As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every si__ngle player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Luis Scola, Corey Maggette, and Shane Battier.

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[021] Scola, Luis

My opinions on Luis Scola are rather two-tiered. On one hand, I have a ton of respect for him -- offensively, he's one of the top tier bigs in the league in terms of giving your team an overall package of efficiency and consistency. With the exception of an injured spell near the end of last season, Scola was one of the few bright spots for a scrappy but overmatched Rockets team that would've easily been a top 5 seed in the east but barely sniffed the playoffs in a stacked west. Something that happens to the Rockets so often that the situation should be named after them. Maybe they can join the Astros and muddle up Houston sports entirely by transplanting to the eastern conference, I.E., the NBA's AL. This isn't very relevant to the post, though. Scola is often an offensive superstar, and of all the bigs in the league over the last few seasons, there are few I'd be more happy about having on my team. On the magical 2008 Rockets team that won 22 straight games, he was the cog that really made everything click. He's been the Rockets main star the last two years -- two quality, scrappy teams, even if they weren't playoff teams. And most importantly, he was essentially on god-mode during the FIBA World Championships in 2010, too -- my opinion of his offensive NBA game may actually be sort of biased due to how ridiculously impressed I was with his performance in that tournament. Kevin Durant was the best player in that tournament, but Scola was easily the second best and probably would've been considered the best if Argentina had gotten a bit farther. He's got an absolutely nasty offensive game and he dominated all comers.

The thing with Scola is that his success in FIBA in many ways exemplifies his flaws as a legitimate second option on a contender. Sure, he was amazing in FIBA play. But why was he so good? Mostly because nobody could guard him. And that's something you see with some regularity when you pay attention to Scola. When he's faced up with good NBA defenders, he's not nearly as consistently impressive -- he has his games where he dominates, of course, but he generally operates better the less defensive pressure he demands, or the worse his defenders. Which is a usual trait for ANY player, but for a player like Scola that relies so much on his footwork, defensive pressure can really That's a big part of why he was so good when Yao was in his prime -- if you have to choose between covering Yao or covering Scola, the defenders would more often than not sag onto Yao, giving Scola enough room to operate freely offensively. And all this talk about his offense getting worse against better competition ignores his defense, which is generally not incredibly positive. It isn't absolutely atrocious, mind you -- he's OK at bodying his man and he defends long-range shooting bigs passably -- but he's poor on help and generally puts in a relatively lacking performance. He bites on basically any fake you put in front of him -- he doesn't learn, really, and it hurts his value a lot. Because you really need to place him next to a strong defensive big who can put an entire team's defense on his back. For instance, Bogut, Howard, or Garnett/Duncan/Yao in their primes. Without that? He's not really being used effectively, and his defensive struggles are going to harm his value quite a lot.

LScola4 Luis Scola

At this point I believe that all the players should vote. not only the 30 reps. 7 minutes ago

Still. Doesn't mean I don't have regrets related to Scola. After all, he was actually drafted by the Spurs -- they just traded him on draft day for Ian Maihinmi. Had the Spurs not shanked that draft day trade? It's quite possible the Spurs would have gotten a title sometime in the last few years. Duncan has been slowly degrading on offense, but his defense is still very good, and he's still a top five big man defender in the Western Conference (with Aldridge, Bynum, Chandler, and Gasol rounding out the top five). Put an offensively talented big man like Scola next to 2008-2011 Duncan, and suddenly you have a roster that could easily push the Lakers and the Celtics in 2008, possibly make a conference finals in 2009, and have a fighting shot against the Suns in 2010. Don't think I haven't thought about this before. Like, two hundred times before. Also, Manu and Scola have amazing chemistry. Augh. I can't keep thinking about this. Beyond all this, he's a stand-up guy. Great sense of humor, loves the game, great personality. And -- of particular interest for me -- he's one of the players most aching to get back on the court. Which I respect, though the more that comes out about the disclaimer movement the less I believe that a vote would've ended in a season. Regardless, losing a season (which is essentially what the union chose to do) is the equivalent of losing 10 years of wages for many NBA players, as I noted in my last lockout article. Given that? They probably should've engaged their membership more before they went through with it, and Scola's tweet and general attitude towards the disclaimer reflects that, I think. Much respect, Scola. And condolences, too.

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[022] Maggette, Corey

Hey, look. It's Corey Maggette. Mags redefines the general concept of a stats-first kind of player. His stats have an almost disturbingly inverse relationship to his teams' performances. If his team is crap, he'll have the stats of a minor star. If his team is good, he'll be playing rarely or poorly when he does. He's the epitome of a team-harming contributor, one whose defense is worse than it looks (which is especially bad given how bad his defense LOOKS) and who fights his teammates for stats. Like rebounds -- if you watch him on the defensive end, his rebounding is mostly notable in how surreptitiously he pulls the Javale/Blatche kinds of "Hey, screw you, teammate! Give me that rebound!" plays. Regardless. His stats are always better than his contributions. And he's consistently overpaid, making him the worst kind of players. Overpaid, harms your team, and lacks the personal charm/brand to make up for his flaws. Not to mention his offensive game is based primarily on drawing free throws (hence his efficiency), so you can't even enjoy him for his volume scoring.

