The First Off-Season NBA Trade

            Avid readers of the blog (all five of you) might recall a series I was going to do outlining what every NBA team should do in the off-season. Three things have postponed this series.

1. Real life
2. The NBA Draft is scheduled to happen two days after Game 7 (it won’t happen, but Heat-haters can feel free to still hold out some hope), which doesn’t leave a lot of time to watch the NBA Finals, blog about what teams should do before the draft, and play TECMO Super Baseball.
3. One of the teams I wrote about in the first column traded two key players today, making that document a worthless waste of bandwidth.

           No Credentials is good at changing gears though, so we’ll discuss the aftermath of today’s trade. In what could best be described as a salary dump, New Orleans shipped Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to Washington in exchange for Rashard Lewis’ expiring contract (which they will buy out) and mid-second round pick in this year’s draft. Before we get to the long-term thinkers, let’s discuss the Wizards.

            Washington has significantly upgraded their defense along the front-line in the past three months. Pairing Okafor with Nene (who was acquired in a trade with the Nuggets) will give the Wizards a solid safety net behind John Wall, while Trevor Ariza still brings enough to the table to match up against quality 2s and 3s. Unfortunately, none of these three guys are elite scoring options. Nene can do a little work in the post, but at best you’re getting 15 points a game out of this guy, not 20. Okafor and Ariza will be lucky to have a combined average of 20 PPG this season. Fortunately for the Wizards, they still have the third pick in the draft. Adding Okafor means that they will likely avoid drafting Andre Drummond (this year’s most likely bust in the first round). Florida’s Bradley Beal makes the most sense if he’s available. He would fill the black hole Washington has at shooting guard.
            As for New Orleans, I love this trade for them. While having Okafor to help protect Anthony Davis made some sense, it’s more sensible to ship off any veterans and burn the forest down. Getting rid of cap-hogging contracts improves the Hornets’ chances of resigning Eric Gordon (who will be second most valuable player on the free agent market). Adding a second round pick in a deep draft isn’t a bad thing either. Look for the Hornets to add another big man at 10 to pair with Davis for the foreseeable future. New Orleans won’t be as good this year as they would’ve been with Okafor, but their long term outlook is brighter.

NBA Off-Season Game Plans - New Orleans and Charlotte

Every few days, No Credentials will look at the long term prospects of each NBA team. We'll look at who each team has under contract, their cap space for next summer, and how No Credentials thinks they should manager their off-season. We'll start with the biggest winner of last night's draft lottery paired with last night's biggest loser.

 

New Orleans Hornets

A-Level Potential Players Under Contract = None (SG Eric Gordon is a restricted free agent)
B-Level Potential Players Under Contract = PF/C Emeka Okafor
C-Level Players Under Contract = SF Al-Farouq Aminu, SF Trevor Ariza, PG Jarrett Jack
Cap Space = $17 million
The No Credentials Plan = Thanks to the luck of the draw (or David Stern rigging the lottery, you believe what you want), New Orleans will know that Anthony Davis will be in the fold. The Uni-Brow is fortunate to begin his NBA career alongside Emeka Okafor, who will allow The Uni-Brow to primarily serve as a weak-side shot blocker. Even if Davis doesn’t develop an offensive game for five years, he will still be a dominant force on the defensive end.
            The draft won’t end for New Orleans after selecting The Uni-Brow. The Hornets also have the tenth pick, acquired in the Chris Paul trade from the Clippers. What they should do with this pick depends largely on whether or not Eric Gordon will return. If Gordon stays in the fold, they should address the point guard position (my vote would be for North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall, but Weber State’s Damian Lillard would also be in the mix). If it appears Gordon is going to bolt (many folks believe that Gordon has wanted to join the Pacers ever since he arrived in the NBA), Austin Rivers should be the pick.
            In a perfect world, New Orleans opening night starting line-up next season would be Marshall-Gordon-Ariza-Uni-Brow-Okafor, which is an intriguing group. After resigning Gordon, New Orleans would be best served just adding short term contracts to fill out the team. Even with Gordon healthy, this group would have a hard time making the playoffs in the ultra-deep West, so making a 5-year, $30 million dollar offer to a veteran doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Give the kids a year or two to develop, and by 2015 we could be talking about a very dangerous Hornets team.

Charlotte Bobcats

A-Level Potential Players U.C. = None
B-Level Potential Players U.C. = PG Kemba Walker, C Bismack Biyombo
C-Level Players U.C. = SG Gerald Henderson
Cap Space = $10 million
The No Credentials Plan = Man does it suck balls to be a Bobcats fan. You missed out on Anthony Davis. You only have $10 million in cap space this off-season, thanks to paying DeSagana Diop and Corey Maggette a combined $17 million (ouch). At least the second pick will net them a potential A-Level prospect in Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (Yahoo has Thomas Robinson going second, but don’t believe them. A bunch of monkeys run their sports outfit). The team will stink for another two or three years, but at least they’ll have another solid prospect to group with Biyombo and Walker. Diop is a $7 million expiring contract, so Charlotte would be wise to flip him to a team desperate for cap space in exchange for a couple of picks.
            If Charlotte thinks outside of the box, they should strongly consider moving down in the draft. Portland (who owns the sixth and eleventh picks) would be a logical trade partner. I don’t think it would be all that hard to talk the Trail Blazers, a team that many had pegged as a dark horse for this season’s title, into shipping them their two first round picks, plus a future first along with it. When you’re as bad as Charlotte, acquiring as many solid assets as possible is the best course of action.   

