Who says the Lakers can't play in this summer's free agency!?

(Photo from LA Times)
The Lakers have 3 point guards: Derek Fisher, Jordan Farmar, and Shannon Brown. Derek fisher is a free agent this summer. Jordan Farmar will be a restricted free agent, and Shannon Brown can opt out of his contract and look for work elsewhere, or sign a bigger contract. The rest of the team is pretty much set in stone barring any trade, injury, or Kobe not singing an extension (and playing in Italy!? No). But the Lakers have some questions about their PG future.

Question 1 Do they bring Fisher back at a fraction of his current $5 million a year for a couple more years?
Pros: He's a Laker veteran who knows what to do in Phil Jackson's triangle offense. He can hit clutch 3 pointers.
Cons: He's a liability on defense and his offense isn't that great this season either.
If I'm the Lakers: I don't think so. At least not as a starter. Fisher's been exposed his whole career on the defensive end but this season in particular, he's been getting beat very easily by other PGs. Plus, his offensive number have taken a hit as well.

Question 2: If he doesn't opt out of his contract (which he probably will, can't really bank on $2 million for one year and that's it... for an NBA player), Do the Lakers give the reigns to Shannon Brown?
Pros: He's a high flying dunk act but has been working on his jump shot and can hit a 3 pointer if given enough space. He's a good defender and is big (6'4" 210 lbs) and won't get posted up easily.
Cons: He still seems like a raw talent guy even though he's been in the league since 2006 (drafted 1 pick before Farmar, in fact).
If I'm the Lakers: Not the reigns. I'd keep him on the bench if I can't find a better starting PG. He's a scorer, not a distributor and in the triangle offense, he makes some bad decisions by taking off balance shots without first passing to Pau or Bynum in the post. First thing that comes to mind in comparisons is JR Smith-ish in that he's gonna shoot the ball.

Question 3: Do they give the reigns to the team to 2006 draft pick Jordan Farmar?
Pros: he's a push the ball up the court kinda guard, can create his own shot, and makes nice passes. He's been with the team for 4 years and knows the offense. He can keep up with the league's better PGs (compared to Fisher).
Cons: He's only started 2 games his entire career, both at the end of his rookie season. He's pretty small (6'2" 180 lbs).
If I'm the Lakers: This might be the best scenario. Jordan's got a good combination of speed and basketball IQ and looks to pass first as opposed to Shannon Brown who's more of a scorer/slasher. He's got a good shot including the 3 pointer.

Things to keep in mind:

• The Lakers pay roll drops from $91 million to around $77 million next year, which is still over the salary cap.
• The Lakers don't need an amazing PG who can drive and kick. This is a triangle offense team that needs their PGs to run a motion after the ball goes into the post. This is why Kobe and Lamar sometimes initiate the offense and the Lakers usually get the same result on their possession.
  
• Fisher would still be a viable option if his defense wasn't getting worse each season. What they need is a PG who can keep up with Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Rajon Rondo.
  
• When the Lakers DO do a drive and kick kind of play, they have Kobe and Lamar (and Farmar) who can do that. Also, they run a mean pick n roll with Kobe and Pau as seen in last year's finals against the magic. You know, when they won the championship?
• Somewhat related: The Lakers have to make a not so dire decision on DJ Mbenga and Josh Powell (both getting less than $1 million this year).
• If those two don't return, they'll need to sign some bench players as Adam Morrison is for sure not coming back. Los Angeles may have to replace DJ, Powell, Morrison, the 3 PGs discussed above. But anyway...

Ideally, the Lakers would've gotten Kirk Hinrich in a another rip off type trade before the all star break (a deal was out there where the Lakers could have gotten him for Sasha and Morrison, wow.) So free agency moves aside, if the Lakers had to make a decision, there best move would be to start Farmar and have Shannon come off the bench.

The Warriors are getting a new owner, what they really need is a new identity

(Photo from nba.com)
Long story short, the Warriors are for sale. There is speculation that head coach, Don Nelson may be coaching his last few games this season and may not return next year. Unfortunately, I will not be purchasing the team just because of time constraints and the long commute.

But if I was the billionaire buying this team, number 1 on my to-do list is get rid of Don Nelson. Number 2 is hire some kind of psychic mind bending therapist to erase the run-n-gun, no defense, 3 pt shoot till you cant shoot no mo mindset instilled in the players' heads. Let's take a closer look.

