NBA Free Agent Action is Hot!

Take a few days off to catch some fish at the cabin and you miss like, 1 million free agent signings in the NBA.  I'm going to hit a few of the highlights.  Or lowlights.

1.  Might as well start with your precious T-Wolves, who signed Kevin Martin and Chase Budinger in a move to try to surround the Ricky Rubio/Kevin Love nucleus with as many poorly defending shooters as possible.  You take those two, J.J. Barea, Rubio, Love, Luke Ridnour, and Derrick Williams and add Shabazz Muhammad to the mix and the Wolves might end up being the worst defensive team in the league next year, especially if Kirilenko isn't back.  Nikola Pekovic, who it sounds like they're going to do everything to keep, is a decent post defender but not a rim protector in the slightest, which taken all together means that Giorgui Dieng is the only true paint defensive presence on the entire team.  You know, the guy whose job it is to discourage guys like Lebron and Tony Parker and Russell Westbrook from driving past all those white guards over and over again.  Sounds like a recipe for success!

2.  Dwight Howard is going to Houston.  Howard turned down more years and more money to stay with the Lakers and play with two (possibly 3) other future Hall-of-Famers, which is a stunningly good decision given Howard's track record the last three years.

Apparently the Howard signing isn't loved by everyone, as incumbent starting center Omer Asik has said he doesn't want Howard there, doesn't want to back him up, and doesn't want to play next to him and might want out of Houston.  Well guess what Omer?  I got news for you: I'm pretty sure they were exploring trades for you already.  Outside of free throw shooting his entire skill set is Dwight Howard extra lite, he offers nothing complimentary to Howard's game, and he's good enough where they can get something nice back for him most likely.  Sorry Omer, but you're not Dwight.

And make no mistake - Dwight Howard is still really, really good and it seems like everyone is forgetting that.  Last year was horrible, yes, but

1.  He was returning from a back injury, which for a player like him who relies on his athleticism and specifically his ability to jump quickly that is a tough one to play through.
2. The system he was playing in last year sucked for him, and playing with Kobe Bryant made him miserable which, because he's an immature person, made him sulk and affected his play.
3. People around the country hated, or at least had a strong dislike for Howard and the way he got Orlando's coach fired, then pushed his way out,then got Mike Brown fired with the Lakers.  Dwight is an immature person, and being disliked made him extra miserable and see #2.

Basically Howard is an immature baby who is mentally weak and who is going to sulk and suck when he's not happy.  He still averaged 17 & 12 with nearly 3 blocks per game while being only half engaged.  You don't think he's going to be better next year with his co-super star as James Harden, who knows about deferring when it's time to defer? He's still just 28 years old.  What if he actually realizes he has an amazing opportunity to learn from two of the best big men in history (Hakeem and McHale) and embraces it?  He could be a monster.  Going to be a big year for Houston.  Big.

3.  Sticking with the Rockets, they also traded your best friend Royce White to the 76ers.  Clearly Philly succeeded so well with one troubled but talented young big man in Andrew Bynum that they were super excited to try it again. Since Royce is pretty much afraid of everything, he's started walking to Philly from Houston and expects to be there by time training camps begin. Also, I really think trading Jrue Holiday is going to end up being a mistake for Philly.

4.  In what was, to me, the most shocking development of this period Brad Stevens (formerly of Butler) has agreed to become coach of the Celtics.  I was up at the cabin with Snacks and news was on in the background because we only get one channel up there and when the banner "Stevens to Boston" came up we had to yell and shush everybody else up and do you know how hard it is to shush up three women and one old man who've been hammering wine since mid-day?  It ain't Ninja Gaiden hard, but it's hard.

I'm just totally blown away because I assumed Stevens was going to be at Butler until he was lured away by Indiana or Duke or Kentucky or one of the other big-time college programs - I never ever thought he'd be going to the NBA for some reason.  I think part of it is because I thought we were done poaching college coaches and trying to make them NBA coaches since basically everybody has been a failure (seriously who is the best coach to make the switch?  I think it's P.J. Carlesimo which is like whoa).  Also this surprises me because Stevens is only 36 and has zero NBA experience.  People threw enough of a fit over Rich Pitino getting hired to coach kids at 30, but now Stevens is going to handle grown ass millionaires at 36?  I know it's a young team after trading Garnett and Pierce, but their best player is a total head case in Rajon Rondo.  There's almost no way Rondo spaz out by midseason. I'm not saying Stevens won't work out for sure, I'm just saying he won't with Rondo around.  FACT.

