Jesse: Draft in Review

In true blogger fashion I feel obligated to share my thoughts on the draft. Now in convenient bulletin format! To read Sam’s breakdown click here, or stop being lazy and scroll down.

• I love that Orlando-New Jersey trade . . . for the Celtics. Now the 5 best players for the Magic all fancy themselves as the number one option. I think it will be absolutely impossible to keep Vince, Dwight, Hedo (assuming they resign him), Lewis and Nelson happy. Nelson as the point guard especially is more of a scorer than a facilitator, and I think the Magic will struggle to integrate all of these ball hogs into their system. Courtney Lee was one of those glue guys that every championship team needs. A Derek Fisher type who defends, scraps and hits open shots. I think he will be missed in Orlando. But on the plus side for the Magic I would be very surprised if Ryan Anderson doesn’t develop into a poor man’s Dirk Nowitzki, I think that’s a good thing. Right?
• I completely disagree with Sam’s assessment of Minnesota’s draft. I don’t see how Flynn and Rubio can work in the same backcourt together. Both guys are true points who demand the ball and neither one of them can defend a shooting guard. It seemed like Kahn just hedged his bets that one of the two will develop. The gutsy thing to do would have been to draft the once a decade shooter in Stephen Curry. Curry plus Rubio would have brought some much needed flair and excitement to a franchise in need of some invigoration. With the trade of Miller and Foye there is no one left on that roster who can shoot well enough to keep opponents from doubling or tripling Big Al. This strikes me as a poor attempt to emulate Danny Ainge’s blue print of stockpiling assets and trading them for superstars. The Celtics situation was more about luck than careful planning. The Celts had missed out on Oden and Durant and were going to be stuck drafting Yi. Had Boston had the chance to take a serviceable player with that number five pick, I think they would have missed out on Ray Allen. Minnesota had a great shooting guard staring them in the face and turned it down.
• So the Cavaliers glide through the regular season, leaving a wake of destruction, then get upset in the Conference Finals because they can’t match up with Orlando’s size on the perimeter and they remedy this by trading for Shaquille O’Neal? Is the Big Aristotle going to guard Rashard Lewis? Sure the Cavs had trouble defending Dwight Howard, but their fatal flaw was that Delonte West and Mo Williams weren’t big enough to keep Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkgolu from raining three-point death down upon them. I think that the Finals against the Lakers proved that the Cavalier’s inability to stop Howard stemmed more from poor strategy than a lack of talent. Also LeBron is best when he’s barreling to the hoop with reckless abandon, but with Shaq clogging up the lane on offense those forays to the hoops might become farther and farther between.
• On the plus side for the Cavs all they lose is money, and Shaq’s $20 million comes off the books during the summer of LeBron. Plus the Diesel does have an impressive track record of winning when paired with a dominant wing player. But I’ll believe this one when I see it.
• Larry Bird loves him some white folks. Adding Hansbrough to a group that already includes Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Jeff Foster and Travis Diener means that if Danny Granger gets injured the Pacers could be throwing a complete white out on the floor in certain situations. Maybe the Legend can figure out a way to acquire Brian Cardinal and this guy. What? Too soon?

-Jesse

Sam: Draft in Review

All in all, it was a pretty entertaining draft. It's a shame that all the crazy trades that have occurred over the last few days didn't occur all within a two hour span, causing Stuart Scott's good eye to go wide in shock while the other blinks independently with uncontrollable excitement. The only substantial-ish trade on draft night was the Q-Rich for Darko swap, which is exciting for exactly two reasons: the pained, overdramatic reaction of Knicks fans, and the reunion of Q-Rich and Darius Miles. Headpound!

There never has been, nor will there ever be a draft moment as hilarious as when Earl Clark was drafted by the Suns at fifteen. "Earl Clark is not here tonight...... BUT......", followed by a surprise appearance from Brandon Jennings. I kept hoping that whenever someone was drafted without being present that they'd have Brandon Jennings accept the Commissioner's handshake on their behalf, but to no avail. Likewise, the thirty seconds or so before it was announced that the Wolves weren't keeping Ty Lawson were great, especially the shot of a very confused Roy Williams counting the number of point guards the Wolves had taken on his fingers.

