rcklsscognition wrote:Anyone listen to the Simmons Lowe podcast where they call Henny a moron and say we are a direction less team like the Bucks? Ugh. Hope this works out for us.
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Bill Simmons wrote that after the Dwight trade:
LOSER: Orlando I knew the pupu platter was coming. You knew it was coming. Even Orlando’s fans knew it was coming. But when it actually happens and you’re staring at those lukewarm spareribs? Man … there’s nothing worse.
What Orlando sent out: Howard and nearly $30 million of cap-clogging contracts belonging to Jason Richardson, Chris Duhon and Earl Clark.
What Orlando got back: Arron Afflalo, Nik Vucevic, Al Harrington, Mo Harkless, three protected first-rounders, cap space next summer, three soggy fried shrimp, six half-cooked egg rolls and four sweet-and-sour chicken skewers to be named later. Hey, at least there isn’t a storied history of NBA teams giving away superstars for 50 cents on the dollar, then totally regretting it after the fact … well, except for the two Wilt trades, the Kareem trade, the Dr. J trade, the T-Mac/Rockets trade, the Moses/Philly trade and the Barkley/Phoenix trade.
Was it a bad sign for Orlando that they got significantly less for the league’s only dominant center than the Hornets got for Chris Paul and the Nuggets got for Carmelo Anthony? I’m going out on a limb and saying “yes.” Had I been running the Magic, there would have been a zero percent chance — repeat: zero percent chance — that I was trading Howard unless I was getting Bynum back AND dumping Turkoglu’s contract. Without those two things, I’m just keeping Howard, letting the soap opera drag on and on for a few more months, then hoping I could do better in February.
And guess what? I’m pretty sure that, six months from now, Philly, Denver and the Lakers would all still want to do a four-team trade in which all of them made out great and the Magic made out like crap. I hate how Orlando handled this saga; I hate that they caved; and I hate this trade for them.
WINNER: The Sixers They finally made a real move! Who knew the Sixers could make trades and stuff???? I loved this particular risk for them — basically, they flipped Iguodala (with whom they never won anything), Harkless (a project), Nik Vucevic (a young banger with potential) and a protected first-rounder into the league’s second-best center and a proven/overpaid 2-guard who was out of shape for much of last year but isn’t washed up by any means (Jason Richardson).4 They bring Bynum closer to his hometown (New Jersey), throw him in the East (where he’s immediately the best center in the conference), give him his own team and his own grateful fan base (the Sixers fans have been starving for a signature guy since Iverson left), give him 20 shots a game (which he always wanted), and hope he likes playing with Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday and everyone else enough that he’ll extend long-term next summer.
It’s amazing that Orlando was so focused on dumping Richardson (someone who easily could have a big comeback year) over dumping Turkoglu (who makes more than Richardson and is what he is). Big mistake.Richardson’s the perfect fit for a low-post threat like Bynum — he spreads the floor and makes 3s. Sneaky-good move by Philly there.
LOSER: The Rockets After getting demolished by The Veto, they spent the last nine months gathering enough assets to land Howard or Bynum and hoping for a situation exactly like the one that played out this week: you know, Orlando finally panicking and needing a third team for their mega-trade. What happened? Philly and Denver snuck in there, leaving Houston GM Daryl Morey with the permanent McKayla’s Not Impressed Face. Why did Orlando settle for that Afflalo/Harkless/protected picks package when Houston was willing to recklessly overpay for Howard with young assets AND take on every bad Orlando contract? And while we’re here, why didn’t Orlando just grab last month’s Brooklyn offer of Brook Lopez, MarShon Brooks, one year of Kris Humphries and four unprotected first-rounders for Howard and the same contracts they shed in this four-teamer? Those are two great questions.
So, can you kill Morey for how it played out? Not for going all-in for a chance at Bynum or Howard, that’s for sure. He wanted to be on the board if those two chess pieces ever moved … and by the way, they moved. He just didn’t get them. But if you wanted to kill the Rockets for (a) turning Goran Dragic into Jeremy Lin, (b) recklessly amnestying Luis Scola when they didn’t have to do so, and (c) caring so much about cap space that they amnestied Scola during the same month that they shelled out $25 million to Omer Asik … I mean … (let’s just move on).
WINNER: The Lakers Couldn’t have played it any more perfectly these past six months: never biting on Orlando’s “No, we need Gasol AND Bynum” power play, steadfastly refusing to assume Hedo Turkoglu’s lousy contract in any Bynum deal, and pretending they weren’t that interested in Howard (even though the league’s third-best player was potentially falling into their laps). Once Howard’s most likely suitor (Brooklyn) panicked about losing Deron Williams and guaranteed their non-Howard future, the Lakers responded by making their team a little more Howard-friendly with Steve Nash (one of a handful of NBA players that EVERYONE wants to play with), then hoped Howard’s extended recovery stint in Los Angeles would nudge him toward saying, “Hey, you know what? Maybe playing in a celebrity-friendly, warm-weather market with Nash and Gasol would offset having to watch Kobe launch 23 shots a game for the next two years.”
And as always with the Lakers, it worked out: They flipped the league’s second-best center (a top-20 player) into the league’s best center (and third-best player in the league) without sacrificing anything else of substance. I wrote this a few weeks ago and I’m writing it again: If scientists could create basketball-playing robots from scratch and were asked to create someone to play with Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant and Nash, basically, they would create Dwight Howard: a ridiculously strong shot blocker/rebounder who can run the floor and doesn’t need the ball to be happy. In the span of 3.5 seconds, the Lakers went from “old, slow, can’t defend anybody” to “who’s stopping us?”
