Bleacher Report - Articles by Amar Panchmatia

With Brandon Jennings, The New York Knicks Would Not Have Had To Wait For 2010

Amar Panchmatia — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:58:32 -0500

Somebody needs to wake up Donnie Walsh and the New York Knicks.

Come to think of it, don't bother. It is already far too late.

But if you get a chance, here are some things you can tell Mr. Walsh and his brass: No NBA team, based on previous precedents, should ever -- ever -- bank on free agency as a way to get better. And the single most effective way teams have been able to rebuild themselves is on this day in June called the NBA Draft.

You know, that day and phrase that seems foreign to most Knicks fans.

Ever since taking over as the President of Basketball Operations for the Knicks in the spring of 2008, Walsh has become obsessed with clearing salary cap space for 2010. On the outside looking in, you can't blame him. New York may be the league's most desired market to play in, and the Knicks have never been serious players in free agency due to exorbitant payrolls established by Walsh's predecessors, Isiah Thomas and Scott Layden.

However, during Walsh's time up to date, he has had two top 10 draft picks to work with, the sixth overall pick in 2008 and the eighth overall pick in 2009. Many a franchise player has been found in this range, and Walsh had not one but two chances of getting it right.

And although the jury is still out on Danilo Gallinari and Jordan Hill, Walsh swung and missed both times considering the players that were selected afterwards.

Sure, Gallinari has looked good as far as numbers go, but almost everyone gets inflated numbers playing in a system such as the one ran by Knicks head coach Mike D'Antoni. But right after New York took the "Italian Stallion," the Clippers took Indiana's Eric Gordon with the seventh pick.

Gordon, 20, has been flourishing despite playing in that train wreck known as L.A.'s redheaded stepchild. He put up 16.1 points per game on 45.6 percent shooting from the field and 38.9 percent (131-for-337) from 3-point range. In seven games this year, Gordon is averaging 18.9 points to go with 4.1 assists and 50.6 percent shooting from the field.

But forget about Gordon. Last Saturday night in Milwaukee gave basketball fans a glimpse of a young kid who could have really taken over Madison Square Garden: Brandon Jennings.

Saturday served as the NBA's introduction to the kid who just turned 20 yet accomplished a feat that a player like Carmelo Anthony never has and one like Dwyane Wade just accomplished last May in the midst of his sixth season in the league.

Jennings dropped a double nickel -- 55 points -- in just his seventh game in the league. And this came a month and a half after his 20th birthday.

You can say that hindsight is 20/20, but it seemed like Jennings wasn't even on the Knicks' radar. Fans and media in New York couldn't stop obsessing over Davidson's Stephen Curry, a 21-year old trigger-happy point guard who lit up scoreboards in college.

In the end, the Knicks settled on Arizona's Jordan Hill, a project big man in a draft that lacked any significant frontcourt player after the Clippers took Blake Griffin at No. 1.

Two picks later, Jennings went to the Bucks. And Milwaukee had its franchise player.

Meanwhile, the Knicks continue obsessing over free agency. And as mentioned earlier, that is never a tool -- especially in this day and age of the NBA -- to rely on. Max contract free agents just don't leave their teams anymore.

Shaquille O'Neal left Orlando for L.A. because the Lakers simply offered more money. Steve Nash left Dallas for Phoenix because the Suns offered more money. Carlos Boozer and Kenyon Martin left Cleveland and New Jersey, respectively, for the same reasons.

Rest assured about these facts: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh are getting max offers from the Cavs, Heat, and Raptors, respectively. You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: All of those teams can offer those players far, far more than the Knicks can regardless of any of the teams' cap situations.

James and Wade are already household names and amongst the most recognizable names in all of sports. Both play for winning teams, with Wade's Heat winning the NBA championship in 2006 and James' Cavs winning a league-high 66 games last year.

New York may offer the "big market" and endorsement possibilities -- possibilities that certainly don't elude either of these megastars -- but they don't offer a shred of hope at the Larry O'Brien trophy. And a guy like Jennings, at the very least, could have been a pretty attractive "Scottie Pippen" for a guy like LeBron James when it came time for James to evaluate the Knicks' roster in free agency.

Walsh has been so obsessed with clearing enough cap space to lure two superstars that one potential stud just slipped through his fingers while he was busy crunching numbers.

And when the Knicks, one of the worst teams in the league through 10 games of the 2009-10 season, strike out in free agency this summer, they won't have a lottery pick to fall back on this time around.

That's because their 2010 pick is owed to Utah. But based on how Walsh has fell asleep at the wheel on draft day, it does not seem like it would have mattered, anyways.

Did the Phoenix Suns Take Advantage of the Cavaliers With the Shaq Trade?

Amar Panchmatia — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:28:12 -0500

When a team usually acquires a star player -- say, a future Hall of Famer -- in an overwhelmingly one-sided trade, there's no doubt that they won that deal. Or so it would seem.

There was no way the Cavs were losing this one. They gave up basically a sack of basketballs for Shaquille O'Neal, who even at age 37 was an All-Star center and a nightmare to defend in the low post. Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic were nothing more than cap relief for the Suns, as neither guy even put on a Suns jersey after the trade.

It was the equivalent of giving Shaq away for free.

So why, two weeks into the season, does it look like the Suns, and not the Cavs, won this deal?

Phoenix is where Cleveland was last year -- racing out to a quick start and turning heads on the way. They are a league-best 7-1 after rallying to beat Philadelphia on Monday night, with the one loss coming at Orlando. The Suns made up for that one loss by beating the Celtics in Boston to hand the C's their first loss of the season.

In other words, they're right back to where they were before the Shaq deal: kicking ass and taking names. They have scored at least 100 points in each of their first eight games, and Steve Nash is looking like the two-time MVP from 2005 and 2006.

The 35-year old point guard, who had his differences with O'Neal the past year and a half, is averaging 17.9 points and 11.9 assists so far in 2009-10, up from 15.7 and 9.7 last year with Shaq. In fact, on Monday night against the 76ers, Nash had his first 20/20 game in over three and a half years when he posted 21 points and 20 assists in a performance reminiscent of the two-time MVP's past.

Many attributed the fall in Nash's numbers last year (if you can call them a "fall," as those are still pretty gaudy) to his age. But the Suns and Nash are reminding us of exactly who they were before GM Steve Kerr made that highly publicized trade for O'Neal when he shipped the disgruntled Shawn Marion to South Beach in exchange for the 7'1", 325-pound legend.

Now, Phoenix is back to where they belong, at the top of the league in points per game. They are averaging 110 points per game after the win at Philly, lead the league in three-point percentage, and are second in field goal percentage.

In essence, the Shaq trade was addition by subtraction. And Kerr, who saved owner Robert Sarver millions in the deal to send Shaq to Cleveland, more than made up for his mistake.

Meanwhile, with the Cavs, Shaq is averaging 11.1 points and 7.4 rebounds as the Cavs have rolled out to a disappointing 4-3 start. If those numbers hold up, they will be the lowest numbers in O'Neal's career in either category.

The Cavs have often times looked like a better team with Shaq off the court than on it. It has been a tremendous struggle getting the Big Witness Protection acclimated with the rest of nucleus from a team that won a league-high 66 games last year.

Cleveland was supposed to get better and Phoenix was supposed to get worse in the aftermath of this trade in late June. In fact, each franchise is heading in a direction opposite than what was expected, with the Suns rocketing to the top of the league and the Cavs falling back to mediocrity.

When Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry made this trade, the Cavs reportedly also had the option to trade for the Hornets' Tyson Chandler. However, one of the main reasons they chose O'Neal was because of the fact that he was in the last year of his contract while Chandler still had a player option for over $12 million for 2010-11. So in case the Shaq experiment didn't work out, the Cavs could still trade him.

And that would seem awkward after an offseason that revolved around O'Neal's arrival to the shores of Lake Erie to help "win a ring for the king." His arrival in Cleveland was the big story in the NBA over the summer.

How strange would it be if the Cavs, who seem understandably pressured to win a championship this year itself, pulled the plug on the surefire Hall of Famer and sent him elsewhere?

If they think they can see the same results that the Suns are seeing now after parting ways with the Big Shaqtus, then don't be surprised if Ferry's burning the midnight oil every night come February.

Cleveland Browns Organization and Fans Deserve Lackluster 0-3 Start

Amar Panchmatia — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:29:23 -0400

It may have been one measly win in Week Three of the NFL calendar, but the Detroit Lions' 19-14 win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday did even more than snap their 19-game losing streak.

That win helped the Lions pass the torch as the NFL's doormat and laughingstock to the Cleveland Browns.

Sure, the Browns are one of seven winless squads following Sunday's action and pending the Carolina Panthers' quest for victory on Monday night in Dallas. But there are "bad" 0-3's and "good" 0-3's.

The Browns are neither. They are just flat out atrocious.

While Detroit ended a 19-game losing streak by beating Washington, the Browns' slide extended to nine straight dating back to last season. It would be one thing to chalk it to bad luck and facing superior teams, but this is a Cleveland offense that is challenging the depths of ineptitude and futility.

If you don't count a garbage touchdown in the last minute of a 34-20 waxing against Minnesota in Week One, this is a squad that hasn't scored an offensive touchdown in all nine of those losses. Closing last season with six straight games without an offensive touchdown was an NFL record.

Even if you want to go ahead and count the meaningless score against the Vikings two weeks ago, the Browns have scored that one touchdown in their last 525 offensive plays from scrimmage.

If Herm Edwards thinks that "you play to win the game," then you play offense to score touchdowns. And there are Pop Warner teams that do a much better job at that than the Browns can ever dream of at this point.

In fact, the Browns have been beaten by an average score of 24.9 to 6.7, or a total of 224-60, in that nine-game span. The only thing amazing about this offense in 2009 is that it has somehow managed to pass the eyesore of last year in ineptitude, scoring 29 points in the first three games.

The woeful Rams have somehow managed to be the one team to score less than that, but hey, at least the Rams have scored offensive touchdowns (plural) this season.

But the sad thing about this historic franchise and rabid fanbase is that they had it coming. And even worse, they deserve it in light of what the organization has undergone the last 18 months.

First was the fans' treatment of 2007 Pro Bowl quarterback Derek Anderson, a guy who rewrote the franchise's offensive record books during his jaw-dropping campaign. Anderson threw for 3,787 yards with 29 touchdowns and 19 interceptions in '07, anchoring a Browns offense that was suddenly legit and exciting for the first time since the franchise's rebirth in 1999.

In fact, those numbers destroyed anything put up by a Browns quarterback since the franchise's return, and Anderson became the first quarterback to represent the franchise in Hawaii since Bernie Kosar in 1988. And he had accomplished this at the young age of 24, leaving an entire career ahead of him to top those feats.

But Browns fans seemingly didn't want him to.

That's because local Ohioan and 2007 first-round pick Brady Quinn was waiting in the wings. He was supposed to be the franchise's savior, and the team had supposedly lucked into drafting him with the 22nd pick that year. Many thought he was a top-three pick, for sure. And after years of fumbling around, the Browns had found their young franchise quarterback for the future.

Except it wasn't Quinn. It was Anderson.

One would think that the season Anderson came off of would afford him a longer leash, but that line of thinking would inexplicably be incorrect. What followed was a season that saw Anderson marred by dropped passes from Braylon Edwards and a porous defense that hasn't been able to defend the run or the pass decently since coming back into the league.

Anderson's last game as the fulltime starter was against the Baltimore Ravens at home in 2008 when he helped the Browns jump out to a 27-13 lead on the Ravens' vaunted defense. Not only could the defense not stop a rookie quarterback in Joe Flacco, but Edwards let a chance at a home run go to waste when he let what could have been a sure touchdown pass from Anderson slip right through his fingers.

Then there's the treatment of former General Manager Phil Savage. And that may be the worst of all.

You see, when the Browns hired Savage in January of 2005, the team was as inept in its talent evaluation as its offense is today. In the six years of the franchise's rebirth since before Savage's arrival, the team had only one Pro Bowler (linebacker Jamir Miller in 2001). You read that right. One Pro Bowler in six years. Even teams like the Raiders and Lions sent at least one guy to Hawaii every year or maybe every two to three years.

Not only that, but the team had not had a 1,000 yard rusher for a season since 1985. If you don't count the three-year hiatus from '96 to '98, that's 16 seasons without a guy averaging 62.5 yards a game over a 16-game season.

Savage changed all that. Instead of spending first round picks on running backs like previous regimes, he brought in Reuben Droughns from Denver via trade, and Droughns proceeded to shatter that barrier in '05 with 1,232 yards.

Savage's first draft pick as a GM—Braylon Edwards in 2005—ended up becoming a Pro Bowler. His first-rounder in 2007, Joe Thomas, was a Pro Bowler his rookie season and is on his way to becoming the best left tackle in football. It was Savage who scoured the dregs of the league for guys like Anderson and Joshua Cribbs, both Pro Bowlers in '07.

When the team lacked a big time defensive stopper during their 10-6 campaign in '07, Savage went out and got tackle Shaun Rogers from Detroit. Rogers also became a Pro Bowler in '08 despite a poor 4-12 season.

If you wanted Pro Bowlers for what used to be a talent-starved roster, then Phil Savage gave you Pro Bowlers by the bundle.

Yet, it was his fault apparently for the team's lackluster performance in 2008. Instead of firing head coach Romeo Crennel (which was appropriate) and being done with it, the Browns fired Savage as well and made sure they fired him first before firing Crennel.

An incident that involved Savage using profanity with a discouraged fan was a big reason for Savage's dismissal, but keeping good public relations wasn't Savage's job. And when you're a team that is as devoid of talent as the Browns were before Savage and now are after him, then public relations should be the last thing on your mind.

Phil Savage was supposed to inject a horrible roster with talent. And he did just that. He was a part of the solution, not the problem.

So don't be surprised if this 0-3 start is just the beginning of the Browns' problems for 2009.

Roger Federer: The Best of an Era, but Not Better Than Pete Sampras

Amar Panchmatia — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:50:05 -0400

A befallen Andy Roddick gazed through teary eyes on Centre Court of Wimbledon on Sunday before looking up at the parade of past champions that had congregated on tennis' biggest stage. He looked at Pete Sampras, the last great American player, and pleaded, "Sorry Pete, I tried to hold him off."

No worries, Andy. You had actually done just fine. Because although numbers will say one thing, Roddick's epic 5-7, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 16-14 loss was the latest evidence to show the assembly of legends that Roger Federer may not be the best player of all time.

Sure, there is the argument that Federer has won 15 Grand Slams, more than any man to walk the planet. But before Sampras broke the old mark in 2000, it was held by one Roy Emerson. While casual fans know the names Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver—and even Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Andre Agassi—Emerson never registered a blip on the radar of tennis greats.

Until Sampras took the mark less than a decade ago, holding the Grand Slam record had never meant anything when it comes to deciding who is the best ever.

While Laver, when asked that very question in the wake of Federer's record-setting victory, wanted to be reserved in his statements, even he suggested that you can only compare players to others in his era and not those before or after him.

But we can certainly compare eras—and when compared to Sampras', Federer's era is far weaker.

Some may attribute the fact that only one man, Rafael Nadal, has beaten Federer in a Grand Slam final as proof that Federer is the most dominating player in history. But over the course of six years, from 2003 to today, the fact that not one other player has been able to even sniff Federer on any surface is truly alarming and more of a testament to the state of men's tennis today.

While Nadal has been glorified as the "kryptonite" to tennis' Superman from Switzerland, the Spaniard is simply the Agassi of this generation.

Just as Agassi dominated the slower hardcourts of the Australian Open, Nadal has been a monster on the clay courts of Roland Garros. Both men have career Grand Slams, both are known for being flamboyant and marketable off the court, and both proved to be the biggest rivals for the best players of their respective generations.

Except Sampras beat Agassi like a drum. Sampras burst onto the scene as a 19-year-old in 1990 by picking Agassi apart, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 at the US Open final, his first Slam. The man known as "Pistol Pete" was 6-3 against Agassi in Grand Slams, including 4-1 in finals.

Instead of being the one being demoralized, Sampras was doing the demoralizing, as his win over Agassi in the 1995 US Open final sent the latter into a downward spiral that took him to 141st in the world and a free-fall into temporary oblivion.

Federer, on the other hand, is 7-13 all-time against Nadal, including 2-6 in Grand Slams and 2-5 in Slam finals. That includes a 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 demolition in the finals of the 2008 French Open finals that was hardly befitting of a player being dubbed "The Best Ever."

How can Federer be the best player to ever pick up a tennis racquet when he is not even the best player of this current decade? How can he think of being the best when he knows that there is another man alive right now that he just cannot beat?

While Sampras had some cupcakes in his era, he had to get past some Grand Slam champions to accumulate his 14 Grand Slams. Other than Agassi, Sampras had to drop two-time US Open champion Patrick Rafter to win his record-setting seventh Wimbledon in 2000.

When he first broke through in 1990, Sampras also had to beat Ivan Lendl—who had made eight consecutive US Open finals going into that tournament—in the quarterfinals.

Two-time French Open champion Jim Courier also showed the strength of American tennis at the time, but Courier was a prop to Sampras whenever the two butted heads. Carlos Moya was a 1998 French Open champion, but he was assaulted by Sampras in the 1997 Australian Open finals.

Even German legend Boris Becker—a six-time Grand Slam champion and three-time Wimbledon champion—was mowed down in four sets at the lawn of the All England Club in 1995.