One of the underrated results of the awful trade that brought John Salmons back to the Kings was that Maggette went to the Bobcats, thus ensuring that the Maggette-less Bucks will be a decent team next season (WHENEVER THAT ENDS UP BEING) and the Bobcats will be doomed from day one. Theoretically, the Bobcats got the better end of the deal, since Maggette is better by most statistical metrics to an aging wheels-falling-off Stephen Jackson. They didn't really, though, because even at his age Jackson is one of the top shooting guard defenders in the league and adding him to the Bogut/Mbah a Moute defensive tandem is going to make the Bucks even more absurdly good on the defensive side of the court. And while S-Jax's tendency to go it alone on offense is often bad news, the Bucks need someone who finishes possessions in a way that works within any competent offense. Mags isn't it. Maybe S-Jax will be. Not much else to say. I really don't like him much, as I venture is obvious. Bye, Mags.

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[023] Battier, Shane

Let's start out with this -- Battier is hilarious. See: his twitter at the beginning of the lockout. Or his twitter feed from when he got trapped in an elevator before game 3 of the WCSF. Or his very old website from when he played at Duke, back from when being 'proficient with the Yahoo! search engine' was impressive to anyone outside of his grandmother. Battier is an intelligent, humorous man who is relatively good at the game of basketball. He's a cerebral player who is both a good defender and a disappointing one, depending on where you get your expectations from. He's a player known by most as one of the better defenders in the NBA, but that's not quite true. Battier is great at reading an offense and figuring out where to be on help. Absolutely one of the best in the league at it. But in one-on-one defense? This New York Times article essentially misses the point when it comes to Battier's defense (though, to be fair, it's spot on with basically everything else -- recommended read, especially for the biographical part). His real mastery of the defensive end comes in his incessant switches and his contagious knack for filling his team's defensive holes. One-on-one, Battier doesn't really do anything special -- he scouts the players he defends and he tries to work them out of rhythm, but that's essentially what any good defensive wing does. That isn't what makes Battier special.

What makes him special is his ability to do all this with lacking athleticism, so-so dribbling ability, and generally a lack of conventional basketball talent. Which isn't to say he's bad -- he's not, at all. He's a straight decent player, primarily because he's a good one-on-one defender and an excellent help defender, and the number of excellent help defenders that play the wing position in the NBA is essentially one. Battier. The vast majority of Battier's value comes in his ability to substantially impact your team defense through his switches, his reading the passing lanes, and his weakside blocks rather than his ability to act as a stopper. Andre Iguodala, Tony Allen, and Bruce Bowen all were far better at that than Battier, and Battier's athleticism will always be a limiting factor for him on one-on-one defense. Still, none of those three players have ever had quite the effect on a team's overall defense as Battier has had, due to none of them having quite the ability to read the overall opposing offense schemes like Battier can. He's a wing who, defensively, plays like a center. That's absurd. And it's a major part of why I consider him such a cerebral player -- Battier gets over his inability to contribute statistically by using his mental understanding of the game to contribute in a way nobody else in the game really does. On offense, he's relatively forgettable and essentially naught more than a finisher for the plays others create for him. But his defensive impact -- both in stifling the opposing team's offense and making more difficult an opposing team's rebounding -- is what really makes him who he is.

Now, I've gone over how he's a funny guy, but I'd like to finish this capsule with my absolute favorite Shane Battier story. It happened at Duke. In 2010, I was at Cameron Indoor Stadium to watch on the big screen as Duke played West Virginia in the final four. I didn't like that game much because of Da'Sean Butler's ACL tear, one of the saddest things I've watched in college basketball and one of the most despicable moments I witnessed while being a Duke student (not for our team, which was respectful about it -- it was the fans at Cameron indoor, which were generally boisterous and ecstatic about the terrible stroke of luck despite the fact that Butler's career was irreparably ruined by the injury). But there was a great moment, there. There was a commercial break, and the audience was talking amongst ourselves. Cue the drunk frat bro in front of me, talking to his respectively drunk polo-wearing friend.

"Man, look, there's Shane's jersey!"
"Oh, legit dude. He's my favorite player of all time."
"...wait what? What about Jordan?"
"He's literally inferior."
"Haha, dude, that's crazy."
"My bro Shane is mad underrated son, are you one of those fags who doesn't know the score?"
"Uh I guess so, I think he's pretty average overall."
"No dude, you're a fag. Shane Battier is a top ten player in the nba."
"...what?"
"The only players better are Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Kobe Bryant."
"...what?"

