- Short edition of Points in the Paint this evening. I’m covering the Nuggets-Celtics game tonight. Check back tomorrow for my column on the game. Cheers.
- From Dave McMenamin of NBA.com: “I congratulated him beforehand on what a great job he did because I haven’t had problems with it.” – New Orleans center Tyson Chandler explaining the “comical” circumstances of his trade to Oklahoma City being rescinded because the Thunder’s doctor failed in him in the physical, citing a nagging toe injury. The same doctor performed surgery on Chandler’s toe three years ago.
- Tom Ziller for FanHouse: “Berri is correct. Moore is, and has been, among the worst rebounders in the league at the power forward position … never mind center. He’s Mark Blount bad in this area of the game. MARK. BLOUNT. P.J. Brown, by contrast, is in the Top 100 all-time in rebound rate. Moore has springs in his legs, but he does not block shots (6′6 Francisco Garcia had more per-minute last season). He can do three things well: take charges (though he’ll also rack up a ton of fouls trying to get those), hit the elbow jumper and finish at the rim, provided the ball is handed off to him within five feet of the basket and there are no defenders within 10 feet.”
- John Hollinger of ESPN.com: “Teams with projected payrolls in the mid-70s — like Phoenix, New Orleans, Washington and, if they want to keep their young guys, Milwaukee — were motivated sellers at the trade deadline. This was their last chance to deal for expiring contracts that would put them under the tax line. And yet none of those teams made any deals, mostly because the asking price from other parties was simply too high, though in Chandler’s case because Oklahoma City nuked the deal because of concerns about his toe. If those teams are serious about getting under the tax, their lack of activity is going to leave them in an even worse position this summer. They’ll be forced to trade with teams that are already under the salary cap (not the tax, the cap), teams that own a large trade exception or teams with a large non-guaranteed contract that can be released. Between those three categories, there figures to be only a handful of trading partners.”
- Forum Blue & Gold: “In the 83-84 season, Magic Johnson missed a month of play with a dislocated finger. Not comparing that to Kobe, just saying…”
- DraftExpress: “There’s been some talk that Rubio’s contract would not hold up in court if challenged, as a 6 million Euro buyout is obviously not proportionate to an 80,000 Euro contract. It’s highly unlikely that it would get to that, though. According to David Carro, the Spanish partner of Rubio’s NBA agent, Dan Fegan, who we spoke with here at the Copa del Rey, there is ‘still a chance that Rubio could find his way into this year’s draft.’ Negotiations are reportedly underway to lower his buyout to more manageable proportions, possibly 3-4 million Euro. A solution could come as early as ‘this month’ Carro told us, and in that case, Rubio would be able to afford getting out of his contract if he were to be ‘a top-3 pick’ (which he very likely is), as long as he could pay off the buyout over the course of his rookie deal.” (Via Sactown Royalty)
- Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “If David Lee and Nate Robinson — both restricted free agents this summer — re-sign with the Knicks, they would account for approximately $13.5 million more. (Lee likely will seek a deal averaging $10 million per season, while Robinson would command about half that. Subtract the two arbitrary minimum spots totaling $1.5 million to get the space they’d eat up.) With Lee and Robinson on the team, and neither Curry nor Jeffries traded, the Knicks would have about $42.5 million committed to the ‘10-’11 cap. So right off the bat, if Walsh is confident he’ll have enough room to sign one max free agent — and he is — then you know he’s assuming at least one of those four players won’t be on the team. If the cap goes down from the current level of $58.7 million to an estimated $56 million — the low end of estimates most league executives are operating under — the Knicks would be $3.3 million shy of signing a max player whose first-year salary would be $16.8 million (30 percent of the cap). If somehow the cap went up to $60 million, the max player’s first-year salary would go up, too — to $18 million. In that case, the Knicks would be about $500,000 shy of the cap space needed. One way or another, Walsh will find the room for one max player. But for Walsh to have any chance of landing two, he’d either have to 1) trade Curry and Jeffries, 2) trade or decline to match offer sheets for Lee and Robinson, or 3) some combination of the two.”