Don Nelson started this gig at the start of the 06-07 season. The Warriors had just come off back to back 34-48 seasons under head coach Mike Montgomery. The Baron Davis trade was not getting the Warriors any closer to the playoffs, or so it seemed. Then Don Nelson played Monta Ellis, played to the teams strength which was shooting 3's and running fast breaks any chance they got, which got the Warriors to a 42-40 records and the 8th seed of the playoffs and knocked out the MVP Dirk Nowitzki lead number 1 seed Mavericks. Then they lost to the Jazz in the next round, but there was hope in the bay area.

Montgomery's 05-06 Warriors scored 98.5 points on 43.3% shooting and gave up 99.8 to opponents on 45.7. 625/1832 3pointers.
Nelson's 06-07 Warriors scored 106.5 points on 46.3% shooting and gave up 106.9 to opponents on 46.2%. 700/1966 3pointers.

He got more points on the board at a better percentage, but didn't do much on the defensive end. More possessions for both sides of the ball when you run fast breaks so that explains the boost in points on the board, but the FG% bump shows they didn't do much focusing on defense.

But hey, they go to the 2nd round of the playoffs! So let's try again in 07-08... Success! Only not so. Nelson kept the run n gun style and the Warriors record was a nice 48-34, only that year, you needed 50 wins to make the playoffs in the West as the Warriors were 2 games behind the 50 win Denver Nuggets for the 8th seed. :(

Nelson's 07-08 Warriors scored 111 points on 45.9% shooting and gave up 108.8 to opponents on 46.8%. 761/2185 3pointers.

Better luck next year - 08-09 season. They lost Baron Davis and Al Harrington and gained Jamal Crawford and Corey Maggette. They went 29-53 and did not make the playoffs.
Nelson's 08-09 Warriors scored 108.6 points on 45.8% shooting and gave up 112.3 to opponents on 46.8%. 550/1475 3pointers.

Which brings us to this season. With rookie Stephen Curry, one of their few non bust draft pick in awhile (along with Anthony Randolph-jury still out, and Monta Ellis-2nd round pot of gold, compared to Ike Diogu, Marco Belinelli, and Patrick O'Bryant), paired up with Monta Ellis in the backcourt, Corey Maggette and Stephen Jackson with ol reliable Andris Biedrins at Center. Except Stephen Jackson pouted and got a trade to the Bobcats for Raja Bell and Vladamir Radmanovic (both injured). The Warriors stand at 19-51.

Now they're looking for a new owner. I only hope the new owner sees this as a grand opportunity to make some changes. For the past few years they've signed and drafted guards and SG/SFs just to fit into their style of play. This has not worked. It's time for a change. Get rid of Nelson and get some half court offensive plays and focus on defensive stances and rotations. This team is not a championship contender. Gosh, it's barely a playoff contender or even a regular season contender!

• Centers torch this team and it doesn't seem like Biedrins or Turiaf are going to be the big men to stop the league's top centers and power forwards. That's not to say they should draft or sign another Adonal Foyle type player. More like a Carlos Boozer type.
  
• Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis are both 6-3 having to guard SGs who have 3-4 inches on both of them. I hate to say it but they might have to get rid of one of these guys via trade and get a true SG or a big man.
  
• They need to draft another talented player like they did with Curry and not pull another Patrick O'Bryant type. This year they're gonna be guaranteed picks 1-6 (so far) and this year's lotto, based on what I've seen in March Madness, is gonna be pretty good and have some decent big men (Favors, Cousins, Monroe, Patterson). I'll laugh though if they get the #1 pick, draft John Wall and somehow start him with Curry and Monta-- No! new owner, new coach, let's not repeat this small ball lineup.
  

Honestly, they need to take a page out of the Clippers' playbook and fire their coach, start fresh next season, cuz it just ain't working the way it is now. #1 on the to do list, get rid of Nelson.

I feel sorry for these NBA players

Going through my old Slam Magazines just to see how far off their predictions are (any article they ever write are about how great a player is going to be and how they are always working to improve their game etc. They went as far to call Qyntel Woods the 2003 rookie of the year before the 2002 draft, I know... WHO?!) and came across a couple players whom I just can't help but feel sorry for (salaries aside) now that I know how their careers have ended up/are playing out right now. I once heard Ray Lewis say in a radio interview, "If hindsight were truly 20/20, we'd all be millionaires." Doesn't make 100% sense but you get what he's trying to say.

So I bring to you these four players who I just can't help but feel sorry for from the era of 2000 to the present.

Mike Miller

(Photo from prodigy.net)
Drafted 5th overall by the Orlando Magic in 2000. The year before, the Magic were 41-41 and didn't make the playoffs. This is the year the Magic brought TMac and Grant Hill in to redefine the franchise. But you already know that Grant Hill gets hurt and is never the same. But that doesn't stop Mike Miller from playing all 82 games his first year and winning rookie of the year averaging 12/4/2 shooting almost two 3 pointers a game at 40%. Here's a sweet vid of Miller hitting his three's.