The game came back on, and they stopped talking about it. They never returned to the subject, either because the guy thought he'd made his point or his friend thought there was no use continuing the discussion. They were both right. And it remains, to this day, one of the most absurd serious beliefs I've ever heard about the game of basketball. Right up there with "Corey Maggette is a passable basketball player."

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Apologies for the relative lack of updates to the player capsules this week. I realize this is one of the more popular features on this site, I just felt the need to go in depth on the lockout stuff and quite frankly didn't feel like editing the capsule drafts into a finished product after the legal morass I had to sift through. And that CBA proposal. Hope you enjoyed this installment. I may try to post two of these tomorrow, as we have some pretty short players coming up.

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So, despite this blog being around for less than a month, I've already written a heck of a lot of copy about this awful lockout. I wrote an angry rant about Jordan for his hypocrisy. I wrote a piece highlighting why my history with depression made me afraid to give up on the season. I wrote an excruciatingly long three part series (almost 9000 words, overall) analyzing the CBA proposal to try and cut through the spin from both sides. I did the research and tracked down an extensive list of lockout layoffs to try and shed some light on the front office impact of the lockout. I've done my time, in short. I would like the lockout to end. It won't, though, so I suppose I'll just need to keep writing furious rants.

On that note, today's furious rant!

If you didn't pick up the general tone of my CBA analysis (or didn't read it, which I can't blame you if you didn't), I'll state it outright: the players should have taken the deal. I say this selfishly , but also pragmatically. The cliffsnotes: not as bad for player movement as the spin suggests, the 6-year opt out is a huge get, the system stayed essentially exactly the same with different BRI and a stricter tax, and overall there was all the room in the world for the players to return to the old system the next time they had any leverage in a CBA negotiation. Despite this, the players DID have concessions even atop the BRI, enough so that I'm not surprised the players blew up the talks. BRI was a huge concession, and they weren't really comfortable with a 50-50 split in the first place. ANY concessions atop that were enough to make them liable to blow it up.

Despite that, I don't really think the union leadership thought this through particularly well, nor do I think (from the limited copy I've read from them discussing the decision to disclaim) the player reps had full comprehension of what they were getting into. See, I spent an unreasonable amount of time sifting through David Boies' suit against the NBA -- it's very well written. Lots of legalese, but the case is compelling. The general tenor of the suit, that the NBA simply never intended to negotiate in good faith, is something that's been on the lips of most every writer covering the league since this ordeal began. The problem is... there's no real way for the players to win this. The added leverage the players have is minimal, as it comes in concert with the owners gaining leverage by sitting back and doing nothing as NBA players miss paychecks and benefits. Like healthcare, which Delonte West and his 13 dependents are sorely lacking at the moment. It's been written in a million places, but the NBPA dropped the ball on timing something fierce.

And what's more, there's no particularly logical endgame for the players. Which is what scares me the most about this lawsuit. The general goal of the players in this suit is to be awarded treble damages, in which the owners would be on the hook for 3x the missed salary of all NBA players. That would, theoretically, be a "win" for the players. Would it, really? I'm not so sure. If the players were to actually win treble damages, the league would fight for as long as they needed to in order to have the ruling overturned in the higher courts. They'd take it as high as they possibly could. And the appeal process? Takes time, you know. Were the players to win treble damages, it would be unlikely that we'd see a season start until the appeal process was done -- after all, the owners aren't going to negotiate if they're fighting off the treble damages win, as that would undermine their case that the players won that suit illegitimately. Which would lead to an extremely circuitous legal path, one that has no real positive ending for the players. Several seasons lost, most likely. But, best case scenario, let's say they win out every appeal, it goes to the supreme court, and the court rules the NBA has to pay them. Then what? The NBA has an absurd amount of damages to pay out, but no money whatsoever from which to pay the damages. Because they STILL HAVEN'T NEGOTIATED A GODDAMN CBA!

They still would need to negotiate a new CBA, one that would be far harder to negotiate if the owners knew they would have to be using the vast majority of their money on repaying the damages. Because the owners would keep putting worse offers than the last one on the table trying to recoup losses, and failing miserably to get the players to accept them. I honestly don't see how that ends in any way other than the league declaring bankruptcy and dissolving, leaving the players with absolutely no market in which to play professional basketball and with minimal real return on the treble damages. Not to mention that rookies and free agents technically don't have contracts at the moment, meaning they wouldn't be eligible to receive treble damages. Whoops. Of course, that all is assuming they win, which I think is a silly assumption. There's very little precedent for the case that Boies is putting forth, but what little there is seems to indicate that the courts aren't going to look kindly on this suit. The most likely scenario is that even if Boies manages to win in the California courts, the NBA will overturn it in appeal. And then where are we?

