SB Nation User Blog: rosewood

A Rebuttal to the Redskins

rosewood — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:09:58 -0000

So now it looks like Oklahoma City may be furthering its quest to be the most hated team in the league by having a positively awful team name, "Thunder," that my wife so poignantly deemed as "something a guy would call his penis."

To help them then, I've come up with another team name for them that I think will fit the culture of OK and perhaps start a new trend in diversity.

I recommend the name: The Oklahoma City White People.

I figured since it's so popular to name teams after Native Americans, even when they use flagrant slurs like "Redskins," why not extend the fun to white people?

You know, they could have a guy in khaki shorts, loafers, and a pastel polo shirt as their mascot, and who wouldn't pay to see Chris Wilcox in a White People jersey?

I don't have Clay Bennett's e-mail but if any of you come across it, let me know. I'd love to run this idea by him. And, of course, if any one else has a good idea, I'd love to hear it. We can send one long e-mail to Clay.

Your 2009 No. 1 Pick

rosewood — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:37:29 -0000

Your 2009 No. 1 Pick

17 year old, Spanish PG prodigy Ricky Rubio makes Sarunas Jasikevicius and another Lithuanian gent look silly.

Remember that Nash and Baron photo?

rosewood — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:50:16 -0000

Remember that Nash and Baron photo?

Well, yeah. Truehoop cleared up the mystery with a link to this video.

I'm not sure WTF can be typed in a large enough font.

But it's pretty great.

Goran hits the court!

rosewood — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:59:38 -0000

Slovenia opened up today's Olympic qualifiers in Athens with an 88-76 victory over Korea.

Our boy Goran had 11 pts on 3-3 shooting (plus 1-1 3pt. and 4-4 FTs), 4 ast., 3 reb., 1 stl., and 1 TO.

I don't think he's starting though, so his minutes will be around this amount for most games, but he was apparently on the court during crunch time when Korea made their comeback. I think he's backing up or playing the 2 alongside their starting PG, Lakovic.

Let's hope Slovenia can keep this up. They're one of the favorites here and the top 3 teams get a spot in the Olympics. And if he makes the Olympics, we can watch him on TV!

Woo!

Random Retrospection: Gasol Trade

rosewood — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:37:08 -0000

Looking back at the Gasol trade, I think it's become a lot more clear that this wasn't as horrible a trade as it was made out to be. In fact, I think you can make a case that the Grizzlies did well for themselves.

They gave up Gasol, but now have gotten:

Javaris Crittenton - a promising PG prospect, even if they're loaded at that position
Darrell Arthur - a promising PF prospect
Marc Gasol - a promising C prospect, who was just MVP of the Spanish league (arguably the best league in Europe).
9M in Salary Cap relief between Kwame Brown and Aaron Mckie
the Lakers 2010 first round pick.

That's really not a bad haul for a high-end complimentary player like Gasol. I mean, he's 20/8 guy, which is great, but he's not a Duncan or even Amare caliber star.

I think perhaps people jumped on this trade so aggressively because the Lakers didn't have to give up any rotation players except Brown. But, in retrospect, I think that may speak more to the fact that the Lakers had a lot of quality, expendable assets outside their rotation rather than Memphis made a bad deal.

Perhaps, there were better deals, but, to me, Darrell Arthur/Marc Gasol/Javaris Crittenton/9M in cap space/1st Round Pick is pretty good for a one-time all star.

Thoughts?

Another Trade Scenario

rosewood — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:30:41 -0000

Since there's been some talk about trade ideas, here is this idea, which serves both the present and the future. Here we trade with the Nets.

The Suns trade:

Leandro Barbosa 4 yr/27.4M
Alando Tucker 1 yr/1M
their 2009 1st Round Pick
their 2009 2nd Round Pick

The Suns receive

Trenton Hassell 2 yr/8.7M
Josh Boone 1 yr/1.5M (team option in 2009-2010)
Marcus Williams 1 yr/1.2M (team option in 2009-2010)
the Nets 2010 1st Round Pick

Benefit for the Nets:

The Nets are now in a full rebuilding mode, aiming at signing Lebron in the off-season after 2009-2010. To sign him, they will need 1) cap space and 2) an attractive enough team. Barbosa does not hurt their future cap space very much, and in 2010 is a much more attractive asset in terms of age/contract/ego than their current SG, Vince Carter (who will be 33 at that point). Furthermore, Barbosa allows them to move Carter if they want (and can), giving them potentially the fastest backcourt in the league when you team him with Devin Harris. Unlike Harris, however, Barbosa can shoot. Additionally, the Nets get our 2009 1st pick so they can double up for the second straight year and accelerate their rebuilding process to be prepared for 2010. Tucker is just a final throw-in that adds SF depth and might be nice, but can also be released after one year.

In terms of sacrifice, the Nets lose a fine prospect Boone, who is an impressive rebounder but has offensive limitations. With their new glut at the 4 and 5, however, (S. Williams, B. Lopez, R. Anderson, Y. Jianlian, S. Swift, and possibly N. Krstic), they should not be overly opposed to moving one of their young bigs. Also, Marcus Williams is a nice backup PG, but considering the floor time Devin Harris is like to see and the fact that Barbosa can play PG in a pinch, I think the Nets would be willing to sacrifice him as well. Not to mention that whatever hit their team quality takes as a result of a lack of PG depth doesn't really hurt their draft position. Last, they also lose their 2010 pick, but since they have Dallas' pick as well, I believe they can tolerate this loss.

