Sunday, June 28, 2009

The Last NBA post in a while

We've hit the dog days of sports when only the mid-summer moves of Major League Baseball can keep a sports fan interested. No NFL, no NBA, but there are a few of things going on with at least one of those sports.

Vinsanity to Orlando. Shaq to Cleveland. Amare to Golden State?

1. The Vince Carter deal. What a great deal for Orlando. Really, really good deal. They get an athletic wing that can play the 2 or 3, can take over games late, create shots for others, hits 3 pointers and is probably at the point in his career where he wants to play with other good players and will defer to them to win a championship. Basically, he's a poor man's Kobe Bryant. And all they really gave up is Courtney Lee, who can be a good player but will never be a Vince Carter. Now, Orlando looks like a championship contender even if they don't resign Hedo Turkoglu. If they do resign him, they have to be considered the favorites in the East.

2. Shaq to Cleveland. Another great deal for the Cavs that came about a half a year too late. If they do this deal in February, they might be celebrating a title. At least now, they get a motivated Diesel who will do the things they need: frontcourt scoring, rebounding, defense, toughness. Now they need a guard who's taller than 6'3". Even with Shaq, they won't be able to beat the Lakers if they don't have someone who can check Kobe.

3. Amare to Golden State? If this is true and it happens, then I guess the Suns have given up on trying to be a contender. They really blew it when they traded Marion for Shaq and the Shaq to Cleveland deal is a partial admission of it. They had a great core that was in contention every year but no depth. So they decided to trade the core. D'oh. This is why the NBA only has a few great teams and a lot of mediocre to bad teams. The GMs are just kind of dumb sometimes. In fairness to Steve Kerr, Robert Sarver has demonstrated time and again that he won't pay the luxury tax even if it means winning a title. So with this deal, Phoenix is saying that instead of rebuilding around an explosive 26 power forward/center, they've decided to rebuild around an aging 35 year old point guard in Steve Nash.

1 comment:

Jfunkthemonk said...

amare to golden state isnt going to happen. if it does, i dont mind it for phoenix at all. getting biedrens, wright, and stephen curry, and pairing them along side steve nash, jason richardson, barbosa...that would be a pretty fun team to watch. amare will never do anything in my opinion, he is very talented, but he is missing something. and curry is going to be amazing, i really think so. biedrens is perfect for that system, and there is a lot of praise about the development of brandon wright.

i agree with you about the cavs, but i think orlando is still a bigger problem for them in terms of matchups than the lakers. if they can miraculously get michael redd, then its over. they should just be handed the title.

im kind of hoping that orlando signs turkey bacon, that would make them a really really interesting team to watch.