Do you think the union explained all this to the players? It's nigh impossible to fathom how the union leadership could've endorsed this no-win-scenario kind of a tactic at this point, other than some absurdly rosy scenarios painted by their legal team. The agents are scratching their heads right now for that very reason. No legal expert I've talked to thinks this tactic has much of a chance of really improving things for the players, even with arguably the best lawyer on earth on their side. And the entire talk about how much money they're missing paycheck-to-paycheck ignores the most important part of an NBA player's salary, and the key reason that sports unions are way different from real life unions -- the career duration of an NBA player, despite the increased salary, is significantly less than virtually any other job on the planet. To demonstrate, let's say we have a player earning about $21 million over a 7 year career. Obviously less when he's a rookie, more after that. A relatively average player in every respect. That's $3 million a year, which is a hell of a lot of money all things considered. But it's only over 7 years. Assuming the income they receive for the rest of their life is relatively inconsequential, here's what their lifetime earnings are like compared to, say, a statistician making an average salary $70,000 a year (less when he starts out, more when he finishes) in a career that lasts 49 years. You may be surprised to know that the difference is only $18 million dollars in career earnings!

Wait, what?

Well, fuck, there goes my argument. Kind of. Consider that this random player is slated to make, say, $4 million dollars this season. Let's say he doesn't play this season, and while he stays in the league the same 7 years, his last year is a minimum deal instead of a $4 million dollar payday. Instead of earning $21 million, he earns $17 million. That's a big frigging difference. He just lost 20% of his career salary, the equivalent of the $70,000 a year statistician taking 10 whole years off his career. So my point still stands, even if my comparison was so silly I can't bear to take it out of this post. *

* Seriously. It's just adorable that I, in my sleep deprived ranting, even thought I could conceivably compare one of my peers' salaries to an NBA player. It is simply adorable.

Really, though. I'm exhausted and tired of writing about the lockout. This rant is awful, it isn't angry enough, and it's really restrained given how terribly mad this whole thing makes me. The point I'm trying to make is that for all but about 100 of the league's 450 players, losing a season is equivalent to losing 10 years off your career in a real job. That's an incredibly big deal. And when a NORMAL (ie, non sports) union decides to go on strike, or persevere through a lockout, the union is only talking a few months, or at most a year out of a 40-50 year career. A season-long lockout is the equivalent of the local teacher's union going on strike for 10 FUCKING YEARS, from the perspective of the players who actually have to deal with the financial ramifications of it. IE, not Hunter, or Boies, or Kessler. I really, really doubt that the union presented the threat of disclaimer to the players like this, which makes sense. They wanted to do it, and they knew the players were angry and raring to do SOMETHING. Channeling their energy towards something they wanted to do in the first place had to be nice. But it was an incredibly poor decision that will, no matter how it turns out, probably destroy the players. It can be a revolution (as Ziller says) without being a smart or reasonable decision. And when the union inevitably gets broken or the NBA collapses, I won't want to think back at how incredibly obvious it was that it was going to play out this way. I won't want to.

Unfortunately? I will.

Editor's note #1: This was going to be a furious rant. Then Aaron realized he's too sad to be furious and too meticulous to actually rant. Sorry!

Editor's note #2: I am the editor.

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This post is part three of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. The players rejected it, throwing negotiations into a death cycle and all but destroying our chances of seeing a 2012 champion crowned. Before the proposal was killed, I started a series examining it point-by-point to see how bad it actually was. Being someone who finishes what he starts, I decided to finish the job despite the irrelevance of the act. This is the final part of this series. Join us tomorrow for an angry summation rant on the subject of the lockout. Until then, bask in the glory of the CBA none of us will ever see applied.

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12. Salary Cap Holds

• Salary Cap holds – i.e., amounts that are included in a team’s team salary in respect of the team’s free agents prior to signing, calculated based upon a multiple of the free agent’s prior salary – are as follows:

• First-round picks: Reduced from 300%/250% (if prior salary is below average salary / above average salary) to 250%/200%

• Bird: Reduced from 200%/150% to 190%/150%
• Early Bird: 130% (same as 2005 CBA)
• Non-Bird: 120% (same as 2005 CBA)

This part is a relatively inconsequential change to the CBA -- it helps player movement marginally by giving teams that haven't dealt with their bird rights players and rookies more room under the cap in which to sign players before they deal with those players, but in general, most teams deal with their hold space BEFORE they go trolling for free agents, not after. Not to mention the reduction in Bird won't be seen except on below-average salary free agents, so it'll be exactly the same for your Wade types and Bron types. And given the drop in salary by rookies, the difference in cap room will be marginal at best no matter how significant it looks percentage-wise.

