Tony Parker is rumored to be available for trade, but that has more to do with the presence of George Hill than anything the Spurs have done since their season ended. The Knicks are in dire need of a good point guard, so of course there have been some Parker-to-New York rumors as well.

Chad Ford writes that the Spurs are looking for a big.

The Spurs and Thunder also are in the hunt for a big and have targeted a number of teams in the lottery to move up a few spots. The Thunder have multiple picks to offer. The Spurs have Tony Parker or George Hill. While the Spurs aren’t necessarily shopping either player, they’re not untouchable, either. If the Spurs can get another big man to help prolong Tim Duncan’s career, they’ll do it.

But looking ahead — if the Knicks strike out on their plan to get one of their LeBron/Bosh, Wade/Bosh or LeBron/Wade dream combos, maybe a Lee-for-Parker deal would make some sense.

Let’s say the Knicks strike out on LeBron, Wade and Bosh, but manage to sign a couple of second-tier free agents (Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer, etc.) starting at $14 million per season, that would leave them about $9.5-$10 million to re-sign Lee and then move him for another asset like Parker. That would give the Knicks a core of Parker, Johnson and Boozer moving forward, and give the Spurs a quality power forward to play alongside Duncan. (Remember, Antonio McDyess is still under contract for another season and the Spurs have DeJuan Blair as well.)


Photo from fOTOGLIF

San Antonio played pretty well down the stretch this season, winning 17 of its last 25 games in March and April. (That’s a 56-win pace, by the way.) The Spurs looked sharp in their first round series against the Mavs, but looked old and slow as they were swept by the Suns.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the Spurs approach this offseason. They just signed Manu Ginobili to an extension, and Tim Duncan is signed for two more seasons, so Tony Parker may be the player most likely to be moved. He has one more year on his contract at the tune of $13.7 million and at just 27, he’s in the prime of his career. George Hill could take over the full-time point guard duties, if necessary.

Trading Parker would be a big shift in direction from a personnel standpoint. San Antonio’s Big Three — Ginobili, Parker and Duncan — have been together for eight seasons and three titles, but they haven’t reached the Finals in the last three tries and haven’t made it out of the semis in the last two years. This begs the question — how big of a change are the Spurs willing to make?

Richard Jefferson didn’t exactly pan out, but he’s unlikely to opt out of the final year of his contract (worth a staggering $15.2 million) and no one is going to want to take on his contract unless they’re trying to unload a bad contract of their own. Jefferson was solid in the first round (9-4, 54% shooting), and while he posted decent numbers against the Suns (10-6), he shot just 42% from the field. I was surprised to see his FG% for the season (46.7%) which was a tad below his career clip, but the better shot selection on the half court didn’t offset the fact that he wasn’t getting the fast break opportunities that he did with Jason Kidd in New Jersey.

The good news is that the only players under contract for next season are the Big Three, Hill, Jefferson, DeJuan Blair and Antonio McDyess — all good players, one terrible contract (Jefferson’s) — so with some savvy moves this offseason, the franchise could keep this core intact with the possibility of adding a good player or two. The bad news is that the Spurs are well over the cap with a payroll of $69 million for next season so they’ll be limited to the mid-level exception and below.

Competition for mid-level players could be tough this summer as there are plenty of teams with cap space that could outspend the Spurs for a player they like. The other problem is that it’s not exactly clear what this team needs. They have good guards in Ginobili, Parker and Hill, good forwards in Jefferson, McDyess and Blair, and Duncan in the middle. One thing they do need is a sharpshooting forward (like Kyle Korver?) who could make teams pay for doubling Duncan or sagging on Ginobili’s drives. Jefferson shot just 32% from 3PT, and that’s not going to get it done.

