Saying Goodbye To Some NBA Veterans

At RealGM, a look at some notable players no longer on an NBA roster as the 2011-2012 season begins:

When the Miami Heat decided to keep Oklahoma State rookie Terrel Harris, they were forced to waive Eddie House. House, an 11-year NBA veteran, is only three seasons removed from being a crucial bench scorer for a Boston Celtics team that won the 2008 NBA Finals. 

But in 56 games for the Heat last year, the 33-year-old guard looked like he lost a step defensively, and there’s no guarantee he signs with another NBA team. That’s how it ends for the majority of NBA players, not with a nationally publicized press conference, but with a one-line note in the transaction sections. 

As the 2011-12 season gets underway, there are some notable names not on an NBA roster. They aren’t Hall of Famers, but they still had careers worth remembering.

Florida's Prospects And Their Floor Spacing Problems

At SBNation, a look at Florida's draft prospects, and why the Gators are being held-back by their starting guards inability to space the floor:

Bradley Beal -- Andre Iguodala (best case) / Tony Allen (worst case) 

Patric Young -- Ronny Turiaf / Joel Anthony 

Erik Murphy -- Ryan Anderson / Matt Bonner 

Kenny Boynton -- Kyle Lowry / Will Bynum 

Down-the-road possibilities: Mike Rosario, Scottie Wilbekin

Terrel Harris And The NBA Dream

At RealGM, a look at the surprisingly long odds Terrel Harris overcame to make the NBA:

An athletic 6’4, 190 shooting guard, he certainly doesn’t look the part of an underdog. He didn’t exactly come out of nowhere either, as he was was the No. 64 recruit in the class of 2005. 

However, every year, assuming an average recruiting class of three players, 1,026 18-year-olds receive Division I men’s basketball scholarships. Even the ones marked for greatness don’t necessarily make it. Of the top 150 players in the class of 2005, Harris is one of only 18 in the NBA seven years later.

Harris has an opportunity to carve out a role as a defensive stopper for a Miami franchise that has found jewels in the undrafted ranks (Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony) before. More importantly, they need their guards playing defense and knocking down open 3’s, the two strengths of his game. Last season, two unheralded players in similar roles -- the Spurs’ Gary Neal and the Knicks’ Landry Fields -- made the All-Rookie team. 

But, on a Heat squad gunning for a championship that has another rookie guard (Norris Cole) as well as two extremely raw big men (Dexter Pittman and Micket Gladness), there’s no guarantee Harris keeps his roster spot all season. That’s life on the fringes of the NBA, where bench players fight-and-claw for one of 450 possible roster spots in the only basketball league in the world with guaranteed six-figure contracts.

NBA Post Free-Agency Power Rankings

At RealGM, Power Rankings for the NBA after a whirl-wind free agency process:

1. Oklahoma City Thunder: The one elite team who could afford to stand pat, and they mostly did. Now they have to handle the heavy burden of title expectations while trying to manage the egos of three emerging young stars -- Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden -- looking for their first big NBA contracts. 

2. Miami Heat: They plugged their hole at point guard by re-signing Mario Chalmers and drafting Norris Cole, but they’ve done little to address their undersized frontline. With roster flexibility for capped-out teams limited in the new CBA, there’s no point in keeping Mike Miller and signing Shane Battier if they aren’t going to play in the fourth-quarter, which means they must be comfortable with a frontline of LeBron James and Chris Bosh closing out playoff games. It’s something Don Nelson would have tried. 

3. Chicago Bulls: They are still an excellent defensive team with an MVP candidate, but they haven’t fixed their match-up problems with Miami, the team standing in their way. They need another shot-creator to take pressure off Derrick Rose, and a 33-year-old Richard Hamilton isn’t the solution. They have two attractive trade chips: Omer Asik, a restricted free agent next season they’re unlikely to be able to afford, and Nikola Mirotic, a 6’10+ European sharp-shooter they stole at the end of the first round.

NBA on Christmas Preview

 At BarkingCarnival, a preview of the NBA's Christmas Day action:

1. The Mavericks’ centers: The cupboard isn’t entirely bare in Dallas, as the Mavericks will need Brendan Haywood to earn the $55 million contract he got by playing with consistent effort on a nightly basis while staying mentally involved in the game. They’ve got three athletic 6’10+ players — Ian Mahinmi, Brandan Wright and Sean Williams — who could get minutes, and they might try to use Lamar Odom or Dirk as a small-ball 5. 

