NBA News, Notes and Observations: April 3, 2008

With two weeks left in the NBA's regular season I thought it was about time for another round of my News, Notes and Observations.

1) The Hornets control their own destiny.

The Hornets have a one-game lead in the loss column over the Spurs and a two-game lead over the Lakers. As of now, the Hornets own the tie-breaker over both teams.

Even though they split the season series with the Spurs, the Hornets would get the top-seed by virtue of their better record against the Western Conference. The Hornets record against the West is 31-14 while the Spurs are two games back at 29-16. 

The Hornets have a 2-1 lead in their season series with the Lakers. The teams will play their last game against one another next Friday night. Both teams have 14 conference losses so that game could determine who gets the top-seed.

After last night's thrilling victory over the Magic in Orlando, I have no reason to believe that the Hornets will relinquish their lead over the Lakers based on their remaining schedule.

The only remaining difficult games left on the Hornets schedule are home games with the Jazz and Warriors and road games with the Lakers, Kings and Dallas. Even if they were to lose two of those games,  the Lakers would probably have to go undefeated the rest of the way to catch them.

The Spurs have road games left against the Jazz and Portland this weekend and additional road games at the Lakers and Sacramento. They also have home games left with the Suns and Jazz. Should neither the Lakers or Spurs catch New Orleans then the game between them next Sunday will probably decide who gets the second-seed.

2) Does it really matter who gets the last playoff spot in the Western Conference?

While much has been made about the three teams battling it out for the last two playoff spots in the west, I think it's safe to assume that whichever team gets the last spot will end up playing four, maybe five, more games than the team that doesn't make it.

If you really believe that the Hornets or Spurs will finish first or second in the west, then neither the Warriors, Nuggets nor Mavericks will have a chance against either of them. If you think that any of those three can beat the Lakers then the Lakers probably aren't good enough to finish in the top two anyway.

3) The Rockets streak was a blessing and a curse.

The Houston Rockets are suddenly the team that everybody wants to play in the playoffs. Since their 22-game winning streak came to an end the Rockets have lost 5 of their last 8 games, three of them by 20 points or more.

Rafer Alston is no longer playing out of his mind. During the winning streak Alston scored 17 or more points ten times. In the 8 games since the streak ended he's accomplished that feat only once.

The Rockets defense has also taken a step back. During the streak they allowed their opponent to score more than 100 points only three times. Post-streak they've allowed it to happen 4 times in 8 games, not including the 99 points they gave up to Sacramento in last night's loss.

4) King Ron for one more year.

Ron Artest announced that he plans on returning to the Kings next season instead of opting out of his contract and exploring free agency. Artest would love for you to believe that this was his decision when the decision was actually dictated by the current free agent market. Since there are only a few teams with money to spend this summer it's shaping up to be an owner's market.

Two of the teams that will have money to spend, the Grizzlies and Sixers, would never sign him. If Corey Maggette decides to opt-out of his contract then the Clippers might have some money to spend. That would be quite a coincidence considering that the Clippers and Pacers had a deal involving Maggette for Artest that didn't happen because the Pacers were scared off by Maggette's injured foot.

I think this will be a very quiet off-season. I don't think any big names will change teams in free agency. My guess is that there will just be a bunch of average players like James Jones, DeSagana Diop, and Gordan Giricek signing on with new teams.

Although I do think that there will be some big names traded over the summer. It's no secret the Knicks will try to move Zach Randolph. But I wouldn't be surprised to see Jermaine O'Neal, Vince Carter, Josh Howard, Marcus Camby, Michael Redd or Jarrett Jack get moved.

5) Time to get a new agent.

One thing I don't understand about European basketball contracts are the absurd buy-out clauses that clubs put into them. I understand why the teams want to put them in there but why do player agents allow them to be so high when NBA teams  are only allowed to pay $500,000 towards buying a player out?

Rudy Fernandez is considered the best player in Europe right now. The Blazers acquired his rights from the Suns and plan(ned) to bring him over next season. But Fernandez has a buy-out clause in his contract that would require him to pay $2.2 million to become a free agent. If Fernandez only makes $1 million in Portland next year and the Blazers are only allowed to pay $500,000 of his buy-out, then Fernandez would have to pay $1.7 million out of his own pocket to become a free agent.