The addition of a player like Korver would likely force more defensive responsibilities onto Ginobili; Jefferson did do a nice job defensively this season. He also played quite a few minutes at power forward this season, and that’s something that Korver wouldn’t be able to do. That means more McDyess and Blair, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

If the Spurs do elect to trade Parker, they’ll need to find a third guard to play heavy minutes behind Hill and Ginobili. My guess is that they hold onto him and see how things go throughout the first half of the season. If whatever changes they make this summer aren’t panning out by then, they could move Parker before the trade deadline in order to get something for him before his contract expires next summer.

After watching that Suns series, it sure seems like whatever “it” factor the Spurs had (chemistry, execution, or some combination of the two) is fading, and the odds are very much against another title run in the near future. But Duncan is still playing at a pretty high level, Ginobili posted 20-4-8 despite playing with a broken nose, and the Spurs hit the jackpot in the last two drafts with Hill and Blair. With the right addition(s) this summer, they could be back in the thick of things this time next year.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

The Spurs said they were going to treat Game 6 at home as if it were a Game 7, and that’s the right mentality. You want to close the series out at home if you can, because winning a Game 7 on the road is no easy task.

San Antonio jumped out to a big lead early in the game, and were up 35-16 in the middle of the second quarter when Mavs rookie Roddy Beaubois entered the game. Over the course of the next 16 minutes, Beaubois would score 16 points and lead the Mavs on a 45-28 run that would bring Dallas to within two points with 2:43 to play in the third quarter. The Spurs simply didn’t have an answer for him on the defensive end.

With the Mavs trailing by seven, Beaubois started the fourth quarter on the bench, and didn’t re-enter the game until there was 2:44 remaining in the game. Rick Carlisle wanted to get Jason Terry going, and while he did hit a six-foot runner to cut the lead to two with six minutes to play, that was the only shot he made all night. Mavs fans are left wondering what would have happened had Carlisle brought Beaubois back earlier in the quarter.

From the Spurs perspective, check out this series of scores in the fourth quarter:

6:33 Tony Parker makes 18-foot jumper
5:50 Antonio McDyess makes 13-foot jumper
4:47 George Hill makes 10-foot two point shot
4:07 Antonio McDyess makes 17-foot jumper
3:18 George Hill makes 23-foot three point jumper
1:28 Tony Parker makes 20-foot jumper

Notice anything? For a team that usually leans on Manu Ginobili drives and Tim Duncan post ups, the Spurs scored on jump shots on six possessions in just over five minutes. During that stretch, Tim Duncan didn’t take a single shot, Ginobili missed three shots and Parker missed a 16-footer. Otherwise, they were all made jumpers by McDyess, Hill and Parker. (Ginobili and Duncan did combine for five assists during that stretch.)

After a 29-point performance that essentially won Game 4 for the Spurs, George Hill scored 21 points tonight on 12 shots. Ginobili finished with 26, Tim Duncan had 17 and Tony Parker chipped in with 10. Hill gives the Spurs another offensive weapon to go to in crunch time when the Spurs’ “Big 3″ need a break or just aren’t getting it done. As Reggie Miller noted, Hill was a great scorer in high school and college, so he can “score with the best of them.”

I’ll write more about the Mavs tomorrow. As it stands, they just seem like they’ve been snakebitten since losing the 2006 Finals to Dwyane Wade and the Heat. I can’t imagine what is going through Mark Cuban’s mind right now after making several big acquisitions (Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood) over the past few years. He was expecting that this team would make a run to the Finals, but instead, they just lost Game 6 to their arch-rivals and are heading home in the first round. Ouch.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but it looks like my prediction a few days ago was spot on. Aaron Brooks has won the 2010 Most Improved Player award.

The speedy, 6-foot point guard was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player on Thursday, after setting career highs in points (19.6 per game), assists (5.3) and rebounds (2.6). His scoring average went up 8.4 points from 2008-09, the highest increase of any qualifying player.

Brooks earned 403 of a possible 615 points, including 62 first-place votes, from a panel of 123 sports writers and broadcasters. Kevin Durant of Oklahoma City and George Hill of San Antonio tied for second with 101 total points.