Speaking of that, I think the Wolves had the best draft of the night by far. People are giving them flak for not drafting Stephen Curry, but I think Flynn is just as good a pick. The Wolves could have definitely used the scoring that Curry may have brought to the table, assuming his game translates well enough to the NBA, but the Wolves need defense just as badly as they need scoring. David Kahn seems like a pretty sharp guy, and I don't see any reason to blame him for taking the best guy he thought was still left, especially when he fills their needs. Rubio and Flynn aren't as ideal as Rubio or Flynn and James Harden, but they should be able to play together just fine. The Wolves aren't competing for a championship anytime soon, so for now they can play their two point guards, decide which one they like better, and eventually move one of them if it's not working out. Flynn also gives the Wolves an insurance policy in case Rubio can't find a way out of his buyout over the next year or two, which isn't ideal for Minnesota but doesn't cripple them if they have to wait until Ricky is a spry twenty years old to come over.

A couple more thoughts on the draft:

• It's going to be interesting to see how the Amare Stoudemire trade plays out in light of the Warriors drafting Stephen Curry. I already mentioned that I wasn't sure he'd be a star player, but he's certainly a good prospect. The rumored deal was already practically highway robbery for the Suns, but throwing in the draft pick is just a bad idea.

• The Nets have a really good young core now that they've added Courtney Lee via trade and Terrance Williams through the draft.

• Scott Skiles is going to hate Brandon Jennings for some reason and never play him, which is too bad because the Bucks could really use a pure point like him.

• I think Thabeet is going to be a good player in the Dikembe-mold, but I doubt he's going to be able to play very well at the same time with Marc Gasol, who turned out to be a pretty good player in his own right. Thabeet's bright silver suit was also second only to James Harden's bow tie.

• Not that there were many good players left when by that time, but the Pistons selected a 6'11", 190 pound guy. Worse than that, Austin Daye has a reputation for being lazy. It's almost like Joe Dumars fell down in his office and got badly hurt so he's making bad moves like crazy so someone will come in and check on him.

• Even the Austin Daye pick wasn't the worst of the first round. The Cavaliers drafted Christian Eyenga with the last pick of the draft. Eyenga, who wasn't projected to be drafted at all, is a player who only entered the draft so he wouldn't be drafted so he could avoid the rookie pay scale structure if he ever decided to come over to the NBA.

-Sam

Tweet, Tweet or Why Ignorance Really is Bliss

Twitter, the 140 character, constantly updated from the blackberry, black mark on society. Software so powerful it has the ability to turn otherwise intelligent people into blabbering 14 year old girls. LOLROFLOMG!! What happens when you combine this source of pure unadulterated narcissism with professional athletes? Horror. Whether players are Tweeting in the locker room at half time, or from the comfort of home, the results are always the same; they put a gun to the head of the English language and pull the trigger, scattering brains and blood as far as the eye can see. No prisoners are taken, no quarter is ever given. What you’re about to see are actual posts from actual NBA players. In an effort to be as fair as possible I only used posts from players who attended college. You’ve been warned. Let the butchering begin.

Shaq: Everyone loves the Big Aristotle, and interviews with Shaq are often truthful, insightful and entertaining. His Twitter account on the other hand is anything but.

THE_REAL_SHAQO lance armstrong I challenge you on a time trail anytime anywere, I dnt smell fear do I, smmmmm smmmmmm dats the sniffn sound

7:27 PM Jun 19th from TwitterBerry

THE_REAL_SHAQKevin hart is the funniest tall midget ever, lol, lmfao, dnt tell. Kevin whateva u do. Plssss shhhhhhh

8:05 PM Jun 17th from TwitterBerry

Wilson Chandler: It would appear that English is not the first language of this promising young player for the Knicks.

