I’m not sure who is worse off after this move – fans of the Dallas Mavericks of fans of the New York Knicks?

Are the Knicks really better after signing an ancient point guard? It also sounds like they’re going to pay big money to keep Jeremy Lin. He’s a good player but will he be worth the salary? The Knicks are still a mess.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Mavericks that won a title last year are officially dismantled. They made a big push for Deron Williams, but that smart strategy didn’t pan out. Now Kidd is gone along with Jason Terry and most of the gang that surrounded Dirk for the title run. Now what?

The Nets have to be breathing a sigh of relief, and now they can turn their attention to Dwight Howard.

I’m guessing most people are sick of hearing about Dwight Howard and the drama he creates. Fans of the Orlando Magic have to be totally disgusted at this point, but this is the modern NBA.

There are plenty of stories of teams like the Lakers and the Rockets going after Howard, but he tells Yahoo! Sports that he’ll only sign an extension with one team.

Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard told Yahoo! Sports he will not re-sign with a team outside his preferred list that trades for him, and emphatically denied that he ever used the term “blackmail” to describe how Magic officials convinced him to waive his early termination option.

As the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and other teams prepare possible trade offers for him, Howard told Yahoo! by phone that, “There’s only one team on my list and if I don’t get traded there, I’ll play the season out and explore my free agency after that.”

Howard wouldn’t specify the team, but multiple league sources believe that it is the Brooklyn Nets.

Naturally this makes it even harder for the Magic to get fair value for Howard, which is probably what he wants.

Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics have resigned Kevin Garnett and are hoping to lock in Ray Allen and Jeff Green to extensions. O.J. Mayo may be a stretch for them as he can get more elsewhere, while Jason Terry could be an option.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors are going all in trying to bring Steve Nash back home to the Great White North.

Here’s an interesting story that gets into the behind-the-scenes drama of Portland’s max contract offer to Roy Hibbert.

One big fish will be Deron Williams who will be choosing from among a number of teams including the Mavs and the Nets.

Per ESPN…

In a memo sent to players on Tuesday night and obtained by ESPN on Wednesday, [Billy Hunter] said the NBPA supports all players “who are taking steps to continue to earn a living, stay in peak competitive shape, and play the game that we love while the unfortunate league-imposed lockout is in place.”

“This lockout is intended to economically pressure our players to agree to an unfavorable collective bargaining agreement,” Hunter wrote. “It is important for the owners to understand that there may be significant consequences to their decision to put their own players in these difficult economic circumstances.

“If the owners will not give our players a forum in which to play basketball here in the United States, they risk losing the greatest players in the world to the international basketball federations that are more than willing to employ them.”

This support flies in the face of Stephen A. Smith’s assertion that Deron Williams is selfish for signing a one-year deal to play in Turkey. If the players are able to prove that they can find work elsewhere, it will put them in a position of power since it will prove that the owners need them more than they need the owners. Not everyone is going to go overseas, but that doesn’t really change the dynamic within the union. Deron Williams wants to lockout to end just like every other player in the league, whether he plays in Turkey or not.

Here’s an idea — every player that plays elsewhere during the lockout puts 25% of his pay into a slush fund that will be distributed amongst all mid-level and lower players in the union. That way, those rank and file players will keep getting paychecks (however small) and the union’s position will be that much stronger. No one would question the union’s togetherness with such a system in place.

ESPN recently ran a piece where it asked TrueHoop bloggers whether or not Orlando, New Jersey, New Orleans and Phoenix should trade their star players this offseason. I thought I’d chime in with my own thoughts:

Dwight Howard

This has to be a gut call from GM Otis Smith — he knows Howard better than any member of the media and if he believes his superstar wants to stay, then he should do everything in his power to make it happen. Only I don’t know how he gets the Magic back in the fold as a true contender given the available pieces he has to move. There has been one personnel mistake after another since Orlando’s appearance in the 2009 Finals. Just like Chris Bosh and LeBron James, the writing is on the wall, isn’t it? Dwight Howard is leaving, and if Smith can acquire someone with the upside of Andrew Bynum in the process, that might be the Magic’s best bet to jump start the rebuilding process.

Deron Williams

Of course the Nets should hold onto Williams. He’s a franchise point guard and with Brook Lopez in tow and a load of cap space, the soon-to-be Brooklyn Whatevers are poised to make a big jump in the standings. Mikhail Prokhorov’s management team has done a nice job thus far, though I have no idea why they gave Travis Outlaw $7 million a year. Without that albatross of a contract, the Nets would be even better position to make a splash in free agency and surround Williams with the wings that he needs to be successful.