Something has to be done to change the current system. Either agents have to stop allowing their clients to sign these types of deals, the NBA increases the amount of money that teams are allowed to contribute to a buy-out or European clubs need to lower these buy-outs so at least the are realistic.

The NBA already gets blamed for stealing Europe's best players. I doubt they'll ask the owners to do something that would cause them to make less money.

I'm also going to guess that the higher the contract is, the higher the buy-out is. Since agents don't get to commission the buy-out they probably don't mind these types of clauses since they'll make more money off of higher contracts.

The only one that seems realistic is the NBA increasing the limit teams can pay to buy players out. I'm interested to find out if this will be an issue in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.

6) Speaking of the Collective Bargaining Agreement...

There have been some quiet rumblings of late that David Stern wants to raise the minimum age requirement in the next CBA from 19 to 20.

As a fan of college basketball I'm all for it but I can't see it happening. The NBA was coming off of a series of negative incidents involving it's players that made it impossible for the Players' Union to put up a fight the last time.

With the exception of the Indiana Pacers the league's players have stayed out of trouble. At the same time, the Players' Union might be okay with it since it might give some of it's existing members another year in the league instead of them getting pushed out to make room for a rookie.

If that's the case then the only fight could come from a 19-year-old who might want to take the league to court for the right to make a living?

7) 495 points!

As exciting as the back-to-back games this week between the Suns and Nuggets were, I got the feeling that the teams made a pre-game agreement not to play defense. There were 495 total points scored in the two games. Both teams were atrocious on defense.

One thing I noticed during Tuesday night's game was the play of Gordan Giricek. After scoring only two points in Monday's game, Giricek scored 16 points in the re-match. Why did the Sixers release this guy? He's shooting 37% from downtown since joining the Suns.

The Suns are now 6-5 on the road with Shaq on their roster. The six wins have come against Portland (twice), Seattle, Memphis, Philadelphia and New Jersey. The five losses have come against Denver (twice), Detroit, Boston, and New Orleans. They have two tough road games left, against San Antonio and Houston to prove to me they can win a playoff series without home-court advantage.

8) Two down, two to go.

The Lakers got Chris Mihm back last week and should be getting Pau Gasol back in their lineup for tonight's game against Portland. That leaves Trevor Ariza and Andrew Bynum as the last two injured players they hope to get back into their lineup.

While it seems as if Ariza won't be back by the time the playoffs start, Bynum is looking more and more like he'll be ready to re-join the team before the regular season ends.

If you don't believe me, check out this video of Bynum's rehab from the Lakers' website. It should put a little smile on the face of every Laker fan.

9) The return of the Sports God

My old friend Dave Smith returned to the Southern California airwaves on Monday. Dave has been a staple of Los Angeles sports talk radio since the mid-90s. Dave was kind enough to have me on his show as a frequent contributor when he was at 1540 The Ticket. He's now co-hosting the morning-drive show on KLAA with the former host of Blind Date, Roger Lodge.

KLAA is the new radio home of the Los Angeles Angels. His show can be heard from 6am-9am PST in Los Angeles on 830 AM or on the web at www.830klaa.com. They've yet to update their website since changing formats on Monday but the show can still be heard by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO LISTEN" icon.

Both Dave and Roger are humongous Laker fans. They are the perfect antidote for someone who wants L.A. sports talk and not another nationally syndicated blowhard talking about SEC Football recruiting in the middle of the NBA Playoffs.

10) If the playoffs started today...

The Western Conference would look like this:

1) Hornets vs. 8) Nuggets

2) Spurs vs. 7) Mavericks

3) Lakers vs. 6) Rockets

4) Jazz vs. 5) Suns

The Eastern Conference would look like this:

1) Celtics vs. 8) Hawks

2) Pistons vs. 7) Sixers

3) Magic vs. 6) Raptors

4) Cavs vs. 5) Wizards