Federer, on the other hand, has had a blast beating the likes of Marcos Baghdatis, Fernando Gonzalez, Robin Soderling, and a washed-up Mark Philippoussis in Slam finals. The best American player of his generation—Andy Roddick—would be well behind Sampras, Agassi, Courier, and even Michael Chang in the American pecking order if he was born 10 years earlier.

Yet here was Roddick, giving Federer the match of his life, a struggle that Sampras never encountered as he rolled to seven All England Club titles. Outside of one hiccup at the quarterfinals of the 1996 Wimbledon against Dutchman Richard Krajicek, Sampras was 53-1 at Wimbledon over an eight-year span and never lost a final there, a distinction Federer failed to earn after losing to Nadal at the All England Club a year ago.

So celebrate Roger Federer if you must, especially in a sports world that has become so dominated by numbers. Fifteen may be larger than 14, but it's also easy to stockpile Grand Slams when only one man in the world has the tools to even compete with you.

The numbers may say that Roger Federer is the best of all time, but after looking at who he has had to beat, he is simply the best of a poor and washed-up generation.

And if Nadal has even one more say in the US Open this September, Federer may not even be the best of this generation either.

Addition by Subtraction: Why the Rockets Are a Better Team Without Tracy McGrady

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:48:44 -0500

Ron Artest was hopping downcourt to get back on defense, but he had to do something else first. He had, you know, just taken a Shane Battier pass on the right wing, beaten Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao off the dribble, and crushed a one-handed dunk with the left hand—right in between the over-matched Varejao and Ben Wallace.

Artest had to stop by the TNT broadcast booth on the sidelines on his way back and exchange high fives with former Indiana teammate Reggie Miller, who was calling the game as a color analyst.

Such are the Houston Rockets in the wake of supposed superstar Tracy McGrady’s season-ending microfracture knee surgery: a loose, confident group which is playing as well as anybody and can pick apart any top contender in the league on any given night.

Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers last Thursday night. They’ll tell you all about it—provided that they’re done licking the wounds from their worst loss of the season.

The Cavs came in at 44-11, playing .800 ball, and at the very top of the Eastern Conference. They were winners of five straight, an elite defensive group, and a team that had made a habit out of benching its starters in the fourth quarter of blowout wins.

On Thursday night, they were held to their season lows in points (74) and field goal percentage (33.8) in addition to their worst loss (19 points). And this was a game before which many were wondering what kind of a job Artest and Battier would do in handling the monumental task of guarding LeBron James, the league’s second-leading scorer.

Call it just one game, but James was the one who got bullied on this night.

When Artest wasn’t busy pushing the Cavs’ superstar around physically, Battier was drawing offensive fouls on “King James” and getting him in foul trouble. And when James tried to attack the basket—something that he may do better than anyone in the league—7’6” Yao Ming was there to greet him and make life miserable for the league’s second-leading scorer.

In the end, James scored 21 points, but on 21 shots. The man who has become known as an all-around player and a threat to go for a triple-double on any given night was held without an assist for the first time in his career, not to mention a measly one rebound.

But don’t dare make the mistake of thinking that the Rockets just got up for one game against the Cavs because of Cleveland’s status as a legitimate title contender at the top of the Eastern Conference.

Forty-eight hours earlier, the Rockets made a statement to one of the Western Conference's young hopefuls, the Portland Trail Blazers, with a 98-94 win that demoralized a young Portland group from beginning to end.

In fact, since McGrady scored all of three points in 26 minutes in his last game—a 124-112 Houston loss at Milwaukee—the Rockets have begun to realize the potential that many thought they were capable of at the start of the year.

In sweeping their six-game homestand, head coach Rick Adelman’s squad held opponents to an average of 83.7 points per game. Portland’s 94 points were the high-water mark for a visitor during the last two weeks at the Toyota Center.

And there is more to it than just the results that show why Adelman’s group is better off without McGrady.

"I haven't been the guy who's been fortunate enough to play with Shaq, to play with Tim Duncan. I always seem to have average teams," McGrady was quoted in saying in a recent article at SI.com. "You take me back in my Orlando days with Shaq? Come on, there are no questions. You take a healthy me and switch me out with Paul Pierce [on the current Celtics]? There's no question. There's definitely no question."

The only question after reading that is what made teams like Orlando and now Houston believe that a character like McGrady was going to help them in the first place.

The teams “given” to McGrady in Houston have been elite. Yao Ming is arguably the most-skilled big man in the game. The 28-year old is in the prime of his career and put up 22 and 11 last season, a season that saw McGrady again fail to get out of the first round.

It is one thing to compare McGrady’s first round playoff failures to what Kevin Garnett went through in Minnesota. But T-Mac has been with three different franchises—Toronto, Orlando, and Houston—including a Rockets club that may have been more talented than any team Minnesota fielded for Garnett.

And it was McGrady who came into training camp out of shape at the beginning of the year. For a player who was once being put on a pedestal alongside (or at least just a shade below) Kobe Bryant and James, it’s difficult to remember a time when either Bryant or James were as detrimental to their franchises’ title hopes as McGrady has continued to be.

Funny how Artest was supposed to be the “questionable move” for this Rockets club. But it has been Artest picking up the slack for this Rockets crew in the wake of yet another McGrady absence.

The 6-foot-7, 260-pound Artest has averaged 19.3 points in the six games since McGrady came out of the lineup. For a guy who has yearned for the opportunity to exhibit his offensive prowess alongside his well-documented defensive mastery, this could be the situation that Artest has been waiting for.

Not to mention that it’s a contract year for Ron-Ron.

As the season hits the stretch run, the Rockets are one team that nobody—nobody—wants a part of. With two of the best perimeter defenders in the game in Artest and Battier combined with a healthy Yao carrying the load on the low block, Houston is a matchup nightmare for almost anyone.

Combine that with the evolution of second-year point guard and 2007 first-round pick Aaron Brooks, and Houston isn’t just a collection of big names and heralded talent: It's a a solid team whose whole could be greater than the sum of its parts.

Even parts like Artest, Yao, and Battier that are already large to begin with.

With a team like the one Adelman has right now, you would want to high five them on the court, too.

NBA Trade Deadline: Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson Could Be on the Move

Amar Panchmatia — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:55:44 -0500

Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson were once teammates. Eight months after the New Jersey Nets dumped Jefferson to Milwaukee, both guys could be sharing something else in common:

Being traded at the trading deadline.

Jefferson and Carter have emerged as the two hottest names as the league's 3 p.m. EST deadline approaches on Thursday, and they have both been linked to one team, the Portland Trail Blazers.

As of Wednesday night, sources were saying that the Blazers and Bucks were talking about a deal that would send Raef LaFrentz's expiring contract as well as Travis Outlaw to the Bucks for Jefferson.

New Jersey is equally desperate to dump Carter, who is signed through 2010-11 and has an $18 million player option for 2011-12. ESPN's Chris Broussard reported Wednesday night that there's a possibility the Nets could get desperate at the last minute and do a straight "salary dump" for Carter. They would then take back expiring contracts and nothing else.

Another team believed to have shown interest in Carter were the San Antonio Spurs, but the Spurs seem reluctant to include Roger Mason in the deal. San Antonio has been said to include swingman Bruce Bowen and center Fabricio Oberto in a potential deal, but giving up Mason, whom they signed to a two-year contract last July, may be a deal breaker.

The Houston Rockets were interested in trading Carter's cousin, Tracy McGrady, for the 32-year-old swingman out of North Carolina straight up, but the announcement of McGrady's season-ending injury earlier this week killed any deal.

Another team extremely active in trade talks have been the Cleveland Cavaliers. After the Cavs' proposed deal for Amar'e Stoudemire fell through over the weekend, GM Danny Ferry targeted Washington Wizards' forward Antawn Jamison earlier in the week. Washington has stayed with their resolution to evaluate a healthy roster before making any decision this summer.

The Cavs also inquired about the Los Angeles Clippers' Marcus Camby, but the Clippers have stated that they are not looking to dump salary and won't do a move unless it makes their team better. Cleveland's proposals centered around Wally Szczerbiak's expiring contract do not do that.

With the rest of the league chasing the Lakers and Celtics, there could be a myriad trades that go right down to the 3 p.m. EST deadline on Thursday. And as all fans know, one of the moves could elevate a mediocre contender into a serious heavyweight.

How Robert Sarver Set the Suns "In Seven Seconds or Less"

Amar Panchmatia — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:27:13 -0500

You remember how fun the Phoenix Suns were.

For many sports fans, they were the only reason to tune in to an NBA game in the post-Michael Jordan era. The "seven seconds or less" offense of getting points in a hurry and getting up and down the court was made-for-TV material.

There was two-time MVP Steve Nash, who was almost redefining the way the point guard position is played. There were athletic horses in Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire who got up and down the court, grabbed boards, and finished strong on the other end. There were guys like Joe Johnson, who stretched the floor and got points in a variety of ways.

Remember that team?

That is the same team that was an embarrassment as the league's host for the 58th annual All-Star Game this past weekend. The Suns entered the break a game behind Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West and deeply embedded in a myriad of trade rumors and a coaching change.

The thing about these Suns, however, is that they haven't just reached the end of their "cycle" as an elite team due to age, like many others before them. They haven't lost key players in free agency, been impacted by an unfortunate rule change, or seen their roster get ravaged by injuries.

But the one obstacle the Phoenix Suns—a once-proud franchise that was once the envy of the league—can point to is their miserly and inexperienced owner, Robert Sarver.

Sarver bought the Suns in the summer of 2004 for $401 million. That was the same summer that Phoenix rolled out the dough and red carpet treatment for Nash, an unrestricted free agent from Dallas. It ended up being one of the best moves in franchise history, as Nash went on to win the league's MVP award in each of his first two seasons with Phoenix.

But as far as managing the organization, it has been all downhill since for Sarver.

That same summer that the Suns landed Nash, they had the chance to lock up Joe Johnson, now an All-Star for the rejuvenated Atlanta Hawks, for a bargain deal. Sarver and the team were offering five years and $45 million. Johnson's camp wanted $50 million.

No deal, said Sarver. A year later, Johnson ended up getting the maximum of $72 million over five years, and the Suns were left with a void that they haven't filled to this day.

Oh, they got two first-round picks out of the Johnson deal. But draft picks haven't mattered much to Sarver, who has recklessly just given away picks to the highest bidder.

If you're a hoops fan, then you're certainly familiar with Rajon Rondo's name. But what you may not know is that the pick that the Boston Celtics used to select Rondo in '06 was originally Phoenix's. Sarver continued his miserly ways by just giving a pick away to avoid having to pay salary to a first-round pick.

Although he didn't want to pay first-round picks, Sarver seemed more than willing to direct his earnings at the wrong moves. It's mind-boggling is that during the same summer that he sold away the pick for Rondo, Sarver and the Suns dished out a five-year, $21 million contract to another point guard, Marcus Banks.

Banks was a flop, and after being traded to Miami in the deal that brought Shaquille O'Neal to the desert, Banks was traded again from the Heat to the Raptors last week in the Jermaine O'Neal deal.

Phoenix also locked up Boris Diaw to a five-year deal that summer, but Diaw was coming off of a career year that saw him put up 13.3 points, 6.9 boards, and 6.2 assists per game—numbers that he didn't even come close to replicating since. The Suns ended up dealing him this past summer to Charlotte.

The next year, in 2007, Sarver saw to it that the draft rights for Spaniard Rudy Fernandez were traded away for cash. Today, Fernandez is a key component of Portland's rebirth as a perennial playoff contender.

That same summer, the Suns traded away blue collar power forward Kurt Thomas—and two first-round picks—to Seattle for a second-round pick. Sarver literally just gave away not one but two first-round picks just to dump salary.

While many fans want to point the finger at new Suns GM Steve Kerr, keep in mind that Sarver's tactics have spanned the course of three General Managers in Phoenix.

Bryan Colangelo, who was the league's Executive of the Year in 2005, got out while he could on his way to winning the award again for Toronto in 2007. D'Antoni was made de facto GM in the meantime, a period that saw more of Sarver's penny-pinching habits and maneuvers.

Kerr's era will be marred by the Shawn Marion-for-Shaquille O'Neal trade in February of 2008, but the seed for Phoenix's destruction had been sown far before then. Don't make the mistake of thinking that one move by Kerr sent the Suns into an impromptu downward spiral, because Sarver simply wouldn't be getting the "credit" he deserves.

The final straw came when Sarver let D'Antoni walk away and go to New York, where he has resurrected the once-dormant Knicks. The Suns, meanwhile, are 28-23 and fighting for their playoff lives in a rugged Western Conference.

It's one thing to rebuild. But why should the Suns start with the 26-year old Amare Stoudemire? It may have to do with the fact that of all the players on Phoenix's rosters with mammoth salaries, he may be the easiest to move—and move quickly.

To make matters even worse than they already are, Sarver is going above the heads of Kerr and his staff, who are looking for the best deal that could bring in actual talent for Stoudemire. Sarver, on the other hand, is on the side looking for deals that could save him the most money.

Somebody had to summarize Sarver's reign over the Suns in a nutshell. So who better than Stoudemire himself?

"I think Sarver is more of a business-minded kind of guy, he's all about business, he's all about, I think making money," said the four-time All-Star last week amongst a myriad of trade rumors. "I'm not sure if he's totally familiar with the sport of basketball."

I'll say.

And while Phoenix fans—and fans of basketball in general—enjoyed D'Antoni's "seven seconds or less offense" for how it maximized offensive output, we can be sure that they are not enjoying Sarver's similar efficiency in inexplicably tearing apart this once-proud franchise.

Michael Jordan Trying To Beat Isiah Thomas in Atrocity, Too?

Amar Panchmatia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:54:19 -0500

Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas will forever be linked.

Never mind that they were both contemporaries in their playing days. Never mind that they both took once-dormant franchises to multiple NBA championships. Never mind that they were both considered to be the best players at their position during the prime of their respective careers.

Thomas and his "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons were the main obstacle that pushed Jordan to become what he was destined to be: The best player on the planet.

From 1988 to 1990, the Pistons pushed, shoved, and abused the Chicago Bulls—and Jordan in particular—during each of three physical playoff meetings, each ending with a Pistons victory.

And for the summer following each one of those bitter defeats, the former North Carolina Tar Heel would go into the offseason with those memories to chew on as motivation to push himself to another level.

When Jordan finally got to that point in 1991, the Bulls finally put the Pistons away with a sweep. And in one of the most embarrassing contradictions of sportsmanship, humility, and competition, Thomas led his Pistons off the floor with seven seconds left without shaking Jordan's hand and acknowledging the changing of the guard.

That's not all when it comes to these two.

Thomas had been accused of refusing to pass the ball to Jordan in the latter's first All-Star Game in 1985. Jordan responded to the accumulation of Thomas' tactics by allegedly seeing to it that Thomas was left off the '92 "Dream Team" in Barcelona—the greatest basketball team put together.

But since that first Bulls championship in '91 and the memorable Olympic run in '92, Jordan has always been a step—or four—ahead of Thomas. On the court. Championships. Endorsements. Jersey sales. Sneaker sales. Legacy. International appeal.

You name it, and chances are that Michael Jordan is better at it than Isiah Thomas.

And since the two decided to enter the front office of NBA teams, Jordan has officially made the push to out-do Thomas in atrocity as an NBA General Manager, as well.

When Thomas was appointed as President of Basketball Operations for the New York Knicks in the middle of the 2003-04 season, he was inheriting a mess. He couldn't possibly make the situation any worse than it was, but Thomas found a way to do it.

Thomas was relieved of his duties this past summer and left behind a circus in the heart of Manhattan, encapsulated by embarrassment both on and off the court. After making the playoffs during the half season that Thomas was there, the Knicks never sniffed the postseason again and finished each of Thomas' four full seasons as President with an average of 54 losses.

The once-proud franchise also became a lightning rod for tabloid controversy, with both Thomas and point guard Stephon Marbury being the center of embarrassing sex scandals more humiliating than the product Thomas was putting out on the court.

One of Thomas' few allies in the league during his tenure in New York was Larry Brown. Unlike Thomas, Brown was known for having the figurative "Midas Touch" in that every team he "touched" became a championship contender almost overnight.

But Thomas' ability to do just the opposite outweighed Brown's credentials, and after one tumultuous season in Madison Square Garden that concluded with a 23-59 finish, Thomas ended both Brown's tenure and his friendship with the legendary coach by pulling the plug on the whole experiment.

Enter Jordan.

Jordan, who had already immortalized his front office incompetency in Washington by taking Kwame Brown first overall in the 2001 draft, took over the Charlotte Bobcats in June of 2006 as part-owner and "Managing Member of Basketball Operations." And if trumping Thomas' front office ineptitude was his goal, then Jordan hit the ground running.

In his first draft that very month, Jordan used Charlotte's third pick to select Gonzaga forward Adam Morrison. On the board at the time were Brandon Roy (who has gone on to become a two-time NBA All-Star for Portland), Rudy Gay (who averaged 20.1 points and 6.2 rebounds in his second year with Memphis), Rajon Rondo (who started at point guard for the world champion Celtics last year), and a slew of other serviceable NBA players.