5.  The Hawks and Bucks got into a big fight over Kyle Korver.  Looking at the teams involved, you'd probably guess that this was an idiotic fight to get in to, and as usual you're right.  There were no winners in this fight, except of course Korver who ended up with a 4-year, $26 million contract which, considering he's going to be 37 at the end of that deal and he has exactly one discernible skill seems like a bit of an overpay, but then again J.J. Redick got 4/$27 and Jose Calderon got 4/$28 apparently that's the running rate for a one dimensional player who is really good at that one dimension and terrible at everything else.  For some reason, this seems terribly unfair.

6.  The Warriors are getting interesting.  First, because Dawger will point it out anyway, despite all my misgivings Steph Curry has completely proven me wrong and is a very, very good NBA player.  He's not as good as Bill Simmons thought he was during the play-offs, but he's an all-star, I will admit, and there's no doubt that he and Klay Thompson are a pretty dynamic duo.   Next season Harrison Barnes will be a year older and a year better, and he started to show some pretty dramatic growth in the playoffs and he gives the Warriors three pretty good wing players who can score in bunches. 

Now, via free agency, they've added Andre Iguodala, who doesn't score in bunches the way the other three do but is still averages 15 ppg for his carrer, is an absolutely outstanding defender, and can handle the ball and create well enough the Curry will get more chances to run off the ball, which will only help.  The plan seems to be to go with all four in the lineup at a time quite often, which will work if Barnes can defend and rebound at the 4 (remains to be seen), but even if not that's a pretty potent lineup, and Andrew Bogut (if healthy) is a good enough interior defender to make up for some defensive mistakes.  Really though, having four players who can all dribble, create, and shoot is something few teams have, and any time all four of those guys are on the floor it should be fun to watch.  Possibly on both ends.

7.  Milwaukee, oh Milwaukee.  First they made a trade towards the end of last season to acquire J.J. Redick, giving Tobias Harris to Orlando.  Harris, who averaged less than 12 minutes per game with the Bucks, was given starter's minutes in Orlando and went on to average 17 pts and 9 rebounds per game.  The Bucks just traded Redick (in a sign and trade) and received two second-round picks in return.  Then Monta Ellis opted out of his deal, which might actually be a good thing, but also means the Bucks have to find a way to replace some production all while with the handicap of selling Milwaukee to free agents.

Their big moves so far have been to sign O.J. Mayo, Zaza Pachulia, and Carlos Delfino - essentially a sixth man and two back-ups.  Brandon Jennings, Monta Ellis (he gone), and Mike Dunleavey (he gone) were the team's top 3 scorers last year and now all three may be gone depending on what Jennings ends up doing.  Essentially the team is a bunch of so-so big men (John Henson is probably the best or at least has the most potential depending on what you think of Larry Sanders whose name does not actually have to be capitalized nerds) and Ish Smith.  This is either completely pathetic, or a genius realization that they're never going to be able to build a contending team through free agency and are in full on tank mode.  Given that we're talking Wisconsin, they're probably just drunk.

8.  We all know that the Lakers are somehow going to end up with Andrew Wiggins in next year's draft, right?  That's just how it happens.  If their smart they'll amnesty Kobe (since he is taking up nearly half of their cap room) trade Nash to Dallas for the heart warming Dirk/Nash reunion, trade Gasol and World Peace for whatever they can get and completely bottom out and hope for Wiggins.  What they will do is continue trotting out a lineup completely mismatched to D'Antoni's system which will be mismatched because Kobe will rush himself back by the season opener and they'll end up missing the playoffs by just a couple games and then win the lottery anyway because the NBA is rigged and everybody knows it.  Fact.

Who could say no to this?

NBA Southeast Division Preview

Johnson was replaced
with Korver, Lou and Morrow
T.I. and Drake weep

Guest Haiku from @Frothygopher:
Oh boring Hawks team
Y U no more exciting?
I'll skip all your games


The Hawks off-season seems to me like they are treading water at best.  Joe Johnson, who was overpaid is out, but a glut of shooters come in to replace him.  Lou Williams is a quality player, especially as an igniter off the bench, but the team will lean really heavily on Josh Smith and Al Horford.  For me, Smith is the only reason to watch this team as he's one of the more exciting on both ends of the floor.

Starting Unit:
PG Jeff Teague/Devin Harris
SG Anthony Morrow/Lou Williams
SF Kyle Korver
PF Josh Smith
C  Al Horford

O/U is 43.5, I'll take the under.

One for that guys and the gals!

Lebron James gets ring
D-Howard is new league clown
Ray Allen's mom, hi!

