Thursday, July 01, 2010

07/01 Quickie: Happy LeBron Day?

So I have unofficially (or officially, if my SN column feels "official") dubbed today "LeBron Day," shorthand for the free-agent insanity that "officially" started at midnight, involving not just LeBron but all the top free agents.

It's "Happy LeBron Day" if you like all the hysteria. I would argue that this is the biggest -- perhaps best -- single event that has ever happened to the NBA in its history. (My other contender was the drafting of Kevin Garnett, but that didn't have the same lead-up or during or post-effects of this.)

If you're in Chicago or Miami or New York or Newark/Brooklyn? Hope (for now).

If you're in Cleveland? Hopelessness. You all crushed me back in 2006 when I said in the Daily Quickie that LeBron was gone in 2010. I don't revel in being right.

(In fact, as someone who isn't a particularly big fan of LeBron's, the only thing I like about him abandoning Cleveland is that it allows me to promote the theory that he's an instantly legendary cold-hearted mercenary, whose karmic reward will be to never win an NBA title.)

A few early thoughts on free agency:

*The Hawks are idiotic to give Johnson 6Y/$120M.

*Richard Jefferson is an idiot to walk away from $15M next year.

*The Raptors should trade Bosh to the Rockets and Bosh should love that.

(This Bosh-Rockets thing shouldn't be undersold: If Bosh wants to win a ring AND he wants max money, he will be better off on the Rockets, playing next to Yao and Battier and Kevin Martin and under Daryl Morey's leadership, than he will playing next to D-Wade and 9 scrubs. You can't make the case that he has a better shot at winning a ring in Miami than Houston, particularly when you factor in that no one -- not even LeBron -- is toppling Dwight Howard and the Magic over the next 5 years, after this minor one-year blip with the Celtics, who are cooked.)

*Jordan Farmar is likely to end up with the Pacers as their starting point guard. This will be of enthusiastic interest only to me.

See the complete column here -- I vastly underplayed Elin's $750M divorce settlement with Tiger. She earned every penny. And, as long as he gets back to winning majors, the silence he has bought from her will mean that he can make back that $750M... and then some.

-- D.S.

1 comment:

The Green Carbon Trader said...

Actually there are a couple of things going against the Rockets:

1. As much as we love stats for letting less fortunate teams compete, they've never won a championship. Look at the A's, Rockets, whomever. Stats can get you in the first or second round of the playoffs but not further, mainly because in basketball, stats can prepare your team for 3 quarters of the game. In the 4th of a playoff game all bets are off when the superstars take over.

I think the thing about Morey that most fasnitates people is that he's won really with little help from Yao and virtually no help form T-Mac. Sure that 22 game winning streak was great, but really, wasn't that a tease.

2. Nothing you can tell me would lead me to believe that if Bron, Wade and Bosh all took a little less money, they would win a championship in 2 years.

3. Lastly, would anyone want to play with Yao at this point. He's one minor injury away from being done.