And that's what he's best known for; his 3 point shooting. Career average of 1.8 3's a game at 40.4%, was a candidate for the redeem team in the 2008 Olympics to help spread the floor (they went with Michael Redd), made 202 three pointers in the 2006-07 season (rank 3rd)... But he's so much more than a 3 point shooter. He can run point guard, he can run the floor, he can start, he can come off the bench (2006 sixth man of the year). But the teams he was on, simply put, sucked. In Orlando for his first three years and they made the playoffs all three years but didn't get out of the first round. Just couldn't get over the loss of Grant Hill.

In the middle of the 02-03 season, he was traded to Memphis. Another up and coming team with a young Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Lorenzen Wright, and Jason Williams. Don't give Miller ALL the credit, but after he came, they made the playoffs the next three years... only they never got out of the first round. In FACT, they got swept all three years. To this day the Grizzlies have never won a playoff game since their inception in 1995.

After a dismal 2007-08 season with the Grizz (the year Pau went to the Lakers), he was traded to another bad team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. This team had Al Jefferson in his 2nd year as a Wolf and a rookie Kevin Love along with Rashad McCants, Randy Foye, and Craig Smith. This team won 24 games.

During the summer of 2009 (last summer), he was traded with Randy Foye to the Washington Wizards who were finally going to get Gilbert Arenas for a whole season, along with Antawn Jamison, and Caron Butler. Everyone thought this was the dark horse team in the East. You know the rest: they still sucked, Gilbert brought the guns out, the Wizards decided to tank and Caron got traded for Josh Howard (now injured), Jamison got traded for nothing, and again, Mike Miller is left alone on a team of scrubs.

Where is the justice?! Well, there is some beauty in this breakdown. He's a Free Agent this summer. Hopefully a team picks him up and utilizes his abilities to better the team because this guy can PLAY.

Shaun Livingston

(Photo from ESPN)

Drafted 4th overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2004, straight outta high school. One of the few to briefly hold the title of Clippers Savior. This guy is one of the tallest point guards out there at 6'7" (to put that in perspective, Kobe Bryant, the SG is 6'6"). But he is pretty darn skinny too at 185 lbs (again, in perspective, Kobe is 205 lbs and 2 inches shorter, and I'm 5'11" and 175 lbs, all muscle I swear!).

He didn't play much his rookie year. He had Marco Jaric playing in front of him. To make a short Clipper career short, he started 15 games out of 30 played his rookie year, 14 of 61 his second year, and 31 of 54 his third. Livingston was a good point guard who had a chance to be something special. He always looked to pass first, saw the court well (at 6'7" he could see over any other PG guarding him) and delivered crisp passes. But that third year was the year of the horrific knee injury (warning: horrific content). Right when he was being given the reigns to the Clipper offense, his career was possibly over as his ACL tore clear off and was out for the rest of the season after surgery. And he didn't quite recover fully and lost his explosiveness.
He missed the rest of the 06-07 season and all of the 07-08 season after the Clippers waived him. Miami gave him a chance but traded him after 4 games to the Thunder, where he got 8 games in 08/09 and 10 games this year. He was waived and signed later on by the Wizards where he's started the last 2 games. His best game since the injury was 3 games ago, a loss vs. Orlando where he scored 18 points and dished 8 assists in 30 minutes.

He's got a chance, but if it weren't for that knee injury, he'd probably be starting for a team that was going somewhere (not necessarily the Clippers) having a nice stat line on a nightly basis. Instead, I'm watching his box scores, hoping he's getting playing time and puts up decent numbers. He's on a 2nd 10 day contract so if things don't work out, he'll just have to try again for another team.

Tim Duncan

(Photo from YouGotDunkedOn)
I know, how can you feel sorry for a 4 time champion, 3 time finals MVP (and stats aside, he was MVP of the 2007 Finals, not Tony Parker), 2 times regular season MVP, and perennial all star? Because even with those accomplishments, people outside of San Antonio just don't care. Those accomplishments are better than Shaq's and Kobe's. But the gripe against Duncan is that he's boring. Mr. Fundamental is too fundamental and doesn't have the personality that hits headlines outside of the Sports Page. I'll admit, I was snoozing during the Detroit-Spurs finals in 2005.

