able to put up points and help drive the Hornets back into playoff contention.
Ultimately, I think Thornton will be an excellent scorer off the bench for a contending team. He has supreme confidence in his ability to get a bucket from anywhere.
Difficult circumstances? Thornton has played with Chris Paul and Darren Collison at point guard, maybe the best 1-2 punch at the position in the entire league in terms of setting up teammates for shots. Meanwhile, Brandon Jennings has been asked to run the Bucks offense, deal with the absence, arrival and disappearance of Michael Redd, and has helped Andrew Bogut develop into an All-Star caliber player, all while leading the Bucks in scoring.
Thornton’s has a higher points per shot (PPS), averaging 1.15 to Jennings’ 1.05, but Jennings is averaging almost seven more points per game while being the focus of the opponent’s defensive game plan. Jennings is just as good from long range and gets to the line twice as often. Sure, he’s struggled of late as teams have started to figure out how to stop him, but that’s just it — teams are trying to stop him. Is anyone game planning for Marcus Thornton?
It’s been well documented that the Cavaliers’ infatuation with Antawn Jamison has been rekindled. What’s been underplayed is the reason behind it: LeBron James is the one driving the team’s pursuit of Jamison, according to a source, and Cavs GM Danny Ferry – as usual – is trying to appease the King. A couple of problems: The Wizards want a young asset in return, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas – while a fit salary-wise – doesn’t fit that description. The sensible piece to include in the deal would be J.J. Hickson, whom the Cavs are reluctant to give up. But if the Cavs got Jamison, what value would Hickson be to them as their fifth big man? One scenario that is believed to be under discussion would have the Cavs hoping the Wizards bought out Ilgauskas after the trade, using some cash added to the deal by Cleveland. That way, the Cavs could sign Ilgauskas back on a minimum deal, giving them the player James covets (Jamison) and a 7-foot-4 insurance policy for Shaquille O’Neal. The Wizards would have to ask themselves if getting out from under Jamison’s contract and adding Hickson is enough to justify a deal that would get them under the tax next summer, but not under the cap.
If the Cavs can’t get Jamison, Indiana’s Troy Murphy is Plan B. And yes, there’s a Plan C — Andre Iguodala. Whereas the Cavs’ front office believes Jamison could help them win a championship this year, Iguodala would be more of a long-term solution. And he better be, with four years and $56 million left on his deal.
Even though Jamison is playing better right now than Caron Butler, he’s also four years older (33) and has a much more expensive contract (Jamison: 2-years, $28.4 million, Butler: 1-year, $10.6 million). For a team like the Wizards, who at this point are just trying to get into a position where they can rebuild, Jamison is just too old to be a part of that process. So it makes sense to add a promising young prospect like Hickson, though they’d probably have to agree to buy out Zydrunas Ilgauskas as part of the trade, so that the Cavs can re-sign him.
Cleveland needs to keep LeBron happy. If he wants Jamison, then they should try to acquire him. He’s a smallish power forward who can also play small forward when the Cavs want to buy a few minutes rest for LeBron. He’s a nice matchup for Rashard Lewis and could potentially give Pau Gasol fits in the Finals, forcing the Lakers to bench one of their big men. With Boston faltering and the Magic looking pretty shaky, Cleveland is a great bet to make the Finals, and if they were to pass on Jamison and lose to the Lakers or some other Western Conference foe, LeBron would have some valid reasons to leave. If they do acquire Jamison and lose in the Finals, then at least the franchise was willing make moves to try to improve the team. With a core of Jamison and Mo Williams, LeBron might be more willing to return to Cleveland.
In this morning’s post, TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott laments about something that is very wrong with the game of basketball…
You know what’s wrong with basketball? Not guns, not gambling, not any of that. The biggest problem in basketball is free throws. If there was some way to severely reduce the amount of standing around in games, I think games would be a lot more fun to watch in TV or in person.
Here’s a suggestion: On a shooting foul, instead of a player getting two shots and a live rebound, the player gets one shot and his team gets the ball. This would reduce the number of times a player is fouled going to the hole because there would be very little upside to making a player “earn it” from the line if his team retains possession after the free throw attempt. It would also eliminate the tired/boring Hack-a-Shaq approach for the same reason.