13. Trade Rules

• Extension-and-trades prohibited. If a player signs a contract extension, then the team is prohibited from trading the player for a period of six months following the date of the extension. If a team acquires a player in a trade, then the team is prohibited from signing the player to a contract extension for a period of six months following the date of the trade.
• Cash paid or received by teams in trades is limited to an aggregate of $3M per team annually.
• Waiting period for trading team to re-sign traded player who is waived by recipient team is extended until the earlier of (i) one year from the date of the trade, or (ii) the July 1 following the last season of player’s contract.

Hey, look! It's the part of the CBA where player movement goes to die.

Alright. This is sort of a lie. Actually, a big lie. Sure, this clause does a lot of damage to any player movement caused by trading -- what this essentially means is that if you want to trade your superstar, you need to trade him preseason in his last year of his deal, or he won't get bird rights on an extension and the team will have no incentive to give any value for him, given that they'd just need to woo him in free agency anyway.

On the other hand, we return to the key point I've been making throughout this series. Player movement is difficult to define. Does this hurt player movement via trades? Certainly. You aren't going to see a trade like the Carmelo Anthony deal any time in the duration of a CBA with these rules -- the Knicks would've traded for him without actually gaining the advantages of bird rights or extension rights. There would've been no reason for Melo to sign with them before free agency, nor would there be any incentive for the Knicks to give the Nuggets anything. The point where this gets sticky is in the OTHER definition of player movement. That is, where the players have free choice as to where they play, no front office required. And, again -- this actually strengthens player movement in the "more free agency" side of the mobility coin.

Make no mistake. The Deron Williams deal is a type of deal that simply would happen less under these rules. That particular deal could've still happened, as Deron had over a year left on his contract. But that KIND of deal -- one where a star is traded without his consent (better examples: the Gerald Wallace trade as well as the Stephen Jackson trade in the offseason) -- is one that simply could not occur in the season during the last year of a star's contract. Is that a bad thing? Personally, I don't think so. While this harms player movement in the sense that top-15 players won't have quite as much leverage to pick their team and get traded there, it doesn't really harm player movement for the broader group of players in a tangible way.

It harms trades, a bit, but it strengthens free agency by simply ensuring more and more players get to make their pick there as opposed to having their team choice essentially made for them, with their front office throwing them to another team for picks and cash. Which, in the long run, improves player mobility and gives the players MORE choice as to where they want to go. For all the grumblings about how supposedly awful this CBA proposal was for player movement, I don't really think it is. It was mostly extremely poor PR by the NBA and a media machine that was never given adequate time to truly read and think about the proposal in front of them. Given that this hurts the Melo trade, and the proposed Dwight trades, and the proposed CP3 trades, it's natural to assume it hurts player movement in general. Natural, but wrong. Free agency does the opposite -- it makes sure players have a fair chance to make their own choices instead of letting a front office team make it for them. And that, regardless of what you think of the players, is a pretty good thing for the league.

The waiting period thing is more of a big deal than it looks, too. It essentially is a "you traded him, he's gone" clause -- if you trade a player under this CBA proposal, you can't sign him again for a whole year. So, if you lose a player in a deadline deal, you better not be expecting him back for two seasons. If I didn't know better, I'd think this clause is a direct reaction to the sideshow back in late 2010 when the Cavs traded Zydrunas Ilgauskas only to re-add him to the roster a month later after the Wizards waived him. Back then, I was really happy about it. In general I think it was the right move for all parties involved. But I can see why the owners would prefer to make that something that teams can't do, as charges that Gilbert and the Cavs gamed the system on that transaction are relatively true to life. Don't like it, but I see why it's in place and don't think it's altogether unnecessary. The cash is also a bit of a big deal -- it essentially means you can't buy your way into the draft unless you abstain from trades with any of the franchises that are in the red, given that every team that takes big losses demands cash when you trade with them. Perhaps that would change given the rule. Doubt it, though. It's a big shift in the way the NBA would do business, though I'd need to look up transaction details to try and determine how many teams actually used more than $3 million in cold hard cash for trades last year. I don't care to do so right now, though, so let's move forward.

14. Amnesty

• Each team permitted to waive 1 player prior to any season of the CBA (only for contracts in place at the inception of the CBA) and have 100% of the player’s salary removed from team salary for Cap and Tax purposes.
• Salary of amnestied players included for purposes of calculating players’ agreed-upon share of BRI.
• A modified waiver process would be utilized for players waived pursuant to the Amnesty rule, under which teams with Room under the Cap could submit competing offers to assume some but not all of the player’s remaining contract. If a player’s contract is claimed in this manner, the remaining portion of the player’s salary will continue to be paid by the team that waived him.

So, this was going to happen. It was going to be pretty awesome. There was a really weak free agent class entering the now defunct 2012 season, and this amnesty process would've made sure that every team would've had one waiver slot that they could use to remove a player from their docket and put him on the market. Essentially a giant jumpstart to 2012 free agency. There are a ton of cool (and a ton of not so cool) aspects to this codified version of the amnesty rule. If this ends up being the final one that's used whenever the hell we get our next season, there are going to be several extremely tricky parts to this proposal that would throw a huge wrench into a lot of the ink already spilled over possible amnesty targets and destination. I'll go over three of the big picture points.