RT @JohannPaddl: @Will_Chandler yea dawg throw some machine gun funk n everyday struggle wit big on that list, take pain wit 2pac as well!

about 3 hours ago from UberTwitter

Paul Pierce: Oh not the Truth too. What an advertisement for the University of Kansas.

Lakers vs orlando. Looked like a german sherperd vs a poodle that's ok the rotwieler celtics will b back in 2o10

4:06 PM Jun 17th from txt

Ok that’s enough I can’t take it anymore. My question is: who is handling these guys? There isn’t a public relations person on staff for the Celtics, Knicks or Suns who could spend a few hours a day transcribing this muck into English? Is it good for these players’ images to let the whole world know that they are borderline illiterate? In order to access these “Tweets” I signed up for a Twitter account, and I gave it a test run to make sure that it has spell check. It does, red lines abound.

The Internet has allowed fans to have unprecedented access into the lives of their favorite athletes. No longer is conventional media the filter through which we learn about players' personalities. But now that we’ve seen the sheer unvarnished truth is it too late to bring back newspapers? Truthfully part of the problem is the format. Twitter emphasizes brevity, and as a result deemphasizes grammar and sentence structure. Nevertheless I liked Shaq better when I could believe he had some sort of grasp on his native language. Although not as insidious as performance enhancing drugs, or players with rap sheets of violent crimes a mile long, Twitter offers fans a view of their favorite players that maybe they shouldn't have. I find that the more I know about some of the players in the sports I love, the less there is to like.

-Jesse

For a list of NBA players with Twitter accounts check here.

Why I Enjoy NBA Draft Night More Than My Own Birthday

Last year for my birthday I got a large cooking pot. Don't get me wrong, I've been happily boiling water in that thing for spaghetti since then, but a you get older your birthdays start to lose a little bit of the flash they used to have. There's no real point it starts, but somewhere along the way you stop getting exciting things like the Ninja Turtle Party Van and start getting practical things like oven mitts. Thankfully, I have the NBA Draft once a year to replace the childhood sized hole in my heart.

The Draft has everything that anyone could want in entertainment. It's probably only second to the trading deadline for number of trades, and there's something about seeing them unfold live that makes even the dud trades that much more exciting. There's no reason you should ever call your frantically call one of your friends to discuss Denver trading a future second round pick for Sonny Weems, but you do it anyway because it's Draft Night. Waiting to see who's the last person in the green room to drafted is always dramatic, especially as he begins to squirm as he tumbles out of the lottery and into the late first round. Every year a lottery team will hilariously draft someone you've never heard of or reach too early for a big name college player who is almost certain not to translate well to the NBA. We're almost certain to see all these things happen a week from tonight, and here's a few of the things I'm going to be keeping an eye out for.

Where Art Thou, Rubio? Okay, everyone saw Ricky Rubio tear it up against Team USA in the Olympics as a seventeen year old last year. He's the best point guard prospect in a draft that is seemingly entirely point guards. Memphis is interested in him and has even said they'll draft him even if he doesn't want to play there, which he probably doesn't. I'm personally rooting for Rubio to fall to Sacramento and their desperate point guard void, and terrified of him being drafted by Oklahoma City despite the presence of Russell Westbrook.

The Next Jalen Rose. Someone is bound to wear a hideous suit. It's like Oscar night for the sports enthusiast. Fashions fade, but style is eternal.

Trades Galore! Maybe, maybe not. Some experts are suggesting that, because of the economy, there won't be a lot of trade action this year even with all the 2010 excitement for expiring contracts. I'm hoping this isn't true, as being surprised with trades the instant they happen is probably the most exciting part of the night. This year I'm expecting the Knicks to sign and trade David Lee and/or Nate Robinson almost entirely for the sake of not having big salaries in 2010. David Kahn, the new Timberwolves GM, has also said that he's looking to make a big splash.

Someone Is Going To Waste a Pick on Tyler Hansbourogh. It's going to be really, really funny when they do.