Benefit for the Suns:

The Suns get depth and back into the 2010 draft. Josh Boone is a relatively similar player to R. Lopez, but if what we're trying to do is find a) front court depth and b) a future defensive counterpart for Amare then I see no reason not to double down and make signing Skinner unnecessary. Plus, I have much more faith in Boone than in Lopez. Marcus Williams gives us a solid backup PG with 3pt range who, should Dragic be available next year, can be released after this season. Trenton Hassell is likely primed for the 11th or 12th spot on the bench, but his contract runs out after 2009-2010 i.e. at the same time as Shaq's and Nash's. Also, it is not a bad thing to have a good perimeter defender at the end of the bench. Last, we receive the 2010 pick, which gets us back into the 2010 draft at a likely decent spot.

The Suns sacrifice, primarily, Barbosa. We will miss his scoring and shooting, but with backup PG and front court depth settled, we can focus our attention on Giricek who can replace some of LB's contributions. Hassell can also give us minutes in a pinch. We also lose our picks next year, which is tough (it was so exciting to draft this year), but we do gain a better pick (the Nets in 2010) in a hopefully a better draft (2009 is no 2008). Plus, not having any picks after next season will leave us with that much more cap room after 09-10. Last, I see the loss of Tucker as minimal.

Conclusion:

It's a trade for a possible future starter (Boone) and present depth. I do worry that the Nets might be hesitant to lose Boone, in which case S.Williams seems a fine option as well. The key is the switching of picks. Without that, I don't know if I see enough motivation to make this deal.

Anyone else think this is a good idea or am I talking stupid? Either is possible.

What will happen with Goran

rosewood — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:33:49 -0000

What will happen with Goran

BallinEurope has a good breakdown of Goran's contract/player rights status. Apparently, it's not even clear who owns him in Europe. Yikes.

I Heart Joe Alexander

rosewood — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:37:38 -0000

A snippet from the new DraftExpress interview with Joe Alexander:

DraftExpress: What is the one thing you think you need to learn as a basketball player?

Alexander: The only thing you need to learn is how to win.

The whole interview is here

Needless to say, my man-crush is only growing. I mean, the guy slept in the gym for a semester, so he could practice more. And he can head butt the rim.

Alexander '08!

Dave Berri is full of poo: Vol. 9,129

rosewood — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:34:04 -0000

So I don't know how many of you are into Dave Berri and his Win Score/Wins Produced crusade, but I loved this little bit of analysis he came up with:

Apparently, because of his WP48 drop, Leon Powe is more responsible for the Celtics' decline in the playoffs than Kevin Garnett.

Of course, he doesn't quite explain how Powe, who's played only 10 mpg in the C's losses, contributes more to the losses than Garnett, who has played 40 mpg in those losses and has a worse win score per minute in those losses than he did in regular season losses (.269 vs .300).

Sweet analysis.

As per Pliny request: ; the link ;

The Bright Side: 2010/2011

rosewood — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:42:16 -0000

So losing sucks. That said, I think we still have a very good team. Our championship window is certainly narrowed, but I wouldn't say it is closed. Next year, we'll have a full year with Shaq and apparently a new more defensive-minded coach. Amare will continue to improve. It could be special. Likely, we're just a solid playoff team again, since no one will be able to compete with the Lakers, but that's better than being a Grizzlies fan, for instance. Two years from now? Well, considering the age of our players, that's more difficult to forecast

But in 2010/2011 (not next season or the next season after but the next one), we could be right back on top, because we're set up fabulously for that year.

Our assets

1) A solid trio of young players: Boris, Amare, and Leandro will all be 28 for that season. In other words, they will still be on the good side of their peak.

2) Cap space: Raja, Steve, and Shaq all come off the books that year, and there is no better time for them to do so. Players who will/might be available that year, depending on contract extensions:

Lebron, Bosh, DWade, Marvin Williams, Richard Hamilton, Mike Miller, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Josh Howard, Dirk, T-Mac, Joe Johnson, Manu, Okur, Andrew Bynum, Boozer, David Lee, Andrew Bogut, Tyson Chandler, and Danny Granger.

Now not all of these players will be there (almost certainly not Paul and Bynum), but that's still an impressive crop and the Suns, always a great free agent draw, will have the space to make their pick.

Of course, this all assumes that we're not going to trade away our cap space in 09/10. But even that may not be so bad if we're getting something valuable back in return.

Now we just have to hope that in the next couple of drafts, we can get at least two or three solid contributors (not even studs) on the cheap. We'll likely have to get our studs via free agency. But alll the good teams, including us, right now have key (or even star) players who were late first round/second round picks (Barbosa, Bell, Bowen, Howard, Boozer, Parker, Ginobili, Arenas, Rondo, Kirilenko, Prince, West not to mention Powe, Landry, Bass, Milsap, Maxiell and guys of that level). We need our gems as well.

So I guess now it's time to start talking about the draft. Woo!