EDIT: Thursday at 5:30 PM

Artest is a goner now.

Though it may still be fun to think about what might have been.

It's looking like Artest isn't returning to the Rockets.

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/sports/nba/090701_artest_return_unlikely

He just twittered ""Thanks a lot Houston I had alot of fun "

Now that's out there, I'll present my case for making a run at Ron Artest.

1.  Defense

Our biggest problem last year was defense.  Yeah, the Playoffs stunk because we couldn't get a consistent 3rd scorer which Turkoglu would definitely solve.  I think fans (and possibly management) are looking too closely at what bounced us from the Playoffs and not enough at what limited us during the regular season. 

If the NBA were NBA Jam Tournament Edition, I'd give Artest an 8 at steals, an 8 at power, and a 6 at blocks.  I'd give Turkoglu a 4 at steals, a 4 at power, and a 4 at blocks.

2.  Scoring

You may say, "What if we run into another team like the Rockets in the postseason next year?  We'd have too few scoring options again.  Not having Turkoglu would get us right back to where we started."  I'd respond "Though not by as much as Turkoglu, Artest is a better scoring option than Batum."  Second, I'd say, "Now that WE have Artest, one of the guys who made life horrible for us in the Playoffs, we aren't running into a team like the Rockets next year."  That team was custom-built to defeat elite shooting guards, with two premier perimeter defenders and a giant in the post.  They beat us and had a real shot at beating Kobe if Yao hadn't been hurt.  That team won't exist next year, and we're unlikely to see another one. 

Again with NBA Jam TE, I'd give Artest a 7 at speed, a 7 at 3pt (he shot 40% last year), a 4 at passing, and a 7 at dunks.  I'd give Turk a 6 at speed, a 7 at 3pt, (and that's generous, I know he's better than his 36% last year, but maybe not), an 8 at passing, and a 5 at dunks.

3.  Price

With all this talk of Ariza making $7-8 million, why not get the same guy, just 5 years older and light-years ahead offensively, for essentially the same price?  There's no way you can convince me that Artest is worth less than Turkoglu, though for some reason there is much more talk about Turkoglu as the premier FA this summer.  Artest has been rumored to be interested in taking the MLE from Cleveland to play with a contender.  Anybody think we could convince him to come to a tier-2 contender for a few million more per year?  I think so.

4.  Culture

Admit it Blazer fans.  KP has turned this team around to the point where winning is the first priority.  We remember the Jail Blazer days, but the wound is no longer fresh.  The culture has been turned around and our players are at the top of the sporting world in terms of likeability.  I think the people of Portland can stomach the idea of getting one stinker for the sake of a push to the championship.  Plus, Ron is really weird and a funny interview, and could find a strange niche in Portland like Channing Frye did, and his worst days seem behind him.  A part of me misses the days where we *gasp!* received a technical foul occasionally.  Artest brings street cred, yo.

And honestly, if we had the opportunity to sign Artest and make a serious push towards the top of the league and KP turned it down because of culture, a lot of people here would be pretty upset.

5.  Re-SPEC

We all remember what Ron said about Roy after Game 2.  I think Ron wants to win badly enough to defer his sometimes crazy offensive game to Roy when the time is right.

Well there, I did it.  Go ahead, freak out if you want to.  It's not like he ever punched his OWN fans.

Bonus: NBA Jam TE ratings for the three guys mentioned here.

ARTEST
7 Speed
7 Dunk
7 3PTS
4 Pass
8 Power
8 Steal
6 Block
5 Clutch

TURKOGLU
6 Speed
5 Dunk
7 3PTS
8 Pass
4 Power
4 Steal
4 Block
8 Clutch

ARIZA
8 Speed
7 Dunk
5 3PTS (He shot 31% last year, don't let the playoffs fool you)
4 Pass
5 Power
8 Steal
0 Block (The Rudy-smack brings this down to zero)
? Clutch (Never taken a big shot in his life)

Roy and Rudy?

The more I see it, the more I like a Roy-Rudy starting backcourt in the future.

This was the kinda thing I didn't like hearing about in the offseason before we actually saw Rudy.  I didn't think he had the requisite skills.  Now people don't talk about it when it seems like a better idea than before. Here are the offensive traits I really like about Rudy as our starting "other-guard."

Moving without the ball
Shooting the three
Ball handling under pressure
Creativity/passing
Some amount of penetrating, even if it ends in a pull-up or stop and turnaround

Honestly, what can Blake do on the offensive end that Rudy can't?


