What is a “thin line,” you ask? Well, I’m not 100% sure I coined it, but it’s my term for a player who scores, but brings almost nothing else — rebounds, assists, steals or blocks — to the table.

In order to determine who has the thinnest line in the NBA, I divided the player’s points by the sum of their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks to come up with the Thin Line Ratio (TLR). The bigger the number, the thinner the line.

To be eligible, a player has to average at least 20 minutes per game. And to be fair to the biggest scorers in the league, if their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks add up to 10+ per game, then they’re not eligible. So players like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, Danny Granger and Kobe Bryant are in the clear. I figure any player who is posting 10+ in those four categories is bringing plenty to the table.

So here’s a look at the 10 thinnest lines in the NBA:

1. Kevin Martin (TLR: 2.89)
2. Jamal Crawford (2.79)
3. Marcus Thornton (2.69)
4. Ben Gordon (2.51)
5. Eric Gordon (2.43)
6. Ray Allen (2.43)
7. Jason Terry (2.36)
8. Richard Hamilton (2.33)
9. Corey Maggette (2.31)
10. J.J. Redick (2.28)

Surprise, surprise…that’s a list of nine or ten shooting guards, depending on how you classify Corey Maggette (and maybe Jamal Crawford). These are players whose job it is to shoot the ball and they obviously embrace that role. You won’t see these players battling for rebounds or doing a lot of penetrate and dish.

The top point guard in TLR? Aaron Brooks (2.19), winner of this year’s Most Improved Player award.

The top small forward (other than Maggette)? Josh Howard (2.12)

The top power forward? Bill Walker (2.14), but he played in just 35 games. Al Harrington (2.12) was the next highest PF on the list.

The top center? Andrea Bargnani (1.91), but is he really a center? The next highest eligible center is Channing Frye (1.33).

Who has the thickest line (i.e. the lowest TLR)?

PG – Jason Kidd (0.61)
SG – Thabo Sefolosha (0.72)
SF – Luc Mbah a Moute (0.78)
PF – Jared Jeffries (0.71)
C – Marcus Camby (0.43)

Jason Kidd plus four defensive specialists. Boy, that would be some ugly offense, but they’d be a bitch to score on.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

A: Ben Gordon

Per NBA.com…

It’s been over 63 years since New York’s Ossie Schectman scored the first basket in NBA history on Nov. 1, 1946, at Maple Leaf Gardens, and tonight Ben Gordon of the Detroit Pistons scored the 10 millionth point in NBA regular season history.

It was Gordon’s successful jumpshot at The Palace of Auburn Hills with 3:51 remaining in the second quarter of the Pistons-76ers game that represented the 10,000,000th point in NBA history.

These milestones are fairly random, but it’s interesting to look at a list of who scored every millionth point. Other than Moses Malone, every player on the list is a perimeter player.

When the Pistons signed Ben Gordon, most reports pinned the contract at about $55 million over five seasons. But Chicago Now has the real numbers and they are a bit higher.

09-10 $10,000,000
10-11 $10,800,000
11-12 $11,600,000
12-13 $12,400,000
13-14 $13,200,000 (Player Option)
5 Years for $58,000,000.

He also has a clause for incentives which are considered unlikely (meaning he didn’t reach them last season), but I don’t specifically know what they are.

Ben Gordon came out ahead by taking the QO and was the first person to do so. Now, even looking at the 5/50 offer the Bulls made, Gordon was the clear winner by waiting even disregarding the circumstances that at the time of the 5/50 offer he was the best or second best player on a team expected to contend for a championship.

Gordon has a reputation for being a below average defender and he isn’t a playmaker. He’s a scorer, and sometimes he displays poor shot selection. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I’m surprised that the Pistons made an offer this strong, especially since it turns out that the Bulls never even made an offer to Gordon this summer. I think Detroit will come to regret this contract, but only time will tell.

