Because at some point in my life I’d like the opportunity to choke the sleepy eye out of Stuart Scott’s jive talking, stereotype perpetuating ass, I’m going to keep writing about sports, primarily basketball. Not a lot is going on in the league right now, so this is just filler drivel about off-season moves until I finish my extensive discussion about why baseball sucks a fatty.
Turkoglu to Raptors- See the only real thought I had out of this was “you know, it doesn’t matter if I spell his name right or not, word will never, ever catch if I spelled it right or not. This isn’t a groundbreaking deal, it’s the raptors desperately trying to make moves to keep Chris Bosh interested in staying in Canada. Admirable, and totally understandable. Bosh may not be a superstar yet, but he’s going to continue to consistently average around 20-10 for the rest of his life, but it doesn’t make the raptors a threat. With the general improvement in the eastern conference I could lean to putting the raptors in the “bend me over and rape me” 8th spot in the playoffs, but I don’t think its possible for them to be dangerous to Orlando or the Cavaliers with two soft big men, no bench, and a small forward who had one good playoff stretch during a contract year.
Marion to Mavericks- This is a deal I actually really like. Despite the fact that Marion’s old and has been mopey ever since the suns destroyed D’Antoni ball by signing Shaq, he makes the Mavericks a lot better. He’s bounced back and forth the past two years cause he doesn’t fit into a system not run by a quality point guard quickly. Dallas has one of those, and although Jason Kidd is old enough to have sired half of the Mavericks roster, he’s still one of the only real point guards remaining in the league and other than CP3 and Steve Nash hes one of the only ones with whom Shawn Marion can play effectively. Marion gives the Mav’s a real small forward, so Josh Howard can move to 2 guard, makes them a really dangerous small-ball team with Nowitzki at the 5 (oh hey a foreign player whose name I can’t spell, truly surprising) Marion at the 4, Howard at 3, etc… And if they move to sign Marcin Gortat from the Magic they would solve the problem of Erick Dampier being ridiculously foul prone by providing a really quality back up big man. Does it make them a legitimate threat in the West? Eh, I think it makes them a stumbling block for the Lakers or the Spurs, but not a favorite to make it to the conference championship.
Rasheed Wallace to Bawston- This is a deal that I saw as completely unnecessary, but it does improve the Celtics. Garnett’s finally getting to the point that his psychotic intensity will limit his ability to play a full season, but now instead of depending on the average to sub-par play of Leon Powe and Big Baby to sub for him, he has Rasheed Wallace, who is still pretty close to playing at all-star caliber. It’s good for the Celtics, but I see it as more of a big move to satisfy the psychopaths who watch sports in Boston, especially since it doesn't address the Celtics main problem, that they're running out an all retirement home team.
Shaq to Cavs- Stupid. Stupid. STUPID. Seriously Cleveland fans, you should be burning effigy’s of Shaq and Danny Ferry in your smog covered streets. Cleveland is banking on the idle hope that a burnt out goofball who hasn’t played hard in 5 years will turn it around and make someone else in the league WANT to trade quality minor players for him. It’s not going to happen. The Cavaliers are going to putter along, winning fewer games than last year because Lebron’s lane is clogged by team ancient immobile big man and he can’t train down and draw fouls on his own players (despite how hard the NBA may try to encourage the referees to call them) Every deal they make is sticking band aids on an axe wound. There aren’t any supporting players they can afford bouncing around free agency who will actually work well enough with Lebron to push them past the Celtics and the Magic. Signing Anderson Varejao was necessary, he’s a fan favorite, but he’s also a shitty basketball player who makes his living off of flopping to piss good players off and get them technicals. He will never ever be worth 50 million dollars. If Lebron doesn’t flee Cleveland like he would from a flaming bag of dog poo, I would be truly surprised.
Richard Jefferson/Antonio McDyess to Spurs- Both very good moves for the Spurs. Duncan’s old, Manu’s soft, and their supporting players didn’t work as well as they have in the past last year. Trading for Richard Jefferson brought much needed scoring to the team, and they no longer have to crapshoot whether or not Manu will stay healthy because Jefferson can just switch to two guard if they need him to. McDyess is just another body to take the wear off of Duncan. Similar to Wallace in Garnett, but lower quality, I have yet to see which top 5 power forward needs it more, but I’d venture a guess that it will end up being Duncan, mostly because I foresee the Spurs having a similar issue to the Celtics later in the 2009-10 season.
Vince Carter to Magic- Swing for the fences, see what happens. I was really happy with this deal when I heard about it, it puts two of the most exciting players to watch in the last 10 years on the same team, and could make the magic much more threatening than when they had Turk at the 2. On the other hand, Vince Carter hasn’t exerted an effort on a basketball court in a long time, and I don’t think having a happy-go-lucky team leader in Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy at the helm will light a fire under him. Maybe getting old and wanting a title will do it, and the Magic had better pray it does, because otherwise they have a serious problem.
Villanueva/Gordon to Detroit- Eh, the Pistons get two streaky scorers to solve their problem of having… streaky scorers? They improved their bench a lot by putting either Gordon or Hamilton there, but replacing Rasheed Wallace with Charlie Villanueva is like replacing your dog with a similar looking dog stuffed with sawdust, except the stuffed dog doesn’t have any hair. It’s trying to staunch the bleeding, but it hardly solves detroit’s problems, and I’d be willing to bet that they don’t make the playoffs this year.
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