10 Awesome Things That Happened This Past Weekend (11/5-11/7)

This post consists of my 10 favorite things that happened over the course of this past weekend. Enjoy.

10. New Orleans Hornets Defeating the Miami Heat

            I’m not on the “Lebron is a gutless bum” bandwagon that most of the country is, but it’s still fun to see “The Big Two Featuring Chris Bosh” (as named by the Sports Guy Bill Simmons) lose. Wouldn’t the Heat of been better off picking up two other dudes that can actually rebound and block shots instead of Bosh? Bosh is much better as the best player on a mediocre team than he is as the third wheel on a championship caliber team.

9. Colts Tight End Jacob Tamme Catching 11 Passes for 108 Yards and a Score

            (WARNING: WRITER IS ABOUT TO TELL A FANTASY FOOTBALL STORY THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS RELEVANT TO REALITY. IF YOU DON’T LIKE SUCH STORIES, SKIP TO NUMBER 8. THANK YOU)

            I’m in two fantasy football leagues this year. The only starter I drafted on both teams was Antonio Gates. With Vincent Jackson holding out, and the rest of the Chargers wide receivers dropping like flies, Gates has been a monster this year (in both reality and fantasy). However, Gates has now succumbed to the bug. He’s been battling ankle and foot problems for the past three weeks. He was listed as doubtful before the game, and was declared inactive roughly an hour before kickoff.

            Gates was the only tight end on my team (I typically don’t carry two tight ends), so this left me in a bit of a quandary. Fortunately for my sake, the new Colts tight end was left on the free agent list in not one, but both leagues. Since I could line up at tight end and catch a few passes from Peyton Manning, I gladly scooped him up. He scored all sorts of points for both of my teams. Good times.   

             

8. Keith Olbermann Suspended By MSNBC

            Olbermann was suspended Friday from his TV show for donating money to democratic candidates. I’ve been an Olbermann fan for years (he was great back in the day on “Sportscenter”), but this issue brings to light the huge problem we have with cable “news”.

            I personally don’t have a problem with a television show that features Mike Huckabee praising the merits of the Tea Party. I don’t mind Keith Olbermann cracking jokes based on his left-leaning bias. The problem is the fact that these shows are advertised as news. Which leads to many ignorant people taking these individual’s words as unbiased truth (there are plenty of stories that can be found online about the conflicts between the regular NBC news department, which operates without bias, and MSNBC, which leans to the left).

            The solution to this problem is simple. Stop advertising these programs under the category of news. We should change Fox News to Fox Right Wing, or Fox Tea Party, or Fox Palin. MSNBC can be “Left of Center Network”. I think this idea has legs. Probably won’t happen though.

7. Peyton Hillis Leading the Browns to Victory Over the Patriots.

            I have two simple reasons for enjoying this victory. One is that I live in New England, but I’m not a Patriots fan. So whenever the Pats get beat down, I’m all for it (you’ll notice that most of these involve me enjoying a team losing. I didn’t realize I took so much pleasure in other people’s pain).

            The second reason involves Hillis. I have a good friend who despises him. I’m not really sure why, but I’m pretty sure it’s related to fantasy football. So whenever Hillis does well, I’m again all for it.

6. Alabama Losing Their 2^nd Game of the Season to LSU

            I’ll sign off on anything that results in Nick Saban’s football team being eliminated from National Championship contention.

5. A Jockey Fight and a NASCAR Fight

            These two events are lumped together because they were essentially the same thing. Two short people getting angry and pushing each other. Doesn’t sound entertaining on paper, but man was it good television.        

4. George W. Bush Criticizing Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Dick Cheney

            Like most of America, I was not a fan of W’s eight years in the White House. I will say though that I’m thoroughly enjoying W post presidency. Is he going out of his way to irk the last few people that cared for him? I don’t get it. I’m not sure what the poor executives at Fox News think of this story, but I’m sure there heads are exploding. Did you read that he even complemented Obama? I’m not sure what kind of crazy Bush is, but I like it (well now that he’s not commander in chief).

3. Boston Celtics Survive the Chicago Bulls in Overtime

            I hope a few of you were able to check out this game last Friday night. You can’t go wrong with a playoff-like atmosphere in early November. The Bulls will be rock solid when they get Boozer back (and if they get Carmelo Anthony via trade, than forget about the Eastern Conference), while the Boston Celtics are playing fantastic team basketball. Everyone on that team is focused on getting the ball to the open guy (except for Nate Robinson, but thankfully he only plays about 10 minutes a game).

            While I’m on the subject, I would like to praise the quality of play in the NBA right now. We could have the best collection of talent since the mid-80s through the early-90s. It’s a damn shame that there will probably be a lockout next year, because the NBA is creeping up on the NFL in watchablity (not sure if that’s a word, but I just invented it, so there).

2. Daylight Savings Time Ending

            Can we get an extra hour of sleep every Sunday? I love it when the clocks fall back an hour.

1. Green Bay Packers destroying the Dallas Cowboys 45-7

            I’ll start this paragraph by saying that I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan. The loss to Green Bay on Sunday night was the best thing that’s happened to the Cowboys’ franchise since winning Super Bowl XXX. I’ll take a 38-point beating on national television, as long as it got Wade Phillips kicked out the door. When I found out Phillips was officially fired today, I raised my hands like I had just won the lottery. I can’t wait for the 2011 season.