-Sam

Red vs. Phil

I live in the Northeast.  When I drive around in my car I occasionally listen to sports talk radio.  Combining both of these factors means than in the past 12 hours I have heard someone tell me that Red Auerbach was a better coach than Phil Jackson approximately 118 times.  If I had the misfortune of living on the opposite coast (shudder) I’m sure that this morning my radio dial would be buzzing with support for the Zen Master.  Although both sides can craft compelling arguments for their candidate, I’ve yet to hear anyone construct the argument in the proper way.  The question isn’t; who is the better coach?  The question is; what is a more impressive accomplishment, Jackson’s 10 championships in the modern era, or Red’s 9 championships including 8 in a row?  Let’s break it down.

 

The Competition:

This factor is pretty clearly in Jackson’s corner.  Red coached in the NBA when it had only 10 teams, whereas Phil has won all his championships in an era with 30 teams plus. Red also coached before the advent of free agency, meaning that once you put together a dominant team it was easier to keep it together every year.

The Bottom Line: The bigger the league the harder it is to win.

Advantage Phil

The Franchises:

Red was at the helm of the most dominant franchise in the history of professional sports.   The 8 championships in a row is unlikely to be matched in any sport.  In his 20 years on the bench Red won eleven Eastern Conference titles, nine NBA championships, and 938 games.  In addition to the 9 championships Red won as a coach, he collected 7 more rings as a General Manager.

Phil has won his 10 championships with two different organizations: two three-peats with Jordan’s Bulls, another three-peat with Shaq and Kobe, and this latest title with Kobe and Pau Gasol.

The Bottom Line: Red’s loyalty to one team wins out here.

Advantage Red. 

 

The Nuts and Bolts:  

Red coached in a time before there was the specialization we see in the NBA today. Red had no assistant coaches; he was coach, the GM, the traveling secretary, and probably the janitor.  He was expected not only to buy the groceries, and cook the dinner, but do the dishes afterwards as well.

Phil has guided his teams in an era of big money where every organization carries multiple assistants and has advance scouts who ensure that the head coach’s job is as specialized as possible.  In fact long-time assistant Tex Winter developed Phil’s greatest strategic advantage, the triangle offense.   However this point also works in Phil’s favor. Red coached in a time when he just had to be smarter than a dozen other people.  Phil has to outthink hundreds.  Today every play from every player is broken down dozens of times before every game.  Coaches know the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, and mid game adjustments are more important than ever.

Bottom Line: Although Red had more on his plate, the job of an NBA coach is tougher today.

Advantage Phil.

 

Legacy:

In 1950 Red was the first coach/GM in the NBA to break the color barrier when he drafted Chuck Cooper.  By 1964 he became the first coach to start an all black starting five, and when he retired from coaching in 1966 he hired Bill Russell as the first black head coach of an NBA franchise.  And let's not forget that the backdrop for all of these accomplishments was the notoriously racist city of Boston.

Championships and the progressive ideals aside, Red is perhaps best known as a gregarious, dominating and engaging personality.  The image of Red sitting on the bench contentedly puffing on the ever-present victory cigar is indelibly impressed on the mind of every NBA fan. 

It is a little early to judge Phil’s legacy, but beyond the titles he will be remembered for the hippy zen stuff, calling Kobe “uncoachable” in his autobiography, the triangle offense, and this basketball card.  Yet ultimately Jackson’s legacy is too tied up in the players he coached.  Twenty years from now, in a game of word association the name Jordan will be recalled more than Jackson when discussing the Bulls.  The same goes for Shaq and Kobe with the Lakers.

The Bottom Line: When Red died, Paul Pierce cried.

Advantage Red.

 

Damn, that leaves it at 2-2 . . . I need a tie breaker.  This'll do. 

Good enough for me.

