NBA News, Notes, and Observations: May 9, 2008

"I'm back."

When Michael Jordan made his first comeback during the 1994-95 season he put out a press release with those two words announcing his return.

I know I'm not Michael Jordan. I'm not even Lamont Jordan. But I didn't know how else to announce my return.

For those of you that don't know, I got married on April 12, left for my honeymoon soon after that, and then moved to a new place just a few days after I got back.

Since then my life has been consumed with packing and unpacking boxes, numerous trips to Home Depot, and waiting for my Internet, gas and telephone to get turned on.

The good news is that NBA Playoffs didn't wait for me.

This week's NNO is super-sized as my way of saying sorry for the long delay.

Since I no longer have potential playoff match-ups to end each article with, I've decided to use trivia questions until next season.

This weeks trivia question:

Kobe Bryant is tied for the longest tenure of any player with his current team, 12 years. Which player does Bryant share that distinction with?

(Answer at the bottom of the page) 

1) D'Antoni to the Knicks?

This seems to be the hot rumor of the day.

Suns' owner Robert Sarver has given Mike D'Antoni permission to talk with other teams about their coaching vacancies. The reason Sarver hasn't fired D'Antoni is because he'd still be on the hook for the remaining two years and $8.5 million left on D'Antoni's contract.

D'Antoni won't quit, because then he'd be forfeiting the money. So Sarver has given him permission in hopes that another team would be willing to basically take the contract off his hands.

D'Antoni is talking to the Knicks because they might be desperate enough to not only take on those last two years, but give Mike D an additional two or three years at $6 million per year. 

This move makes so little sense on so many levels that you'd think Isaiah Thomas was still running the show in New York. Don't forget that the Knicks are still paying Thomas $18 million over the next three years.

If the only way that D'Antoni leaves Phoenix is to make greater-than—or equal-to— the remaining two years and $8.5 million he has left on his current contract, then the Knicks will be paying $10 million next year just in coaches salaries.

D'Antoni makes for a much better fit with the Bulls than he does with the Knicks. But it looks as though he couldn't care less. He's obviously going to go to whichever team is willing to give him the most money.

The only guy that seems to like money more than D'Antoni is Sarver.

Sure, D'Antoni should have payed more attention to defense. But ultimately, Robert Sarver is the one to blame for the Suns' inability to win a championship. Had Sarver not given away Kurt Thomas and James Jones in an effort to save money, then the team probably would've hung onto Shawn Marion and given their title hopes the one last shot that group of guys deserved.

As a result of their financial stubborness, Sarver and D'Antoni have a potential nightmare on their hands. How is D'Antoni going to back to Phoenix if things don't work out with the Bulls or Knicks? Does anyone really believe that he would make it past the All-Star Game? Every time the team loses back-to-back games the spotlight will be right back on the Steve Kerr-Sarver-D'Antoni "situation".

There is a very real chance that things could get much uglier. This is like a wife staying married because she got screwed in her pre-nup, while her husband is begging her to cheat on him so he can give her even less in a divorce. 

The situation is eerily similar to the Lane Kiffin-Al Davis situation in Oakland with the Raiders. The only difference is that Kiffin would be lucky to get a job as a quarterbacks coach, and D'Antoni will have no problem landing another head coaching job.

Congratulations, Phoenix! Your basketball team is owned by the NBA's Al Davis.

I usually agree with Charles Barkley when it comes to basketball because he obviously knows more than I do.

But I rarely agree with him on anything else.

Remember when Barkley said that Augusta "Tiger-proofed" the course by increasing the distances on the course because they wanted a white golfer to win The Masters? Barkley didn't realize that such adjustments actually benefited Tiger more than they did most other golfers because of how far Woods could drive the ball.

Sir Charles has sounded off again, this time about how D'Antoni should quit holding the team hostage and just resign. If anyone is holding anyone hostage it's Sarver. If he really wants D'Antoni then let him do his job without conditions, or fire him and let him get another job.

As for the Suns' playoff performance, nobody should be surprised with the result. I pointed out many times in past NNOs that the team had only one impressive road win after the Shaq trade. Without home-court advantage they weren't going to win anything.

I disagree with those that say the Suns shouldn't have traded for Shaq because they were atop the Western Conference before the Shaq trade, and then dropped to sixth by the end of the season.