From Frothygopher:
Erik Spoelstra
It does rhyme with olestra
Both make me poop grease

Starting Unit:
PG Mario Chalmers
SG Dwayne Wade
SF Shane Battier
PF Lebron James
C Chris Bosh

This is basically the same team that won it all plus Ray Allen.  I mean, wtf?  Chalmers and Norris Cole are a both going to be better this year.  Mike Miller, Rashard Lewis and James Jones are ready on the bench for 3 chucking duties.  Plus, they still have the best player in the game and another in the top 5.  What's underrated about the Heat is how well they play team defense.  They're not exactly loaded with bigs as Bosh is undersized at center as are Joel Anthony and Udonis Haslem, but the hustle of James and Wade and the rest of the wings help to cover this weakness.

The o/u is 60.5 and if I have to take something, it's the over.  This is a 60 win team easy unless major injuries strike.

Lady Cats!

Best way to get fans
for these poor, crappy Bobcats
is nude cheerleaders

22, 24, 19, 23, 20.  No, it's not the combination to my safe.  I'm broke, guys.  Rather, these are the ages of the starting lineup for your Charlotte Bobcats.  Kemba Walker was better than I expected in his rookie year and I think has a bit of room to grow in his effort to develop into a true PG.  Gerald Henderson is an ok scorer at SG, but to date has done much else.  On a good team he'd be a rotation guy off of the bench, but here he has opportunity to improve.  Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is the #2 overall pick.  He's extremely athletic and already a pretty good defender, his offensive game beyond dunking and slashing to the hoop could use some work, but he's 19.  Byron Mullens showed some signs of becoming a bit of a stretch 4 last season and even more so in the pre-season.  He'll chuck it a bunch if they let him.  Bismack Biyombo is the ultimate project at center.  He's constantly in foul trouble, but is powerful, physical and has a wingspan like a jumbo jet despite only being 6'9". Ben Gordon, Ramon Sessions and Brendan Haywood add some quality veteran depth. 

The Cats only won 7 measly games last season and their o/u is 18.5 for this year.  Betting on some growth for the young folk and an improved veteran presence I'll go over.

One of these things is not like the others.

I'm leaving, no wait
Staying; nope, time to move on
I'm back, no I'm gone

Orlando continued it's role as the minor league big man system for the Lakers this off-season by trading Dwight Howard to the Lake Show.  It's not their fault though as Howard held the team hostage for what feels like two years.  I'm too lazy to look it up.  Orlando got a crazy cluster of stuff in the deal, none of it great, but much of it useful.  Aaron Afflalo came from Denver and is a quality player on both ends of the floor.  Nikola Vucevic is a young center out of USC that came from Philly in the deal and will get a chance to start.  They received the #15 pick from this year's draft, Moe Harkless.  He's a young player that I like, but has a lot of growing to do before he can earn minutes.  They also received 5 future picks, a second in '13, a conditional first in '14, a first (conditional) and second in '15 and finally a conditional first in '17.  They also have a $17.8MM exception that they can use to take on contract in a trade if they can swing one.

Starting Unit:
PG Jameer Nelson
SG Aaron Afflalo
SF Hedo Turkeyglue
PF Glen Davis
C  Nikola Vucevic

O/U 23.5, I'm going for the tank under here.

S&M Wizards girls?

Wizards' name is suck
The team kind of blows as well
Wish you were Bullets

Remember when Jan Vesely was picked and then made out with his hot girlfriend and then never did a damn thing last year?  Hopefully, #3 pick Bradley Beal can do better than that this year as they need some help beyond John Wall.  Poor John is also dealing with an injury and could be out until late November, early December.  Beal is just 19, but has a pretty high upside at shooting guard.  The Wiz need him to be a star.  Okafor and Nene are two solid bigs that are overpaid, but useful.  They make $27MM this year between them. 

Starting Unit:
PG John Wall +
SG Jordan Crawford
SF Trevor Ariza
PF Trevor Booker
C  Emeka Okafor

The Wizards o/u is 27.5 wins.  I'll take the under and another roll of the dice in the lottery.

Week in Review - 4/16/2011

Feels like I haven't done one of these in a while, but in honor of baseball really getting going I figure I probably should.  But since I also didn't get started on this until 8pm on Sunday night, let's cut the chit-chat and just get down to business.  This isn't some romantic vacation on an island in some kind of awesome sweetwith rose petals and a jacuzzi with Luther Van Dross playing in the background, sweetheart.  