 

-Jesse

Death of a Shooter

The reality of pain, and the joy of laughter


My hopes and dreams shattered
by the miscalculation of my own situation


It's difficult to keep my nerves patient


Facing the forecast of fears
that none of my peers have ever been faced with


I wanna reach the top floor, but I'm stuck in the basement

-Excerpt of an actual poem by J.J. Redick

While watching game two of the NBA finals the question may have crossed your mind, “who was that awkward looking white guy running around during crunch time for the Magic?”  That my friends, was the greatest scorer in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference, one J.J. Redick.  It’s hard to believe that the same player who set college basketball on fire while at Duke with his smooth stroke and penchant for knocking down the big shot, is the same guy missing open threes, making silly turnovers and getting burned on D in the NBA.

Coming out of college most people agreed that Redick was a project whose upside was more Steve Kerr than Rick Barry.  But could anyone guess that he would be this big of a bust?  Three years ago it was difficut to imagine that the guy pitching me Better Basketball videos would be shooting 37% from behind the arc in the League. Since most of Redick’s shots are of the wide-open variety, coming as a result of a double team kick-out by Dwight Howard it seems hard to believe he would struggle like he does.  The conventional wisdom when J.J. came out of Duke was that at the very least he would be a consistent, if not spectacular spot up shooter in the NBA, someone coaches would have to hide on D but who could be counted on to stretch defenses. Yet, over and over again Redick has frustrated Orlando fans with his inconsistency shooting a shot that used to be his bread and butter.  Without any athleticism to speak of, or a knack for finding open teammates, Redick has become a black hole of sadness on the court.

The man who stood above names like Jordan, Carter, and Hill while at Duke, has been benched in the NBA for a Frenchman and a guy from Western Kentucky.  So this begs the question, “why?”  Is it a lack of confidence, has he lost his focus on the fundamentals, is the lack of athleticism finally catching up with him? No, all of those are too obvious, it must be something deeper, something like the faux-hawk.

Can it be a fluke that Redick’s shooting ability took a downward turn as soon as his hair started pointing up?  I’m not sure, but that seems like a pretty big coincidence to me.  Notice that Duke J.J. kept it cropped close, know why?  Because he was too busy practicing his freaking shooting to worry about sculpting his hair.  At Duke Redick must have had a very structured regime.  I imagine it went something like this.

8 a.m.- 9.a.m.- Wake up, eat breakfast

9 a.m.- 11 a.m.- Practice shooting threes

11 a.m.- 1 p.m.- Practice shooting threes

1 p.m.- 3 p.m.- Write bad poetry

3 p.m.- 4 p.m.- Practice shooting threes

4 p.m.- 5 p.m.- Practice shooting threes

5 p.m.- 5:30 p.m.- Polish Shelden Williams’ forehead

5:30 p.m.- 10 p.m.- Practice shooting threes

10 p.m.- 8 a.m.- Dream about shooting threes

See how regimented that is?  Now that J.J.’s in the league he’s clearly reprioritized his day and over accommodated for the personal grooming.  The solution?  It won’t be easy but someone needs to kick J.J. of the comb and grease habit and get him back to working on the stroke.  If Stan the Man was smart he would hire the one and only Jeff Hornacek as an assistant coach.  If Patrick Ewing can be Howard’s personal mentor, why can’t J.J. have a little guidance?  Few in the history of the NBA have ever matched Horny’s combination of no-nonsense hair and cold-blooded long range bombing.  Jeff never had to worry about losing his grip on the ball due to greasy fingers, or whether the tweens in the crowd thought he was hot.  Nope, Horny would wet his fingers, push the hair to one side, then go out on the court and rip the hearts out of opposing shooting guards.

The solution is simple, if J.J. ever hopes to become a serviceable NBA player he needs to take a page from The Hornacek.  Leave the hair care for the ladies and start balling.

-Jesse

 

Kobe's Legacy

Few superstars in NBA history have scored or won like Kobe Bryant, and few have generated the same on and off court controversy.  Critics of the Black Mamba point out that his 3 rings came on the back of the Diesel, and no amount of personal glory has been enough to anoint Kobe along the likes of MJ, Oscar, and West.  Detractors insist that in order to validate his stellar career, Bryant must coax a championship out of the quaking knees of Lamar Odom.  But I think that in twenty years when we look back on Kobe’s career no one will care how many championships he claimed.