This marks the 9th straight year that the award has gone to a player drafted with the 16th pick or later. Sixteen of the last 17 MIP winners were drafted #13 or later (or not at all, in the case of Darrell Armstrong). The award simply doesn’t go to former lottery picks.

Kevin Durant finished second, but as a former #2 overall pick, his superstardom was expected. I am a little surprised that Andrew Bogut didn’t finish in the top three. I thought that the somewhat mediocre start he had to his career would have lowered the bar enough that his drastic improvement both offensively and defensively would have been noticed by the voters.

As for George Hill, after only one TrueHoop panelist voted for him, this is what I had to say:

What about George Hill? He only got one vote from the TrueHoop panel, but the former 26th overall pick improved his numbers from 6-2-2 last season to 12-3-3 this season, and was a big reason why the Spurs stayed in the playoff picture even though they lost Tony Parker for part of the season.

Congratulations to Brooks. He had a very nice season.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

Everyone loves to focus on the lottery, but there are good players to be had in the late first round as well. A while back, I put together a list of the top second round picks of the modern era, so now I’m going to focus on those players that were drafted between pick #21 and pick #30 in the first round. (Note: If a player was drafted in the second round, even if they were taken with the #29 or #30 pick overall, they are ineligible to make the list. Sorry, Gilbert.) Since there are more star-quality players available in the 20′s, I’m limiting this list to the last ten drafts (i.e. 1999 through 2008).

It is sometimes tough to rank older players with newer players, but even if a younger player holds more trade value right now, I am going to take into account each player’s entire career. For the young guys, I have to project a little bit, so keep that in mind as you read and react. I feel great about the top eight guys, but there are a few players that missed the list that are pretty interchangeable with #9 and #10.

On with the list…

10. Aaron Brooks, Rockets
26th pick in 2007
I had to decide between Brooks and Nate Robinson here and went with Brooks given his fine performance in the playoffs this season (16.8 ppg, 3.4 apg, 42% from 3PT) and how Robinson’s numbers are a little inflated playing for Mike D’Antoni. Brooks is not a natural point guard, but his sharpshooting is a good fit given Houston’s inside-out attack. He’s small, but he’s quick and is able to score at the rim when given some daylight. The Rockets feel good enough about Brooks to trade Rafer Alston away midseason, so you have to like his upside.

9. Kendrick Perkins, Celtics
27th pick in 2003 (drafted by the Grizzlies)
In the world of “big” guys, I also considered Boris Diaw here, but it’s tough to pass on a 6’10″ 24-year-old who averaged 8.5 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game on a team loaded with vets. Without Kevin Garnett in the playoffs, the C’s needed Perkins to step up his game and he responded with 11.9 points, 11.6 boards and 2.6 blocks per contest. He also did a pretty good job on Dwight Howard, who had his worst numbers of the playoffs against the Celtics.

8. David Lee, Knicks
30th pick in 2005
Isiah Thomas couldn’t make a good trade to save his life, but he could spot talent in the draft. Lee has turned out to be a steal with the last pick in the 2005 draft. He’s an athletic lefty whose best traits are his hustle and smarts. In just his fourth season, Lee averaged 16.0 points and 11.7 rebounds per game, which made him one of the most consistent double-double guys in the league. His stock is so high right now that the Knicks might be able to use him as trade bait in order to land Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire. Maybe they’d be better off sticking with Lee…

7. Gerald Wallace, Bobcats
25th pick in 2001 (drafted by the Kings)
Even though he plays in Charlotte, Wallace has a reputation for being one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. Throw in the fact that he’s a capable scorer (15.9 ppg last season) and you have one of the best all-around small forwards in the league. His jumper is improving (if slowly), but he’s at his best when he’s using his superior athleticism to attack the rim. If he had landed in a bigger market or for a better team, he wouldn’t be playing so far under the radar.