The only time when this wouldn’t work would be at the end of games. If a team is trailing by two points, it could be to the defense’s advantage to intentionally foul with very little time remaining thinking that, after the free throw, it would be tough for the offense to get a shot off to win the game. How about in the final minute of each quarter, the rule would revert back to the current system — two free throws for each foul? That way, the end-of-game situations wouldn’t drastically change from what we know now, and end-of-game fouling would be reduced (at least up until the final minute) as teams are forced to play defense instead of hoping that the opponent misses some free throws.
“[The Cavaliers] were the hungrier team and I think that they sense that they want to win a championship, they want to go after it, so they’re playing with a sense of urgency that we played with last year. We have to make some adjustments, we have to make some improvements. Our mentality has to change a little bit playing against these teams. These teams are physical, tough-minded and hard-nosed type of teams and we need to make some decisions.”
Dave McMenamin titled this post, “Bryant Lashes Out At His Teammates,” but I have no problem with anything that Kobe said. It’s 100% true. The Cavs are hungrier and there is no getting around it. It will be very difficult for the Lakers to match that hunger since they just won the title last year. So to beat the Cavs, they have to play tougher and execute better. Pau Gasol looked like a big white bedsheet on a clothesline, flapping around in the wind. And Lamar Odom is not known for his toughness either. Both players have to finish their shots inside and rebound well to offset the Cavs’ hunger (or any other opponent for that matter).
That said, let’s not forget that Kobe missed 19 shots last night and went just 1-5 in the fourth quarter. If he shoots 45-50%, the Lakers probably win that game.
“I don’t think Gasol should be in it at all. He’s only played like 20 games (he played Thursday in his 25th out of 42 Lakers games) this year. I think there should be a number of games you should play. I think you should have to play like 80 percent of the games. It shouldn’t be 50 percent over a guy who plays 90 percent and who has better numbers. Not just me. Zach Randolph, a power forward, he has better numbers (than Gasol). But he’s not on the Lakers.”
Players don’t usually comment about whether or not another player deserves to play in the All-Star Game, so there might be some blowback on Kaman.
He is averaging 20-9-2 with 1.4 blocks per game and 50% shooting from the field. But it’s hardly Gasol’s fault that he got injured, and he’s played well when healthy (17-11 with 54% shooting). He has played in almost 60% of his team’s games, and if he plays in the 10 games before the All-Star break, then he would have appeared in 67% of his team’s games. Is that enough? Seems to me that 60% or two-thirds would be enough. We are talking about the team with the best record in basketball.
Kaman goes on to say that he realizes it’s the Lakers, but if the Clippers had Kobe Bryant they’d have a better record. But it works both ways. If the Clippers had Kobe, Kaman wouldn’t be averaging 20-9. He can’t have it both ways.
I’m not a professional lip reader, but after LeBron James took five or six straight jumpers in the fourth quarter (hitting most of them), Shaq came up to him at a timeout and said, “Go to the f**kin’ hole.” On the next possession, LeBron did just that and threw the ball out of bounds. But two plays later with under a minute to play in a tie game, LeBron attacked the glass in secondary transition and gave the Cavs a two point lead.
Kobe Bryant sat for the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, and when he finally came in, he was ice cold, missing four of his five shots in the final period. Pau Gasol also played weak inside and missed several shots from close range. After LeBron’s driving layup, Gasol had a chance to tie the game with 0:24 to play, but missed both free throws. (He’s an 86% shooter on the season.) Cleveland just showed more toughness down the stretch.
It was an impressive win for the Cavs, who were playing without (arguably) their second best player, Mo Williams, who will be sidelined 4-6 weeks with a separated shoulder.
One thing that struck me as odd: After Gasol missed those free throws, LeBron was on the sideline lip-syncing all of the lyrics to a Eminem song — almost to the point when the ref threw him the ball. I realize he’s just trying to have a good time, but the old schooler in me just shakes his head. A few moments later he went to the line and missed one of his free throws.
Still, it’s hard to complain about a guy who just posted 37-9-5 against the defending champs.
“[The Cavaliers] were the hungrier team and I think that they sense that they want to win a championship, they want to go after it, so they’re playing with a sense of urgency that we played with last year. We have to make some adjustments, we have to make some improvements. Our mentality has to change a little bit playing against these teams. These teams are physical, tough-minded and hard-nosed type of teams and we need to make some decisions.” 