The NBA offseason is by no means over, but the lion’s share is behind us, so it’s a good time to take a look back at a few of the…um…let’s say “questionable” decisions of the summer. Here are my Top 10, in no particular order. Feel free to add to the list if I missed something.

1. Trevor Ariza plays spiteful hardball…and loses.
Let’s get this straight — the Lakers offered Ariza the same deal he was getting on the open market, and he refused since the Lakers could have offered more, but didn’t? Um, okay. David Lee (the agent, not the Knicks forward) says that Ariza wanted to go somewhere where he’d be “appreciated.” Lee overestimated the market for his client, and the Lakers quickly moved on to acquire Ron Artest. Now instead of playing for the world champs, Ariza is stuck in Houston on a team that faces a very uncertain future. Lee now says that Ariza turned down a deal worth $9 million more, but still picked Houston. It sounds to me like he’s just trying to save face.

2. Grizzlies acquire Zach Randolph.
Once the Clippers traded for Randolph (and his toxic contract) last season, I thought the bar for NBA general managers had hit a new low thanks to Mike Dunleavy and his wily ways. But Dunleavy proved that he wasn’t the dumbest GM in the league when he convinced the Memphis Grizzlies to take on the final two years Randolph’s contract at the tune of $33.3 million. Remember that $25 million or so of cap space that the Grizzlies were going to have next summer? Yeah, that’s down to about $8 million with this brilliant move. Just when it looked like Chris Wallace was going to rehab his image after the Pau Gasol trade — Marc Gasol panning out, trading for O.J. Mayo — he goes and does this. Sigh.

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The Detroit Pistons have a ton of cap space heading into 2009 NBA free agency, and they apparently aren’t afraid to use it, agreeing in principle to contracts with Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.

Former Bulls guard Gordon will receive a five-year deal for between $55 million and $60 million, while former Bucks forward Villanueva gets a five-year deal for $40 million, sources told ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard.

Gordon rejected deals from Chicago in excess of $50 million each of the past two seasons. Milwaukee elected to let the 24-year-old Villanueva become an unrestricted free agent earlier this week, after the Bucks determined that matching any restricted free-agent offers would move the team closer to the luxury tax threshold and limit changing the roster.

It’s not surprising that the Pistons signed both of these players, but the value of the contracts seem a little high when taking the current economic climate into consideration. It seems like GM Joe Dumars is operating in a 2006 or 2007 mindset when the reality is that the demand for these players probably didn’t justify $11 million per season for Gordon and $8 millon per season for Villanueva.

There are only eight teams with significant cap space this summer — the Grizzlies, Pistons, Hawks, Thunder, Kings, Raptors, Blazers and Timberwolves — and Memphis, OKC and Minnesota weren’t expected to be big players this offseason. The Bulls were trying to re-sign Gordon, and they probably were in the same neighborhood of the two deals they offered over the last two years that averaged $10 million and $9 million per season, so Detroit may have felt they had to outbid Chicago to pry him away. But I just don’t think he’s worth it, given his defensive liabilities and his lack of size for an off guard.

As for Villanueva, he was intrigued with the possibility of playing with LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal in Cleveland, but they could only offer him a mid-level deal, which would probably start at around $5.5 million per season. Even though his new contract’s $8 million per season average is the first thing to jump out, we need to focus on the first season. The contract could very well start at $6 million and go up $1 million per season for five years, which would add up to $40 million. They needed to outbid the mid-level deal to convince Villanueva to join a non-contender. Still, that’s a big commitment for a player who has a reputation for being a poor defender and has had his work ethic questioned at time. But at 24, Villanueva is still learning and is already a proven scorer.

This Gordon signing may indicate that Rip Hamilton will be moved before next February’s trade deadline. Though he’s getting older, he’s still a highly efficient scorer and he’d definitely be able to help a contender. I doubt that it’s Dumars’ plan to have $22 million locked up per season at one position. If Hamilton is moved, then the Pistons would be building around a lineup of Rodney Stuckey, Gordon, Tayshaun Prince and Villanueva.