1. Washington Wizards – What a brilliant move by Agent Zero to sign a $111 million deal and then just 2 months later announcing you’ll be having yet another knee surgery and will miss at least the first month of the season. The Wizards are just praying this doesn’t turn into another Allan Houston or Grant Hill situation. Washington fans are already too familiar with overpaying for guys that don’t pan out (See: Juwan Howard). Once again it’s up to Caron and Antawn to keep this stock out of freefall.
2. Josh Howard – Howard’s now infamous comments: “The Star-Spangled Banner is going on. I don’t celebrate this [expletive]. I’m black.” Add that to his “NBA players do smoke marijuana” comment just before a playoff game last season and his brilliant idea of throwing a birthday party after losing a playoff game last season. Yeah, time to sell this stock. Here’s the Star-Spangled Banner video:
   
   
3. Rookies – Michael Beasley’s now the latest rookie to be fined. He got hit $50,000 for the marijuana-smoking incident at the Rookie Transition Program. Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur were disciplined a few days ago. Who’s teaching the Rookie Transition Program? Josh Howard?!? These guys are rookies so they’ve got plenty of time to bounce back, but their stocks are dropping right now.
   

1. Dikembe Mutombo – Mutombo brings a boatload of experience to Obama, which would be a big boost for the senator. Additionally, Mutombo is known to be strong on defense which would appeal to a lot of voters, but his connection with President Bush could be a detriment to the campaign.
   
2. Bruce Bowen – Bowen’s reputation for strong defense makes him a natural choice to be Obama’s VP, but he’s also a very polarizing figure, unpopular in LA, Phoenix, and many other cities around the country, which could cost Obama votes.
   
3. Antawn Jamison – Jamison is experienced, professional, and well-liked. He looks like a perfect choice to be VP, but Obama’s message of change might not resonate if he chooses a Washington-insider like Jamison.
4. Dwight Howard – He’s from the southeast, a region where Obama struggles, and is now very popular in the swing-state of Florida, but does Dwight Howard have the experience to be VP? Howard would be a risky pick so maybe he should wait until 2012.

Players Not to Consider

• Gilbert Arenas – His recent blog post where he said, “There’s another reason I don’t vote – I don’t want jury duty. If you’re not registered to vote, you can’t get jury duty. I know that campaign Diddy had a couple years ago, “Vote or Die,” yeah if the alternative is jury duty, I’m going to die. I’m not going to get in one of these cases where they blow the jury members’ houses up to get out of the trial, I’m cool. I’ve seen too many movies,” kinda makes it difficult for him to enter into politics. Plus, he’s busy building a really cool pool.
• Rasheed Wallace – Wallace would definitely resonate with Obama’s message of change, but he’s a bit too outspoken. When his Pistons won the 2004 NBA championship and had to meet President Bush the next year, he said, “”I’m not going to say (expletive) to him. I didn’t vote for him. This is just something we have to do.”

Here are some games of interest:

• October 28th – The defending champion Celtics begin their title defense against Lebron James and the Cavs.
• October 29th – Not the most exciting way to start a franchise, but Oklahoma City starts their season hosting the Milwaukee Bucks.
• November 5th – Mark your calendars. Gilbert Arenas, who recently blogged, “Because every player hates Milwaukee. Nobody wants to live in Milwaukee. I’m sorry, Milwaukee, to come down hard on you, but no one in the NBA wants to play in Milwaukee,” takes his Wizards to Milwaukee to hear the boos.
• December 25th – The NBA is amping it up this season with five games on Christmas Day, highlighted by a Finals rematch between the Lakers and Celtics. The Wizards and Cavs will renew their rivalry as well.
• December 31st – Elton Brand returns to LA as the Sixers take on the Clippers.
• January 16th – Jermaine O’Neal makes his first trip back to Indiana as a member of the Raptors.

I’ll definitely be watching those games.

“I’m basically giving back $16 million,” Arenas told the Washington Times. “This is in line with what I’ve been saying the whole time. You see players take max deals and they financially bind their teams. I don’t wanna be one of those players and three years down the road your team is strapped and can’t do anything about it.”

Just in case you don’t remember, Arenas said in his blog back in January, ” I want to get a six-year deal. I want to be a max player.”  Well, he’s not going to be a max player if he’s signing at a discount, but what he’s doing makes a lot of sense and we wish more guys would do it.

Arenas also said in that same blog, “For me to look elsewhere, I want to go find a championship team who’s a championship contender. I’m going to have to take less money, but I’m willing to do that to win a ring.”  So does Arenas think the Wizards are a championship contender?  Well, they just re-signed Jamison and it looks like they’ll have pretty much the same team as last year which puts them in the playoffs but not much further.  Thanks to Arenas Washington has some extra cash, but probably not enough to become a championship team.  It’s more likely that Arenas decided he’d rather take a chance on being the star of a championship team rather than go play alongside Kobe or someone.

In any case, maybe some players will be willing to take less cash on occasion.  It seems like it’ll work out for Arenas and the last we checked, Latrell Sprewell is still trying to feed his family.

• Baron Davis has reportedly reached an agreement to sign with the Clippers. This is a bit surprising considering the professional e-mail he had previously sent to ESPN: “”Clipps r possible. G State is where I wanna b”. Now the Clippers have to worry about re-signing Elton Brand. They’re going to have to let Corey Maggette go to pull that off and Brand will have to take a paycut, but it looks like he is willing to do so.
• Gilbert Arenas received a max offer from the Warriors. So, Gil’s old team is going after him again now that they’ve lost their point guard. The Warriors are young and fun, which fits Arenas’ style, but it’s hard to see him choosing them over Washington.

Where do you think Davis, Arenas, Brand, and Maggette will wind up?

Re-signing with Washington would be the easy thing to do. Arenas has said he wants to stay in DC and just wanted to “test the market”, but plenty a player have “tested the market” and found a better contract elsewhere. Arenas has stated repeatedly he will only come back if the Wizards also re-sign Antawn Jamison this off-season and they just did re-sign Jamison for four more years so the odds look good for Washington. “He said he’d take less money if they got me, and they got me,” Jamison said. “So I think everything will get worked out with Gilbert.”

The Lakers and Clippers have also been reportedly interested in Arenas at one time or another, but both situations don’t seem likely anymore. The Lakers would have to make some pretty big changes to make the money available for Arenas which they are unlikely to want to do considering they are coming off a Finals appearance. The Clippers, on the other hand, would want to work a sign-and-trade most likely involving Elton Brand, but now that the Wizards have re-signed Jamison, Washington is in a much better position to win in Gilbert’s eyes. Don’t hold your breath, LA fans.

Where do you think Agent Zero will wind up?