1. Not everyone can bid for them. What do I mean? Look at the last bullet. The only teams allowed to bid for amnestied players are teams under the cap. Baron Davis to the Heat? Gilbert Arenas to the Knicks? Neither of them are happening if this incarnation of the amnesty provision is passed through to the next CBA, because you can't use your exceptions on amnesty players. They'd need to sign for absolute minimum salary. Also important: they don't get to double-draw salary, as the team that wins the bidding war for them (which, let's be honest, will end up with some of them being overpaid YET AGAIN) simply signs a contract with the team that waived him saying that they pay some portion of the player's salary rather than a new salary. This makes a lot of sense, but had never been released before, so nobody actually thought about it. In short, it means that ideas like Baron to the Heat aren't going to happen unless every single sub-cap team passes on him. And that's very unlikely.

2. One per season? This part confused me. The first bulletpoint, according to both my reading of it and Matt Moore's reading of it, essentially says you can waive one player prior to any season. Does this mean that you can only waive one player, but you can waive him whenever you'd like in the duration of the CBA? Does it mean that you can waive a single player per season? Can you waive traded players, but only if you waive them prior to the season's first game? I'd think the answer is that you can waive a single player, but whenever you'd like in the CBA. And there is absolutely no language that would preclude you from waiving a traded player, meaning that teams like Oklahoma City and Indiana that don't have any particularly awful contracts could use their trading leverage to extract an asset from a team that desperately could use two or three amnesty waivers and get rid of a player they don't like. In particular, I could see some kind of magical trade where the Thunder traded Westbrook and Collison for either Dwight, Gilbert, and Anderson or CP3 and one of the Hornets' awful contracts. It would fit with Presti's general competence as a GM to work the system like that, same with Buford in San Antonio.

3. BRI cracked down, possibly. If you combine the stretch exception with the amnesty clause, you could have some teams paying out amnesty salaries well into the late years of this CBA. That's bad news for current players, whose 50-50 BRI split would probably turn slightly negative as teams need to keep paying off these awful contracts to players no longer playing in the league. Much like the NBA's incomprehensibly stupid curse where they will forever have to pay a large percentage of TV revenue from all former ABA teams to the former owners of the ABA's St. Louis Spirit, the amnesty salary could have the unsavory effect of depressing the BRI share for players for years to come. Not fun, if you're a player already chafing under the awful BRI split.

Still. My guess is amnesty in the final CBA -- whenever the hell we arrive at it -- will be different, rendering much of this inaccurate or outdated. I'd still pay attention when the final CBA gets agreed to, though, because if they push through a similar amnesty clause these particular restrictions are going to make it a far different amnesty game than the one that Simmons talked about in his huge amnesty column.

15. Player Benefits

• New benefits pool to be funded with 1% of BRI for post-career player annuity and welfare benefits.

The players union wanted this put in place for their proposed "50% + 1" deal they offered the owners at a previous negotiating session. My question is where this 1% comes from -- my assumption is that it's simply taken off the top before they calculate the 50-50 for the owners and the players, meaning it's more like 49.5-49.5. But I'm not sure, and the language is ambiguous enough that I don't care to extrapolate.

16. Revenue Sharing

• _ The NBA will commit to maintaining during each year of the CBA the revenue sharing plan that the NBA has described to the Players Association._

Wow, this is truly a descriptive bulletpoint. I really feel the NBA has given me a lot to comment on with this incredibly detailed tour de force into the true guts of their strong, gravity-defying revenue sharing plan.

(Screw you, NBA.)

17. Term of Agreement

• _ 10 years, with mutual NBA and Players Association opt-outs after year 6._

I think, overall, the players probably should've taken this CBA. There are a ton of concessions they'd be making for not only BRI but the system itself, as I've excruciatingly outlined in this series of posts. That much is clear. But by making a year 6 opt-out? How can you not take this deal?

I get the general consensus among some that the owners win every CBA negotiation. I get that some think the players should argue for a CBA that lasts a ridiculously long time, just to get more leverage. I just think that's wrong and misguided. In 6 years, there are going to be a lot of differences in how the league is run. Stern probably won't be the commish. Hunter probably won't lead the NBPA. New owners will have gotten into the game, and the Decision fallout will be ancient history. All of these are of negligible impact to negotiations, and certainly don't give the players a ton more leverage. This, however, does: the NBA will be going to a new TV deal for the 2017 season. This will give the owners a taste of the revenues they'll get from having a sport with a good TV deal. And it will also give the players far, far more leverage than they have this time. Because the revenues on the line will be far greater, and a cancelled season will have the potential to destroy the league in a manner far more comprehensive than this lockout would have if it had ended this monday.