On Saturday, Jordan may have conceded his mistake in that draft, dealing Morrison and former Cleveland Cavaliers bust Shannon Brown to the Los Angeles Lakers for forward Vladimir Radmanovic. Although Radmanovic is serviceable, the Bobcats essentially exchanged the opportunity to get a franchise player in '06 for a journeyman reserve playing for his fourth team in four years in '09.

That's certainly not all. Oh, far from it.

Jordan used his first-rounder the next year—2007—to select North Carolina freshman Brandan Wright. He immediately dealt Wright to Golden State for star guard Jason Richardson, who stuffed the stat sheet for Charlotte during a 32-50 season.

Richardson ended up being shipped to Phoenix earlier this season for Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and rookie point guard Sean Singletary.

Again, the opportunity to add a solid young piece to his roster—somebody like Thaddeus Young, who went four picks later, or Al Thornton, who went six picks later—was wasted away for veteran role players on a team looking for an identity.

Say what you want about Thomas' abilities in the front office, but the man clearly was a draft wizard. During his four drafts with New York from 2004 to 2007, Thomas selected Trevor Ariza with the 43rd pick in '04, David Lee with the 30th pick in '05, Renaldo Balkman with the 20th pick in '06, and Wilson Chandler with the 23rd pick in '07.

Chandler and Lee are core parts of the Knicks' revival under Thomas' successors, Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni, and Ariza is a key catalyst for a Lakers team that prides itself on having superb depth.

Yes, Thomas made questionable moves in every other facet of team management, but actually using draft picks to acquire talent is an overwhelming strength of his—one more strength than his rival Jordan has demonstrated in the front offices of Washington and Charlotte.

Jordan, meanwhile, has nothing to fall back on. Absolutely none of the talent in Charlotte was brought in due to him. Emeka Okafor, Gerald Wallace, and Raymond Felton were brought in before Jordan came along.

D.J. Augustin may look like a nice pickup with the ninth pick last June, but the 6-foot point guard contradicts the presence of the 6'1" Felton, and Charlotte may be forced to shop one or the other if the team keeps treading water like it is.

Jordan has even tried to take a page out of Thomas' book by showing that not even Larry Brown on the sidelines is immune to the train wreck assembled on the court. He hired Brown as the Bobcats' head coach this past offseason, and through Saturday, Charlotte is 19-30, 18 games out of first place, and four games out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Thomas will forever be looked at as the man who tried to slowly euthanize the league's most valuable franchise in its largest media market.

And Jordan will always take a backseat to him in the department of "Worst General Managers." Just like he did as a player in his first couple of years in the league. Just as he did, at one point, in legacy. And championships. And everything else pertinent to basketball.

For now.

Because Michael Jordan is doing absolutely everything in his power to trump Isiah Thomas in that argument, as well.

And just as he did everywhere else in his career, Jordan will certainly get there sooner than you think.

Why the Portland Trail Blazers Should Regret Passing Up on Kevin Durant

Amar Panchmatia — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:04:19 -0500

All-Star snubs are nothing new. They happen in every sport and every year—from the MLB's and NBA's midseason classics to the NFL's Pro Bowl.

So when the NBA released its list of All-Star reserves following the blatant popularity contest that is the fan voting for the starters, there were bound to be several glaring omissions.

But one in particular was more than glaring. And when you think about the snub's star-crossed fate during his first two years in the NBA, it gets to be more than just glaring: It's downright sad.

So stop griping, Carmelo Anthony. Because Kevin Durant easily has a far bigger gripe than you do.

In Oklahoma City, Durant is living up to the hype that 2007 draft contemporary Greg Oden is not in Portland. Through the first 47 games this season, the former Texas Longhorn has been the league's best-kept secret quietly shuffled away in the middle of nowhere, putting up 25.0 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 47.6 percent from the field, 41.8 percent from three-point range, and 86 percent from the free throw line.

The versatile 6'9", 215-pounder led the struggling Thunder to a .500 mark during the month of January, a month that saw him post 27.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 3.7 assists while shooting 49.4 percent from the floor. Keep in mind that Durant is just 20-years-old and in his second year in the league.

Alas, Oklahoma City's overall mark of 11-37 through Tuesday was evidence that despite the young talent around him, Durant is nothing more than a one man show in OKC surrounded by an incompetent supporting cast.

But what would have been the perfect supporting cast for a guy who should be amongst the league's elite individual talents in a few years is shuffled 2,000 miles west—in Portland, Oregon.

You see, the Blazers are just fine. They're winning games. Ask any "Blazer Maniac" what they think about the team, and they'll tell you that their current team has the potential to be better than the Bob Whitsitt-assembled teams from the last part of the '90s. They'll tell you how this team can be just as good as the teams from the early '90s that were 60-win teams and went to the NBA Finals—twice.

Here's the problem though, Blazer fans: Your rapidly-ascending squad could have been better. Much, much better. As in, NBA powerhouse.

Not just next year. Not just in a few years. Not just several years down the road. I'm talking about right now.

It's been nearly 25 years since the Blazers passed over Michael Jordan for Sam Bowie, and while Durant is no Jordan (and Oden, for his sake, is no Bowie—at least not yet), the Blazers may again find themselves selling the franchise short of what it could have been.

Brandon Roy is a spectacular cornerstone in the Rose City. His nickname of "The Natural" by locals is accurate. LaMarcus Aldridge's game can remind you of Olympian Chris Bosh if you had time to pay any attention to the Raptors.

Jerryd Bayless was a steal for GM Kevin Pritchard and his staff last summer, and the team has looked stellar often times when Oden's backup, Joel Przybilla, is in the game crashing the glass and throwing bodies around.

Insert Kevin Durant at small forward. Make Roy, already a superstar in the making, his sidekick, a la Scottie Pippen (who could have been a good alpha dog in his own right). Have Przybilla, already better than close to half the starting centers in the league, start in the middle. And let Aldridge do his thing at the power forward spot while Rudy Fernandez provides the spark off the bench.

If you are a Lakers, Spurs, Hornets, Nuggets, Jazz, Rockets, Mavericks, or Suns fan, stop quaking in your boots. There really is no reason to sweat so much after reading that, because it simply didn't happen.

Sure, Portland has the perimeter scoring to potentially offset what Durant would have provided, but even at this young stage of his career, Durant is far more than just a one-dimensional scoring machine.

His 6.6 rebounds as a small forward are right up there with what the 7-foot Oden posts as a center. Durant's 2.7 assists are solid for his position, and he is already emerging as one of the best shooters at the small forward spot this early in his career.

Team chemistry could be a possible argument brought on by those who don't see how Durant would make a difference in the PDX, but the soft-spoken 20-year old has been far from a malcontent at any point during his pro or college career.

He can remind you of a young Joe Johnson—the kind of player that does whatever it takes for his team to win. Johnson lost often after signing with Atlanta, but he has helped build a winning foundation with the Hawks—something Durant certainly has the potential to do in OKC.

And while the eyes and ears of Rip City constantly lie on Oden's ill knee, Durant has been a rock so far in his career. He played 80 out of 82 games last season and has only missed one contest all of this year. Needless to say, Blazer fans wouldn't have to worry about a guy being in and out of the lineup every other game, and that's not to mention the long-term ramifications of micro fracture surgery.

Oden may or may not become as dominant as Dwight Howard is in Orlando (which would really be the only way to justify taking him No. 1 overall). The Blazers might just end up winning a championship with their current roster, after all, and the issue of revisiting what happened in 2007 may be rendered obsolete just a mere several years from now.

But for that to happen, Oden has to become one of the game's most dominant low-post forces. Portland has to find the firepower to overcome the Lakers, Spurs, and other heavyweights of the mighty Western Conference—not to mention the Celtics, Cavs, and Magic in the East—for a championship to be delivered to Rip City for the first time since 1977.

Otherwise, the man who may have been destined to take them there will be twiddling away a couple thousand miles down the road, permanently separated from the supporting cast he could have led to the NBA's Promise Land.

And that—more than a simple 2009 All-Star snub—would be much more of a shame.

Point Taken: Why The Orlando Magic Are Finally The Best Team in The NBA

Amar Panchmatia — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:10:22 -0500

In a media interview last month, Orlando forward Rashard Lewis referred to the Magic as "that other team" whenever there is a conversation about the league's top teams.

The Celtics and Lakers are two of the league's flagship and most historic franchises. They're also last spring's NBA Finalists. The Cavs have LeBron James, the league's most dynamic player, and they were in the 2007 NBA Finals. Their playoff resume as of late is well-documented, as well.

But that's 2008 and 2007. We are talking 2009. And the Orlando Magic have done plenty—plenty—to prove that they are, indeed, the best team the Association has to offer.

Oh, it began far before Friday night's impressive 109-103 win at the Staples Center over the Lakers, the team who came into the night with the league's best mark. It began far before they hit a league record 23 three-pointers in a 139-107 humiliation of the hapless Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night.

It began far before Sunday's 105-98 win at San Antonio, another one of the league's top five teams.

And it began far before the Magic showed the division rival Atlanta Hawks just how many ways they can beat them—either 106-102 at Atlanta or 121-87 in Orlando—in keeping the Hawks more than just an arm's length away in the Southeast Division.

The Magic have been building to this point, slowly but surely, all year.

They have already shown that they are a better team than the Lakers, completing a season sweep of the defending Western Conference champions on Friday night. While the Lakers have solid shooters surrounding dominant interior players in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, the Magic have better perimeter shooters surrounding the most unstoppable inside force in the entire NBA in Dwight Howard.

Howard leads the team with 20.3 points per game and leads the entire league with 14.0 boards and 3.2 blocks. He's probably the frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year honors, and while the other elite teams have perimeter players as their cornerstone guys (LeBron in Cleveland, Kobe in L.A., Pierce in Boston), the Magic have the most gifted big man since Tim Duncan donning their light baby-blue jersey.

It all begins and ends with Howard in Orlando, but unlike other contenders like the Cavaliers and the Hornets, the Magic are not overly dependent on their superstar. That's because they've done a heck of a job surrounding him with exactly the type of team he would need.

While teams collapse inside on Howard, head coach Stan Van Gundy's group gives their big man the opportunity to pop it out to a plethora of shooters on the best perimeter team in the league. Orlando ranks second in three-point percentage, first in three-pointers per game, and first in total three-pointers made.

Rashard Lewis, the team's big 2007 free agent acquisition, is a sharpshooter who plays the power forward, averaging 19.0 points and 3.0 treys per game on 42 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

Hedo Turkoglu, who signed with the squad as a free agent in 2004, is showing that last year's breakout season—where he won the league's Most Improved Player honors—was no joke, putting up 16.9 points on 1.8 3-pointers per game.

And point guard Jameer Nelson, who was in the same draft as Howard in 2004, is showing the 18 teams that passed up on him (excluding the Magic at No. 1) that he can, indeed, play point guard and play it very well.

While Cleveland gushes over Mo Williams and Boston hypes Rajon Rondo, Nelson has quietly put together a spectacular all-around season. Amongst Williams, Rondo, and Nelson, it is Orlando's point guard who is the leader in points, three-point percentage, and overall field goal percentage.

His respectable 5.3 assists per game trail Rondo, but there is no question as to who the better all-around guard has been this season.

While the Cavs and Celtics hang their hat on defense, the Magic are right there defensively. Anchored by Howard, Van Gundy's team is fifth in points allowed, third in opponents' field goal percentage, fourth in opponents' three-point percentage, and fourth in blocks.

Thirteen years after the Shaq and Penny era was blown to smithereens, Central Florida has another Magic squad to be proud of. This time around, the once-in-a-generation big man with the million dollar smile and unmatched off-court charisma is going nowhere, as Howard is on the first year of a five-year extension he signed with the club in 2007.

And here's the scary part for the rest of the league: This is a young nucleus that will continue to get better and better down the road, with all of the core players either in their primes or a couple of years away from it.

But that's for down the road. This year is plenty enough: The Orlando Magic have arrived as the best team in the NBA.

Phil Savage Firing Sinks Cleveland Browns to New Lows

Amar Panchmatia — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:19:20 -0500

It was February 9th, 2002, and Jamir Miller's AFC squad had just finished holding off their NFC counterparts in a 38-30 shootout at the Pro Bowl. Miller, the outside linebacker for the Cleveland Browns, didn't play much, but it didn't matter: This was a celebration of the best players in the entire NFL at their positions.

Six years—six years—would pass before another man wearing the orange Cleveland helmet would have the honor of representing the American Football Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii for the league's annual All-Star contest.

Coaches would get fired. General managers would lose their jobs. New stadiums would be built while old ones would be torn down. But a Cleveland Brown would not go to the Pro Bowl.

It was as certain as death, taxes, and long, losing autumns on the shores of Lake Erie.

That was supposed to change in January of 2005. And by golly, it did.

That's when the Browns hired Phil Savage, the Baltimore Ravens' Director of Player Personnel, as their new GM. Savage had served as the right hand man for Ravens General Manager and former Browns legend Ozzie Newsome, and Savage's tenure had seen a parade of Pro Bowlers don the purple and black on the banks of the Chesapeake.

The Ravens had become everything the Browns were not: A star-studded team with playmakers and All-Pros on both sides of the ball.

Savage was being asked to duplicate that in Cleveland. In his first draft, he took Michigan wide receiver Braylon Edwards with the first pick. The 2006 draft saw him take Florida State outside linebacker Kamerion Wimbley.

But 2007 was when Savage made his big splash. He took Wisconsin left tackle Joe Thomas with the third pick, then traded back into the first round to tab Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn with the 22nd selection.

Edwards broke franchise records for receiving yards and touchdowns in just his third year in the league. Wimbley set the franchise record for sacks by a rookie with 11 in '06. And Thomas made the Pro Bowl as a rookie—the first of which could be a decade's worth of trips to Hawaii for the Browns' franchise left tackle.

The draft, however, wasn't the only place where Savage was making his mark.

Savage picked up quarterback Derek Anderson off the waiver wire in 2005 after his former employer, the Ravens, dumped the same guy they had spent a sixth-round pick on. He also signed undrafted free agent Joshua Cribbs, a quarterback from nearby Kent State who would go on to become a punt returner.

Anderson had one of the most prolific seasons in the history of Browns quarterbacks, throwing for almost 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in 2007. He joined Cribbs in the Pro Bowl after the '07 season after the latter became the AFC's answer to Chicago special teams extraordinaire Devin Hester.

The Browns sent six men to the Pro Bowl in February of '08 after a six-year hiatus from Hawaii. Four of those six—Edwards, Thomas, Anderson, and Cribbs—were brought on by Savage.

Even after a disappointing 4-12 finish this year—a mark that has led to Savage's inexplicable termination—the Browns were not devoid of star power. Thomas made the Pro Bowl again, and Shaun Rogers—the defensive tackle who Savage fleeced off the Detroit Lions for cornerback Leigh Bodden and a third-round pick—joined him in Hawaii.

In four seasons on the job, Savage had brought aboard five Pro Bowlers through his transactions for a franchise that had zero—zero—in six seasons.

And if the Browns' track record in the Pro Bowl wasn't enough, try this: When Savage took over in 2005, the Browns were on a streak of 20 years without a 1,000-yard rusher. Not 2,000. Not 1,500. Not 1,200. But 1,000, a milestone that is like breathing for any No. 1 running back on any team to topple.

The franchise that once had the great Jim Brown couldn't find a workhorse back in two decades. But Savage found two—in three years. Denver Broncos castoff Reuben Droughns was brought aboard in 2005 before he broke the streak of ineptitude with 1,232 yards.

A year later, Savage signed fellow ex-Raven Jamal Lewis, whose 1,304 yards in 2007 were the most for the franchise since Brown himself wore the no. 32 in the Cleveland backfield.

All that makes Savage's firing on Sunday all the more inexplicable and reflective of the Browns' organizational ineptitude. The franchise rewarded Romeo Crennel with a contract extension last offseason despite one good season in three years with the organization. Crennel finished his tenure 24-40—not winning even once against arch-nemesis Pittsburgh, against whom he went 0-8.

Savage wasn't the problem. He supplied plenty of talent. No GM gets every pick right, but Savage did what he was hired to do: Bring star power to a franchise that was completely devoid of it.

If there was any fault of Savage's, it was that he was loyal to a fault. When his job was on the line back in December of 2005 because of power struggles within the organization, it was Crennel's support that pushed Savage over the top in keeping his job. Firing that same colleague may have proved to be too difficult for Savage, but firing him, instead, is not the answer for the Browns.

Cleveland is already rumored to be taking a serious look at former Steelers head coach and legend Bill Cowher. There have been whispers that New England Patriots Vice President of Player Personnel Scott Pioli—who was one of the candidates for the job back in '05 when Savage was initially hired—will replace Savage as the team's General Manager.

If that's true, it will be Pioli who will have huge shoes to fill. Talent wasn't the problem in Cleveland. It was what the coaching staff did with the talent. Which is why whoever takes over the headset on the Browns' sideline—whether it be Cowher, Marty Schottenheimer, or whoever—will have nowhere to go but up.

The same can't be said for whoever replaces Savage. Because for Phil Savage himself, doing what he was hired to do still wasn't enough for him to keep his job.

Chances Are That Brandon Roy Has Made a Fool Out Of You, Too

Amar Panchmatia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:14:50 -0500

Most of America slept while Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy was busy dropping a career-high 52 points on the Phoenix Suns Thursday night as chants of "M-V-P" rained down from a packed house at the Rose Garden.