Chris Paul

This is a unique situation, what with the NBA owning the Hornets and all. One of ESPN’s bloggers said the “fair” thing to do is let CP3 walk, but that’s not the best move for the franchise. I think they should offer Paul for Russell Westbrook straight up. That may not be the first step on the road to a championship, but it’s probably the best deal the Hornets will get. Plus, no one will look at Westbrook funny when he takes 30 shots and turns the ball over six times per game. (Or how about Paul for Eric Gordon? New Orleans needs a good young star to build around.) Bottom line? I don’t think there’s much of a chance of Paul re-upping after the season, so New Orleans should get as much in return as possible while they still can.

Steve Nash

Forget all this talk about Nash retiring a Sun. That can’t be what’s most important to him. He must want to taste the Conference Finals again, so Phoenix should trade him to a playoff team that can offer draft picks and/or a good young player in return. What’s the point in letting Nash’s career die a slow death on a team that’s going nowhere? Stop being selfish, Phoenix Suns. Free Steve Nash.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been waiting to write this piece for the last couple of weeks. With the way that the Thunder had been closing games, I knew it was just a matter of time before they’d be eliminated from the Playoffs and I have been thinking about the different directions that the franchise can go from here.

After watching both the Memphis and Dallas series, I have come to this conclusion: Oklahoma City can not win a title with Russell Westbrook at the point.

It’s not that he’s not a good player. He is. He’s just not a point guard. People say that he has come a long way in his three seasons, but he sure didn’t show it in the last two series. Take a look at his numbers in the fourth quarter (and overtime) of all the games against Dallas and Memphis:

Westbrook was benched for one fourth quarter against the Mavs, so he played four 4th quarters and one overtime against Dallas. I threw out Game 5 against the Grizzlies because it wasn’t close in the 4th quarter, and I’m interested in how he plays with the game on the line. In total, he played six 4th quarters and four overtimes against Memphis. That adds up to 145 potential minutes and Westbrook played a majority of them. That many minutes converts to three full games (145/48 = 3.02), so I divided his totals by three to give us a rough idea of what his per game averages would have been if we only counted his 4th quarter and overtime numbers.

His totals (27.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists) are fairly impressive, but his shooting percentages (37% 2P, 22% 3P) are not. He did do a great job of getting to the line (12.3) and made them when he got there, at least against the Grizzlies. He turned the ball over at an extraordinary rate (7.3 per “game”). His assist-to-turnover ratio (0.59) was absolutely brutal. To put this in perspective, a ratio of 2.5 is average for a point guard, while the best ones are usually over 3.0.

He’s not a point guard. This much is clear. In his career, he has played 269 games at the position and proved against the Grizzlies and the Mavs that he’s not consistently able to be the floor general that a championship-caliber team needs.

So what does OKC do with him? The way I see it, they have two options:

1. Move him to off guard.
He’s a little undersized at 6’3″, but with his long arms and athletic ability, he could defend most opposing shooting guards. Also, for a “shooting” guard, he’s not a very good shooter (33% 3P on the season), but Dwyane Wade isn’t very accurate from distance and he makes it work.

In my mind, Westbrook’s best way forward is to follow in Wade’s shoes. Wade isn’t a point guard either, and he has figured out a way to play off guard even though he’s a little undersized.

The problem with moving Westbrook to the ‘two’ is that it’s going to impact James Harden, who is a prototypical off guard. Harden would either stay on the bench (he’s too good for that) or he would have to play small forward, where he would be undersized. That would push Durant to the ‘four’ and he’s not strong enough right now to play power forward on a consistent basis.

This leads me to option 2 for Westbrook…

2. Trade him.
If I were GM Sam Presti, I’d get the Hornets on the line and see if they’d be willing to give up Chris Paul for Westbrook. The Hornets may be feeling the pressure to do something with Paul since he’s entering the final year of his contract and may be on his way out of town. If they don’t trade him and he signs elsewhere, it would be disastrous. It’s very tough to get equal value for a superstar, but with all his flaws, Westbrook is an All-Star and All-NBA performer who could make a killing as an off guard on the right team. Perhaps New Orleans would go for a package that would include Westbrook, Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson’s expiring contract. (See it in the ESPN Trade Machine.)

If the Hornets decline to trade Paul, then I’d ring up the Nets and see if they would do the same deal for Deron Williams, who is in a similar position (contract-wise) as Paul. Both the Hornets and Nets have to feel the pressure with these two point guards, and if the Thunder played the two teams off of each other, I bet someone would bite.