2. The Miami front-court: There’s no reason to not amnesty Mike Miller and sign Shane Battier if they weren’t going to play in the fourth quarter, which means the Heat must be comfortable with Bosh and LeBron closing out games on the interior. 

3. Dallas’ back-court rotation: There’s been a lot of roster shuffling for the defending champions. Caron Butler, JJ Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Peja Stojakovic and Corey Brewer are out; Vince Carter and Delonte West are in. Two young Mavericks — Rodrigue Beaubois and Dominique Jones — could get more minutes.

LeBron, Wade And Bosh: Occupying The NBA

At RealGM, a look at the stakes for everyone in Miami a year after "The Decision":

By going to Miami, he was betraying the narrative of the NBA superstar in the post Michael Jordan era. Rather than besting Dwyane Wade in the same way that Jordan defeated Clyde Drexler, LeBron joined Wade’s team. It was something Jordan never would have done. 

Yet, as Jay-Z is essentially saying in his verse, so what?

Is real “power” being the world’s best rapper or its greatest basketball player? What’s the point if you don’t have control over your own life? If you don’t have the freedom to “get out from up under you / f*** rollies, labels, f*** what everybody wants from you”? 

Now, as a new season finally begins, LeBron and the Heat are playing for something bigger than themselves. Throughout the history of professional sports, owners have fought tooth and nail against free agency. Miami did not build a championship team; they offered a blank slate to three All-NBA players. A Heat title would show that ownership is, at best, a necessary evil. 

Can a team assembled by three guys over a few Olympic practices really defeat 29 other teams meticulously assembled by hundred-million dollar organizations over the span of years? If LeBron James Jr. and Bryce James are blessed with the size and talent of their father, will they have the same freedom to choose where they want to work? Or, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, will “a team of the players, by the players and for the players perish from the Earth”?

Second Year Breakout Players In The NBA

At RealGM, a look at why the second-year is often the most important in an NBA player's career and five guys who could break out this season:

The transition between college and the pros is the biggest jump players make in their careers. NCAA teams play 30 to 40-game seasons spread over six months; NBA teams (normally) cram 82 games into the same period of time. 

Even players in powerhouse conferences like the Big East only face NBA-caliber competition once or twice per week, while they might face NBA players at their position a handful of times all season. At the next level, they’re facing NBA players every single night. 

Against amateur competition, they can coast defensively because they are such superior athletes. There aren’t any 6’9, 275 small forwards with 40 inch verticals barreling down the lane in college, and there certainly aren’t any 6’11, 265 centers with 40 inch verticals annihilating weak shots at the rim.

Kansas' Prospects And Character Questions

At SBNation, a look at the NBA prospects on the Kansas Jayhawks, and why Tyshawn Taylor isn't playing well enough to justify the number of bits he runs:

Thomas Robinson -- Serge Ibaka (best case) / Chris Wilcox (worst case) 

Tyshawn Taylor -- Delonte West / Daniel Ewing 

Down-the-road possibilities: Elijah Johnson, Justin Wesley, Kevin Young

The Green Bay Packers Model Of Ownership

At PolicyMic, a look at why the Green Bay Packers have the best owners in professional sports:

There is no Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder in Green Bay. Instead, the Packers are publicly traded, with a total of 112,158 shareholders owning 4,750,937 shares in Green Bay Packers Incorporated. It’s a much sounder model for pro sports ownership, as almost every franchise would benefit from being owned by their fans. 

The numbers are staggering: Over the last two decades, local municipalities have spent nearly $15 billion constructing or renovating stadiums for the NBA, NFL, and MLB. And despite owners’ claims to the contrary, there’s extensive research indicating that these stadiums do not boost economic growth.  

As a result of this imbalance between public risk and private profit, the entire system of professional sport ownership in America has become little more than an elaborate slush fund for some of the country’s wealthiest individuals.

Portland And Memphis: Dark-Horse Contenders

At RealGM, a look at why Memphis and Portland have the best long-shot odds of winning a championship:

While the Chris Paul and Dwight Howard trade sweepstakes have overshadowed a frantic two-week offseason, the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers have quietly become dark-horse contenders in the Western Conference. They lack the star power of their rivals, but both are built around long, athletic and skilled front-courts, the back-bone of a championship team.