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Josh Willingham.  There are actually more positive Twins' things I could report on that I would have expected given that the team is 2-7 right now, but the #1 is clearly Willingham (let's not call him Willie, ok, it's super more annoying than any of the other -y nicknames) smacking the ball all over everywhere.  He leads the AL in home runs with four and has a hit in every single game this year and he's not getting lucky either - he's crushing the ball.  He leads the AL in OBP, slugging, and OPS.  It's at the point now where he hasn't hit a homer in the last three games and I'm wondering what's wrong.  With his bat humming, Denard Span with three multi-hit games already, and Liam Hendriks looking surprisingly feisty there are some decent signs of life here.  None of it will matter if Mauer and Morneau don't start hitting, the bullpen continues to refuse to get anybody out, and the starting pitching is mostly awful, but I'm looking for anything to latch on to here.  Plus, as a point in his favor, Mrs. W has quite the raging lady boner for Mr. Willingham, so that's a point in his favor.

2.  Matt Kemp.  So much for all that "slumping the year after a contract year" nonsense.  He had a career year last year, batting .324 and coming one home run shy of notching a 40-40 year and then signed a nice fat 8-year deal that is suddenly looking like it might be a bargain for LA.  Kemp currently leads the majors in batting average (.487), OBP (.523), slugging (1.023), OPS (1.548), home runs (6), RBI (16), runs (13), and hits (19).  He has one fewer home run than Justin Morneau has hits, with Mauer having just two more.  I don't know if he's back with Aaliyah or not back with Aaliyah or dating Bobby Brown or whatever, but it's doesn't really matter - I think Matt Kemp is officially the best player in baseball, other than Clete Thomas of course.

3.  Barry Zito.  What' more unexpected than Zito's complete game shutout in his first start this year?  How about him following that up with another quality start and now sits with a 1.13 ERA and a 0.69 WHIP.  The change?  He's abandoned his 84mph fastball, throwing only about a third of the time compared to over 50% most of his career, and starting throwing a slider with regularity.  Because he still has an 84mph fastball I doubt he can keep this up, particularly once players figure out that slider, but a starting rotation of Lincecum-Cain (1-hitter this week)-Bumgarner-Vogelsong-Zito would damn hard to touch.  If, you know, Lincecum didn't completely suck now - more on that later.


4. UCLA Bruins.  So I guess all the "UCLA won't be able to recruit anymore after that story on Howland/Reeves Nelson" is just so much bullshit, because they certainly didn't have any trouble this signing period.  The Bruins grabbed Shabazz Muhammad, the #1 recruit in the country according to Rivals and #2 according to ESPN, who now joins Kyle Anderson (#3/#5) and Jordan Adams (#62/#41) in giving UCLA ESPN's #3 class in the country, which would be #2 if Nerlens Noel had picked anywhere other than Kentucky.  Even more interesting, big man Tony Parker (#27/#26) is still out there and won't make his decision known until Friday, but it's thought to be down to UCLA (Tony's choice) or Georgia (Mom's choice) with Duke, Ohio State, and Kansas still officially in the mix.  If Parker picks UCLA the Bruins likely become the #1 class in the country and vault back into a national power.  So nice try Reeves, but you can't bring down a juggernaut.  Unless you're in a snow speeder and you use your tow cable, but even then you probably lose your co-pilot.  Poor Dak.  My favorite part of the story though is that Muhammad's sister, Asia, is a pro on the women's tennis tour.  She's ranked #386 on the tour with career earnings of $80k, yet she has a shoe deal with Adidas.  Adidas, who sponsors UCLA hoops.  Funny world, eh?