They would have the ability to disclaim or decertify a lot earlier if they realize the league is going to strongarm them. They have the time to restructure the union in a more organized, powerful way. They have the time to learn from the mistakes of this lockout and take advantage of the record growth the NBA has been on, uninterrupted by a lost season or a hefty lockout. They would be able to get a better sense beforehand which owners are hardliners and which owners are doves, and use that against the league in the same way the owners were using the players against the union. In short, they'd be able to do the myriad of things they could have done this time to make things a bit less bitter, but probably wouldn't have gotten a much better deal in the first place -- the NBA, as it stands, is not a very profitable enterprise. And the owners are currently reeling from losses. But with this proposed CBA, plus the new TV deal, the owners would enter the lockout on a record profits binge and the players would, unlike this time, have all the leverage and preparation on their side.

Had they taken the deal. They didn't. And, as I've outlined -- it's a bad deal. I can't blame them. But it was the right call to take it, and in my opinion, there's very little to excuse the union leadership for not taking off their blinders and seeing just how well-positioned they'd be in 6 years to make a run at an extremely player-friendly CBA. And for seeing just how few of the problems with this CBA that would apply for more than 3 or 4 years of its duration anyway -- for much of this CBA, the system would be virtually unchanged from the current system and some of the proposals simply wouldn't come into effect until year 5 or later.

But hey. They didn't take it. So rest in peace, CBA proposal.

And with it, the 2012 season. We knew ye well.

• • •

I've already gone almost 3000 words on this crap. No way I'm adding my rant to this behemoth of a post. Expect a nuclear bomb style take-no-prisoners lockout rant tomorrow, because I sure as hell don't feel like writing it today after reading through this doomed CBA proposal so thoroughly. More tomorrow.

Continue reading

Hello, everyone. I was going to finish my CBA proposal analysis series with a post featuring a long angry rant about the disclaimer process and the general tenor of the negotiations. But I got roped into a discussion earlier with the imitable Mr. Swanson of Rufus on Fire (who, by the way, you should vote for here to get him a scholarship -- stand-up blogger, hilarious guy) in trying to determine how many people had been laid off by the lockout. Ever since May, I've been keeping a text file with references for the number of employees each team has been reported to have fired. I realized during that conversation that not everyone has been keeping close tabs on the labor situation, and there's a pretty good reason for that. Namely, nobody has actually posted a compilation of all collected sources on employees laid off team-by-team.

Consider this a compilation for that reason. After the jump, I've put together a table including every current source for layoffs on a team-by-team basis, along with our most recent update for the team in question, the number of layoffs reported for that team, and a few choice notes whenever applicable. I'll keep updating this throughout the lockout as we get wind of new layoffs, or as unreported layoffs get reported. Please don't hesitate to email us at staff@gothicginobili.com if you have any news of further layoffs that we don't have yet, any more reliable sources to back up our general hodgepodge of news sites, or any anonymous tips for the teams we have no sources for. Or if you just like emailing people, I guess...?

• • •

=========================================================
============ SOURCED LIST OF LOCKOUT LAYOFFS ============
=========================================================
           LAYOFFs  AS OF        NOTES
NBA HQ     >200     10.24.11     Approx 200 leaguewide layoffs OUTSIDE teams.
ATL           0     10.11.11     Confirmed zero.
BOS           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
CHA           7     07.12.11     Includes their play by play guy.
CHI           0     10.31.11     Confirmed zero.
CLE           0     07.26.11     Confirmed zero.
DAL           0     11.02.11     Confirmed zero, with no plans for future layoffs.
DEN           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
DET          15     07.12.11     Have laid off "at least" 15.
GSW           ?        --        No source.
HOU          13     11.21.11     Laid off a department of 13 sales execs last summer.
IND           3     08.09.11     Originally reported zero, then didn't re-up three key scouts.
LAC           1     11.18.11     Let go D.J. Foster, former Website Content Coordinator.
LAL          20     07.22.11     Includes assistant GM
MEM           7     09.21.11     Recently laid off 7.
MIA           0     10.05.11     Confirmed zero, however, all staff has taken a 25% pay cut.
MIL          20     08.20.11     Source says "close to" 20.
MIN         >11     11.25.11     Definitely more than 11, most likely >15. See 11/25 change log.
NJN           3     11.10.11     Source: anonymous former NJN employee I happen to know.
NYK           ?        --        No source.
NOH           ?        --        No source.
OKC           ?        --        No source.
ORL           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
PHI           2     10.25.11     Only two scouts confirmed.
PHX           0     11.01.11     Confirmed zero.
POR           2     07.15.11     Only two confirmed.
SAC          11     05.14.11     Happened before the lockout in preparation for it.
SAS           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
TOR           ?        --        No source.
UTA           0     07.18.11     Confirmed zero.
WAS           0     11.05.11     Confirmed zero.
=========================================================

A few housekeeping notes. First, in one of the more recent sources for the leaguewide layoffs, it mentions that the league has counted "almost 200" lost front office jobs among teams. This list accounts for 115 lost front office jobs. That means that, without question, most of the nine "no source" teams have probably laid off workers. And some of the teams with low layoff numbers most likely have laid off more than have been reported. Again, I appreciate any clarification anybody can offer as to sources for these team's labor dealings throughout the lockout and any updates that escape my view. Just drop me a line either through email or in the comments. The best way to get good data here is to crowdsource it. So, spread the link around, and don't hesitate to fix any faulty info here. Stay frosty, folks.