Imagine a lineup of Paul (or Williams), Harden, Durant, Collison and Ibaka for the next five years! I have no inside info, but I suspect both Paul and Williams would love to join the Thunder simply because they’ll have a chance to contend for a title for the next several years. And don’t forget that Paul is familiar with OKC since the Hornets played there (and drew great crowds) while New Orleans was recovering from Hurricane Katrina.

Obviously, Westbrook would have to agree to an extension as part of the trade, as would Paul/Williams. Both sides will need to come away from the trade with the peace of mind that their new star is locked up for the long term.

Is a Westbrook trade going to happen? Probably not, but that’s the direction I would go if I were in charge. The current makeup of the roster cannot accommodate his move to off guard and there’s no one to take over the point even if he did. (Eric Maynor is a solid backup, but he’s just that…a backup.) A trade would bring in an impact point guard and free up all those minutes for Harden at the two.

So with a little help from Basketball-Reference.com, I compiled a list of (all?) the Hall of Fame point guards: Oscar Robertson, Lenny Wilkens, Bob Cousy, Jerry West, John Stockton, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Dennis Johnson, Tiny Archibald, Calvin Murphy, Pete Maravich and Walt Frazier. Unfortunately, the NBA didn’t start keeping track of turnovers until the 1977-78 season, so there’s no assist-to-turnover data for the first four (Robertson, Wilkens, Cousy, West) and the data for Archibald, Murphy, Maravich and Frazier is incomplete, so I could only use their post-1977 numbers.

I also compiled a list of the top non-HOF point guards who are both retired and still active: Jason Kidd, Mark Jackson, Steve Nash, Gary Payton, Rod Strickland, Maurice Cheeks, Terry Porter, Tim Hardaway, Andre Miller, Muggsy Bogues, Kevin Johnson, Derek Harper, Stephon Marbury (yes, Stephon Marbury), John Lucas, Norm Nixon, Mookie Blaylock, Sam Cassell, Avery Johnson, Baron Davis, Nick Van Exel, Allen Iverson, Chauncey Billups and Mike Bibby. All of these players have at least 5,400 career assists, which seemed to be the cutoff for players I was interested in using for this study.

Lastly, I added seven of the top current point guards who have yet to break the 5,400-assist barrier: Tony Parker, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams and of course, Chris Paul.

I first tackled this subject two years ago, and settled on the shot-to-assist ratio to determine whether a player is “pass-first” or “shoot-first.” The higher the number, the more of a “shoot-first” player he is. To determine whether or not a player is “turnover-prone,” I calculated each player’s assist-to-turnover ratio. The higher the number, the better the player is at taking care of the ball, relative to what he’s asked to do as a playmaker for his team. The graph takes a gentle downward slope because assists are part of both calculations. (Note: While I do like FGA/A as the criteria for shoot-first/pass-first, I am not completely sold on A/TO as the criteria for turnover-prone. Perhaps (A+FGA)/TO would show shoot-first guards in a better light? Maybe I’ll try that next year.)

Here’s how the graph turned out. Click on it to see a bigger version.

Pass-first/shoot-first goes left to right, while takes care of the ball/turnover-prone sits on the vertical axis.

A few random thoughts:

— This is not typically an indictment of a player’s game. Most offenses call for a playmaking point guard, while others do not. For example, Sam Cassell was definitely a scoring point guard, but he was a great fit in the Houston offense alongside Hakeem Olajuwon, who was very adept at drawing the double-team and kicking the ball out to the open shooter. Cassell’s role on that team was to hit open shots, not run the pick-and-roll over and over in an attempt to set up other shooters (like John Stockton).

— Murphy, Frazier, Iverson and Maravich were so far to the right on the shoot-first scale that if had I shown their plot points, the rest of the graph would have been unreadable. Their shot-to-assist ratios ranged from 3.40 (Frazier) to 4.75 (Murphy). In the modern era, Iverson is probably the quintessential shoot-first point guard, even though he did average 6.2 assists per game.

— Speaking of quintessential, it’s no surprise that John Stockton and Chris Paul are in the top-left quadrant, but Muggsy Bogues’ presence is a little surprising. He couldn’t score very well (career 7.7 ppg), but his assist-to-turnover ratio (4.69) was easily the best of the players in the study.

— Other players in the top-left quadrant like Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Mark Jackson, Maurice Cheeks, Rajohn Rondo and Avery Johnson are your traditional pass-first point guards. Magic Johnson also qualifies, but he was special because he could drop 35 points on you if necessary.

— Just because a player is not a traditional pass-first point guard does not mean that he can’t have great success. Isiah Thomas, Sam Cassell, Tony Parker and Dennis Johnson all have multiple NBA titles on their resumes, while Chauncey Billups has one of his own. This is good news for Rose, Westbrook and Curry, who are not traditional pass-first point guards.