Points in the Paint

» February 18, 2009 9:37 PM | By Brandon Hoffman
  • TrueHoop:  “David Thorpe, for one, thinks whichever team gets Carter will get this trade season’s big prize. Stats or no stats, Thorpe says Vince Carter is worth the price. ‘If the Spurs, Rockets, or Blazers get Vince Carter without giving up much,’ he says, ‘they join the Lakers right there as the favorites in the Western Conference.’ He goes on to describe Carter at length as a Dean Smith-coached superstar with a basketball IQ so high he could succeed with any teammates and in any system. Thorpe says Carter on the Spurs would make San Antonio his pick to win the championship. ‘Gregg Popovich,’ he explains, ‘must be salivating at the thought of Carter helping the Spurs pulverize opposing defenses.’”
  • Dave D’Alessandro of the Star-Ledger on the Vince Carter trade rumors:  “The season is probably going nowhere. The franchise is going to lose upwards to $35 million again. The arena is not generating any revenue. The fan base, such as it is, is already apoplectic. Brooklyn is still a pipedream until it isn’t. And against that backdrop, you have a former All-Star making $16 million next year and $17.5 million the following year (that’s 40 percent of their committed payroll in 10-11) who can’t change any of those harsh realities. As one thoughtful front office denizen put it, ‘It’s not spoken of — nobody knows what instructions Rod gets directly from the top — but it’s just naive to assume it isn’t being considered — seriously.’”
  • Ross Siler of The Salt Lake Tribune:  “The official renewal notices won’t be sent out for another couple of weeks, but the Jazz are planning to hold season-ticket prices for 2009-10 in recognition of the deepening recession, team president Randy Rigby said Wednesday. ‘We feel that we want to reach out and help our season-ticket holders not to incur any more stress and pressures,’ Rigby said. The Jazz are planning to hold prices for 97.5 percent of seats, Rigby said, with the only exception being their highest-end premium seats. The Jazz have seen a drop in individual ticket revenue this season with the recession cutting into discretionary spending.”
  • Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register:  “You could watch other NBA teams for weeks and never see a glimpse of the kind of stuff the Lakers did Tuesday night. There was Pau Gasol laughing at himself early in the third quarter for having grabbed his 11th rebound when Lamar Odom was swooping in and hoping to make it his 16th rebound – both Gasol and Odom well aware that Odom was trying to win a bet from Bryant by reaching 20 rebounds. Odom got 17 rebounds in Cleveland and then 18 rebounds at home against Oklahoma City, prompting Bryant to challenge Odom to get 20 … only for Odom to finish with 19 rebounds at Utah in the final game before the All-Star break. Odom had 17 after three quarters, and Phil Jackson left him in to play the fourth just to win the bet with Bryant and get to 20. Gasol had already gotten his statistical treat with a triple-double achieved with 4:21 still to play in the third quarter. And it was Bryant who was hooting at Gasol to give him the ball so Bryant could make a 3-pointer and make sure Gasol got his 10th assist – and then kidded Gasol afterward about failing to understand how he was just trying to help.”
  • Rockets Coach Rick Adelman on how he found out about Tracy McGrady’s decision to have microfracture surgery:  “I found out like everybody else did. I think there should be a protocol there. There should be a procedure where we have a chance to sit down and talk about the situation and not be announced in the press. I don’t know why that happened, why he did that, but it certainly is not the way things should be handled. No [I have not talked to Tracy]. You know as much as I do at this point. I saw what he said in the paper and I just think that’s not the way things should be handled. With everything that’s gone on this year, that’s certainly not the way it should have gone down”
  • There have been a lot of trade rumors involving the Cleveland Cavaliers. WFNY broke down the salary implications of acquring Antawn Jamison, Marcus Camby or Brad Miller, (now with the Bulls). I know I’m beating a dead horse, but I don’t like any of these deals for Cleveland. As is, the Cavs are equipped to win the title this season. At the very least, they’ve assembled a team that is capable of contending for the title until LeBron James becomes a free agent. Why settle for a third-tier star when Chris Bosh and Amare Stoudemire will be available in due time? If I’m Danny Ferry, I’m doing everything in my power to ensure that I have contingency plan should my team falter this season and next. And by falter I mean fail to win a title or regress from this season’s pace. Cleveland can’t afford to put all of its eggs in one basket before 2010. The Cavs have to have a backup plan to convince James to re-sign in the event that they fail to win a title and the Knicks improve and clear enough cap space to sign James and another superstar. Wally Szczerbiak’s contract is a hot commodity, but the Cavaliers don’t need to win now. They need to win next season. If Cleveland plays its cards right, they’ll have enough cap room to sign or trade for Bosh or Stoudemire in 2010. In the meantime, they can be confident that they’ve assembled a championship contender. Unless Szczerbiak’s contract fetches a superstar of Bosh or Stoudemire’s caliber, I think the Cavs would be better off taking the cap space and planning on dealing one or more of their four expiring contracts (totalling $36.7 million) next season.

Category: Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, New Jersey Nets, Points in the Paint, Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards

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