NBA News, Notes, and Observations: March 4, 2009

I've kind of been lagging a little of late. In fact, I've only written one non-Fox article in the past month or so. It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about. It's just that there are so many people on Bleacher Report these days that I can list about a dozen or so things that others have beaten me to the punch on writing about.

I have a notepad on my laptop that I use to jot down ideas for columns and I usually wait until there are about eight or nine things worth writing about before I start one of my NNO columns.

It looks like I might have to start writing my articles a little bit sooner or risk missing the boat.

All that being said, it's time for the latest round of my News, Notes, and Observations. I'll try to get one of these up every seven to 10 days or so leading up to the NBA Playoffs.

Time To Toot the Old Horn

Back before the season started I wrote an article entitled "Ten NBA Players Who Could Be Moved By the Trade Deadline". I'm proud to say that of the players I listed six of them were either traded or bought out (Allen Iverson, Shawn Marion, Jamal Crawford, Chris Wilcox, Zach Randolph and Antoine Walker).

Chad Ford of ESPN.com wrote his own version of the same article two weeks after I published mine and only two of the players Ford listed were moved (Shawn Marion and Ike Diogu).

Two players that weren't on my list but I'm still surprised didn't get traded are David Lee and Nate Robinson. I fully expected one of the two to get traded.

Considering that there are a few more teams with cap space next season than originally anticipated both are expected to receive offer sheets from other teams that the Knicks will be too afraid to match out of fear of running out of cap space for the summer of 2010.

It's not that I don't think that Robinson and Lee work into the Knicks' future plans. I just saw those two as the only way for the Knicks to get either Jared Jeffries or Eddy Curry out of town.

Without either of those two next season the Knicks will have to include the very promising Wilson Chandler or rookie Danilo Gallinari to get anyone to take one of those two guys back.

This was a lost season for Curry and one that he probably feels couldn't end soon enough. But the Knicks had a chance to trade Robinson and Jeffries to Sacramento for one more year of Kenny Thomas and balked at the last second.

What happens when the Raptors sign Lee to an offer sheet of five years and $50 million. Will the Knicks match it and lose out on $10 million in cap space? I doubt it.

The NBA in the New Economy

I'm sure you are all fully aware of the affect that the economy is having on the NBA. Since the league's salary cap is determined by total basketball-related revenue for all of the teams divided by the 30 teams both the salary cap and luxury tax limit will decrease for only the second time ever next season.

The league is headed for a lockout unless the Player's Association admits that they know that things will have to change given the current state of the economy.

If you haven't read Bill Simmons' piece on ESPN.com "Welcome to the No Benjamins Association", it's worth printing out and reading.

If you're not a fan of Simmons, this is unlike his usual articles. In fact, I don't think there's one mention of either the Karate Kid, Road House, Beverly Hills, 90210, or Teen Wolf.

Simmons writes, "I predict a raise of the individual salary max (to $24-25 million), a softer salary cap, a restriction on long-term contracts (can't be more than three years unless you're re-signing your own star), the elimination of opt-out clauses and the mid-level exemption, and the rookie age limit rising to 20."

The big one there in my opinion is the elimination of opt-out clauses. In fact, I wrote an article in January, 2008 called "Time For the The NBA To Opt Out of Opt-Outs".

This paragraph sums up the premise of the article:

"If the player performs to his ability and has a chance to opt out then he's all but guaranteed to do it and try to get a better deal. If he underperforms and has a chance to opt out then he won't do it because he knows he won't make as much money if he does."

While part of the reason that only eight different teams have won NBA titles since 1979 is because they were obviously better teams, a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's very difficult for teams to get significantly better in a hurry.

Here's what I wrote in that same article:

"The problem with the way the NBA is set up is that you've got a handful of teams that are perennial contenders while the rest of the league just waits for contracts to expire. Many of the teams that are waiting for contracts to expire end up using their mid-level exemption each offseason because they're over the cap and it's the only chip they have to use.

What ends up happening is the team ends up with no significant cap space once the bad contract expires because they spent $6 million every offseason with their mid-level exemption."

It will be very interesting to see what happens between now and the expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2011.

Speaking of Simmons, if you're not a fan of his, SeriousSportsNewsNetwork.com did a MadLibs version of a Simmons column a couple of years ago that is still up. You just fill in the answers and it produces your very own Sports Guy column.

Purple Hazing

I know that a few other writers have made references to Ross Silers' article from the Salt Lake Tribune a few weeks ago about rookie hazing in the NBA. But if you haven't, it's worth checking out—especially for the story about Jarron Collins and John Stockton.

Collins tells the story about Karl Malone giving the dinner check to Collins when he was a rookie and Collins not having the money to pay for it.

Global Traffic

Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal had a cool little piece last month about the web traffic of all NBA teams. The Lakers and the Cavs are the top two teams in the league as far as hits are concerned and the Celtics are a distant third.

What's interesting about that is how the Internet is being used to broaden fan bases in a way that it can give a team a much bigger presence regardless of market size.

Here's an interesting quote from the article:

“The Cavaliers are very interesting given that they are in a much smaller market, but when you see a team that is not in the top-10 media market but getting that type of traffic, it starts to show that the fan base is no longer found just in the market to where the team lives,” said Pat Coyle, president of Coyle Media and who also runs SportsMarketing20.com, a digital marketing on-line community."

Just how big are the Lakers around the world? They get an average of 100,345 unique visitors a day. The Celtics, who are second, get 50,968. Unique visitors are counted only once.