6. Andrei Kirilenko, Jazz
24th pick in 1999
AK-47 was named to just one All-Star game, but has made three All-Defensive teams. Let’s not forget that Kirilenko was Utah’s leading scorer in the 2002-03 season, the year before the arrival of Carlos Boozer. Then came Deron Williams, and Kirilenko has settled into a more complementary role as a key defender, shotblocker and rebounder. He has had an up-and-down few years in Utah, but the fact remains that he was one of the top picks of the late first round.

5. Tayshaun Prince, Pistons
23rd pick in 2002
At Kentucky, Prince was known more for his offense than he was for his defense. The reverse has been true since he entered the league in 2002. He was named to the All-Defensive 2nd Team four straight times, while averaging better than 13.2 points per game for the last five seasons. His jumper is ugly, but it goes in, as evidenced by his 40% accuracy from long range last season. Simply stated, he is one of the most productive “glue guys” in the league and he was instrumental in the Pistons’ solid run over the last seven years.

4. Kevin Martin, Kings
26th pick in 2004
Here’s a guy that has made himself into one of the best scorers in the league. He has always possessed great quickness, but has gone from shooting 20% behind the arc in his rookie season to just over 41% last season. He can score in a multitude of ways and was second in the league in free throws attempted with 10.3 per game (behind Dwight Howard and ahead of Dwyane Wade). Moreover, he’s just 26, so he has room to grow.

3. Josh Howard, Mavericks
29th pick in 2003
Sure, he’s kind of a knucklehead, but there’s no doubt that Howard has game. He slipped in the draft because of an apparent lack of upside. When he came out of college, he wasn’t a superb athlete and wasn’t great at any one thing, but he was a very good all-around player, which is why he won the ACC Player of the Year in his senior season at Wake Forest. In the NBA, he has steadily improved his offensive repertoire and has a reputation for being one of the better defensive small forwards in the league. He was named to the All-Star game in 2007 and is often used as evidence that it’s not always smart to pass on a proven college upperclassman for perceived upside.

2. Rajon Rondo, Celtics
21st pick in 2006 (drafted by the Suns)
Rondo slipped in the ’06 draft due to concerns about his non-existent jumper. As a second-year player, he successfully molded his game to fit with veterans Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to help lead the Celtics to a title in 2008. He was named to the All-Defensive team in 2009, and when Garnett went out with a knee injury late in the year, Rondo turned it on come playoff time. In the first round against the Bulls, he averaged a stellar 19.4 points, 11.6 assists and 9.3 rebounds, including two triple-doubles. Due to his work ethic, energy and the tutelage of Doc Rivers, he’s quickly becoming one of the best young point guards in the game. But can he keep this career trajectory once the Big Three start departing and defenses can afford to pay more attention to him?

1. Tony Parker, Spurs
28th pick in 2001
Parker is just 27 and already has had an illustrious career. He has been named to three All-Star games, and was the Finals MVP in 2007 when it became apparent that the Cavs didn’t have a guy that could stay in front of him. In fact, there are very few players in the league who can effectively defend Parker, who is one of the very best at getting to the rim in transition and off the pick and roll. He has helped the Spurs win three titles, and it has been interesting to see his transformation from a 19 year-old rookie to wily veteran over the past eight seasons. It will be even more interesting to see how he adjusts to being “The Guy” as Tim Duncan gets older and less productive. Parker went late in the first round because he was a foreigner (remember, international scouting was not as sharp in 2001) and because he was/is short and slight. But he really benefited from the rules changes that reduced hand checking on the perimeter and has flourished since he joined the league.

Honorable Mention: Nate Robinson, Boris Diaw, Delonte West, Rudy Fernandez, Morris Peterson, Samuel Dalembert, Leandro Barbosa, Courtney Lee, Jarrett Jack, Kenny Thomas, John Salmons, Jordan Farmar, George Hill, Linas Kleiza and Beno Udrih.

What can we draw from this list?

1. There are four small forwards — Howard, Kirilenko, Wallace and Prince — that are all known more for their defense than their offense, and Howard and Prince both scored in the high teens in college.

