With All the Big-Name Dealing, This NBA Offseason's Got a Baseball Feeling

Basketball is a coach's sport, and baseball is a manager's sport.

It's not an absolute, of course, as coaches and managers play a significant role in both sports. But the coach gets the credit for winning in basketball, whereas in baseball the manager may be more deserving.

On a much greater level than in the NBA, baseball teams function as a pure collection of talent. A general manager can plug different players into the lineup at will (and often does) with the expectation that the team will run similarly despite the change.

It helps that both offense and defense in baseball are much more individual endeavors than they are in other sports. The maximum number of players that can be involved in offense is four (one batter, three base runners), and the number of plays that are typically called in such a situation are very few.

Baseball defense works the same way. The onus is on the pitcher, of course, but when the ball makes it into the field it typically involves only up to three more people—and that's on a double play. A groundout to first involves two defensive players, running the same play they always run.

Because of this structure behind the game of baseball, the job of the GM becomes wildly more important. So much depends on the talent of the individual players over fancy play-calling that assembling the correct roster (recognizing, of course, that a player's clubhouse style is also important) is perhaps the biggest key to winning.

It hearkens to the managerial role in video games. If you can pick up a slightly faster receiver or a slightly more accurate quarterback in Madden, you do it without worrying how the new player will fit into the system—while real-life football transactions work very, very differently.

Baseball's "hot stove" offseason is thus typically one of the best in sports. Lots of players move as GMs look to improve where they can. Plenty of trades are made during the regular season before the deadline, as well, as top teams try to load up with ringers on their way to the playoffs.

The NBA, however, is quite different.

Roster talent is important, but it's much more on par significance-wise with coaching. We saw that very clearly in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals this year, as Stan Van Gundy outclassed Mike Brown in leading his Orlando Magic over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

While LeBron turned out an impressive individual performance, it was the Magic's consistent pick-and-roll execution that won the series—the Cavaliers were simply unable to adapt strategically to Orlando's offensive sets.

Thus the NBA offseason tends to be a little less interesting. The big free agent moves last year were Elton Brand and Baron Davis, and both of them involved the Clippers.

Teams tend to avoid big moves to keep their core intact, assuming that any lack of success was due to unpolished execution of the coach's system that can be solved with continuity. A team's GM might move a draft pick or two to shore up specific positions on the bench, but compared to MLB's offseason the basketball summer tends to be fairly dry.

Part of this can be due to the NBA's salary-matching rule for trades. While in baseball it's fairly common to trade a star for a couple of prospects (think of the trade that sent C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers, or the one that send Mark Teixiera to the Angels), it just doesn't happen in the NBA.

Combine that with the fact that NBA teams just have fewer players than MLB teams, and you get a lot less offseason movement.

This NBA offseason, however, we've seen a mad rush for talent. Some teams have worked hard to fill the needs in their rosters, but some of the league's upper-echelon teams have found themselves in an arms race for sheer, unadulterated skills.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, for one, jumped on the opportunity to bring in Shaquille O'Neal. It wasn't the worst personnel move ever made—he's a clear upgrade at center, will take some defensive pressure off LeBron, and has shown he still has gas in the tank—but center wasn't the team's biggest need.

The playoffs exposed the Cavs' need for good defensive wing players and some depth in the backcourt, but the prospect of adding Shaq was too much to pass up. And while they did fill a couple holes with Anthony Parker and (presumably) Jamario Moon, they put their big money where they already had serviceable center Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

The Los Angeles Lakers, in an awkward move, signed Ron Artest to play the position that Trevor Ariza had blossomed into. They've lost Ariza and may now lose Lamar Odom as well from their championship squad. Artest was too much to pass up.

The Magic picked up Vince Carter in a trade, signalling that they were done with small forward Hedo Turkoglu. It seems like a good move, except that Turkoglu was an integral part of the team's advance to the NBA Finals—the pick-and-roll run with Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis on the perimeter was what created the mismatches that beat the Cavaliers. Vince was just too compelling.

And all of this is event without mentioning how the Minnesota Timberwolves drafted two consecutive point guards, because they were the two most talented players on the board. Nor does it venture into the dark, twisted world of the Miami Heat who just signed a fourth center to their roster.

The result (so far) of this offseason's talent gluttony is an apparent widening of the division between the haves and have-nots—much like exists in baseball. Big names like Shaq, Artest, Vinsanity, and Rasheed Wallace have been snapped up by the league's top four teams, akin to the Yankees and the Red Sox treating lesser teams like farm clubs and absorbing their top talents.

Time, of course, is what will indicate whether these roster moves were improvements and whether the new additions fit into the coaches' respective systems.

But, if nothing else, this NBA offseason has given basketball fans a "hot stove" season like baseball fans enjoy. Even with an ailing economy, the prospect of hoarding talent became too much to pass up.

And the NBA's summer got a little more interesting.