2009 is probably the best chance Kobe will ever have to win a title as the lead dog.  There has been a noticeable drop off in Bryant’s athleticism the past few years and it seems pretty clear that the Lakers are looking down the backside of their championship window.  Next year the Cavs will be retooled with an even hungrier LeBron leading the charge.  KG has already guaranteed a Celtics return to glory in 2010 and 2011, and young teams like Portland and New Orleans should be a year wiser.  All of this coupled with the return of the Big 3 in San Antonio and a full year of Mr. Big Shot in Denver makes it pretty clear that the Lakers will be facing an uphill battle.  So if it doesn’t happen this year for Kobe, odds are it never will.  But will that actually matter when we look back at Bryant’s career? 

Let’s suppose for a minute that the first two games of the Finals weren’t outliers and the Magic really don’t intend to show up for this series.  Kobe gets his solo championship, and forever cements his legacy right?  Uh uh, as far as I’m concerned Kobe’s legacy is already set, and wining a ring with Pau Gasol as his second fiddle isn’t going to change anything.  In twenty years when little Evel (still trying to convince the wife that this would be a good name for our first kid) asks me about watching Kobe Bryant, am I really going to regale him with tales of that smooth j, or explosive leaping ability?  No, when Evel asks me about Kobe I’m going to tell him about the bad teammate, the Spike Lee documentary, and the $4 million “oops” ring he bought his wife.  I’m going to talk about Kobe pulling a no-show in game six of the 2008 Finals, how he would annoyingly lick his lips, and try to put on my best Kobe “things are going badly better start yelling at Luke Walton” scowl.  That’s the Kobe I’ll always remember, and I think that’s the Kobe that most people outside of L.A. will look back on.  A great player to be sure, but a questionable human being at best and a bad teammate. 

Kobe is held to a different standard than any other superstar in the NBA.  After the Cavs lost game six in Orlando, LeBron stormed off the court without shaking hands and then skipped the post-game press conference.  Much of the national media gave LeBron a pass, some writers including Bill Simmons praised him for his competitive fire.  But what would the national tenor have been if that was Kobe storming off the court, not LeBron?  Kobe would have been roasted alive, Sportscenter would run one of those time line graphics documenting all the petulant behavior Bryant has displayed throughout his career.  But King James gets a pass.  Why?  Because everyone outside of L.A. hates Kobe, and winning one championship against Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu won’t change anything.  Kobe’s legacy is cemented, too many bad shots, too many snaps at teammates and too much Denver hotel sex.   Rightly or wrongly I feel that Kobe’s legacy is too tied up in his personality for it to matter how he got his rings.  Second fiddle or lead dog, Kobe will always just be Kobe.

-Jesse

The Celtics Are Going To Trade Ray Allen and When They Do It'll Make Me Cry

But they'll be man tears, goddammit. This morning a report appeared on Hoops World that suggested the Celtics are actively shopping Ray Allen and his expiring contract to try and get younger. To make things worse, the report goes on to suggest that the Celtics could include Rajon Rondo to get a deal done. The same Rondo who looked like the best point guard in the league during the first round series with the Bulls this year (and in the interest of fairness, the not so amazing Rondo from the Orlando series). The thing I hate the most about this rumor is the supposed return the Celtics would get: Amare Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa. While Barbosa is a great shooting guard with a contract so reasonable he's practically being scammed, but it's not exactly like the Celtics are in need of a younger KG who doesn't rebound or play defense or wear googles when a doctor tells him to. The good news through all this is that I've looked into it, and this particular rumor was started by a radio talk show host in Phoenix. I've been assured that he's stupid.