Of those who were either sleeping or simply not paying attention, at least 105,345 believe that Dallas' Jason Terry, who doesn't even start for his own team, is more deserving of an All-Star starting spot than Roy. Just ask them: They casted a vote to prove it.

Another 332,222 will tell you that Tracy McGrady deserves it more despite the fact that T-Mac has been in and out of the lineup and is averaging 16.5 points and 4.6 assists to Roy's 22.3 and 5.2, respectively.

Still another 162,286 will tell you that Jason Kidd and his 9.3 points for a terribly underachieving Dallas team deserve it more than the leading scorer for one of the league's biggest surprises this season.

And a batch of 166,981 people who claim to be "fans" will tell you that Manu Ginobili of the fading Spurs deserves it more than Roy despite only playing half the season and averaging seven points and two assists less than the pride of Rip City.

If you're one of these people, do yourself and the rest of the sports fans around you a favor and just stop. Stop watching the games. Stop casting your useless All-Star vote.

And for the love of everything good and worth fighting for in this world, stop calling yourself a basketball fan, because if you casted your vote for the 2009 All-Star Game for one of the guys mentioned above over Roy, then you clearly don't know much—if anything—about what's going on in the NBA this year.

Thursday night's game was a microcosm of what the season has been like for Roy. If the nationally televised contest between Portland and Phoenix was your first exposure to Roy, then good for you—it's a start.

But don't even dare to make the mistake of thinking that the image of Roy carrying the young Blazers on his back almost to the top of the Northwest division was an overnight development.

The 6'6", 211-pounder out of Washington has easily been the league's best-kept secret this year in an NBA season that has been abound by storyline after storyline.

Roy and his Blazers have been buried behind the likes of LeBron's surging Cavaliers, Dwight's torrid Magic, Garnett's record-setting Celtics, and Kobe's championship-level supporting cast in Los Angeles.

But Roy has kept the engine moving in Portland for a team that won 13 straight last season and went .500 with one of the youngest cores in league history.

This year, he has shown the swagger and leadership in clutch situations to the point that many of his teammates just know that they'll pull one off at the end as long as No. 7 is on the court.

That's just what happened Thursday against a Suns team that had won 11 straight against the Blazers coming into the contest. And Roy personally saw to it that he would never have to hear about that streak again.

Portland's burgeoning superstar also hit the most startling buzzer-beater of the year when he sank a 31-footer at the horn in another nationally televised game against Houston. Again, most of America slept as the Rose Garden roared for its new leader.

Yet, most of America kept voting. And they kept voting against Brandon Roy—to the point where Roy is ninth amongst all Western Conference guards in All-Star balloting despite being the unquestioned heart and soul of a team, an organization, and maybe even a city.

Oh, it's OK to get your sleep if you're on the East Coast during Roy's heroics. Nobody wants to be late to work the next day because they were up late watching a regular season NBA game in November or December.

Just don't cast your All-Star vote. Because unless you've heard of the kid affectionately called "B-Roy" by Blazer maniacs, you simply don't deserve one.

Why Paul Millsap Should Make the Utah Jazz Forget About Carlos Boozer

Amar Panchmatia — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:52:14 -0500

The Utah Jazz have a problem.

Oh, it's a good problem, to be sure. The Jazz are 15-11, playing great basketball under a coach who has been with them since before a lot of this year's rookies were born, and are fighting for their third consecutive Northwest Division crown.

Not only that, but Jerry Sloan's group is remaining among the league's elite despite being banged up more than any other team in the league. The Jazz started the season without point guard Deron Williams, who was fresh off of winning a gold medal with Team USA in the summer. They went a stretch of games without Williams and former All-Stars Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur. By the time those guys returned to the lineup, Sloan's crew was missing two-time All-Star Carlos Boozer from the starting lineup.

That Boozer injury, however, may have been a blessing in disguise for a Jazz team based in the NBA's smallest market.

Boozer suffered a strained left quadriceps tendon during a Nov. 19 win at home against Milwaukee. That win put Utah at 8-4 despite the fact that they blew games against inept Eastern Conference competition such as New York, Washington, and Charlotte. Boozer, on the other hand, did a good job padding his stats by putting up 20.5 points and 11.7 rebounds in 33.8 minutes per game.

Since the Boozer injury, the Jazz have been .500 at 7-7, but the last thing you can blame for that is the lack of an inside presence to bring the double-double every night.

Paul Millsap, who like Boozer is a former second-round pick, has picked up the slack by averaging 17.1 points and 10.6 boards in the 14 games since the Jazz lost Boozer. Millsap's latest masterpiece was dropping 32 points and 10 rebounds on 13-for-20 shooting on defending Defensive Player of the Year Kevin Garnett in a 100-91 loss at Boston.

While Boozer shot 55.9 percent from the floor before going down and is shooting 54.2 percent from the field for his career, Millsap has lit it up to the tune of 57.4 percent (93-162) from the floor since the injury to the former Duke Blue Devil. Monday night's game in Boston was Millsap's 12th consecutive double-double, an astounding feat considering that he didn't have one before that stretch.

So here is the "good" problem for the Jazz and Director of Basketball Operations Kevin O'Connor this season: Both Millsap and Boozer are free agents this summer.

Boozer, who just turned 27 and is in the prime of his career, has a $12.6 million player option for next season that he can turn down to become the most coveted unrestricted free agent for the summer of '09.

But when it comes to free agency, Boozer doesn't necessarily have the most desirable history, and his status as a man of his word—which should be considered every time the “desire to stay in Utah” comes out of his mouth—may have been destroyed beyond repair considering what happened the last time Boozer was on the open market.

The Cleveland Cavaliers had a team option on Boozer for the 2004-05 season at a little over $700,000, a minor salary by NBA standards, and the product of Boozer's status as a second-round pick. Boozer, coming off a breakthrough season by putting up 15.5 points and 11.4 rebounds for the Cavs, asked to be let out of his contract so that he could sign a long-term contract with Cleveland.

The cap-strapped Cavaliers did not have Boozer's "Bird Rights" since Boozer had not played for them for three years, and they could not go over the cap to re-sign him. If another team with the cap space chose to make Boozer an offer he couldn't refuse, then the rest would be history.

Depending on whom you ask, Boozer promised then-owner Gordon Gund of the Cavs that he will re-sign and show his loyalty to Cleveland to pay Gund back. There were so many things that went wrong with both parties in the most underrated debacle in recent league history, but the bottom line is that Boozer was accused by multiple sources to have gone back on his word and tricked the Cavs on his way to a big payday.

However, Millsap's slate is clean. He's been in the league for three years, and the third-year forward out of Louisiana Tech has a game similar to Boozer's. While Boozer is listed at 6'9" and 266, Millsap goes at 6'8" and 255. The latter is also just 23 and has the athleticism to boot. You won't see Boozer flying high to finish alley-oops, but while Millsap has the hops to finish high above the rim, he's also the hard-hat, lunch-pail, and punch-the-clock-and-go-to-work kind of player that the elder Boozer is.

O'Connor and the Jazz aren't going to be able to keep both, especially since they already have an exorbitant amount of money tied up in Williams and Kirilenko. Okur can also opt out of the $9 million he's due next year and become a free agent with Boozer this summer. Both Okur and Boozer can probably get far more on the open market than their current deals with Utah will pay them in 2009-10.

And then there is Millsap.

Boozer and Jazz owner Larry Miller had a rough start to their relationship in Utah following Boozer's tumultuous departure from Cleveland. He's had an up-and-down tenure in Salt Lake City, and the Jazz have a younger and more athletic version of him waiting in the wings with Millsap.

If O'Connor can move Boozer, who has been injury-prone during his four-plus seasons with the Jazz, before the trading deadline for some other pieces to put around guys like Williams, Millsap, and Kirilenko, then Utah could be setting itself up to be an absolute force not just for this season, but for many, many seasons to come after 2008-09.

Don't make the mistake of believing that Miller can shell out the money for all three. Millsap knows by now that he cannot only be a starter in this league, but a star.

If he's moved back to the bench behind Boozer once the Olympian returns, then Millsap's days of being Boozer's backup are numbered after this season. And there aren't enough positions—not to mention minutes—to distribute between Millsap, Boozer, and Okur.

Having up to three big free agents like Utah has is going to cause a big problem this summer for many teams. A bad problem. A problem that teams want to stay away from.

But Sloan and O'Connor definitely come out as being fortunate in their situation. They have a plethora of options to keep the team amongst the league's best, and possibly make them even better than they have been.

It's how they go about doing that, of course, that will determine just how fortunate the Jazz are.

Getting to the Bottom of the LeBron James/New York Media Circus

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:04:05 -0500

Let's get this out of the way right now: Neither the New York Knicks nor the Cleveland Cavaliers have a desirable history or any sort of discernible "tradition."

Neither franchise has banners hanging from the rafters like the Boston Celtics. Neither team has dynasties in nearly every decade like the Los Angeles Lakers. And neither team has a legendary No. 23 hanging from the rafters like the Chicago Bulls.

About that last part, though: The Cleveland Cavaliers are on their way to adding their own No. 23 from the rafters of Quicken Loans Arena. But not before the New York Knicks have something to say about it.

Don't believe it? You probably weren't paying attention to what new Knicks President Donnie Walsh was doing on Friday.

Walsh took two mammoth contracts belonging to Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph and pawned them off for Al Harrington, Cutting Mobley, and Tim Thomas. Yeah, the talent doesn't swing in Walsh's favor, but here's the kicker: Harrington, Mobley, and Thomas all combine for $27 million off the team's payroll and salary cap in the summer of 2010.

Eight hours west, on the shores of Lake Erie, the Cleveland Cavaliers know that year all too well. It's the year that their beloved King James can become an unrestricted free agent.

The national media's obsession with linking James to the New York market has been out of control ever since James entered the league. Many fans and even media members who claimed to be wired predicted that LeBron would leave Cleveland after his rookie contract and sign with a big market team like the Knicks.

The hoopla was incessant during James' first couple of years in the league, and it undoubtedly had to drive Cleveland fans crazy.

Of course, the so-called experts who predicted so were wrong, and James ended up re-upping with the Cavaliers in July of 2006.

There's a catch, though: During LeBron's rookie contract, James was scheduled to become a restricted free agent. The Cavs had the right to match any offer from anybody had James not signed an extension one year before becoming a free agent. The rules heavily favored him staying in Cleveland, and that's exactly what he did.

But the Cavs offered him a maximum of five years. He took three, with an option for a fourth. And this time around, he'll be an unrestricted free agent, not a restricted one.

Which means that the Cavs won't have the right to match any offer. LeBron's gone the minute he puts ink to paper for another team.

For the Cavaliers, it's a tumultuous situation. They have done a decent job building a competent supporting cast around LeBron, but the results just haven't backed it up. They went 45-37 in 2007-'08 after contract holdouts and disruptions in the team's chemistry stunted the team's growth.

And despite making the NBA Finals in 2007, they were unceremoniously swept out by the San Antonio Spurs in a series that was absolutely unwatchable unless you had some kind of a rooting interest for either of the teams involved.

The pressure has to be at an all-time high right now in the Rock 'n Roll City as Cavs GM Danny Ferry will absolutely feel the heat to translate Wally Szczerbiak's expiring contract into a Goliath piece at the trading deadline that can put the Cavs over the top for both this season and next season.

Cleveland has been treading water for quite some time now, and many expected the Cavs to have become heavyweights in the NBA by the time James entered his sixth season in the league, the point where he is right now.

Cleveland's 9-3 start has been remarkable this year, but they have by no means been anything close to a "heavyweight," leveling off as a 50-32 team that lost in the second round of the playoffs two out of the last three seasons.

James has gone on the record as saying that he would have to consider his options based on which situation presents him with the best chance of winning a championship.

If you're an NBA fan, you have to believe that the Larry O'Brien trophy—and not the size of the media market he plays in—trumps everything for LeBron when it comes to his legacy and status as one of the best players to ever play the game.

That's exactly why these new-look New York Knicks can finally enter the equation.

Under Isiah Thomas, the Knicks were a mess. How owner James Dolan continued to keep Thomas employed all this time is beyond anyone's guess. But these new Knicks led by Walsh and head coach Mike D'Antoni offer hope.

They offer the opportunity to keep building and adding spare parts here and there before being able to land their cornerstone in free agency two summers from now.

Will it happen? Well, there's a far better chance of it happening in 2010 than there was after LeBron's rookie contract, a time that many media members recklessly wasted by speculating nonsense.

Unfortunately for Cavaliers fans, this time around is a lot more serious.

A lot can change in two years. Heck, Kobe Bryant went from wanting out of L.A. to playing in the Finals in eight months. Two years is almost like an eternity in the sports world.

But don't tell that to the New York Knicks or Cleveland Cavaliers, because the race to 2010 starts right now.

Can Cleveland Browns Fans Stop Shooting Themselves in the Foot?

Amar Panchmatia — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:42:11 -0500

It's tougher than ever before to be a fan of professional sports in Cleveland, OH.

Why? Well, Clevelanders, whose teams haven't won a major world championship of any sort since 1964, when Jim Brown was running between the tackles for the Browns, at least used to have Philadelphia to share the misery.

After the Phillies' World Series run last month, the City of Brotherly Love can once again call itself a world champion for the first time since 1983.

LeBron James is, by far, the best thing to happen to Cleveland in a long, long time—possibly ever. But Clevelanders can't escape rampant rumors about him leaving (even though he's a free agent two full years from now) every time they turn on the TV, browse the Internet, or pick up a magazine.

Sometimes you wonder if all this gets to Cleveland fans. This week's incident involving an email exchange between a Cleveland Browns "fan" and Browns General Manager and Senior Vice President Phil Savage is proof that it does.

The fan got Savage so amped up that the GM of one of the oldest franchises in the NFL responded by telling the emailer to "Go root for Buffalo" and "[expletive] himself" in a brief and to-the-point answer.

Although the focus this week has been on Savage for acting unprofessionally despite holding such a high post for an esteemed NFL organization, the attention should be paid to the lackluster and misinformed emailer who obviously wants to see his teams keep on losing:

"You are easily the worst GM in the NFL. [Offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski], [head coach Romeo] Crennel, and [defensive coordinator Mel] Tucker should NOT have jobs. How the hell do you play prevent defense the entire game? How do you NOT use [backup running back] Jerome Harrison more? Why the hell would you throw the ball with 6 minutes left? This is officially a regime that is worse than Butch Davis’. By the way, just like last week - this email was written while the Browns still had the lead."

If you see where this wayward fan is coming from, compared to where Savage has brought the Browns organization in the four years he's been on the job, it's easy to justify how such a juvenile and delusional fan deserves the F-bomb—if not from Savage, than at least from somebody. Anybody. Many, many times, at that.

To call Savage's reign over the Browns as being "worse than Butch Davis'" is the best place to start. When Savage took over the Browns in January of 2005, it was one of the least-talented squads the NFL had seen in years. Years.

The team had not had a Pro Bowler in three seasons, they had gone through a laundry list of quarterbacks, and there had been no 1,000-yard rusher since 1985.

Davis, on the other hand, bailed out on the team in the middle of the 2004 season when he knew that he didn't have what it took to turn the Browns around. Cleveland ended that campaign 4-12, a beating post for the rest of the league down the stretch, and a roster filled with misfits, castoffs, and undrafted free agents.

In Savage's third year on the job in 2007, the Browns sent six—count 'em, six—Pro Bowlers to Hawaii.

Savage found a 1,000-yard back in Reuben Droughns in his first year of 2005. After that, Jamal Lewis became the first rusher to go for over 1,300 on the ground for the Browns since Jim Brown himself.

And most importantly, an offensive line that notoriously used to be a turnstile for defensive lines across the league under Davis' rule blossomed into one of the very best units under Savage, anchored by a guy that Savage himself drafted: Joe Thomas.

Thomas went to the Pro Bowl as a rookie last season and may be a staple in Hawaii for the rest of his career.

Savage found undrafted free agent Joshua Cribbs in 2005, a guy who went to the Pro Bowl as a kick returner in '07 and has been labeled as the AFC's Devin Hester.

As the right-hand man for Baltimore Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome leading up to his stint in Cleveland, Savage played a major role in helping Newsome draft first-rounders Ray Lewis, Jonathan Ogden, Peter Boulware, Chris McAllister, Jamal Lewis, Todd Heap, Ed Reed, and Terrell Suggs. That's a parade of superstars who have all been to the Pro Bowl multiple times.

Since Savage left Baltimore, the Ravens have used first-round picks on wide receiver Mark Clayton, defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, offensive lineman Ben Grubbs, and quarterback Joe Flacco. Only Flacco appears to be a good pick, but the jury's still out on him. The rest haven't smelled a Pro Bowl while Savage, during the same time, has drafted two Pro Bowlers (Braylon Edwards and Joe Thomas) in Cleveland.

Under Davis, the quarterback position was a joke, filled with guys who either didn't fit or simply didn't have the talent to be starters in the NFL. But Savage picked up Derek Anderson off the waivers when the Baltimore Ravens cut the former Oregon State Beaver, and Anderson responded by having one of the most prolific seasons by a quarterback in Browns history on his way to the Pro Bowl, as well.

In fact, only one player—tight end Kellen Winslow—who went to the Pro Bowl for the Browns last year was not a Phil Savage pick. And one guy who should have gone (as he won the fans' vote), guard Eric Steinbach, was a Savage free-agent signing.

