Long Straight Highway (redux) » NBA

Top 40

houlios — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:55:20 +0000

The Sports Guy has his annual NBA Trade Value column up, finally. It is my favorite Sports Guy column every year. In it, he ranks the top players in the NBA according to these rules:

1. Salaries matter. Over this season and the next two, would you rather pay David West $27 million or Amare Stoudemire $43 million?

2. Age matters. Would you rather have Chauncey Billups for the next five seasons or Rajon Rondo for the next 12?

3. Pretend the league passed the following rule: For 24 hours, any player can be traded without cap ramifications but with luxury-tax ramifications. So if Team A tells Team B, “We’ll trade you Player X for Player Y,” would Team B make the deal?

4. Concentrate on degrees.Neither San Antonio nor Orlando would make a Howard-Duncan trade, but the Spurs would at least say, “Wow, Dwight Howard’s available?” and have a meeting about it while the Magic would say, “There’s no frickin’ way we’re trading Dwight Howard.” That counts in the big scheme of things.

5. The list runs in reverse order (Nos. 40 to 1). So if Carmelo comes in at No. 16, players 1 through 15 are all players about whom the Nuggets would probably say, “We hate giving up ‘Melo, but we definitely have to consider this deal.” And they wouldn’t trade him straight-up for any player listed between Nos. 17 and 50.

Personally, I think he has David West, Tony Parker and Ginobili way too high. Take West away from CP3 or Parker/Ginobili away from Big Fundamentals and they would all be shells of their former selves.

Pre-ACL he had Al Jefferson @ #9.

But there is tons of discussion fodder NBA fans.

Sports Guy bliss

houlios — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:38:14 +0000

For any of the remaining NBA fans there was this exchange in a recent Sports Guy reader mailbag:

Q: If you heard on SportsCenter “Breaking News: NBA coach is a serial killer, bodies found in his backyard” would you even bother listening to see if it was Gregg Popovich, or would that go without saying? With that beard he looks wear-your-skin-and-dance crazy.
– Sean, Hudson, Mass.

SG: Hold on …

Q: Perhaps the biggest story in the NBA that nobody is talking about is the sheer size of P.J. Carlesimo’s glasses. It looks like he took the windshield out of a ’68 Catalina, chopped it in half and attached some industrial strength frames. This is perhaps the most unfortunate eyewear selection since George Costanza chose his new look from the Gloria Vanderbilt collection.
– Jeff, Milwaukee

SG: Just a tad longer …

Q: Am I the only one who can’t get over watching Kumar coaching the Heat?
– Sleepy, Oakland, Calif.

SG: OK, so we have Kumar coaching the Heat, Shooter coaching the Bulls, Jim Carrey coaching the Mavericks, Ron Jeremy coaching the Magic, Stanley Roper coaching the Bobcats, Terence Howard coaching the Wizards, John Lithgow coaching the Nuggets, Nic Cage coaching the Grizzlies, Tony Soprano coaching the Clippers, Maverick’s mentor from “Top Gun” coaching the Knicks, the star of “Hang Time” coaching the Kings, someone coaching the former Sonics whom a reader just described as having gotten his glasses from the windshield of a ’68 Catalina, and someone a reader just described as “wear-your-skin-and-dance crazy” coaching the Spurs. And this ISN’T the best NBA season ever?