And while the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies improved, the rest of the West, besides Oklahoma City, returned to the pack. The Mavericks, without Tyson Chandler, and the Lakers, without Lamar Odom, aren’t as formidable as they were last season. If you count the Spurs and the Clippers, that’s six teams who could compete for the No. 2 seed, especially with a compressed 66-game schedule that gives less time for separation.

Last season, I got lucky with Dallas at 16:1 to win the championship. This year, I’d say the two long-shot teams with the best shot at getting a ring are Memphis (25:1) and Portland (35:1). Most intriguingly, if either makes it out of their side of the playoff bracket, they are bigger than any of the NBA’s top four teams -- Oklahoma City, Miami, Chicago and New York.

The Importance of Draft Picks In The New NBA

At RealGM, a look at why the importance of drafting well has been magnified by the post-lockout CBA:

But, as Cuban explained, the new CBA changes the decision-making process for teams near the luxury tax line. While offenders were only punished monetarily under the old CBA, repeatedly exceeding the line will now severely restrict roster flexibility going forward.

That’s why the most important assets in the post-lockout NBA are players making less than they are actually worth: superstars whose salaries are capped and young players on rookie contracts.

Because few young players can play NBA-caliber defense immediately, contending teams have long devalued the draft, especially the latter parts of the first-round, where picks are routinely sold. However, in a system that magnifies the importance of cap flexibility, overpaying replacement-level veteran players in free agency is a recipe for disaster.

UNC's Prospects And The Chapel Hill Pipeline

At SBNation, a look at UNC's NBA prospects and why Roy Williams can bring in so many elite players:

Harrison Barnes -- Danny Granger (best case) / Mike Miller (worst case) 

John Henson -- Black Swan (unique) / Jared Jeffries 

Tyler Zeller -- Tiago Splitter / Spencer Hawes 

Dexter Strickland -- Shannon Brown / Marcus Banks

Down-the-road possibilities: Reggie Bullock, James McAdoo, PJ Hairston, Kendall Marshall and Leslie McDonald.

David Stern's "Basketball Reasons"

At RealGM, a look at why David Stern's veto of the original Chris Paul trade was the right move for the Hornets:

With the Lakers out of the picture, Paul is reportedly favoring the Los Angeles Clippers. And what the Clippers have to offer, in particular the Minnesota Timberwolves’ unprotected first-round pick this season, is far more valuable than any group of veterans New Orleans would have received from Los Angeles and Houston.

That’s why there’s no point to trading a superstar for a collection of solid veterans. The team you assemble, without a real identity, isn’t going anywhere. If the original trade had gone through, the Hornets would have had a starting five of Jarrett Jack, Kevin Martin, Trevor Ariza, Lamar Odom and Emeka Okafor.

In a league where losing is rewarded with high draft picks, the worst thing to be is consistently mediocre. A franchise that loses 60 games and gets a top pick is in better shape than a franchise that loses 40 games, as the 40-win one continually watches teams who finish worse acquire the best young players in the draft.

As it stands now, there are at least eight top 6’8+ prospects in the 2012 draft pool -- UNC’s Harrison Barnes and John Henson, UK’s Anthony Davis and Terrence Jones, UConn’s Andre Drummond, Baylor’s Perry Jones III and Quincy Miller and Kansas’ Thomas Robinson. Hit on two of those eight players and you have one of the most intriguing young rosters in the NBA.

The Real Story Behind The Chris Paul Veto

At BarkingCarnival, a look at the underlying issues behind the NBA's veto of the Chris Paul trade:

While the fact that the other owners blocked the Lakers’ acquisition of Paul out of pure spite is both amazingly petty and rather humorous, especially when the trade would have actually hurt the Lakers, it’s a rather unique scenario that has little chance of ever repeating itself. The only reason the other 29 owners could block this trade at all was because they actually own the New Orleans Hornets.

The real story here is not the motivations of some of the NBA’s owners, no matter how small-minded they might be, but the fact that the league itself has had to own this franchise without a viable buyer for an entire year.

Stern, leery of the PR hit the league would receive for abandoning the city in the aftermath of Katrina, has been determined to find a buyer willing to keep the city in New Orleans. When he could not find one, the league bought the franchise, setting themselves up for the situation with Chris Paul they are in now.