The team had a much more difficult schedule the second-half of the season and would have probably dropped anyway. Would they have dropped that far down with Shawn Marion? I don't know. Nobody foresaw the Rockets winning 22 games in a row.

By the way, the Suns played five more games this year than the Miami Heat did.

2) Speaking of the Heat...

Pat Riley quietly named Erik Spoelstra his successor in Miami. Although it came as no surprise, I'm curious how much input Dwyane Wade had in the decision. My guess is that Riley waited to get Wade's blessing before making it official.

The last time a young, long-time assistant of Riley's took over for him it was Randy Pfund with the Lakers in 1992. In only 146 games at the helm, Pfund compiled a 66-80 record.

Good luck, Erik! 

3) Finally Franny?

It looks like "Fair-Weather" Fran Vazquez is finally interested in joining the Magic. Vazquez was the eleventh pick in the 2006 NBA Draft who changed his mind about wanting to play in the NBA after the Magic had wasted the pick on him.

I wonder if the fact that the Magic are now a playoff team has anything to do with the sudden about-face.

The problem with Vazquez is that he's under contract for one more season. He has a $7 million buy-out that the Magic would only be permitted to pay $500,000 of. The rest would have to come from Vazquez, who would only make about $2 million in his rookie year.

Vazquez is a power forward and he just turned 25. He would be a valuable piece to the Magic's puzzle, and could potentially save GM Otis Smith's job. Smith botched the Vazquez pick in 2005, traded the Magic's 2006 first-round pick to the Pistons in the Darko Milicic deal, and then wasted the 2007 pick on J.J. Redick.

Dwight Howard turns 23 in December, Hedo Turkoglu turned 29 in March, and Rashard Lewis turns 29 in August. Add Vazquez to the mix, and the success of the franchise would depend on how effective Jameer Nelson could be at the point, and whether or not he's a franchise point guard.

Nelson has been stellar at times in these playoffs. He's the key to his team's success. In the six games where Nelson has scored 18 or more points, the Magic are 5-1. In the other two games, in which Nelson scored seven in one and six in the other, the team is 0-2.

Last note on the Magic: How does Stan Van Gundy's wife allow him to leave the house in such ugly outfits? He dresses like someone whose luggage was lost by the airline so he grabbed stuff out of the the lost-and-found. Didn't this guy step down from the Heat to spend more time with his family? It would've been nice if his wife took a couple hours during that time to buy him some shirt and tie combinations.

3) If it ain't one Billy, it's a mutherf***in' other.

Are the Hawks seriously considering hiring Billy King to replace Billy Knight? If that's the case, why did they fire Knight in the first place?

These two horrible GMs have been constantly mistaken for one another over the years because their incompetence is more alike than their names are.

I can only imagine who number two is on the Hawks' wish list. Isiah Thomas?

4) The Mavericks act quickly.

I can't decide if the Mavs hiring of Rick Carlisle is a good move or not. While I agree wholeheartedly with the firing of Avery Johnson, I'm not so sure that Carlisle is the right man for the job.

I give the Mavs credit for acting quickly, since so few good candidates were out there. With Larry Brown in Charlotte, Scott Skiles in Milwaukee, and Jeff Van Gundy unsure if he wants to coach again, the Mavs did the right thing by firing their coach with a replacement already in mind.

If the Suns lose Mike D'Antoni then they'll probably end up with a short-term replacement like Alvin Gentry or Brian Shaw.

Trivia Hint #1: He's in the Eastern Conference. 

5) Speaking of the Mavs... 

Sam Smith wrote an interesting article in his blog on HoopsHype.com about how Mark Cuban should sell the Mavs and buy the Cubs. His rationale is that Cuban doesn't have the money to own both franchises so he'd have to dump one in order to buy the other.

Smith writes that the Mavs' run is over and Cuban has a history of buying low and selling high. He argues that it looks as though the Mavs' value is only going to go down for the next couple of years so it might be time to sell high.

The Mavs have very little flexibility, thanks to exorbitant contracts given to the likes of Erick Dampier, Jason Terry, and Jerry Stackhouse.

The Mavs' lone chips for trade (other than Dirk Nowitzki) are Josh Howard and Jason Kidd's $20 million expiring contract.