Going back to my Slam Magazines, Adidas had an ad on the back cover of each magazine for about a year featuring their Adidas team of TMac, Kevin Garnett, and Tim Duncan. The website was 21121.com (21 for KG, 1 for TMac, 21 for Duncan). And of course no one ever bought the Duncans. But TMac was always selling shoes despite never making it out of the first round of the playoffs, no MVPs, but hey, he did flashy dunks and could cross people over, and that's what sells.

So in short, Tim Duncan, one of the greatest players of all time and best power forward of all time doesn't quite get the recognition that a "of all time" player should.

Kevin Garnett

(Photo from Derok)
Again, how can I feel sorry for one of the highest paid players ever, who won a championship two years ago? Well I don't really, mainly because Kevin Garnett is one of the players I hate the most, even before he helped beat the crap out of the Lakers two years ago, but I do feel sorry for him. Why? Because it could have been so much more for Garnett, except his years in Minnesota had gone to waste. His management screwed him over.

Most recently? Trading Brandon Roy for Randy Foye, but before that, around the year 2000, they were involved in a salary cap scandal, promising Joe Smith a multi million dollar deal in the future if he signed for less at that moment. Well the league found out and punished the Wolves by taking away their next FIVE FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICKS (2001, 2002, 2004) (2 picks were later returned). Granted, they made the playoffs before each of those drafts so they wouldn't have been lottery picks, but you build your team with a draft and can trade for players with draft picks, and yet KG still played his heart out and even won MVP in 2004. But it could have been more.

But hey, he still won a championship with the Celtics as a main ingredient in their big three, but it's something more special when you turn a whole franchise around to a championship, something that could have happened had management not tried to be so sketch.

Coming soon: My "I don't feel sorry for these NBA players" post.

I Understand Allen Iverson's Choices

Iverson's family life

[Photo from Dead Spin]
Over the past couple of weeks (not so much recently, though), there's been a lot of talk about Allen Iverson, his daughter being sick, his divorce, his gambling debts, etc. His latest twitter tweets from March 8th:

To my fans: You all know that my life isn't perfect. I am going through some very tough times right now, like I am sure that we all do
from time to time. However, I will stand tall like always with "rhino" thick skin. Even though I have become used to hearing people say
things about me that aren't true, it still hurts. I encourage you to continue your ongoing support and I want you to trust that this is
another obstacle in my life that, with God's help I will overcome. God Bless You All.
(http://twitter.com/ALLENiVERSON)

Writers and fans have predicted that this could be the end of Iverson's basketball career since he
took a leave of absence a little before the All Star break from the 76ers to be with his sick daughter. Ish hit the fan with all his other problems coming to light. He's been in the news more than he's been in the box scores for games these past few weeks. But bringing this back to basketball, people talk about how he'll be a guy who never won a ring and should have come off the bench for a championship contending team. Not just people; sports analysts, general managers, owners, commentators, coaches, fans; everyone.

Put yourself in Iverson's position. Put yourself in his kind of position with something you can relate to. Let's say you're in college and you're working part time at an office job. You're going through your classes and you're struggling with your major. Your coworkers start discussing amongst themselves what YOU should be doing in school. What classes you should be taking, whether or not you should switch your major, how you should be reworking your hours at work. How annoyed would you be? Your coworkers don't know what's best for you. They don't know your what's going on in your life, what's going on in school, circumstances beyond your and their control. And whether or not they're right or wrong, you don't want to have someone else making decisions for you.

Back to Iverson. Sports writers, bloggers, fans... they don't know Iverson's whole story. Sports writers write what they think about Iverson. But Iverson knows Iverson and whether or not the sports writers are correct, do you really think Iverson would concede and say, "You know what, you're right. I'll come off the bench for a championship contending team and win a ring before my career is over. Thanks Sports Illustrated, LA Times, NY Times, and every blogger and twitterer, you've guided me to the right path"? Yeah, me neither.

So while everyone hates on Iverson's decisions and pride and think that they know what's best for him, I understand Iverson's stance. He was the #1 draft pick and has been considered a top player during the earlier part of the decade. He doesn't wanna go out like other 1996 draft class dropouts. Stephon Marbury tried to go along for the ride for a ring in Boston. Antoine Walker went along for a ride for a ring in Miami. Iverson is a lot better than those guys, plain and simple. Even with Walker's ring, Iverson's career is more impressive. [Side note: 1996 draft is my favorite draft class of all time and I wish Marcus Camby had been an all star at least once in his career but alas...]

So while Iverson deals with his personal problems and family issues and maybe later on, his basketball future, no one's opinion is going to matter except his own. While people may think they know better, right or wrong, Iverson's going to do what Iverson wants to do. And that's something I can understand and respect.