Overlapping the Savage regime with the Butch Davis era in Cleveland is a joke. You'd be lucky to get a simple "[expletive] you" out of most GMs around the league, let alone a guy who assembled a roster like the one Savage has, if you dare compare them to Butch Davis.

On top of all that, the emailer directs a lot of blame on Savage for things that happen on the field and in the game. As a GM, Savage's job is not to decide when the Browns run a "prevent" defense, when and how often they use certain skill players, and what plays are called on offense. That simply is not something that a GM does.

Should the guys who do have control over those things—the coaching staff—still be employed? Well, that's something that is Savage's call, but it's still out of line to label him as "the worst GM in the NFL" when that same coaching staff just went 10-6 last season.

To expect Savage to start axing coaches in the middle of the season is beyond laughable. It's the mark of an ignorant fan who is better served doing his nine-to-five job instead of advising a man being paid millions to do his own job—and do it well.

If the drama and controversy surrounding this strange season is too taxing for Savage, then the fallout from this could be devastating for the Browns and the city of Cleveland.

First, the Kellen Winslow situation where the Pro Bowl tight end accused Savage and the team of covering up his staph infection stole headlines for all the wrong reasons. Second, the team decided on a short week to switch Anderson for Brady Quinn at quarterback.

Third, running back Lewis accused the team, particularly the defense, of quitting in the middle of a nationally-televised fourth-quarter meltdown against Denver—the second straight game where the Browns blew a double-digit fourth quarter lead.

Now Savage has this hoopla to deal with regarding his email exchange with a clueless fan.

Many Browns fans—maybe the majority—have been remarkable in backing Savage as the team's GM. It's support that Savage certainly deserves, and it helped him win a power-struggle with former team president John Collins back in '05 when it looked like Savage might have been fired by the organization.

Cleveland fans should thank their lucky stars that it didn't end up that way, or else the newfound hope and faith that they have had in their team over the last couple of years may have never come to fruition.

Now the same fans have to question whether or not Savage would want to come back next year with an organization that has become one of the league's—if not all of professional sports'—biggest soap operas.

The Browns have had what seems like 100 night games on national TV this season, but the team can't stop making most of its headlines off the field.

Hopefully Savage, who earned a multi-year extension with the team last offseason, doesn't quit on the organization. Hopefully the challenges that lie ahead for the Browns as they lie on a pivotal crossroad motivates him enough to return and get this team back to where it belongs: Amongst the league's elite.

If it doesn't? Well, although you can't blame all Cleveland fans for getting Savage to his wit's end, you can certainly blame one. And all it takes is one frustrated, disgruntled, and in this case, delusional fan to keep Cleveland far away from a major sports world championship.

For another year.

How Marc Gasol Has Made Chris Wallace Look Smarter Than You Think

Amar Panchmatia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:21:40 -0500

It seems like the entire world and their mother is under the impression that Memphis GM Chris Wallace just pawned Pau Gasol off on the Lakers for Kwame Brown's expiring contract and nothing more last January.

Please, for the love of everything good and holy left fighting for on this earth, let's dispel this myth right now.

The name "Marc" may not trump "Pau" when "Gasol" comes up in word association games, but Marc Gasol could be far more relevant long after his older brother has retired from the game.

The Grizzlies got the rights to Little Gasol (if you can call the hulking 7'1", 265-pound Marc Gasol that) back in January, but he was viewed largely as a throw-in.

After making a mark in the Beijing Games for the Spanish team this past summer, the 23-year-old Marc Gasol has come in as a rookie in Memphis and put up 12.0 points and 7.7 boards in his first 10 games in the NBA. And this is from a guy who was a late second-round pick in 2007.

On top of that, the Grizzlies have Gasol at a dirt-cheap rookie contract. While the older Gasol is making eight figures in the prime of his career, this Gasol is young enough to align his career symmetry with fellow Memphis stars O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay.

His cheap deal also allows Wallace to be a player in free agency for the next several summers before locking up his version of the "Big Three" when the time comes.

Younger Gasol has been everything that his brother was when he came into the league—with less than half the hype and salary. Marc is shooting 56.4 percent from the field, averaging a block per game, and putting up a monster 27-point, 16-rebound game earlier this month in just his fourth contest in the NBA, a 90-79 Grizzlies win.

He even came right out of the gate firing by logging a double-double in his first game as a pro, posting 12 points and 12 boards against the competitive Houston Rockets to start off his rookie campaign.

While Mayo and Gay have combined to start forming what could be one of the most devastating 1-2 punches in the league, Gasol has complemented the two perimeter players nicely with a good low-post game and an affinity for the dirty work.

It took his older brother several years to shed the "soft" label and become the bruiser that he is today with the Lakers, but Marc Gasol has already shown that he has the attitude and the edge to bang bodies inside and do what it takes to do his job every night.

Kwame Brown's contract is long gone, but don't you dare make the mistake of thinking of him as the key piece Wallace targeted in January. The Grizzlies GM pretty much cloned Pau, made him five years younger, and cut his salary by over 90 percent.

So why do people keep taking shots at Wallace and talking about him as if they could do his job better?

If you read and listen to the mass media that covers the league (even casually), you'd be convinced that the Grizzlies got Brown for Pau Gasol and absolutely nothing else.

You'd ignore the fact that Marc Gasol is developing just as well as his older brother did in the same city seven years ago.

You'd ignore the fact that Wallace saved a ton of cash to lay the groundwork for a dynamic young nucleus, and that he will have a ton of money to throw around as well as draft picks to keep adding to this young Memphis team.

With Pau Gasol, Wallace would have just kept treading water, given the player's age and massive contract. With the 23-year-old Marc Gasol, who is playing for the NBA equivalent of slave wages due to his status as a second-round pick, the Grizzlies finally have a vision and a future along with a familiar name to carry them into the next phase of their franchise.

Maybe the Lakers will continue to prove that they won this trade in the end. Maybe Pau Gasol will help Kobe Bryant win that elusive fourth championship ring. And maybe Marc Gasol will continue to be known as Pau's little brother.

But until then, recognize this right now: Chris Wallace has set up the Memphis Grizzlies for an incredibly successful run in the years to come. And it's why he—and not the fans who think he only got Kwame Brown in return—is running an NBA team.

Brandon Roy's Buzzer-Beater Won More Than a Game for Portland

Amar Panchmatia — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:57:57 -0500

If you're like most NBA fans, then you aren't used to seeing the Portland Trail Blazers (yes, two words) on national television.

This season started with the Blazers on TNT in Los Angeles against the Lakers, for the much-anticipated debut of Greg Oden. Oden, as you surely remember, missed all of what was supposed to be his rookie year last season when he had to shut it down to rehab from microfracture surgery.

And it was Oden who was supposed to take the young Blazers from a pesky fringe playoff team to an up-and-coming power knocking on the door to future NBA championships.

When Oden couldn't even make it out of the first half of his first game unscathed, Portland's playoff hopes were supposed to go crashing down with him.

Every team looking to be a championship team in the future has to start by taking their lumps. For this Blazers team, making the playoffs in 2008-09 after a five-year hiatus from the postseason was the very first goal.

So when guard—no, check that—when All-Star guard Brandon Roy hit the equivalent of two uncanny buzzer-beaters in the span of two seconds in overtime to beat the Houston Rockets Thursday night on TNT, the prospect of playoff basketball (and more) became realistic again in a rejuvenated Rip City.

Even—maybe especially—without Oden.

Right now, Greg Oden is like a tall tale. He's like Paul Bunyan, or Big Foot. You've heard a lot about him, you've heard about the outrageous things he can do, and some have even claimed to see him in action. But for most of the world, he remains a myth.

Fortunately for the Portland Trail Blazers, their young Oden-less cast is a dangerous reality for the rest of the league. With one All-Star already and several others potentially in waiting, the Blazers set a foundation in 2007-08 with a 41-41 season that didn't even involve the much-hyped seven-foot center from Ohio State.

In Roy, the Blazers have what every contender needs, first and foremost—a face and an identity. After that, Roy provides leadership, fearlessness, and an attitude. He's not LeBron. He's not Kobe. And although their games are eerily similar, he's not Dwyane Wade.

But if you've heard the cliche, "I don't know what it is, but he has it," then Roy's attributes are the very underlining of that phrase.

It would be enough to just have him by himself. But GM Kevin Pritchard has done a jaw-dropping job surrounding Roy with the talent he'll need to take Rip City back to the Finals for the first time since 1992.

Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge was criticized for being "too soft," coming out of Texas after his sophomore year. Three years into his NBA career, Aldridge has already posted a sophomore season that saw him post 17.8 points and rip 7.6 boards while shooting 48.4 percent from the field and blocking 1.2 shots per game.

Look around the league, and there are accomplished veterans who would pay good money for those numbers. But the former Longhorn did that in just his second year in the league.

Roy's shots at the end of the game against the vaunted Rockets will be the lasting image from Thursday night's national telecast, but it was Aldridge who did the heavy lifting: 27 points on 12-20 shooting, nine rebounds, and three blocks in 45 minutes of burn. And he did this against a tough Rockets defense that threw combinations of Yao Ming, Luis Scola, Ron Artest, and Chuck Hayes at him all night.

Like Oden, reserve swingman Rudy Fernandez has been a product of the "hype machine" as well—but unlike his rookie counterpart, the Spaniard has delivered.

The 6'6" Fernandez was greeted by a mob of Blazers fans when he made his arrival at Portland International Airport over the summer. While many nationally may have thought it odd to welcome a guy that most casual fans haven't even heard about—and maybe still haven't heard about—Fernandez's game has done the talking for him.

Against Houston, Fernandez made tremendous contributions—15 points on five-for-nine shooting from the field and three-for-five shooting from beyond the three-point line. Many may label Fernandez as a one-trick pony because of his one-dimensional ability to score from the perimeter, but he fits his role perfectly as an energizer off the bench for now, with the prospect of being much more than that as his career in Portland progresses.

If you want to analyze this roster, you can go on all day: 2008 lottery pick Jerryd Bayless (who was supposed to be a top-five pick), the absolutely clutch Travis Outlaw, and versatile '05 lottery-pick power forward Channing Frye.

But it all goes back to Roy.

The last time a team was put together by throwing together a bunch of high draft picks to form a young nucleus, we saw the birth of the "Baby Bulls" in Chicago. Those Bulls are on the verge of becoming also-rans, just a few years after supposedly "getting it together" with their maturing young corps.

But what makes this Blazers team different from that Bulls team is an identity. An edge. An attitude. And it all stems from Roy, who, unlike anybody on that Bulls team, is already an All-Star by his second year in the league.

In a league where it is not easy to find natural born leaders, who keep their eyes on the prize at the end as well as become sources for civic and community pride, the third-year guard out of Washington has the strut of a 10-year veteran hungry for that elusive championship ring.

So as Portland embarks on a five-game road trip over the next week and a half, Roy's buzzer-beater to drop the Rockets will loom larger as the Blazers depart Portland. Miss that shot, and they are 1-4 looking to come apart at the seams fast.

But if, unlike most NBA fans, you've been following the ascent of this team for the past several years, watching the ball find the bottom of the net after coming off of No. 7's hands really shouldn't have surprised you much—if at all.

Switching Derek Anderson for Brady Quinn Is Not the Answer in Cleveland

Amar Panchmatia — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:58:44 -0500

Week Nine of the NFL season saw a myriad of big-time matchups around the league: Dallas and New York, New England and Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh and Washington, just to name a few. All had big playoff implications, and the results of each contest could loom large all the way down until the final gun sounds on Week 17.

But just because the physical, hard-hitting contest between the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens wasn't on Sunday night, Monday night, or after 4 PM Eastern didn't mean that it wasn't just as important as the others—if not more.

In fact, it may have shaken up an entire franchise.

The struggling Browns offense wasn't getting any favors from their defense, quickly getting down 10-0 in the first quarter. But special-teams play had the Browns tied with Baltimore at halftime, 13-13, as Pro Bowl return man Joshua Cribbs got the Browns back into it with a kick-return touchdown before Phil Dawson nailed a career-long 54-yard field goal to end the half.

After that, the swagger was back for the Browns, who were looking to get their high-powered offense off the mat and stuff the Ravens to get back to .500.

Or so we thought.

Quarterback Derek Anderson made the big plays needed against a vaunted Ravens defense—a team that Anderson helped the Browns sweep in 2007. A touchdown pass to Braylon Edwards made it 20-13. Another to Jason Wright made it 27-13. The rout was supposed to be on.

What happened after this point had nothing to do with either Anderson or his backup, Brady Quinn, which makes the Browns' shift to Quinn for this Thursday's game against Denver even more baffling.

Cleveland's defense simply could not get off the field, and the fact that it was against the Ravens' offense was even more inexplicable. Over the years, Baltimore's offense has been just as much of an eyesore as its defense has been spectacular, and that's saying quite a bit. Rookie quarterback Joe Flacco—an afterthought on draft day—looked John Elway-ish in driving down the field in Cleveland and tying the game at 27.

On the ensuing drive, Anderson had Edwards open for what could have been a sure touchdown. At the very least, it could have set up a go-ahead field goal early in the fourth quarter. Anderson put it right on the money, and the Pro Bowl wide receiver had a big time play right on his fingertips.

Except he dropped it.

And benching Anderson for Quinn is supposed to make this stop?

The Browns lost to the Ravens, 37-27, as their season evaporated before their eyes. The defense made the Ravens look like the Colts and couldn't keep a two-touchdown lead against a traditionally porous offense.

Baltimore running backs LaRon Landry and Ray Rice—second and third stringers behind injured starter Willis McGahee—looked like a one-two punch of Jim Brown and Walter Payton in shredding Head Coach Romeo Crennel's defense at will.

Cleveland's defense ranks 28th against the run this season and has given up an average of 148 yards per game on the ground. As far as total defense goes, the Browns are 25th in the NFL, giving up an astonishing 348.1 yards per game.

Those numbers shouldn't surprise you if you're a Browns fan. Cleveland has been one of the worst-ranked defenses in the league for the past decade. In fact, since their rebirth in 1999, the Browns have never fielded a respectable defense and have always been one of the easiest defenses to run against.

Just ask their own running back, Jamal Lewis, who predicted that he would break the single-game rushing record on the Browns in 2003 when he played for the Ravens. Lewis delivered on his pledge by dropping an eye-popping 295 yards on Cleveland and a total of 500 yards in two games against the team, the main reason for his 2,000-yard campaign that season.

Kelly Holcomb was the quarterback back then after taking the job from Tim Couch in training camp. Since then, the Browns have had Luke McCown, Jeff Garcia, Trent Dilfer, and Charlie Frye start for them at quarterback. And in a league where it's not easy to find a Pro Bowl quarterback, they found one in Derek Anderson.

Yet, when the defense couldn't keep a lead, and Braylon Edwards continued to add to his league-leading total of dropped passes (14 and counting), it was Anderson who got the plug pulled.

In a season of high expectations, the Browns have been more successful making headlines with what happens off the field than what has happened on it. The Kellen Winslow fiasco regarding the Pro Bowl tight end's staph infection tore apart the locker room and made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Now the Browns have misdiagnosed their problems and fanned the fires of a raging quarterback controversy.

If Crennel and GM Phil Savage want to compete on an annual basis, getting a defense that can at least be average against the run would be a good start. Teaching Braylon Edwards how to catch again would be nice, as well.

But if the Browns think that Brady Quinn is the answer to their woes, then they're about to get what they deserve.

And it's not going to be pretty.

Joe Dumars Makes Mistake Trading for Allen Iverson

Amar Panchmatia — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:26:46 -0500

When the Denver Nuggets parted ways with former GM Kiki Vandeweghe a couple of years ago, many wondered what direction the Nuggets would go in after dumping a talent evaluator who had elevated Denver from a doormat to a perennial playoff team.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, the Pistons' front office was ironclad.

Joe Dumars had already won Executive of the Year honors once, and many thought he was destined for more. Like the Lions on Thanksgiving Day, the Pistons were a lock in the Eastern Conference Finals, having been a staple in the late-May event for an overwhelming majority of the decade—seven consecutive years, to be exact.

In the Rocky Mountains, the Nuggets were a staple to be unceremoniously dumped in the first round, gone and forgotten far before the Pistons reached their trademark round of the postseason.

That's why the manner in which Denver's front office took Dumars to the woodshed in trading Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess seems ever the more baffling.

When Dumars fired head coach Flip Saunders at season's end, it was a good thing for Detroit. Saunders' teams have always shown a propensity to underachieve when the going gets tough deep in the playoffs.

Seven straight first-round losses in Minnesota and three straight losses in the Eastern Conference Finals with Detroit—including two to teams with inferior records—don't lie. Saunders has a decade-long track record of being an underachiever.

But instead of letting new head coach Michael Curry take over the reigns for a roster that is clearly worthy of winning the franchise's fourth Larry O'Brien trophy, Dumars has planned to tinker around by adding star power and the very definition of a shoot-first point guard to a group built on the team concept.

No group in the NBA over the past several seasons has underlined the definition of team basketball more than the Pistons, and this is definitely a step in the right direction if Dumars' goal is to blow all that to smithereens.

Sure, AI is only a year older than Billups, both in terms of actual age and tenure. It's not like the Pistons are mortgaging the future for a 33-year-old combo guard on his last legs.

