NBA News, Notes, and Observations: August 1, 2008

Not much going on in the NBA these days. I did manage to find at least ten things to write about in this week's edition of News, Notes and Observations.

1) And you thought "Season on the Brink" was bad...

Now that Tim Donaghy has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, how long will we have to wait until Donaghy writes his tell-all book. This story has "crappy ESPN movie" written all over it.

If you thought the NFL put pressure on ESPN to cancel "Playmakers", imagine the heat David Stern would put on the "Evil Four-Letter" if they planned a Donaghy biopic.

Adam Sandler as Donaghy. Sly Stallone as his evil cohort, Scott Foster. Richard Dreyfus as David Stern.

What else is Donaghy going to do to make a living? Do you think he can get another job? On top of the mandatory 12-month sentence, Donaghy owes the NBA $100,000 for every game that he didn't officiate honestly as well as 15 percent of his "net disposable income" while on probation for the three years after he's released.

Maybe the Maloofs will hire him to sweep up cigarette butts at The Palms Hotel & Casino for making them feel better about the 2002 Western Conference Finals.

2) How do they say "overpaid" in Latvia?

I find it absurd that the Warriors gave six years and $63 million to Andris Biedrins. I don't think that he's a bad player but I think that's an awful lot of coin to give to a guy that averages 10 points and 10 rebounds a game.

I know that Biedrins led the league in field-goal percentage but I also know that he was sixth in the league in personal fouls per game.

My problem with Biedrins is that the Warriors are the only team where Biedrins is a center. What happens when Don Nelson retires after next season? I find it hard to believe that Nellie is going to stick around after being awarded $6.3 million from Mark Cuban in arbitration.

What's the incentive to stay and coach a non-playoff team when you just got a free $6.3 million?

I wonder if, out of spite, Cuban decides to give it to Nelson in pennies.

I'm not even going to comment on the Bobcats giving six years and $72 million to Emeka Okafor. That deal makes Biedrins' contract look like the Louisiana Purchase.

The Bobcats now have $40 million per year committed to Okafor, Jason Richardson, Gerald Wallace and Nazr Mohammed.

By contrast, the Pistons have about $45 million per year committed to Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince.

3) Tru Warrior Heading to H-Town

I have to give props to Rockets GM, Daryl Morey, for getting Ron Artest for practically nothing.

In my opinion the Rockets just jumped the Jazz as the clear-cut fourth-best team in the Western Conference. I still think the Lakers, Hornets and Spurs are the top three teams and I don't think the addition of Artest makes them better than any of those three.

My problem with the Rockets roster is that they now have four Robins and no Batmans and two of those Robins, Yao and Tracy McGrady, are making Batman money. McGrady has shown nothing in ten years to make me trust that he can be the best player on an NBA champion and Yao has only played in 160 of a possible 246 games over the last  three seasons. What reason do I have to believe that Yao will become any more durable as he gets older?

You can make the case that the 2004 Pistons were also a team filled with Robins and no Batmans but that team's best player in the series against the Lakers was it's point guard and he certainly looked like Batman in winning the MVP. I can't foresee Rafer Alston doing what Billups did that year.

The other thing about Artest is that this could be a one-and-done situation. Artest's expiring contract has to be the NBA's best bargain. The reason the Pacers took so long in trading Artest was because it was so difficult to find as good of a player making as little money. The only trades that were even close to happening involved two of the other best bargains in Peja Stojakovic and Corey Maggette.

Artest's next contract will probably be the last contract of over two years that he'll get. My guess is Artest goes to the highest bidder and I doubt that the Rockets would be willing to commit four years and $40 million to him unless they either win the championship or find themselves on the cusp of one.

I'm surprised that no team has tried to sign Carl Landry to an offer sheet in the wake of the Artest trade. I can't imagine the Rockets would match if they had any intention of re-signing Artest.

The Rockets didn't really help Landry's trade value by raising a fuss about his injured knee. If it was a tactic used to scare other teams away it seems to be working.

4) The pool is shrinking.

Landry is one of just a handful of notable free agents still available. The other restricted free agents are Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Andre Igoudala, Ben Gordon and Delonte West.

The remaining notable unrestricted free agents are Jannero Pargo, Bonzi Wells, Jason Wiliams, Sam Cassell, Earl Boykins, Devean George, Jamaal Magloire, Michael Finley, Damon Stoudamire, Theo Ratliff, Alonzo Mourning and Juan Dixon.

5) Step Brothers II?

If you haven't seen the Steve Nash/Baron Davis Step Brothers trailer on ibeatyou.com then have a look.

The link comes courtesy of Bleacher Report's Zander Freund. Who knew that Steve Nash was such a B-Boy?

6) Are there any more big trades coming?

It's looking more and more like the only possible big names that could be traded before the start of next season are Ben Gordon and Josh Smith via sign-and-trade.

