The NBA’s Frisbee Problem

Posted by HoopsAvenue on February 23, 2010 under General NBA | Be the First to Comment

When I heard Zydrunas Ilgauskas was most likely heading back to the Cavs after he just got traded to the Wiz like 2 seconds ago, it just didn’t sound right.  I mean, the NBA doesn’t allow this sort of frisbee maneuver, does it?  Well, actually it does unless you are stupid enough (see: Stackhouse, Jerry) to tell the media all about the secret plot.  Two years ago, Stackhouse was set to be traded to the Nets before he bragged that he’d just go back to Dallas shortly after the trade.  Stack’s only mistake was telling the media about it because plenty of other guys have returned to their original team via buyout shortly after being traded.  Does the NBA turns a blind eye or do they ask Joey Crawford to turn both blind eyes?  Either way, collusion is a-okay in the NBA.

The question is why does the NBA allow this?  Clearly, it’s collusion, but the NBA only seems to care if you go so far as to blatantly talk about it.  Even admitting it after the fact doesn’t seem to bother the league as Doc Rivers gave this tongue-in-cheek remark about the Z deal: “I have a problem with that.  I loved it three years ago when we did it with Gary Payton if you remember, but now I think it sucks. I think it’s a terrible deal.”  Terrible for Boston maybe, but great for the ratings when the Cavs see the Lakers in the Finals.  But, that would have nothing to do with why you allow this, right Mr. Stern?

For a league that has seemingly constant credibility problems with the refereeing, it might not be a bad idea to actually come up with a clear rule on these situations (you know, so we don’t get the wrong idea that you’d prefer stacking the good teams while the bad teams free up cap space).  Here’s a suggestion: once you get traded, you don’t get to go back to the team you were traded from that season!

But, alas, this is the NBA, so with a wink and a nod, look for Big Z to head back to Cleveland next month.

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Dunk Contest = Fail

Posted by HoopsAvenue on February 14, 2010 under General NBA | Be the First to Comment

Like most NBA fans, I’m always looking forward to the Slam Dunk Contest.  There’s always that possibility that we might see something truly original, something we have never seen before, something that gets us out of our seats.  The NBA smartly plays on our anticipation by leaving the contest to the end of the night, giving us time to imagine what we might see.  Of course, when you build to a crescendo and that crescendo falls flat like it did last night, there is a price to pay.

First off, you can’t blame the NBA for what happened last night.  They picked the short showman (Nate Robinson), Laker leaper (Shannon Brown), and Gerald Wallace, and Demar DeRozan won the inaugural dunk-in to gain his admittance.  The dunk-in was a nice touch…giving 2 relative unknowns a shot at the big stage.  All four of those guys are extremely capable leapers and could have shown us something extraordinary last night.  It’s not the NBA’s fault…they picked solid guys.  The athleticism was not missing, but what was missing was a little creativity.

Here are a few ideas for the NBA to consider:

  • Assign a “dunk specialist” to each participant who spends the week leading up to the contest brainstorming for dunk ideas.  Some of the guys like Nate Robinson surely prepare for this thing year-round, but I doubt Phil Jackson is encouraging Shannon Brown to come up with new dunk ideas in practice.  A creativity consultant would help.
  • Don’t pick the same guy more than twice.  Nate Robinson was fun the first time, okay (IMO) the second time, and rather stale last night.  Novelty counts more than anything in the dunk contest so you need new blood.
  • Use fan voting for every dunk.  DeRozan’s dunk was perfect?   Yeah, okay.  It was the best dunk of the night, but are you really ready to put that on the level of Vince Carter or Dominique Wilkins’ dunks?  Let the fans rank the dunks from 1-10 and maybe use the legends as dunk specialists.

Conclusion: worst. dunk. contest. ever.

Oh, and, hey Lebron, bawk bawk bawk bawk!

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