Howard didn't help his trade value much with his recent comments about smoking weed. BR's Zander Freund wrote a great article about Howard's honesty a couple weeks back. If you missed it you should check it out. He makes some really great points. 

6) No more Star Wars.

The worst part about the Mavs and Suns' early exits is that we probably won't see another blockbuster trade made in the middle of the season for a while. I can't recall a more entertaining trade deadline than the one we had in the NBA this year.

If the Mavs and Suns were just trying to keep up with the Lakers' acquisition of Pau Gasol, then they should have followed the Lakers lead by not giving up much in their respective trades. It's one thing to give up a Kwame Brown, it's another to give up a Shawn Marion or Devin Harris.

Don't forget that Kurt Thomas and Kwame Brown made the same amount of money this season. The Suns could have packaged Thomas with D.J. Strawberry or Alando Tucker and a couple first-round picks to get Gasol.

If only their owner weren't a penny-pinching miser.

7) I guess I was right after all

Back in February, I wrote an article about the Nuggets and Rockets being just good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to win it. Then the Rockets won 22 games in a row and looked like title contenders. Well, neither team failed to disappoint in the playoffs. 

The Nuggets decided to hang onto George Karl, which means some personnel moves are forthcoming.

The Rockets, on the other hand, would be fooling themselves if they think the outcome of their season would have been different had Yao Ming not been hurt.

Trivia Hint #2: He's from Europe.

8) Saving the best for last.

In much the same way that you don't talk to the pitcher while he's in the middle of a no-no, nobody on the Lakers is talking about their season-long 10-game winning streak.

The Lakers won their final four regular season games, then their first 6 playoff games.

I don't consider this a jinx since nobody would be surprised if the Lakers lost tomorrow night in Utah.

The Jazz were 37-4 at home this year. If they win tomorrow night, then it won't be because of me.

9) Speaking of the Lakers...

Is it possible that Andrew Bynum's injury is a blessing in disguise? With Bynum eligible for an extension this summer that would kick in in 2009-2010, the Lakers could be looking at three large commitments for that season with Bynum's extension as well as extensions for Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom.

This summer the Lakers have to deal with extensions for Ronny Turiaf and Sasha Vujacic. If they give Bynum a huge pay raise and then give Bryant and Odom deals at terms that are similar to what they're currently making, the question becomes how much is Jerry Buss willing to spend to keep this group together?

The injury to Bynum may do enough to scare the Lakers into giving him fewer years and less money than the max, increasing the likelihood they'll keep everyone.

Sasha Vujacic, by the way, has steadily jumped to the top-tier of this summer's available free agents with his outstanding play in these playoffs. I'm not saying that he's a goner, but I will say that he's gone from looking like a three-year, $9 million contract to a four-year, $20 million contract. There might be a team out there willing to give him their full mid-level exemption.

Ronny Turiaf will probably get something in the neighborhood of three years and $9 million. He's not going anywhere. Don't forget that the Lakers' team physician saved Turiaf's life when he noticed his enlarged aortic valve during a physical. The Lakers also picked up the tab for Turiaf's surgery, something they weren't obligated to do.

I wasn't at all surprised to see Kobe win the MVP. I was surprised to see that he got 82 first-place votes to just 18 for Chris Paul. That's all you need to know about both the voters and the criteria that the voters used to make their decision.

Even though I agree with the choice of Bryant, there's no way the discrepancy should have been so wide unless the award is to be seen as a career achievement award where everybody gets a turn. 

10) Golden opportunity squandered

The Cavaliers missed a great chance in game one to make their series with the Celtics interesting. Instead it looks like the Celtics will have no problem winning the series in five games.

The Celtics defense on LeBron is as good as the Spurs played against him in last year's NBA Finals.

His supporting cast just isn't good enough to compensate when he goes 2-for-18, like he did in game one. 

For those of you who think the Celtics' struggles in round against the Hawks make them any less a title-contender, keep in mind that the eighth-seeded Kings took the Lakers to a maximum five games in the first round of the 2000 NBA Playoffs.

The Lakers went on to beat the Pacers in the NBA Finals that year. Sometimes an early test with a little adversity makes you even more battle-tested when you run into another obstacle down the road. 

Trivia Answer: Zydrunas Ilgauskas