But Billups has been the embodiment of the Pistons—at least since Ben Wallace was let go. He plays tough-as-nails defense on the perimeter, takes pride in that part of his game, and always makes plays with and without the ball on offense to keep his team in the game at all times.

The same cannot be said for Iverson.

We heard for years how poor AI was struggling without a competent supporting cast in Philadelphia, much like we are hearing the same thing about LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers right now. The one year the Sixers made it to the Finals was when the roster was comprised of a bunch of role players who were retreads and journeymen.

Tyrone Hill, Aaron McKie, Eric Snow, and George Lynch scare absolutely no one, but yet AI was able to get it done that year.

Since then, the Sixers haven't even sniffed the Finals. Near the end of AI's tenure with the Sixers, the team was either finishing under .500 or backing into the playoffs only to be ushered out of the first round.

When Iverson got to Denver, it was supposed to be the energizer for both him and the Nuggets. AI had a competent supporting cast—so strong, in fact, that he could be viewed as a sidekick instead of the alpha dog with Carmelo Anthony's presence.

Along with Anthony, Kenyon Martin, and Marcus Camby, the Nuggets had four guys who had been top three picks in the NBA draft at one point. This was supposed to be the electrifying run-and-gun show to rival the Phoenix Suns—maybe even out-do them.

Instead, since landing Iverson, the Nuggets have been one of the bottom seeds in the West, being punished by San Antonio, 4-1, in the first round in '07 and swept, 4-0, by the Lakers in '08. That's a 1-8 playoff record.

A 33-year-old Allen Iverson is not going to get the Detroit Pistons where they want to go, and making such a big change at such a critical position for a roster that won 59 games last season isn't the wisest thing to do for Dumars.

As for Denver, it gives them a winner at the point guard position who is tested for the battles of the postseason. In a conference that includes Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, and Jason Kidd, the presence of Billups, who played his college ball at the University of Colorado in nearby Boulder, will be enormous, especially on the defensive end.

And at least for this year, the Nuggets can legitimately compete with Utah in the Northwest Division. Denver will also be able to fend off the young up-and-coming Portland Trail Blazers, a group looking to make some noise in the West and looking to pass Denver in the Northwest as a start.

Despite his nickname, Iverson was never "the answer" when it came to tackling the problems posed by the elite point guards in the West. With Billups, guys like Chris Paul and Deron Williams know that they won't get to play the role of a hot knife through butter whenever they see "Denver" on the schedule.

The guards in the Eastern Conference, however, are starting to lick their chops.

Joe Dumars has proved a lot of critics wrong before. But this will be his biggest "I-told-you-so" moment yet if Iverson can somehow take the Pistons back to the Finals.

If not, it could very well be the last hurrah for the Detroit Pistons as we know them.

Portland's Joel Przybilla Learned a Hard Lesson

Amar Panchmatia — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:52:45 -0400

The final score of the second part of TNT's opening day doubleheader last night may have read "Lakers 96, (overhyped) Trail Blazers 76," but the real story of this game was told with 9:06 left to play in the third quarter.

As expected, the Lakers had been thoroughly dominating the over-matched Blazers from the opening tip before taking a 49-34 lead into recess. What had happened before halftime may have had a lot to do with Greg Oden injuring himself again, but what happened from this point onward had everything to do with Oden's backup, Joel Przybilla.

Portland had found a way to claw back to within eight points at 49-41 in the first couple of minutes back on the floor. The score was deceiving, but it was what it was: Blazers' ball with a chance to cut what was once a 22-point lead to six, maybe five.

Travis Outlaw missed a three for Portland, and the teams went back the other way. And that's when Przybilla did something he should not have done under any circumstances.

He ticked off the Mamba.

The Blazers' backup center collided with Kobe Bryant, who drew the foul after a physical play. What resulted was Przybilla purposely bumping into Bryant and trying to run his shoulder into the Lakers' superstar after the whistle had been called.

If you're just a casual fan watching this game, you had to be asking this question again and again in your head, maybe even aloud, as you saw this transpire: Who the hell is Joel Przybilla?

It was enough to get the Mamba going, as Bryant answered with a three-pointer to make it an 11-point Lakers advantage. Bryant stuck another shot 27 seconds later to make it 54-41, made four free throws, and stuck another jumper in Portland's grill over the next four minutes of play.

And when it was all said and done, the Blazers, down by eight in what seemed like just a brief moment ago, were down by 17 points, 60-43.

That was all she wrote, and the only thing to worry about after that was driving home safely in the Los Angeles night.

What's even more telling is that Bryant only had six points in the game up to that point. With the young Blazers - a team who was known to always scrap and claw with even superior competition until the very, very end - still hanging around despite having controversy regarding Oden's departure from the game still surrounding them, Przybilla's "nudge" set the Mamba off, so much so that he scored 17 of his 23 points from that point on.

But statistics really don't matter in this story. All you really have to know is that little moment in time preceding the middle of the third quarter when Przybilla thought that he could do something about physically imposing his will on Bryant and somehow get into the head of the Association's best player.

Just a few minutes later, the Blazers might as well have started boarding their plane back to Oregon.

Kellen Winslow-less Browns Are 2-0 Without Pro Bowl Tight End

Amar Panchmatia — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:06:28 -0400

When the Cleveland Browns traded up just one spot to get tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. in the 2004 NFL Draft, the landscape of both the franchise and the former Miami Hurricane were drastically different.

Back then, the Browns were a bunch devoid of talent and star power. They hadn't had a Pro Bowler in two seasons, a streak that would eventually reach five seasons until the '07 campaign sent six Browns to Hawaii.

Butch Davis was calling the shots, both on the sidelines and in the front office, and he knew that he needed to get a big name like Winslow, a guy he coached at "The U," to infuse some credibility into his star-less roster.

To say that Winslow's career has gone as planned since then would be like saying that Brady Quinn is content being the team's backup quarterback. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But it has been quite a ride.

The son of Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow Sr. had an ugly contract holdout to start his career, broke his leg in his second game, missed the final 14 games of his rookie year, nearly killed himself in a motorcycle incident, missed all of his second season, tied the franchise record for receptions in his third, and made his first Pro Bowl in his fourth.

His knee operations since that motorcycle accident—four, to be exact—have increased whispers that Winslow will never, ever be the kind of player many thought he was destined to be when he was drafted.

And despite the fact that he is entering what should be, by NFL standards, the prime of his career at age of 25, his career may not have nearly as many years left as his young age suggests.

The latest incident has seen Winslow hospitalized at first with an undisclosed illness that turned out to be a staph infection, the sixth incident involving staph and a Browns player over the last several seasons.

The Browns' reluctance to disclose Winslow's status and inform teammates—as well as the frequency of the illness following the organization—saw the Pro Bowler boil over with frustration and anger when calling out the team and revealing the fact that he had asked General Manager Phil Savage to trade him before the NFL's trading deadline.

This incident came after a summer that saw the Browns deny Winslow his bid for signing a contract extension, and the five-year marriage between both the player and team has been far more tumultuous than it has been smooth.

For Savage and the Browns, it would probably be best to cut ties with Winslow sooner rather than later. And it has far more to do with what happens on the field than what happens off it.

After Sunday's 23-17 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Browns scored their second victory of the season without Winslow in the lineup. Both wins—the other being a 35-14 Monday night blowout of the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants—have brought out the best in the Browns' offense.

Cleveland has had, by far, their best offensive outputs in those two victories, posting 327 yards of total offense against the Jaguars and 454 yards against the Giants.

Similar statistics with Winslow in the lineup have been less than stellar. At times, they've been downright futile.

The Browns put up 205 yards of total offense in Week One against Dallas, where Winslow scored his lone touchdown of the season. Since then, Cleveland has put up 208 yards against Pittsburgh, 169 yards against Baltimore, 261 yards against Cincinnati, and 236 yards against Washington. Only the game against the Bengals was a win—an ugly one, at that.

And while the Browns seem committed to quarterback Derek Anderson, whom they signed to a three-year extension in the offseason, Winslow has always been on the record calling for 2007 first-round pick Brady Quinn to take over the offense. Winslow also favored the exiled Charlie Frye to Anderson before Frye was sent to Seattle, and it seems like Anderson and Winslow have never built a rapport in the year-and-a-half that Anderson has been under center for the Browns.

When the Browns displayed the fireworks of their passing game in 2007, it was all about the strong-armed Anderson developing a chemistry with deep-threat wide receiver Braylon Edwards.

Anderson nearly broke Cleveland's single season record with 29 touchdown passes and 16 of those were to Edwards. Despite the banner year from Winslow, the Browns' ability to put points on the board correlated directly with the connection between Anderson and Edwards.

That's not all. Big-time tight ends simply don't correlate with Super Bowls. The New York Giants began their late-season championship surge last season after Jeremy Shockey was injured for the season, and little-known Kevin Boss was sufficient enough to take an above-average Giants team at the time of Shockey's injury to a Super Bowl championship. Players like Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez, and Jason Witten haven't even been to a Super Bowl, let alone win one.

Combine these facts with the improvement of Cleveland's offense when Winslow is out of the lineup, the dirty relationship between him and the organization, the questionable length of his career, and his health issues, and the Browns may be better off moving Winslow this offseason and using his value to add more parts to a roster that is definitely at no loss for holes.

Winslow's arrival in Cleveland signaled the addition of star power and a big-name player. Four years later, Winslow isn't even the biggest name on the team, buried in visibility behind Anderson, Edwards, Pro Bowl left tackle Joe Thomas, 1,300-yard running back Jamal Lewis, and even backup quarterback Quinn.

These are different times in Cleveland. Unfortunately for Winslow, he probably isn't a part of the equation for the Browns' next step.

Once Again, Tampa Bay Stands Between Philadelphia and a World Championship

Amar Panchmatia — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:05:56 -0400

For the City of Brotherly Love, it just has to be this way.

Oh, you remember.

You remember Ronde Barber picking off Donovan McNabb in the red zone and taking it 92 yards to pay dirt to catapult the Tampa Bay Buccaneers past the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game of 2003. You remember how the Bucs, who had each of the previous two seasons ended at the hands of your Eagles, hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy—the prize that you thought should have been yours—just two weeks later, and how that trophy has never been in the possession of your city.

Then there was 2004.

You remember how your hockey-crazed city with a rich hockey tradition was denied a chance to advance and win their first Stanley Cup since 1975 because a warm-weather town like Tampa Bay fielded a better team (one named the Lightning, at that).

You remember how a heart-stopping Game Six overtime win went to ruins when your Flyers couldn't win Game Seven in Tampa, and once again, the city of Philadelphia was just a doormat for another world championship for Tampa Bay.

To put it kindly, Philadelphia—a city that hasn't won a championship of any sort since 1983—has been used as a springboard for championship parades on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Now, Tampa's third team—the Tampa Bay "don't call us Devil" Rays—stands in the way between the Phillies and baseball's Commissioner Trophy. And it should come as no surprise that Philadelphia is going to have to get through Tampa, of all cities, to shatter a curse that has befallen one of America's most tortured sports towns.

Once the Rays finally put the brakes on the resurgent Red Sox in the ALCS, it became official. And so now, the Phillies—the newly-crowned champions of the National League—will head down to St. Petersburg, FL this week to open up the 2008 World Series on Wednesday night from "the Trop."

You would never expect the fates of these two cities—two towns that couldn't be any more different when it comes to everything from climate to attitude to passion—would be so closely correlated.

Before this decade, Tampa Bay was known for the disgusting creamcicle Buccaneer uniforms and a hockey team that nobody even knew existed. The Devil Rays came on to the scene in '98 and stunk every single year in their first decade of existence—including nine last-place finishes.

If the city of Tampa goes 25 years without a championship, the locals don't lose any sleep over it. There is no "700 level" in these parts. Nobody boos Santa Claus or cheers injuries to opposing players. Unlike Philadelphia, the morale of Tampa's citizens isn't closely associated with the ups and downs of the city's sports teams.

But the sports Gods work in strange cruel ways, and it's the complacent and nonchalant city of Tampa that has two championships in the last six years—with a chance to make it three world titles since January of 2003 in the four major North American sports.

And if Philadelphia isn't successful this time around, it will be 25 years...and counting.

So don't be surprised, Philly, that you see this team from that city standing between you and what your long-suffering city really deserves: a championship parade. Based on how your fates have been interwoven for the past half-decade, destiny really wouldn't have it any other way.

Fool's Gold: Why Monday's 35-14 Rout of the Giants Could Hurt the Browns

Amar Panchmatia — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:15:14 -0400

All the little chicks with the crimson lips weren't the only ones going "Cleveland Rocks, Cleveland Rocks" as the Browns steamrolled the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants, 35-14, in front of a national television audience on Monday Night Football.

And just as the masses wasted no time in jumping on Cleveland's bandwagon coming into the season, the Browns suddenly went from being an eyesore forced to be shown on national television to a juggernaut that resurrected its season.

Only Lee Corso could put it best right now: "Not so fast, my friends."

Quarterback Derek Anderson, who had people before the game puzzled when they were told that he was the Pro Bowl quarterback from last year on the field between the two teams and not Eli Manning, looked every bit like a former sixth-round pick and Baltimore castoff during the first four games of the season.

Fans were irate that 2007 first-round pick and local golden boy Brady Quinn hadn't been handed the keys to the franchise yet, and what was once an explosive offense littered with Pro Bowlers at nearly every position was a dormant shell that resembled the Browns' offense of the Tim Couch/Butch Davis years.

Not pretty.

Anderson changed all that on one night, as he put Manning and the Giants defense to shame by going 18-for-29 for 310 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions and looked every bit like the man who shredded the Browns' offensive record books last season on his way to Hawaii.

Braylon Edwards looked like the next superstar wide receiver he was dubbed to be after 2007, and the Browns' offense looked nearly as fluid as the game that put Anderson on the map in the first place: Last season's 51-45 shootout victory over the in-state rival Bengals.

For one night (at least), Quinn went from being the savior back to being quite possibly the only backup quarterback ever with his own commercials.

It's a great story for the Browns, but this newfound confidence and lights-out play from Anderson could end up hurting Head Coach Romeo Crennel's group a lot more than it helps them in the long run.

Anderson, the 25-year old gunslinger out of Oregon State, is predictable. In his breakout year of 2007, he looked better than Tom Brady when the Browns were playing at home. On the road, he was—well, Matt Cassel. The man simply known in Cleveland as "D.A." went 134-for-231 at home for a 58 percent completion percentage to go along with 14 touchdowns, just six interceptions, and a sparkling quarterback rating of 93.5.

Away from the Dawg Pound, Anderson was a lackluster 164-for-296, a completion percentage of 55.4 percent with 15 touchdowns, and alarming 13 interceptions, and a pedestrian quarterback rating of 73.9.

That's not all. When he was the new kid on the block who burst on to the scene during the first eight games of the season, Anderson was 148-for-257 (57.6 percent) with 17 scores, nine picks, and a 91.7 rating.

But in the final eight games, the former Oregon State Beaver was 150-for-270 for a completion percentage of 55.6 and a rating of 73.7 to go with 12 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

The moral of the story is that Derek Anderson is going to look unworldly on some nights. But just as jaw-dropping as he has the capability of looking every now and then, he can be just as awful—and for a fickle fanbase with a highly-invested quarterback sitting on the bench, it just isn't a good combination.

For one night, fans and pundits will believe that Derek Anderson is back, and the Browns have successfully scoured the "lost and found" section to get their Pro Bowl quarterback back.

But just two weeks ago, this was the same guy who was having difficulty moving the ball up the field against a porous and inept Cincinnati Bengals defense by throwing for just 138 yards on 24 passing attempts.

So now the Browns sit on a cusp of an 11-game stretch that reeks like it came from the bowels of hell. Up next is a trip to 4-2 Washington, a team that looked just as good as anybody in the league and is chomping at the bit to erase the bitter taste of Sunday's 19-17 loss to the Rams.

Following the escape to D.C., Cleveland will travel to Jacksonville (3-3), host Baltimore (3-3) and Denver (4-2), go to Buffalo (4-1) for another Monday Nighter, host Houston (1-4) and Indianapolis (3-2), go to Tennessee (5-0) and Philadelphia (3-3), and host Cincinnati before closing the season at arch rival Pittsburgh (4-1).

If the Browns want to repeat last year's 10-6 mark, they're going to have go to 8-3 from here on out. Given the road ahead of them, they better hope and pray that Anderson plays every game like he did on Monday night against the Giants, a performance that had even many of his own critics saying that he looked just as good as any other quarterback in the league.

It's never wise to say that losing on national TV and going 1-4 is better than spanking the defending champs en route to 2-3, but now the Browns may have no choice but to go with Anderson and his erratic track record while keeping Quinn parked firmly on the bench.

The good thing is that what seemed like an impending quarterback controversy that could officially put the wraps on a woeful season and return the Browns to laughingstock status is probably gone - for now.

But if you are the Cleveland Browns, you better watch what you wish for. If Cleveland wants to continue to rock, then Anderson is going to have to put up a final 11-game stretch that puts all of last season combined to shame.

Unless you have the kind of money that the Browns lavished upon Anderson in the offseason (a three-year deal worth $24 million, including $13 million in guaranteed money), don't bet on it.

