Zach Randolph and the ever-more perplexing Memphis Grizzlies

As Steve Nash reminded everyone again last week, the trade that sent Pau Gasol to the Lakers for basically nothing, more than anything else in the last decade or so, seemed to unfairly upset the balance of power in the western conference. While Chris Wallace has taken a lot of flack for it, there was – at the time – at least a somewhat reasonable explanation for it. Given the Grizzlies weren’t going anywhere soon, they could blow up the team, get rid of all their contracts, and build from the ground up. Players like O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, and Micheal Conley were part of that build up. But one of the players they’ve added this off season makes the Gasol trade seem that much more ludicrous – acquiring Zach Randolph.

Absolutely no one would argue that Randolph is in Gasol’s league in terms of talent, attitude, or anything else. But there is one important similarity between them – they make almost the exact same amount of money, playing the same position, with contracts that expire in the same year. In turn, the team more or less swapped Gasol for Randolph, a couple of mediocre players, and some late first round picks, and rendered the only possible reason this trade could have worked out for them useless. Imagine they either still had Gasol, or alternatively swapped him this season for some real young talent?

Ridiculous. More than anything, it should remind us that that “total number of rings acquired” is a flawed measure of a players career. I think Nash is right – if Wallace handed Gasol to basically any of the Western contenders, they’d probably be the champs now, and Kobe would still be thought of as the guy that couldn’t win without Shaq.

How high do you take Ramon Sessions if he goes to the Knicks?

There’s been a lot of moves this off season that will affect player’s fantasy value – but Ramon Sessions to the Knicks could end up being the biggest of them all. Which seems kind of weird for a PG that averaged 12 points and 6 boards, but there’s a lot more to him then that. As the Sports Guy reference recently, Session is one of those guys that can rack up massive stats for a bad team. By all accounts, the Knicks should be a bad team-  and one that’s assured to play up tempo. And if you look at some of his splits over the last couple of years, the numbers he might be able to put up in such a situation are mind boggling.

Here’s a few data points:

As a starting guard in 08/09: 33 minutes, 15 pts, 7.6 assists, 4 boards, 1 steal, 44% FG, 78% FT

Last month of 08/09 (7 games): 32 minutes, 14 pts, 10.4 assists, 5 boards, 1 steal, 45.5% FG, 93% FT

Last month of 07/08 (10 games – of a total of 17 played that year): 11.5 pts, 11.3 assists, 5 boards, 1.5 steals, 42% FG, 74% FT.

Now he doesn’t shoot 3s or block shots, and his TOs can pile up – those are the negatives. But there’s only 10 guys who averaged more than 7 assists last year – Paul, Williams, Nash, Calderon, Kidd, Rondo, Davis, Wade, James, and Duhon. Eight of those guys will be gone in the first two rounds. Rondo is on a lot of people’s radars. And that leaves Duhon – who also happens to play on the Knicks.

But reports abound that they want to get rid of him, and that he got worn down last year while dealing with a bad back. And to put it bluntly, he’s not that good, nor that exciting. If the Knicks get Session, there’s an easy case to be made he’ll be on the court a LOT. If he gets the burn, he could win a lot of fantasy pools for people. Of course, he could flame out all together. He’s a high risk, huge reward pick – and one well worth bumping up your board, particularly if you have a mid-to-late round pick.

NBA Fantasy Drafts: Dirk vs. Granger vs. Durant

The first two picks of every decent NBA fantasy draft will be Chris Paul and Lebron James, in some order – on that pretty much everyone can agree. After that it gets a little interesting. What I’m most intrigued by right now, as far as the first round goes, is the relative rankings of three forwards – Dirk Nowitzki, Danny Granger, and Kevin Durant. When Yahoo! started their “absurdly early” mock draft on June 29th, they went in exactly that order (#5, 6, and 7) – which I believe is the exact reverse of how they should go.

Howard better than Lebron? Please.