But while the inherent conflict of interest created by owning one of their competitors is going to force the owners to sell the team to a buyer who will probably move it, Stern has good reason to avoid that scenario. When the Hornets came to New Orleans, they made a series of implicit and explicit promises to the region, and they are playing in a 100% publicly financed stadium. Abandoning the taxpayers of New Orleans and leaving them with a NBA stadium they no longer need is an immoral thing to do, and it points to the heart of the real problem with the structure of sports ownership in the United States.

The owners aren’t running private enterprises; they are running public trusts. This is the fundamental mismatch at the heart of the problems in professional sports in the United States today: the owners of the NBA, NFL and MLB have been allowed to profit off a public good (the stadiums they play in).

Why Point Guards Don't Matter

At RealGM, a look at why David Stern saved the Lakers from making a huge mistake in dealing for Chris Paul and why the Knicks don't need him either:

If the last twenty years have taught us anything, it’s that championship teams do not need great point guard play. Here are the starting point guards for the 20 NBA champions since 1991: John Paxson twice, BJ Armstrong, Kenny Smith twice, Ron Harper three times, Avery Johnson, Derek Fisher three times, Tony Parker, Chauncey Billups, Parker, Jason Williams, Parker, Rajon Rondo, Fisher two more times and a 38-year old Jason Kidd.

While a great point guard will make his teammates better on offense, the only way Paul was making West and Okafor better on defense was with a bag of beans from Jack’s magic bean-stalk that would make them taller. In contrast, a great big man makes his teammates better on both sides of the ball, as he can command double teams on offense and contain dribble penetration on defense.

That’s why there was no real need for the New York Knicks to add Paul. Paul value comes from his ability to create easy shots for his teammates, but Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire don’t need anyone creating shots for them. They can do that themselves; that’s why they are both perennial All-Stars.

The Devastating Loss Of Tyson Chandler

At RealGM, a look at how Tyson Chandler took the Mavericks' chances of repeating with him out the door:

In 31 seasons in Dallas, and 12 under Cuban, the franchise has never been in a better position than they are in right now. The Mavericks have an excellent chance to win a championship right now, and there’s no guarantee the franchise will ever have a better one in the next 31 years. As they say in baseball, flags (championship banners) fly forever.

The Mavericks would still be a good team without Chandler, but they would have no chance of winning a title in 2012. With Dallas way over the salary cap, their best option in free agency would be a player like Indiana’s Jeff Foster, a replacement-level center best suited for a back-up role.

Haywood will be a good center for Dallas, but he isn’t the great one Chandler currently is. While he can’t consistently create his own shot, Chandler was the second-team All-Defensive center last season, behind only Dwight Howard. He’s also a threat on alley-oops and cuts to the rim, an excellent offensive rebounder and a surprisingly good free-throw shooter.

MLB's Worldwide Draft And International Labor Movement

At PolicyMic, a look at how the institution of a worldwide draft would affect baseball in the US and the Caribbean:

But now, in an effort to legislate competitive balance and curb amateur spending, MLB teams have agreed to institute a $2.9 million cap on international signings for the 2012 season. Many think it’s the first step towards a worldwide draft, something Commissioner Bud Selig has wanted for many years.

But after Puerto Rico was folded into the American amateur draft in 1989, its players could no longer be signed at 16 and there was no longer much of a competitive advantage to developing young talent on the island territory. However, Puerto Rico didn’t have the type of infrastructure that exists on the U.S. mainland to support amateur athletics, so its prospects were disproportionately damaged by the withdrawal of professional coaching.

In a sense, American baseball players are no different than American factory workers, increasingly unable to compete with foreigners willing to work under much more worse conditions for a tiny fraction of the pay. While the American consumer has benefited from better-played baseball and more reliable cars over the last generation, it’s come at the price of shrinking the number of American jobs in those industries.

The international draft can be seen as an attempt to force foreign labor that wants to compete for the dollars of American consumers to adhere to the same type of workforce protections that helped develop the American middle class. Twenty years from now, the caliber of baseball in the U.S. may not be as high, but there might be more opportunities for American-born baseball players.