Darnell Jackson Cannot Be Overlooked

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:26:13 -0400

Let's get this out of the way right now—Danny Ferry pulled off a hell of an offseason for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

No, there was no "superstar" signed. There wasn't a future Hall-of-Fame sidekick like Scottie Pippen brought in for LeBron James. Heck, there are still some critics out there who think the Cavs still won't be a better team than the 45-37 debacle they put up last year.

Most of us know better. Getting Mo Williams, a 25-year old whose career symmetry aligns with LeBron James, is one thing. Getting him for Damon Jones and Joe Smith is quite another.

And while most fans were down the minute they heard "With the 19th pick of the NBA draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers select J.J. Hickson from N.C. State," the same fans are sky-high with anticipation for Hickson after the way he wrecked the competition in the Summer League.

But don't be mistaken into thinking that those are the only two impact players that Ferry brought in. The last time Ferry had a second-round pick, you may remember how well that turned out.

Two years after drafting Daniel Gibson with the 42nd overall pick, Ferry has brought in bruiser Darnell Jackson out of Kansas.

You probably know Jackson. When I was watching the NCAA Tournament, I always thought of Jackson as Kansas' "resident bad ass." He always talked, strutted, and played with an attitude.

For some reason, nobody ever thought he'd be a big-time player in the NBA. That may be true, but that doesn't mean that he can't be a solid role player.

And on this Cavaliers team, that's all he'll need to be.

At 6'8", most league executives looked at Jackson as being undersized. But at 250 pounds, Jackson definitely has the brawn to bring it defensively and on the boards.

A guy who stayed for all four years under head coach Bill Self at Kansas, Jackson finally got legit playing time last season, and was a key cog in KU's championship run. Jackson played in all 40 of Kansas' games and averaged 24.3 minutes, while putting up 11.2 points and 6.7 boards.

But it was the name he made for himself as a "banger" inside and defensively that made him a solid "glue guy" for Self's Jayhawk club.

In Cleveland, Jackson has already made an impression with Mike Brown. And if you read into some of Brown's comments from an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer earlier this week, it could be Jackson, not Hickson, who makes the biggest impact right away:

"You take a guy like Darnell Jackson, he's a grizzled vet almost. His presence is almost similar to a guy who has been in the league three or four years. His talent is not J.J.'s, but D.J. does a lot for us that you wouldn't imagine a young kid having the capability of doing...I'm very excited about the potential of both [Hickson and Jackson]."

Nobody has seen Jackson play much at the pro level yet. But when you look at him and the style of play he brings, along with his strengths, the first person to come to mind is Udonis Haslem.

You know Haslem. He went undrafted in 2002 after putting together a nice career at Florida. To think of a guy like Haslem today as being undrafted boggles the mind, but the former Florida Gator had to go to Europe to play a year before signing a short deal with the Miami Heat. He ended up playing a key role in the team's 2006 championship run.

Both Jackson and Haslem are undersized at 6'8". Haslem might be even smaller, since he's listed as being 15 pounds lighter than Jackson. But, just as Haslem was six years ago, Jackson was overlooked on draft day, despite being able to bring all the things a championship team needs.

The reason you can expect Jackson to make a quicker and more consistent contribution compared to Hickson is that the Cavs are expecting more out of Hickson long-term. They want him to be one of their best low-post options in the coming years, and he's expected to bring the complete package on both sides of the floor.

The Cavs didn't bring Jackson in for any kind of offensive contributions. Jackson is focused on solely making a name for himself on defense, the boards, and as a banger and scrapper.

In fact, it was Miami who drafted Jackson in the first place. Ferry acquired the rights to Jackson from the Heat in exchange for the lower of the Cavaliers two second-round picks in the 2009 NBA Draft. Again, Ferry pulled off a deal that involves absolutely no risk—the lower of two second-round picks?—with the potential for a high reward.

Jackson could also be a good replacement as an energy player for Varejao if the latter doesn't have a future with the team.

As training camp and the preseason approaches, keep an eye on how Brown uses Jackson. This offseason wasn't all about Hickson and Williams. Sure, Williams was the gem of Ferry's summer masterpiece, but as mentioned earlier, nearly every move Ferry made involved no risk with the potential of being something huge.

And just as Daniel Gibson did two seasons ago (wow, has it really been two seasons?), Jackson could have a quite a large say in how the Cavs' championship aspirations play out.

Four NBA Teams to Keep an Eye on in 2008-09

Amar Panchmatia — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:32:08 -0400

The NBA simply doesn't benefit from the same type of parity that the NFL and Major League Baseball does.

(Wow, who saw that day coming—"parity" and "Major League Baseball? Hmm.)

There are no 10-6 New York Giants. No 83-78 St. Louis Cardinals. No sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers. Those kinds of teams don't lift the hardware come June in the Association.

But what the league does provide is the opportunity to witness young up-and-coming teams arrive on the scene and lay the foundation for a future run at success. It happens every year. Teams like the '08 Celtics—an instance where superstars are thrown together overnight to completely revamp a lottery team—are few and far in between. Far in between. Teams usually work their way to the top and have to take their lumps in the process.

In most cases, those lumps have to be taken for at least a couple years—if not more.

That's one thing that you can keep your eye on in the upcoming 2008-09 season. There were teams who started "building that championship foundation" last season that are looking to take the next step. There are others who look primed to open their window as a championship contender for the first time. Who are they?

New Orleans Hornets

Remember back when critics and observers were saying how hard it would be for the Hornets to field a championship contender in such a cut-throat division? There was San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas to worry about, and all of those teams blew the Hornets out of the water in 2006-07.

Well, 2007-08 was the year the Hornets broke through.

Who would have seen that coming? A 56-26 record? Winning the Southwest Division by virtue of tiebreaker—against the Spurs? And then putting the Spurs on the ropes in a riveting second-round playoff series that went seven games?

The protocol for building a team these days seems to be surrounding a dynamic lead guard with athletic "bigs." Chris Paul is as dynamic as they get, and Tyson Chandler may be as athletic as big men come in the league these days.

Pair that with All-Star, 20/10 threat David West, and the Hornets have pieces to the puzzle that actually fit together. They only learned from their experience against the Spurs last season, and San Antonio's playoff mettle proved to be the difference in Game Seven last spring.

Expect those painful memories and hard lessons learned to push New Orleans through a similar situation next spring. Possibly in June.

Orlando Magic

We can let it go now—this franchise is officially over the failure and mishandling of the Shaq/Penny fiasco.

Orlando returned to the realm of NBA heavyweights last year with another strong inside-outside combination for the new millennium in Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis. Under Howard's leadership, the Magic had been building to this point steadily during the first three years of the big man's career.

Armed with cap space last offseason, Orlando found their "closer" in Lewis, a veteran small forward who is just 28 and complements Howard's inside dominance extremely well.

The Magic rode that to a 52-30 mark last season and their first division crown since you-know-who strolled O-Town. The team dumped a Toronto team that had playoff experience in the first round with ease before running into the battle-tested Pistons in the second round.

Some bizarre calls and officiating made the series look more one-sided than it really was—but as was the case with the Hornets, expect this group to use those moments as a lesson in taking the next step.

Orlando also found a great complementary player—if you can even call him that—in Hedo Turkoglu, who is only 29. Turkoglu put up a banner year in '07-08 with 19.5 points, 5.7 boards, and 5.0 assists, easily earning Most Improved Player honors.

If coach Stan Van Gundy's group can get another year like that from the third guy in between Howard and Lewis, then this team is done just "building." They'll be ready to take the next step.

Hey, Orlando has only gotten better ever since adding Dwight. There's really no reason to doubt that they'll continue in their quest to get to the Finals this June.

Portland Trail Blazers

Many thought that the Blazers were going to do what the Hornets did last year. Injuries and ill fate put the brakes on Portland's return to NBA prominence, but don't expect lightning to strike twice this year in Rip City.

Second-year guard Brandon Roy was an All-Star last season, and the team went on to finish 41-41, officially rising out of the dregs that the organization had dropped to just two seasons earlier.

Center Greg Oden, the top pick in the '07 draft, was supposed to be the most-hyped and talented big man to enter the league since Shaq himself in '92, but microfracture surgery on his knees cancelled his 2007-08 debut.

Now, Oden is back, and his recovery from injury can be compared to Amare Stoudemire's, considering the fact that G.O. is still a young buck at age 20.

Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who came from the same draft class as Roy, emerged after the team traded Zach Randolph in the previous offseason to put up 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds a game. There's no reason to doubt that Aldridge can become an even bigger threat when Oden is playing next to him, and Portland's ability to use these two towers to pair with a dynamic guard in Roy could make them this year's Hornets.

The only caveat when it comes to the Blazers is that fans seem to be jumping the gun way too quickly. Nobody has seen this entire team play together as a unit, and the team is being talked about too much in hypotheticals.

If the stars align for Portland this season in a way that allows them to see their young stars on the floor at the same time for an extended period, then the league may not know what hit it in '08-09.

Philadelphia 76ers

Admit it: There was a fraction of time when you thought that this group just...might...beat...Detroit.

The Sixers used last season to separate themselves from Allen Iverson's shadow and from the notion of being "Iverson's team." There was a new A.I. to build around in Andre Iguodala, and the Sixers finally cemented their status as a team to watch when they gave Iggy a new six-year deal this offseason.

Philly was able to take a 2-1 series lead in the first round of the playoffs against Detroit before being put away in six, but the team showed a lot of good things for a young squad. Iguodala seemed ready to take the role as an alpha dog. Samuel Dalembert could be relied upon as a premier interior defender.

And considering the impact that Andre Miller made compared with how little Iverson helped improve Denver's annual first-round humiliations, it's not unrealistic to think that the Sixers won that Miller-Iverson trade from December '06.

Just as Orlando added Rashard Lewis as its "closer" in free agency in 2007, Philly went out and grabbed Elton Brand to be the final piece of the puzzle as they look to open up a new championship window. Brand's health has been a major question mark in the recent past, but going to a storied franchise like the Sixers in a title-hungry town like Philly—compared to the dormant, second-fiddle Clippers in Los Angeles—is enough to get anyone's juices flowing.

Bet on Brand coming back to be the 20/10 machine of old, and that's enough to create a lethal combination along with Iguodala. In an Eastern Conference devoid of star big men, Philly has an All-Star—and it should be enough to make the Bostons, Detroits, and Clevelands run for cover before making playoff reservations for late May and beyond.

What re-signing Delonte West means for the Cleveland Cavaliers

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:19:10 -0400

Much thanks goes to Danny Ferry, Delonte West, and West's agent, Aaron Goodwin, for providing something to talk about regarding the Cleveland Cavaliers that does not involve some random national media member talking about what he thinks will happen two offseasons from now.

(Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.)

When the Cavs landed point guard Mo Williams from the Milwaukee Bucks last month, many thought that this spelled the end of the road for West's tenure in Cleveland.

West and Daniel Gibson were the two restricted free agents for this summer for GM Ferry, and after a messy offseason last summer that involved unprecedented, illogical, and downright stupid holdouts from restricted free agents Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic, the way Ferry handled this summer was being watched very, very closely.

It took Ferry some time, but he didn't hit just one homerun. He hit two. And this summer was quite a welcome change from last year's fiascoes.

First, Ferry locked up Gibson—one of the best young shooters in the league—to a five-year deal worth $21 million. Considering the deals that other young guards with similar skill sets around the league received, it was a flat out steal.

Mickael Pietrus got four years and $25 million. James Jones got five years and $23 million. Beno Udrih: five years, $26 million.

That was in July. Two months later, Ferry got West re-signed for a three-year deal worth $12.5 million. Only the first two years are guaranteed, with the Cavs—not West—holding the club option for the third year, which would be the 2010-11 season.

Despite the fact that it took so long into the offseason for the two sides to get a deal done, don't think that West is disgruntled in the least bit, a la Varejao. According to reports, West spent a good part of the summer working out at the Cleveland Clinic Courts—the team's new training facility in suburban Independence.

The four-year veteran seemed to make it clear that he was looking for a place and a team to call home after being traded first from Boston to Seattle and then from Seattle to Cleveland in a matter of months last season.

He definitely made the case that both he and the Cavs fit each other like a glove.

West just turned 25 this summer and was the only part of the three-team, 11-player trade last February that could make a long-term impact. Joe Smith is already gone because of the Williams trade, and even if he was still around, he's 33-years old.

Ben Wallace is 34. Wally Szczerbiak is 31, and his best days appear to be behind him.

But West played in the Cavs' final 26 games last season, starting every one. He put up 10.3 points and 4.5 assists in 31 minutes a game while shooting 44 percent from the field and 36.7 percent from beyond the arc.

The former St. Joseph's Hawk played a tremendous role in the Cavs' postseason, as well, hitting a game-winning shot in Game Four of the first round against the Wizards to give the Cavs a 100-97 victory and a 3-1 series edge.

But one big reason why West will still play a huge role for this team moving forward, despite the acquisition of Williams is that, at 6'4", West is a combo guard.

Coming out of St. Joe's in '04, he was listed as a shooting guard in the draft. West is still able to be an above-average point guard, but the fact that he was the best point guard the Cavs have had in the "LeBron era" may be a testament to how poor that particular position has been over the last several years instead of how great of a point man West is.

Williams is clearly better, and the point guard position will certainly be his. But West may be the frontrunner to start alongside Williams in the backcourt as the shooting guard.

While Daniel Gibson is a better shooter, he certainly isn't a playmaker or as versatile of a scorer. Wally Szczerbiak is not as consistent. And Sasha Pavlovic has a lot to prove in getting back to what he showed in 2006-07.

Pairing Williams and West as the starters would give Cleveland a lightning-quick backcourt along with a versatile rotation coming off the bench. It just might be the best backcourt the Cavaliers have had since James made the switch from two-guard to small forward following his rookie season. And it could be the first time since LeBron's arrival that both starting guards average double-figure scoring.

Having that kind of guard play says quite a bit, and it's going to go a long way in helping the Cavaliers get back to the NBA Finals. With the re-signings of Gibson and West along with the acquisition of Williams, you can forget about the guard positions being any kind of concern for head coach Mike Brown's group.

Despite not seeing any one of their teams win a title in 44 years, fans in Cleveland like to think along the lines of a dynasty when it comes to the Cavaliers, even if it has nothing more to do than with the tremendous talent that James brings to the floor every night for the Wine and Gold.

However, the one final weakness that the Cavs need to address before they can start thinking championships is the lack of an interior scoring threat. It would have been nice to have Carlos Boozer around, but what's done is done.

Ferry needs to find a good low-post presence who can control the low block on the offensive side of the ball to round out a team that could be destined to compete for titles throughout the remainder of James' career.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been great, but he's 33, and he's definitely not the long-term answer. Rookie big man J.J. Hickson out of N.C. State is unproven. In the backcourt, the Cavs are dripping with youth, with Gibson being 22, Williams and West being 25, and Pavlovic being 24.

In the frontcourt, the Cavs are either jurassic (Ilgauskas, Wallace), have specialists (Varejao, Wallace), or don't know exactly what they have (Hickson).

But you can't expect Ferry to fix everything in one summer. All in all, give him a solid "A" for this offseason. He made big moves for this team in every month of this summer - drafting Hickson in June, re-signing Gibson in July, trading for Williams in August, and re-signing West in September. He didn't lose anyone of significance, and he addressed needs both in the backcourt and frontcourt.

And remember: Ferry still has a ton of expiring contracts and draft picks to flaunt at the trade deadline to possibly add that final piece to this championship puzzle.

Which is why this upcoming 2008-09 Cavaliers team may be the best one yet in the LeBron James era.

Considering the organization's pre-James history of coming up short and underachieving, it might be the best Cavaliers team, yet.

Amar Panchmatia covers the Cleveland Cavaliers at Most Valuable Network. You can read more of his work at "Cavalier Attitude."

Attention, Danny Ferry: LeBron James' potential sidekick is still a free agent

Amar Panchmatia — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:33:15 -0400

Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager Danny Ferry has spent his entire tenure in the Cavs' front office looking for one thing, and one thing only:

A potential All-Star sidekick for franchise cornerstone LeBron James.

Oh, Ferry has tried. He tried to pry Michael Redd away from the Milwaukee Bucks during his first month on the job back in July of 2005. League rules allowed for the Bucks to offer more years and more money, and they did just that. In the end, Redd took the money and ran - even though it has meant nothing but losing, and losing a lot.

Ferry thought he had his man in Larry Hughes, who left the Washington Wizards for a big pay day in Cleveland. But Hughes' two and a half seasons in Cleveland were nothing short of a colossal disappointment, as he spent more time in a suit on the sidelines than helping carry the James Gang over the top.

After a breakthrough season in 2004-05 (that conveniently and suspiciously came in a contract year) which saw Hughes lead the league in steals, earn All-Defensive Team honors, and score a career-high 22.1 points per game, the Cavs' $70 million man missed 45 games with a hand injury.

During the 2006-07 season, Hughes went down with a sprained right ankle. And when the man that became known as "Mr. Glass" and "Laura Hughes" in some circles of the Cavalier fan base did play, he was putting up one ill-advised shot after another, sometimes taking pull-up 15-footers in transition and contributing to what had become a stagnant and porous Cavalier offense.

Hughes was mercifully traded away back in February as part of a three-team, 11-player deal that brought Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Joe Smith, and Delonte West to the shores of Lake Erie. But six months later, the man who could be the perfect fit playing alongside King James remains on the free agent market.

Meet J.R. Smith.