Defense would be an issue here. Deciding who to put on the opposing point guard might be a problem. We're not staying in front of the uber-quick guys anyway (Parker, Paul, Brooks) though I think Roy does a better job guarding these guys than Blake ever has. Plus, I think Rudy is a lot smarter with the subtleties in help defense than Blake is, and he is more opportunistic in creating steals and running the break.

I'm honestly surprised at myself being in this position right now.  I used to value Bayless more, as I thought Rudy was a bit of a one-trick pony, but he's brought a ton to the table lately.

According to:

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/58361/20090406/ginobili_done_for_season/

Manu is out for the season and playoffs.  Houston is only a half-game back, and you have to think Pop will rest Timmy and Tony down the stretch.  If Houston passes SA, we're looking at a very likely first round matchup with the Spurs.

We are 1 game behind San Antonio, so we could also possibly snag home court from them.

74.  75.

Not trading RLEC at the trade deadline means he's expiring after this season and giving us quite a bit of capspace going into the offseason.  I'm going to start this post off with some theory about why bidding on somewhat unknown goods (free agents in an open market is a BAD idea, then I'll continue on and explain why it may be a good thing for us.

Why signing free agents is bad

The following comes from some economic theory regarding auctions with silent and mostly unknown bidding.  The theoretical example deals with drilling for oil, though it translates well to the free agent market.

The scenario starts with a 100 mile x 100 mile plot of ocean that has some large quantity of oil down in the depths for drilling.  For each individual 10 mile x 10 mile parcel, the governing body that controls the water sets up an auction among oil companies for rights to drill in that parcel. Assume there are a large number of bidders.

Each oil company would place a valuation on every parcel based on how much oil they believe it contains. For each parcel, a range of bids come in, some very low (pessimistic about the contents of the parcel) and some very high (optimistic).  Assume that the average bid (neither pessimistic nor optimistic) is the CORRECT bid, meaning that the information the companies had about the land beforehand was fairly good.

Each company places a bid (based on their valuation) and the highest bid wins the parcel and the right to drill.  Here is where we see the problem.  The AVERAGE bidder is the correct one, meaning their guess was spot-on as to how much benefit they would gain from drilling here.  The problem is, the HIGHEST bidder wins the rights, meaning they overpaid.  For each of the 100 plots, whoever bid the highest amount likely overpaid for what they ended up with.

This dilemma is exacerbated by two factors:

1. Better information.  The better the information is going into the bidding, the closer the average bid will be to the actual correct bid.  With perfect information, everybody bids the actual correct bid, and the only way to actually win an auction is to bid higher than the correct amount.
2. A lot of bidders.  The fewer bidders there are, the greater the chance for somebody to sneak in and win a parcel for less than it is actually worth.  On the other hand, if there are a thousand bidders, only the ridiculously exorbitant bid will win.

Now it's pretty clear how this example translates to the NBA.  Parcels of land are free agents and the bidders are the teams.  Possibly the best example of this is Rashard Lewis two years ago.  He apparently had a ton of offers from all over the league, and he chose the highest one, which was almost assuredly too high (even though his "fit" in Orlando was probably higher than it would have been anywhere else).  Now Orlando is stuck paying $16 million to their 3rd or 4th-best player.  This type of open auction is not considered a good way to get value for your money.

Why signing free agents might work (only this summer, and only for Portland)

However, in the NBA's case, there are a few places this can fall apart, some of which specifically lean in Portland's favor.

1. Few bidders.  With so few teams having capspace going into this summer, there will not be much competition for signing players.  This is the underlying assumption to the oil field model, and it really doesn't stand up here.  So few teams will have capspace, and even then, not every team will bid on every free agent.
2. Bad economy.  Teams will be extremely conservative in their valuations of players this offseason because signing a veteran for 4 years @ $10 million per only to see that guy undergo microfracture surgery could cripple a team, both in terms of the salary cap and simply the money to stay afloat.

The combination of being one of the few teams in the market and having an owner like Paul Allen who is less at risk in this economy than any other owner allows us to bid closer to our actual valuation of a player, not the financially-constrained figure most teams will have to resort to.

Summary

Open auctions like this are generally not a good way to get bang for your buck.  Luckily, we're in the position where we don't really care about our buck.

This offseason could give us a good opportunity to upgrade at a postion of need, provided the right guys enter the free agent market.