5.  Chip Armelin.  He wasn't awesome nor did he suck this week, but I need a spot to write about him so I'm sticking him here, seeing as how he's transferring and everything.  I've always liked Chip and thought his instant offense off the bench was important, as well as the fact that out of everybody on the team he seemed to be the only one who had confidence in his own offensive game and was willing to look for his own shot (although Coleman and Dre Hollins got there in the end).  In a normal offseason I would be really bummed about losing him, but if the choice is Armelin or Mbakwe you go Mbakwe every single time.  The reality was with Mbakwe back and Rodney not doing anything stupid you had a scholarship problem and somebody was going to have to leave.  There were 3 choices who wouldn't majorly kill the team - Armelin, Ahanmisi, and Ingram.  Because Ingram was going to be a senior and it's likely not many D-I schools would take Ahanmisi (or Ingram for that matter) I had always anticipated Armelin would be gone, and it sucks but was inevitable.  I wish him nothing but luck, and I fully expect him to end up averaging 15+ per game for somebody.  Seems like in these cases the player always ends up back in his home state and there's no shortage of schools in Louisiana.  So whoever - La Tech, Tulane, or even somewhere else like Texas or Arkansas or somewhere in that vicinity (my prediction) they're getting a good one.  I'll definitely miss that crazy ass lefty jumper no matter how much or little space he had to get it off, and there was nobody who was less shy about taking a heat check.  Godspeed, Chipper.  Godspeed.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Matt Capps.  Thanks to Snacks for point this out to me, but when Cappsy tried like to hell to blow that save on Thursday against the Angels (you know, when the Angels went single-single-single to start the inning but came up one inning short) do you realize out of 23 pitches he threw 21 of them were fastballs?  And, as we know, this isn't Jonathan Papelbon or Aroldis Chapman throwing smoke, it's Matt effing Capps and his 92 mph noodle-arm heater.  He's always been over-reliant on that mediocre fastball, but most years he's thrown it around 75% of the time and this year he's at 83%, which isn't good considering he's about 2mph slower than he was in his "glory" days with the Pirates.  The best part?  As his fastball has gotten slower his change-up has gotten faster and there is now just a 5mph gap between the two (where it should be about 10).  The worst part?  I can't think of a single reliever on the Twins' roster I'd trust more than Capps, because for all p=Twins, trust=null.  Ha ha, nerd talk.

2.  Yeonis Cespedes.  If you pay too much attention to stuff like this, you remember people talking about the A's could/should start Cespedes in the minors because the level of competition in his Cuban league was more like double A here and also because Oakland sucks and weren't going to be competing for anything except next year's number 1 pick.  Well the A's said fuck that noise and threw him into the starting lineup where he started out with a bang, hitting 3 homers in his first four games.  Since then he's gone 3-20 and struck out eight times (and has now struck out in every game but one with 6 multi-K games).  Now, he can still crush (of his seven hits, five of them are for extra-bases) and he has a good eye for the zone (4 walks this year - not great but not bad) so he'll probably end up being a solid player, and that's all I can say because I haven't even come close to watching Oakland this year, except for when I almost got up for those games in Japan but then didn't.

3.  Tim Lincecum.  I think it's like super possible Wiley Wiggins (aka Mitch Kramer) finally did the thing where he kills the real Tim Lincecum and then takes over his body and his life and bangs his wife and spends his money and smokes his dope and all, and I say that because maybe the most unhittable pitcher in baseball over the last several seasons has now gotten lit up by Arizona and Colorado and now has the highest ERA in the majors (12.91) and a sky high WHIP (2.22), which sounds more Wiley Wiggins-y than Lincecum-y.  Plus I also say that because if I was Wiley Wiggins that's exactly what I would do.

4. Charlotte Bobcats.  I have no idea how I didn't know this already, but Charlotte is like, historically bad.  They have seven wins this year.  Seven!  And they won their first game of the year, so they've won six since December.  They're currently in the midst of a 16-game losing streak, and it's not even their first 16-game losing streak this year.  Their most recent loss came on Sunday, 94-82 to the Celtics in a game where Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett all sat out, leaving both Brandon Bass and Avery Bradley to score 22 points.  They haven't scored 100 or more in a non-OT game since March 17th, allowing their opponents to reach 100+ twelve times.  D.J. White starts for them.  Byron Mullens gets serious run.  This could pretty much go on forever.  They're like, the Minnesota Twins of the NBA.

5.  Justin Smoak.  Sigh.  Come on dude, you're killing me.  I've always had a crush on Smoak, as evidenced by the six entries (now 7) on this blog that have his name as a label despite him having a pretty non-descript career thus far and not being a Twin nor being in their division, but seriously dude WTF?  He's awful.  He's just awful.  In four partial seasons he's never hit better than .239, and yes batting average isn't the end-all-be-all but he's also never OBP'd better than .323 or slugged better than .407, so he can't hit for power or average and doesn't walk - basically the opposite of his minor league career.  This year might be the worst, as so far he's hitting at Puntonian levels with an average under .200, an OBP under .250, and a slugging percentage under .300 - for reals.  Ouch.  He's still young and he might end up ok, but at this point I dropped in our fantasy league for Daniel Murphy.  Daniel effing Murphy.  Or maybe David.  The one who plays for the Mets.  Gross.


One other thing is that the wife and I rewatched Malibu Shark Attack this weekend and it reminded me how much fun it is/was to watch crappy shark movies and blog about them, and I haven't done that in forever.  So I'm going to try to do it soon.  Stay tuned.