2. There are three point guards on the list. Two were deemed too small (Parker and Brooks) and the other couldn’t shoot (Rondo).

3. There is a power forward (Lee) and an off guard (Martin) who are known for their tremendous work ethics. Lee is a big-time hustler on the court and Martin is a gym rat who has transformed himself into one of the best scorers in the league.

4. There’s a 6’10″ center (Perkins) who came to the NBA straight out of high school. It’s especially tough to find a good big late in the first round, as anyone with size and talent is usually long gone by now. Check out this list of 6’10″ or taller players that were drafted in the late first round over the last 10 years: Pavel Podkolzine, Iakovos Tsakalidis, Kosta Koufos, Dalibor Bagaric, Primoz Brezec, Johan Petro, Mamadou NDiaye, Tiago Splitter, David Harrison, Samuel Dalembert, Jeff Foster, Nenad Krstic, Ryan Anderson, Josh Boone, Brian Cook, Serge Ibaka, Ian Mahinmi, Donte Greene, Leon Smith and Joel Freeland. While there are a few contributors on that list, the vast majority ride the bench or aren’t even in the league.

The lesson? Go small. Look for a player with an impressive work ethic. Try to find someone that has the physical tools to play good defense or a point guard that is too quick to be covered. These are the types of players that seemed flawed, but have the potential to develop into first round steals.

- Stephon Marbury and Knicks GM Donnie Walsh are going to meet tomorrow to try to hash out a buyout agreement.

- The Warriors are going to shut Monta Ellis down for a week due to stiffness in his ankle, the same ankle he injured mopeding around Mississippi.

- The Spurs were reportedly close to trading for Marcus Camby before last week’s trade deadline. Apparently, the Spurs would have sent Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and George Hill to the Clippers. That’s basically a Hill-for-Camby swap, and I’m surprised that the Clippers didn’t jump on it. Hill is on track to be a starter-quality point guard in the NBA.

- Mike Dunleavy might miss the rest of the season with an injured knee.

You can blame it on the Grizzlies.

Ever since they traded Pau Gasol to the Lakers for a bag of peanuts and some slightly used underwear, NBA teams have become more and more fickle about pulling the proverbial trigger. With the state of the economy, and some owners desperately trying to cut payroll before the cap and luxury tax thresholds decline, it’s a buyer’s market out there. And those buyers are looking for Gasol-type deals. On the flip side, Chris Wallace took all kinds of grief over that trade and general managers around the league don’t want to follow in his footsteps.

After two or three weeks of covering all of this trade chatter, the biggest deal to speak of is the Shawn Marion/Jermaine O’Neal swap and that happened almost a week ago. Sure, guys like Brad Miller, Andres Nocioni, John Salmons, Rafer Alston, Larry Hughes, Tim Thomas, Chris Wilcox and Drew Gooden changed zip codes, but I doubt any fans out there are sporting wood at the idea that one or more of these players is joining their team.

This year’s trade deadline was mostly about teams setting themselves up financially for the next two summers of free agency. Even though there were a number of big names bandied about, the Marion/O’Neal deal is the only semi-blockbuster trade of the season. And, barring some last-minute, late-breaking deal, we have these five teams to blame…

5. San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs were in talks with the Nets about acquiring Vince Carter and also spoke with the Bucks about Richard Jefferson. Either of those players would have been a nice addition, but the Spurs just don’t have the pieces (or the balls) to pull off a trade like that. They were willing to trade for Carter, but they didn’t want to give up Roger Mason or George Hill. So they offer the Nets Bruce Bowen and Fabricio Oberto. Great, the numbers don’t even add up. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t really think that the Spurs should have given up Mason and/or Hill to acquire Carter. They’re arguably the second-best team in the West and their current lineup, if healthy, is likely to give the Lakers fits if the two teams meet in the playoffs with a less-than-100% Andrew Bynum. Plus the Spurs are notoriously conservative when it comes to messing with their chemistry. Jefferson wouldn’t have been a problem in that area but Carter might have been. So the Spurs stand pat. Shocker.