Now that Orlando is leading Cleveland 3-1, there seems to be a lot of stories coming out about how Dwight Howard is finally getting the recognition he deserves – and in some cases arguing that he might just emerge as a bigger superstar than Lebron thanks to this success. One of the more ridiculous ones is from the Orlando Sentinel (which is obviously a little biased, but still) that goes so far as to say:

Isn’t it entirely possible that LeBron could turn out to be Karl Malone, one of the greatest players of all-time who happened to be unlucky enough to play in the era of Michael Jordan?

I suppose it’s possible, but the argument just doesn’t hold up to even the lightest scrutiny. What’s happened in this series is not Dwight being better than Lebron. It has been Dwight’s supporting cast being better than Lebron’s. By a country mile.

Just look at the game last night. Yes, Howard’s heroics in overtime make for a great story line, but here’s another important stat – between the first six minutes of the game, and the start of overtime, Howard scored a total of six points. Six. Yes, the double teams he commanded helped free up Orlando’s shooters, but it’s pretty hard to argue that the attention Lebron attracts doesn’t free up his Cavalier teammates as well. And if Lebron had scored just six points during that same time frame, Cleveland probably would have lost by 20 or 30 points.

He just doesn’t have the option to not dominate offensively for 42 minutes, or even games at a time – Howard does, as he’s done time and again. Notably, he took a whopping 8 shots in each of games 2 and 3. In the wins against Boston, he took 12, 8, 16, and 9… in order. Could you see Cleveland winning a series if Lebron took 9 shots and scored 12 points in a game 7? C’mon. To have a chance in games against Orlando right now, Cleveland needs Lebron to score around 40 points, get 7 or 8 assists AND boards, and guard Orlando’s most dangerous weapon – whether they play the 1, 2, 3 or 4. Orlando needs Dwight to be a powerful presence /threat inside, score points when available, and guard someone who’s either basically immobile (Big Z), offensively weak (Varajo), or offensively non-existent (Wallace). Slightly different.

Prediction: Martin or Smith will cost the Nuggets the series by doing something really stupid

Like many NBA fans, I have greatly enjoyed watching the performance of the Denver Nuggets this post-season – and nothing would make me happier then seeing them grab the Western Conference crown and head off to play the winner of the Orlando / Cleveland series. But after watching the first games, I’ve become convinced that they should win the series in 7 games – but that a mental implosion from one of Kenyon Martin or J.R. Smith is going to lose it for them.

It’s simple really. I truly believe they are the better team right now, and if not for some idiotic out of bounds plays and other silly mistakes would be in clear control of this series. But I’m also convinced (hardly going out on a limb here) that Kobe can will the Lakers to at least one victory on his own in the next couple of games. And as I’ve watched the antics of Martin and Smith, they often devolve into some rather strange behavior that lies somewhere between acting like a thug, and acting like a child, at very peculiar and inopportune times. I don’t know when, and I don’t know exactly how, but I just feel that one of those two is going to do something remarkably stupid, at the exact wrong time, to cost their team the series.

Why Chauncey Billups might be the most important player in the NBA

The NBA is supposed to be all about winning championships – that’s what every GM says they are trying to do, and every fan wants their team to achieve. And each season the moves that are or aren’t made are heavily scrutinized with this single objective in mind (unless you are a Clippers fan, of course) – does it give us a shot to win the title this season, or sometime in the relatively near future?

But the problem is that if you look at NBA history, almost every move most teams make is entirely irrelevant in the pursuit of this goal. The recipe for a championship, far more often than not, is to have one of the *real* alpha dogs in the league (one of the top few players), combined with either at least one other superstar – or potentially a small collection of star talent. So long as one competitor has that recipe working, others generally do not have a chance – and getting one of those alpha dogs is either impossible, or comes down to pure luck, for most teams.

Hoops Yak is coming together… soon

Could there be a better time to launch an NBA focused site than at the end of the NBA season? Well almost certainly, but this is when I got around to it, and quite frankly I’m one of those fans that often finds the off season more interesting then the, er, on season. Love talking pro hoops, and particularly about NBA fantasy teams, so that’s what this site will be all about. Or mostly about.