I doubt that the Bulls want to meet Gordon's asking price and Josh Smith might be too risky for the Hawks to commit to long-term. Gordon seems to think he's worth more than Luol Deng since he's the team's highest scorer. I don't think the Bulls feel the same way and I'd be surprised if they gave him anything close to the six years and $80 million they gave Deng.

One rumor that seems to have died is the Kirk Hinrich for Lamar Odom trade. I think this is a great trade for both teams. Since the two couldn't be swapped one-for-one, why aren't the Lakers looking to try to move Odom and Jordan Farmar for Hinrich and Drew Gooden?

If the Lakers are trying to save money then they can always add Chris Mihm to
the deal. Gooden, Odom and Mihm are all free agents at season's end and I'm sure the Bulls would rather commit to Odom than Gooden. The Lakers could start Trevor Ariza and use Gooden as a back-up power forward  and allow him to walk at season's end. By trading Farmar, they wouldn't have to worry about giving him the extension he's eligible for next summer.

Hinrich has an extremely cap-friendly contract that declines each year and with him in the lineup, the Lakers could extend Derek Fisher's career by bringing him off the bench.

This deal only makes sense for the Lakers if they have no intention of bringing Odom back.

Maybe we'll see the Bulls try to shop Hinrich once they resolve the Gordon situation.

7) The league's best trios

Chris Broussard listed who he believes are the NBA's best trios in the wake of the Artest trade.

This list is as follows:

1. Boston
2. San Antonio
3. Los Angeles
4. Houston
5. New Orleans
6. Phoenix
7. Detroit
8. Dallas
9. Washington
10. Philadelphia

I agree with him on the top three but after that I'm not so sure. Personally, I would put Phoenix, Dallas and Philadelphia further down the list and maybe replace them with some other teams. I would take Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko over Dirk, Kidd and Howard or Igoudala, Miller and Brand every time.

8) Yo, Adrian!

One of my favorite NBA writers, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! wrote another great article about the reasons why Europe has become a much more attractive destination for NBA players.

I mentioned the declining dollar versus increasing Euro point in a column I wrote in early June.

Personally, I don't think NBA teams have much to worry about. Guys like Nenad Krstic and Josh Childress will still be restricted free agents if they decide to return to the NBA. The Hawks and Nets now have the benefit of being able to judge those guys true value without having to give them a penny. They won't have to pay those guys based on potential but instead can figure out what they're truly worth as they enter their respective primes.

I don't think that NBA teams should be overly concerned about a mass exodus to Europe except when it comes to European players.

Understand that basketball will never be more popular than soccer is in Europe. Basketball teams in Europe don't really make money. At some point, most owners of European teams will realize that overpaying average NBA players isn't worth the price.

What will end up happening is closer to what we saw in the early 1990s when guys like Dominique Wilkins, Michael Cooper and Byron Scott chose to play in Europe at the tail end of their careers.

Stephon Marbury has dropped hints that he could jump to Europe next year. He might as well since no NBA team will commit to giving him more than a one-year deal and because he has the personality to help sell the sport.

If you want to check out a great basketball book, I'm going to recommend Filip Bondy's "Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever". The book takes an in-depth look at what went on behind the scenes at the draft that produced Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, John Stockton and Charles Barkley.

Here's an excerpt from the book, courtesy of HoopsHype.com.

10) Time for Kevin Pritchard to shut his mouth

Blazers' GM Kevin Pritchard could be in some hot water for comments he made about Darius Miles' knee injury. In fact, he could be in violation of federal regulations. He said:

“Two doctors said Darius had the worst micro-fracture injury they had ever seen. They would never have him play basketball and the odds of having knee replacement surgery is high. I hear that, and as a general manager, I didn’t want it on my conscience – that I had a kid have to go through a knee replacement surgery. That’s a pretty major surgery. They saw (two bones) and replace (the knee). It’s a bad deal.”

This is what Dwight Jaynes had to say in the Portland Tribune:

"The problem for Pritchard and the Blazers is that those statements could be a violation of the privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Availability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Since the HIPAA privacy rule went into effect on April 14, 2003, pro and college teams in all sports have been very reluctant to reveal specific details of player injuries without the permission of the player.

Most teams have come to the point where they will reveal only whether a player may sit out a game, but not give any specific details of the injuries. HIPAA’s privacy rule prohibits “covered entities” — often interpreted as employers who provide health care or health-care clinics for employees, which teams do for their players – from revealing health information about those employees without their consent."

It's obvious that Pritchard is trying to dissuade teams from signing Miles. Pritchard knows that if Miles plays in only ten games over the next two seasons that the Blazers won't be able to wipe Miles' contract off of the team's cap next summer nor will they be allowed to have insurance cover what's owed to him.

Everything Pritchard has done to this point while with the Blazers has been fantastic up until now.

This was a classless act by someone who knew what he was doing was illegal. No doubt the team will be punished in some way.