Smith is a restricted free agent for the Denver Nuggets, and with Denver still being over the luxury tax threshold despite just giving away Marcus Camby to the Los Angeles Clippers, his return to the Nuggets is doubtful. Allen Iverson's $21 million comes off the books next summer, but if Denver decides to bring A.I. back in the fold, then that further reduces the playing time and money that they can afford Smith.

And that would be a shame.

In only 19.2 minutes per game last season, Smith averaged 12.3 points and shot 157-for-390 (40.3 percent) from 3-point range. Smith came off the bench in all 74 games he played for the Nuggets in '07-08 and shot 46.1 percent from the floor - a solid number for a perimeter player.

When Denver was getting dismantled by the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs last April, you could point the finger at anyone from the Nuggets - except Smith. He averaged 27 minutes a game in the four-game sweep, but averaged 18.3 points per game on 53.5 percent shooting.

Smith also fits the parameters of a potential “LeBron James sidekick” to a tee. He's a sharpshooter with knack for hitting big shots, and he has the ability to finish strong around the rim with 36 dunks. Look at Cleveland’s backcourt today, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a player who has that kind of ability to attack the rim and finish while being surrounded by power forwards and centers.

Plus, he’s only 22, meaning that he can be a potential long-term sidekick instead of a quick fix, like Redd would have been or what Hughes was supposed to be.

Smith’s maturity and ability to keep a cool head has been questioned in the past, but keep in mind that this is a guy who skipped college altogether. Look at his last four years as his “college years.” He may be ready to make an even bigger impact in the NBA starting this upcoming 2008-09 season. And if it’s for the Cavaliers, he fits the team’s needs like a glove.

The Cavs can offer the Nuggets some value in the form of Sasha Pavlovic and one of their many expiring contracts. Again, it would all come down to how much the Cavs are willing to offer Smith. Doing a sign-and-trade from there becomes tricky, but the Cavs have all the parts necessary to pull a sign-and-trade - even if it involves parting with a draft pick for 2009. Smith, at age 22, could be far more valuable than what the Cavs could get in the draft next season, anyways, if they plan on drafting in the lower 20s.

If the salary cap-strapped Cavaliers deem Smith worthy of offering more than the mid-level exception - and at this point, they should - then one precedent that they may want to look at when getting Smith is the Eddy Curry sign-and-trade of 2005.

Curry was a restricted free agent back then, and the Bulls were hesitant to bring him back. The Knicks, as always, were way over the cap, but New York was still able to land Curry for a six-year, $60 million contract by pulling of a sign-and-trade with the Bulls. If the Cavs are willing to pay Smith more than the mid-level (and they should be), then looking back at that trade as a template would behoove them.

With that said, the ball’s in Danny Ferry’s court. It’s good to see that he has a pulse and is at least talking with Denver.

But he’s done a lot of “talking” in the past, as well. With two years left on LeBron James' current contract, the Cavaliers can't afford to just sit around and wait.

Especially when their potential answer is still sitting around as a free agent.

LeBron James to Sign with Seattle Sounders FC of MLS in 2010 (Humor)

Amar Panchmatia — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:39:43 -0400

Sean "Jay-Z" Carter thought that LeBron James was as good as his. Mike D'Antoni and Donnie Walsh planned to rebuild the Knicks from the ground up by targeting James in 2010.

Then, out of absolutely nowhere, the Greek team Olympiakos apparently thought they were a better destination than Cleveland, Ohio.

Take a back seat, my friends. When 2010 rolls around, LeBron James is headed to the Pacific Northwest. And the only dribbling he'll be doing will be with his feet—with a ball that's anything but orange.

Major League Soccer arrives in Seattle in 2009, and with pro hoops now gone from the Emerald City, a pro hoops star may be the one filling the seats for the city's new professional sports team.

That's because once James opts out of his current contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010, the Seattle Sounders FC, who will be in their second year of operations, will make a serious run at the budding soccer star.

In fact, consider it a done deal.

"Everyone's been debating about my future in Cleveland since the minute I entered the league," said the NBA's leading scorer. "People love ignoring that I grew up in this area, have a lot invested in this community, and that the fans revere me as some sort of a God here. But it's always about Jay-Z, the Knicks, New York, some kicker in my Nike contract, and what have you.

"Heck, they're even talking about Greece now. So I decided to throw them a real curve ball. Hey, if M.J. could try his hand at Minor League baseball, why can't I play a bit of soccer? Try getting past this wingspan when I'm 6'8" and manning the goal posts, [expletive]!"

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and GM Danny Ferry filed a tampering case with the league, but given the fact that the Sounders are not associated with the NBA, David Stern's hands seemed tied in this entire ordeal. It may be a heck of a way for the city of Seattle to get back at Stern by stealing away his league's most marketable star.

"I never wanted to get LeBron out of Cleveland, no matter how much the out-of-control P.R. hype spun out of control," said Stern, fresh off of an autograph signing with Clay Bennett at a local shopping mall in Oklahoma City.

"I mean, I know that this league was at its peak back when big markets like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia were successful, but it's all about the small markets now. We believe we can succeed by stuffing the league with irrelevant teams in irrelevant markets like Memphis, Oklahoma City, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, and Orlando. The NBA is still king in this country, no matter how much you want to deny it."

The news was nothing short of devastating for the city of Cleveland, which started a suicide watch the minute LeBron announced the deal.

"People need to relax," said Ferry. "We still have a two-year window to win a title under LeBron. He's under contract through 2010, so he'll have to sit here for two more years while I continue to surround him with castoffs, misfits, and rejects from around the league. How do you like that 35-year-old Ben Wallace, LeBron? How do you like kicking it out to a washed up and overrated Wally Szczerbiak as he bricks another trey?

"Who else can say that they ruined the same franchise both as a player and GM in a span of just 20 years? I may be a horrible GM, but hey—it's going to be a long time before somebody else can say they did what I did. Admit it, my legacy will be unmatched."

Jay-Z could not be reached for comment.

As for the MLS, the league has already awarded the 2010 All-Star Game to Seattle, hoping that the newfound publicity for the league will be fueled by the time James joins the team midseason in 2010 after he is released from the hell that is his Cleveland Cavaliers contract.

MLS has also scheduled James' Sounders to travel to L.A. to take on David Beckham's L.A. Galaxy to open the second half of the 2010 season, a game that may be televised in over 200 countries and broadcast in over 500 channels worldwide.

MLS commish Don Garber could not control his glee.

"He truly is 'The Chosen One,'" Garber said via video conference last week. "Who knew that what he was 'chosen' to do was rescue Major League Soccer? We knew we had a chance when that random rumor about that Greek team came out of left field, and now it's a reality.

"2010 cannot come soon enough."

New-Look Browns Ready To Put the "D" in Cleveland

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:44:06 -0400

Last year may have been the first year that you realized that the Cleveland Browns were back in the league since the old ones moved to Baltimore.

It would be inexcusable to do so, but it would also be hard to blame you. Since 1999, the Browns were, for the most part, the whipping posts of the league. Save one fluke playoff year where they backed in with a 9-7 record (and tons of help from the heavens and beyond), Cleveland was a "W" for most teams when the schedules came out every April. The "Dawg Pound" had lost its bite.

Then 2007 happened.

Sure, the Browns were one of the few teams historically to go 10-6 and still miss the playoffs, but they were now a legit force. After having just one Pro Bowler since their return in '99 (that's right: Just one Pro Bowler over an eight-year stretch), the Browns suddenly found themselves with six.

Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards were now legit superstars and household names. Derek Anderson had found his way into the franchise's record books—a prestigious piece of literature that houses the names of greats such as Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly, and Otto Graham. Joe Thomas made fools out of doubters by becoming a Pro Bowl left tackle, as a rookie.

Meanwhile, Jamal Lewis made the Baltimore Ravens look like fools for letting him go by running roughshod over the league for over 1,300 yards. Left guard Eric Steinbach, a free-agent signing from the division rival Bengals, was a Pro Bowl snub despite winning the fan voting. Fullback Lawrence Vickers was named a second alternate to the Pro Bowl, as well.

Yes, the Browns were back. And considering that most of their core was 25 or younger, they were back to stay.

But one strange thing happened along the way: The Browns became all about offense.

A franchise that had its glory days based on a staunch defense and the "big uglies" in the trenches was now a team that tried to out-gun opponents. Check out the roll call of Cleveland Browns superstars: They are all on the offensive side of the ball. The team ranked eighth in total offense, while Edwards shattered a franchise record by scoring 16 touchdowns.

The defense, meanwhile, was of the "bend but don't break" variety. But Cleveland was ranked 30th in the league in total defense, giving up an average of 359.6 yards per game. In addition to that atrocity, the Browns were an abominable 27th against the run.

During the franchise's breakthrough year of 2007, the defense still floundered around being ranked 29th in passing touchdowns allowed and 26th in sacks.

As bad as that sounds, such defensive "prowess" has been the norm for the Browns since '99. Starting with their one lone playoff year of 2002, the Browns have been ranked 29th, 29th, 30th, 32nd (dead last in '05), 23rd, and 27th against the run.

In fact, the guy who totes the rock for the Browns out of the backfield right now—Jamal Lewis—set a single-game rushing record against Cleveland in September of 2003 by predicting a career day and then delivering on a jaw-dropping 295 yards on 30 carries with the Ravens.

What's even more baffling about this is that not only is head coach Romeo Crennel a defensive specialist, who helped the New England Patriots win three Super Bowl rings, but his predecessor, Butch Davis, was on Dallas' defensive staff during the Cowboys' reign in the '90s. Cleveland's defensive atrocities have been under their direct supervision.

But if GM Phil Savage can turn a once-dormant offense into a powerhouse littered with Pro Bowlers and Pro Bowl snubs, he can do it with the defense. In fact, he's well on his way.

While other franchises used the draft this past spring to upgrade their rosters, Savage and Crennel were able to take the day off. And deservedly so. The Browns had let go of their first-round pick this year to bring in Brady Quinn, but you can't blame them for not being able to predict a Pro Bowl year out of Anderson.

Savage moved his second-round pick to Green Bay for lineman Corey Williams, a 6'4", 313-pounder that has played just four years in the league. Savage then moved quickly to trump the division rival Bengals and bring in defensive tackle Shaun Rogers, a 350-pound behemoth, from Detroit, in exchange for a third-round pick and cornerback Leigh Bodden.

In Williams, Savage was able to bring in a guy who has played in all 32 regular-season games for the past two seasons and has collected 14 sacks during that time. Rogers is a two-time Pro Bowler that has had his commitment and reserve questioned, but would you want to go all out for a team that spends four out of five top-10 picks on wide receivers?

The reviews from training camp so far have been promising. Rogers, who intercepted a pass against Denver and took it 66 yards to the house, picked off Quinn in practice by tipping the ball to himself and then steamrolling over fullback Vickers for a few extra yards.

Life's different when you're stuffing the middle for a team that some have predicted to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

"I'd have to say he's got to be one of the best, if not the best, defensive tackle in the NFL," said Browns center Hank Fraley, a nine-year veteran that was acquired from the Philadelphia Eagles in 2006, to the Cleveland Plain Dealer about Rogers. "And I know he's adjusted to the nose [tackle position] well. I don't think it's changed his play at all. But hopefully we're making him better too."

The fallout from Rogers' and Williams' impact is going to come from the linebacker position, where 2006 first-round pick Kamerion Wimbley is chomping at the bit. Wimbley set a Browns' franchise record for rookies with 11 sacks in '06. In '07, teams realized that "Killa Kam" was Cleveland's only threat off the edge, and the former Florida State Seminole was stuffed for just five sacks.

Look for Wimbley to have a Pro Bowl-type year off the edge in '08, if Rogers and Williams punish the inside of this 3-4 scheme.

Cleveland's lack of depth at cornerback may be an issue with many fans, but consider Crennel's track record with corners dating back to his days with the Patriots. For Crennel, cornerbacks may as well grow on trees. He made stars out of guys like Randall Gay and Asante Samuel.

The defenses he supervised in New England never had a true, shutdown corner other than Ty Law, and the defense was still able to thrive, even when Law was forced to miss critical games, like the AFC Divisional Game against the Colts in January of 2005.

Crennel also has second-year player Eric Wright out of UNLV to work with at corner. Wright was supposed to be a sure-fire first rounder in 2007, but character issues and off-field questions dropped him to the second round, where Savage wasted no time scooping him up. Wright was worked into the starting lineup as a rookie and showed the kind of promise that made him such an attractive choice for Savage.

Safety Sean Jones, who will be entering his fifth season, was the only guy to play in 100 percent of the Browns' plays this year, and if the pieces around him fall into place, he's on the verge of becoming one of the best safeties in all of football.

Cleveland isn't too far away from being not just a solid defensive group, but a dominant one.

Hey, they scoffed at the potential of the Browns' offense last year. Don't make the mistake of being too quick to dismiss their defense, too.

Taming the "Blazer Myopia" in Portland

Amar Panchmatia — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:08:40 -0400

If you're any kind of NBA fan - especially during the last couple of years - then you've undoubtedly heard about it by now.

The Portland Trail Blazers are the team of the future.

You've seen them go all out on draft day with trade after trade. You've heard about their new cutting-edge general manager, Kevin Pritchard.

You know about Brandon Roy, Portland's first All-Star since Rasheed Wallace and the 2007 Rookie of the Year. You know about their fate of winning the 2007 draft lottery and landing much-hyped center Greg Oden with the first pick.

And you know about their head coach, Nate McMillan, who has excelled in bringing together a young core that was once locked in the basement of the entire NBA.

Now, the nickname of the "Rose City" fits Portland to a tee. The outlook for the next several seasons - not just next year - is beyond rosy. Ask most Blazer fans today about the team's championship aspirations for the next decade, and the question with them won't be about "if." It will be about "how many?"

And all you can do is sigh - and wonder what in the heck has led to such ridiculously optimistic premonition.

This "Era of Good Feelings" was supposed to have started in Portland by now. The Blazers were supposed to have been what the Hornets were in '08. It was Portland, and not New Orleans, that was supposed to have won over 50 games, their division crown, and take San Antonio to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals. And it was the Blazers who were supposed to have acquired that "one last missing piece" (like James Posey) this offseason to help make them a legitimate NBA heavyweight for next season.

That was before Greg Oden missed his entire rookie season after undergoing a microfracture knee surgery.

That was before a promising season that was headed for a playoff berth and included a 13-game winning streak ended with a 41-41 finish and nine games out of the eighth seed.

And that was before Oden himself waffled back and forth when asked about the status of his knee - 85 percent, 95 percent, 75 percent, 100 percent? - before questioning when it would be before he'd be 100 percent healthy.

When looking at the Blazers, you can't ignore this simple fact: Nobody has seen this team play together even once yet. Nobody has seen Oden play a single game in an NBA uniform. Who knows how long it will be before anyone sees him play a game at 100 percent health in an NBA uniform? And when it comes to Oden, Blazer fans will point at the 2007 NCAA national championship game when Oden abused Florida's interior for 25 points and 12 boards.

One game does not a career make, and if anyone wants to point to Oden's college prowess as a reason for his NBA success, mention the fact that he missed a good portion of his freshman year after surgically repairing a ligament in his right wrist. To some, being such a force despite such injury concerns may be a good sign and reason to wonder "what if," but coming off a microfracture surgery is far different than repairing a ligament in the right wrist.

Roy may be a feel-good story of his own, but his All-Star selection was inexplicable. It can even be argued that Roy's inclusion in the All-Star Game was more about the novelty of having him and the Blazers represented instead of having the better player selected. Golden State's Baron Davis had Roy cleaned up and down the stats board at the All-Star break and after the final horn sounded on the season. To boot, Davis' Warriors were seven games better at 48-34 and two games out of the West's final playoff spot while Roy's Blazers floundered to a .500 finish.

"Inexplicable" is the only word to describe what the coaches were thinking in February.

On top of all that, Roy is a guy who may be a lot closer to his ceiling than most players who just completed their second year in the league after having spent four years at Washington. His surgically-repaired knee was the reason he fell as far as he did in the '06 draft. A heel injury forced him to miss 24 games during his rookie year, and the 57 games he played in during the 2006-07 were the second-fewest to be played by a Rookie of the Year winner. Portland may want to think about these things before putting so much stock into Roy.

LaMarcus Aldridge has also been a solid contributor to the franchise since being drafted alongside Roy in 2006, but for a seven-footer, Aldridge has been remarkably soft and subpar on the boards. His 17.8 points per game may draw eyeballs, but what about his 48.4 percent shooting despite being 6'11"? What about his 7.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game?

Small forwards and players under 6'11" were able to hit the glass more efficiently in 2007-08, a season that saw Aldridge rank 29th in the league in boards despite playing nearly 35 minutes a game. Guards and perimeter-oriented players like Chris Paul, Andre Miller, Rajon Rondo, Monta Ellis, Jose Calderon, Deron Williams, and Steve Nash had better field goal percentages despite being over half a foot shorter than Aldridge.

Yet, this is the team that should be feared by all for the next decade?

Sentiments like these are good to have when you've seen the team play together for an entire season (see: Hornets fan). They're not good to have when your franchise cornerstones are all injury threats (see: Rockets fan). But regardless of what happens in 2008-09, Portland fans would be doing themselves a huge favor by following Greg Oden's rehab process: Take it one step and one day at a time.