4. Cleveland Cavaliers
In the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, all was quiet on the Cleveland front, but in the last few days, the rumor mill started to churn as Cleveland started to discover what kind of player Wally Szczerbiak’s expiring contract could get them. (On a side note, Wally and Raef LaFrentz are two players that join Theo Ratliff on the list of players who ultimately are more famous for their expiring contracts than they are for anything they’ve done on the court. It’s sad, but it’s true.) The Cavs reportedly spoke with the Bucks about Jefferson, with the Wizards about Antawn Jamison, with the Nets about Vince Carter and with the Suns about Amare Stoudemire and Shaquille O’Neal. They wanted an upgrade at power forward, so the Jefferson deal didn’t make perfect sense, though he and LeBron would be compatible on the wing because they’re both versatile players who can defend. The same goes for Carter, but ultimately the Cavs decided to let Szczerbiak’s deal expire, which will give them more cap flexibility in two seasons when LeBron (likely) hits free agency. They run the risk of passing on a deal that would have ultimately resulted in an NBA championship, which would have made it very difficult for LeBron to leave Cleveland, but that’s impossible to prove.

3. New Jersey Nets
Reportedly, the Nets were literally trying to give Vince Carter away, but had no takers. They spoke with Cleveland, Portland, Houston and San Antonio (and probably others), but were unable to come to terms. He has two years and over $33 million remaining on his contract, so his is a deal that is apparently unmovable in the current environment. No one wants to take on that salary, especially since Carter is already 32-years-old and his salary runs through the 2010-11 season. My guess is that the Spurs would have added him had they been able to convince the Nets that a package built around Bruce Bowen and Fabricio Oberto was enough. If it’s true that the Nets were desperate to move him, a Szczerbiak-Carter or a LaFrentz-Carter swap probably would have done the trick, but the Cavs and Blazers apparently felt that Carter wasn’t worth the cap ramifications of his contract and ultimately balked.

2. Phoenix Suns
Surprised? I thought about putting the Suns in the top spot, but once they jettisoned Terry Porter in favor of Alvin Gentry, it became clear that they felt that Porter was the problem, not Amare Stoudemire. Word leaked that the Suns suddenly became less willing to talk about deals involving Amare, and it probably didn’t hurt that he scored 65 points in the two games since Gentry took over. More importantly, the Suns look to be back to pushing the ball, as they scored 282 points in those two wins. (It should be noted that both games were against the Clippers, so it’s tough to get an accurate gauge of the effect that Gentry is having.) It was rumored that they were talking about trading Shaq to the Cavs for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic, but had they pulled the trigger on that deal, they would have been throwing away whatever chance they have at a playoff run this year in order to save about $5 million by acquiring Pavlovic’s expiring contract. These new-look Suns could be a factor in the playoffs.

1. Portland Trail Blazers
Ah, the Blazers. They have all sorts of talented pieces and Raef LaFrentz’s expiring contract, so they were heavily involved in the rumor mill over the last two weeks. Portland has a reputation for discussing a plethora of different trade scenarios but being very reluctant to pull the trigger, which leads many to believe that most of their trade calls are really just the team’s way of gathering intelligence. They were willing to trade LaFrentz and Jerryd Bayless for Stoudemire, but the Suns decided (wisely) that it wasn’t enough. They spoke with the Nets about Carter, but wanted New Jersey to throw in a first round pick as well. The same goes for the Bucks, who wanted to send Jefferson to Portland in exchange for some salary cap relief. They also tried to pry Caron Butler away from Washington and Gerald Wallace away from the Bobcats. It’s not enough that the Blazers were going to get a talented player for an expiring contract, but they wanted draft picks or a nice young prospect like Ramon Sessions as well. They were one of the few buyers in a buyer’s market and ultimately they didn’t buy a thing.