So no matter how many times that person visits that page in a day (or a month) they are only counted once.

The Oops Department

It looks like Joe Smith will sign with the Cavs after he clears waivers. This has to be particularly frustrating for the Celtics who believed Thunder GM Sam Presti when he said he wasn't planning on buying Smith out.

After trading away Sam Cassell and Patrick O'Bryant the Celtics signed Mikki Moore and Stephon Marbury instead. It turns out both Smith and Drew Gooden were bought out and Smith will return to Cleveland while Gooden is headed to San Antonio.

Had Ainge waited a few days he probably would have had the inside track on at least one of those two. Instead he's left with the worst of the three.

I like Moore but he isn't nearly the same player he was in New Jersey two years ago when Jason Kidd was making him look like an All-Star. He barely cracked the Kings' rotation before he was bought out.

Also...

The last article I wrote was about my thoughts on the Jermaine O'Neal-for-Shawn Marion trade. I understand why both teams made the deal but Pat Riley has to feel a slight tinge of regret in light of what transpired around the league at the trade deadline.

It has nothing to do with the play of O'Neal or Jamario Moon but instead it's because of what the Chicago Bulls were able to pull off. By moving Andres Nocioni's contract to Sacramento for Brad Miller's big contract that expires after next season the Bulls have made themselves serious players for hometown kid Dwyane Wade next summer.

The difference between the Bulls and the Heat is that the Bulls can continue to shape their roster between this summer and next summer's trade deadline while the Heat are pretty much stuck with the roster they have.

The Bulls also have a tremendous trade chip with the expendable and cap-friendly contract of Kirk Hinrich. If Bulls' GM John Paxson can parlay Hinrich into another solid starter then Bulls will be in great shape to make a run at Wade while Derrick Rose is still on a rookie contract.

It shouldn't be difficult for Paxson to move a franchise point guard with a contract that decreases in value each subsequent season. If he can add a center to the mix then the Bulls could offer Wade not only a chance to play at home near his mother and two sons but also the chance to compete for a ring immediately.

A starting lineup of Rose, Wade, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and me at center could be more enticing than what the Heat might have when you consider that they will have to fill out almost their entire roster come next summer.

If the Bulls opt not to re-sign Ben Gordon this summer then you'll know that they've got their eyes on Wade. Gordon would follow Thabo Sefolosha and Larry Hughes as the third shooting guard given up on by Chicago.

Who might be interested in Hinrich? You can start by eliminating the teams that either have a franchise point guard or are trying to create cap space for 2010. Atlanta, Dallas and Philadelphia each have point guards who are going to be free agents this summer in Mike Bibby, Jason Kidd and Andre Miller, respectively.

Charlotte has two young point guards, but Larry Brown would probably prefer to have a veteran like Hinrich in the lineup.

Milwaukee might be interested in moving Andrew Bogut given his injury history.

Portland could definitely use an upgrade over Steve Blake until Jerryd Bayless is ready to lead full-time.

Golden State and Sacramento might be interested as well.

I still think that Miami is the favorite to keep Wade. I just think that the Bulls made things a lot more interesting.

Speaking of D-Wade

Be on the lookout for Bleacher Report Co-Community Leader Mike Whittenberg's MVP Roundtable article. It should be up this week.

I'll post the link once it's up.

I won't disclose who I picked for the MVP but I stated the reasons why I don't think Wade should or will win the award. As amazing as Wade's season has been he's doing it for a team that would be 4.5 games out of the playoffs in the Western Conference.

I compared Wade's season to those of Kobe Bryant's in the two seasons prior to last year. Great player on an average team.

I do make the case that Wade should be considered for the Most Improved Player Award. I don't think it's right that voters tend to give the award to a player who makes the leap from good to great instead of considering those that make the leap from great to transcendent.

Start Getting Real

If you aren't familiar with RealGM.com then it might be time to do as Clinton Sparks says and get familiar.

RealGM is one of the best basketball-related Web sites around. RealGM's TradeChecker was around long before ESPN.com's Trade Machine. The software was so sophisticated that a premiere version of it is now sold to each of the NBA's teams who use it for simulating trades within the NBA's guidelines.

CNBC sports producer Tom Rotunno has a cool little story on how the site was formed via Darren Rovell's SportsBiz blog on CNBC.

The Big Announcement

I recently started construction on my own basketball-related website. ClosedDoorMeeting.com should be officially up within the next 60 days. The best way to describe the site is "a no frills, one-stop shop for basketball-related news and information."

It's going to be the site that I always dreamed existed. The kind of site that I would use more than anybody else. There's so much stuff out there that I wanted to create a site that encompasses the best of the best.

I will syndicate all of my b/r articles on there as well as provide links to the b/r articles that I think deserve a little bit of shine.

I'll keep you updated on the site's progress and let you know when it's up and running.

If the Playoffs Started Today...

The Western Conference Playoffs would look like this:

1) Los Angeles Lakers* vs. 8) Dallas Mavericks

2) San Antonio Spurs* vs. 7) Utah Jazz

4) Houston Rockets vs. 6) Portland Trailblazers

3) Denver Nuggets* vs. 5) New Orleans Hornets

The Eastern Conference Playoffs would look like this:

1) Cleveland Cavaliers* vs. 8) Milwaukee Bucks

2) Boston Celtics* vs. 7) Philadelphia 76ers

3) Orlando Magic* vs. 6) Detroit Pistons

4) Atlanta Hawks vs. 5) Miami Heat

*-Division Leaders