Ray Allen rumors are nothing new to Celtics fans. The only difference now is that the rumors are supposedly coming from the big man Danny Ainge himself. It only took days before "Should we trade Ray Allen while his value is high?" threads started popping up on message boards all across the internet. His entire tenure has been marred by internet fans suggesting that we trade Ray or that he come off the bench in favor of a guy who once blew out his knee during a dead ball. Fact is, there are plenty of perfectly good reasons why we should hang onto Ray.

• He's one of the best three point shooters in the league. Just his presence on the floor spaces out opposing defenses allowing guys like Pierce and Rondo to drive.
  
• I think he's supposed to be a pretty snappy dresser.
  

When I first saw the Ray trade rumor this morning, I absolutely hated the idea of moving Ray. Now that I've had about half an hour to reflect on it, I don't know exactly where I stand. On one hand Ray Allen is one of my favorite players, I think he's a player we can win another championship if he's in the lineup, and I'm not really sure how we could improve the team by trading him, especially if you assume that the idea of trading Rondo is silly and won't happen.

Let's entertain the idea that Ray's actually on the block and Rondo may or may not be as well. If someone in Phoenix can make up trade scenarios, then a jerk with a computer like me can do it too.

Internet Jerk Scenario #1: The Celtics trade Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo to the Clippers for Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, and Marcus Camby.

Why the Celtics do it: They're able to replace some of the production lost at the guard positions with a promising young shooting guard and another All-Star caliber player manning the point. We also get our annual old backup big man without having to worry all year that it's going to be Mikki Moore or Drew Gooden.

Why they don't do it: Baron's large contract runs through 2013, when he'll be 34, Pierce will be 36, and KG will be 37, assuming they're both around by then. The Celtics also lose a major three point shooting threat and don't really replace it, especially since Baron is such a poor shooter from beyond the arc, where he averaged about five attempts per game last year. Gordon is more than respectable from back there, but he's not Ray Allen either.

Why the Clippers do it: They lose Camby's expiring contract, but it gets replaced with a much bigger one that wipes away Baron's admittedly bad contract. It helps clear up their logjam of big men and, best of all, they get a young potential future All-Star to pair up with Blake Griffin.

Why they don't do it: They'd much rather get rid of Zach Randolph and his contract than Camby and his expiring. It also wouldn't be surprising if the Clippers coveted Eric Gordon more than Rondo, especially since Rondo would be a poor fit for Mike Dunleavy's controlling half court offense.

Internet Jerk Scenario #2: The Celtics trade Ray Allen to the Rockets for Ron Artest, Luis Scola, and Kyle Lowry.

Why the Celtics do it: The Celtics get a great defensive presence on the perimeter in Ron Artest, who was a model citizen in Houston last year, and probably the Celtics best bet for stopping Lebron in the playoffs next year. They'd also get a better backup point guard than Marbury in Lowry and a quality big man in Scola.

Why they don't do it: It's still possible that Ron Artest could explode in a manner of craziness previously unseen. He may be one of the best defensive stoppers in the league, but it comes with the unfortunate side effect having to humor him while he tries to take over a game on offense. Have you ever seen Ron Artest starting jacking up threes in the fourth quarter? It's pretty ugly. I also couldn't think of a single reason the Rockets wouldn't do this deal, which probably doesn't bode well for the Celtics side of things.

Why the Rockets do it: Frankly, it's a better deal for the Rockets. Assuming they're going to give McGrady one more chance, him and Ray could form a lethal combo on offense. On defense, well, they'd still have Shane Battier so it's okay. They'd also have about forty-five million dollars in expiring contracts between Allen and McGrady alone, if you're big on the 2010 free agent class thing.

Bottom Line:  While Ray is a fantastic player and was an integral part to our championship run last year, he's getting on in years and you can't deny how much a value his large expiring contract has. The Celtics might be better off in the short term keeping Ray, but we also saw what happened when the Celtics held onto Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish too long. If the right deal comes along, it won't be the end of the world to see Ray go. If and when that day comes, I'll still shed a single manly tear for him.

-Sam