The Length of John Henson and Anthony Davis

At RealGM, a look at how the extraordinary length of Kentucky's Anthony Davis and North Carolina's John Henson is the latest step in the evolution of the game:

So when he found himself alone with the ball in his hands and less than 10 seconds left in North Carolina’s 73-72 loss to Kentucky on Saturday, the last thing he was worried about was someone blocking his jumper. You would have to be as long and as quick as Henson to do that, and college basketball had never seen someone as long and as quick as John Henson before. That is, until Kentucky’s Anthony Davis, a 6’10, 220 forward with a 7’4 wingspan of his own.

In a game between two of the best teams in the country and two of the most storied programs in the history of the sport, a game that featured as many as 15 future NBA players, it’s fitting that the final play came down to the two players who literally stood above the rest.

While UNC and Kentucky have combined to win 12 national championships, they’ve never quite won like this before. Both teams are built around the shot-blocking prowess of their 6’10+ forwards, but while the best shot-blockers used to be centers who stationed themselves on the low block and protected the rim, Davis and Henson can roam around the court, capable of erasing any shot taken from within the three-point line.

Henson and Davis are the inevitable defensive response to the wave of super-sized jump-shooters that has emerged over the last generation. In essence, they’re similar to the new types of offensive tackles that began to appear in the NFL to combat the emergence of pass-rushers like Lawrence Taylor in the 1980’s.

Why The NBA's Superstar Carousel Has Not Stopped

At RealGM, a look at why a maximum individual salary is one of the main reasons small markets have such trouble retaining their superstars:

The maximum salary Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams can sign for is somewhere around $20 million annually, but NBA superstars would be worth far more on the open market. The imbalance between their take-home pay and their actual value gives them a lot of leverage, and unless the maximum salary is repealed, small-market franchises will always be at the mercy of their All-NBA players.

Without a free market system like the MLB’s, it’s impossible to know exactly how much a superstar is worth. Here’s what we do know: the Cleveland Cavaliers franchise lost $120 million in value when LeBron left, while the city of Orlando paid the staggering sum of $420 million for a state-of-the-art stadium that would generate the revenue streams necessary to put an elite team around Dwight Howard and convince him to stay in Central Florida.

Of course, there would have been an easier way to convince him: cut out the middle-man and give him the cash. Taxpayers can give the front office of the Magic the money to build a title team, but they can’t build it themselves. Orlando GM Otis Smith was unable to do that, and now the entire area is going to suffer.

If the NBA was serious about keeping superstars in the cities that drafted them, they would let a franchise pay whatever it wants to keep its star in town. LeBron turned down around $20 million over the life of the contract to sign with Miami last summer, but what if that number was $100 or $200 million? The Heat and the Knicks certainly couldn’t clear enough cap space to sign three players at over $30 million annually.

Book Review: Why The West Rules -- For Now

At PopMatters, a review of "Why The West Rules -- For Now", possibly the most interesting book I've ever read:

Eventually, two main cores of human settlement coalesced: one around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Middle East (“the West”) and one centered around the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers in China (“the East”). Why the West Rules attempts to bridge the two main schools of thought—“long-term lock-in” and “short-term accident”—that have emerged to explain why the descendants of the Western settlements overtook those of the East thousands of years later.

He creates a scale of social development, primarily a function of how much energy the average member of a society consumes, to track the differences between the two sides of the Old World. The overarching story of history becomes the gradual progression of humans figuring out how to more efficiently capture energy from their environment until some sort of limit in social development is reached. When that happens, either a society figures out some new way to enhance its productivity and stave off collapse, like the Industrial Revolution, or “the five horsemen of the Apocalypse”—migration, state failure, famine, disease and climate change—are unleashed.

Why the West Rules, unlike most popular history, downplays the importance of individuals. If history is fundamentally the blind social inertia of billions of lazy, greedy and frightened people, no one man can stand in its way for long. Almost 700 years after Rome was sacked, the Song Empire in China collapsed at the same inflection point in Morris’ social development graph.

Ohio State's Prospects And The Jared Sullinger Debate

At SBNation, a look at Ohio State's NBA prospects and why Jared Sullinger will be the most polarizing prospect in the 2012 Draft:

Jared Sullinger -- Luis Scola (best case) / Sean May (worst case) 

William Buford -- Wesley Matthews / Alex Acker

Down-the-road possibilities: Amir Williams, DeShaun Thomas, Aaron Craft, Lenzelle Smith Jr., Jordan Sibert and Shannon Smith.