CHANGE LOG

11/15 - List initially published. Zoinks!

11/18 - Updated to add the Clippers letting D.J. Foster go.

11/21 - Updated to add Rovell's find that the Rockets laid off 13 sales executives.

11/25 - A bit hard to sift through, but a new article declares that a 12 person T-Wolves broadcasting department has been cut from 12 people to 4 people over the last few months. Since the majority of the previously reported 11 were in sales, it stands to reason that of the 8 new layoffs at least a few of them are new. I've updated the Timberwolves number to reflect that we know it's greater than 11. If I had to guess. I'd put the intersection of these two sources at 15 or 16 confirmed layoffs.

Continue reading

This post is part two of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. I began, earlier today, a point-by-point analysis trying to determine what the players would do. The more I looked at the CBA, the more convinced I was that they'd take it based on the tenor of negotiations. I was wrong. They rejected it, disbanded the union, and plunged the NBA into nuclear winter. Not the players' fault, mind you. This is supposed to be a relatively neutral look at the CBA proposal and an honest delineation of its merits and demerits. Although it's now little more than a curiosity for the sake of itself, maybe by going through it I'll come to some epiphany about why the NBA is, for all intensive purposes, gone. I will continue to go through it, point by point. Though only God knows why.

• • •

3. Guarantees/Escrow

• NBA to guarantee players’ 50% share of BRI (or the applicable percentage between 49% and 51% if BRI Split “Option 2” is selected). If for any season aggregate player salaries and benefits fall short of the agreed-upon share of BRI, the difference would be paid by the NBA to the Players Association for distribution to all NBA players who were on a team roster in that season on such proportional basis as may be reasonably determined by the Players Association.
• 10% escrow withholding used in all seasons.
• If the 10% escrow is insufficient to reduce aggregate player salaries and benefits to the agreed-upon share of BRI, then the overage will be paid as follows: (i) first, from the new benefits pool to be funded with 1% of BRI (described in Section 15); and (ii) if an overage remains, from player salaries and benefits in a manner to be determined by the parties.
• Parties to agree on mechanisms to adjust Salary Cap and Tax levels as may be needed so as to ensure that the agreed-upon share of BRI is not exceeded

One word that was on the lips of most NBA players entering today's doomed discussions was escrow. So it may behoove me to stop here for a second and explain the concept of escrow to the uninitiated. Escrow is, essentially, the wiggle room that allows the BRI splitting system to work. When the owners send out paychecks to the players under their team's employ, a certain percentage of each paycheck is withheld and placed in an fund. This fund is the escrow withholding. At the end of the season, numbers are calculated to see what percentage of BRI the owners made and what percentage of BRI the players made -- in order to make those figures match the agreed upon BRI numbers, the escrow is divvied between the players and owners to match it. For instance, if the agreed upon split was 50-50 and the players made $2 billion to the owners $2 billion over a full season, all escrow salary would be returned to the players, as giving any of it to the owners would throw off the 50-50 balance. If, on the other hand, the players made, say, $2.2 billion and the owners made $1.8 billion, 100% of the escrow (0.2 billion) would be split among the owners to make the salaries even.

The actual calculations are quite a bit more complicated in the current CBA, as there's a 57-43 split, but the idea is generally the same. Escrow is the mechanism that allows the NBA's financial structure to hit certain BRI thresholds on a yearly basis. The percentage of each paycheck withheld in escrow has, in recent years, been slowly going down. While escrow was at a flat 10% after the last CBA, it went down to 9% in 2007 and was at a CBA-low 8% last year. Last year, due to a record high BRI figure, the players received 100% of their escrow funds for the first time in the new CBA -- normally, they received $20-30 million a season back from a figure that tended to be around $150 million. The NBPA also received a check for $21.6 million to fill the gap between the amount the players actually received and the amount they should've received.

The current escrow structure proposed isn't that much different than the current system. In fact, it really isn't different at all. Sure, if the owners spend more than 50%, under this system they would get to take money from the 1% of BRI designated for pension and player benefits (see: section #15) and keep all of the escrow, possibly dipping more into player salaries if they needed to. But that's, well, basically how escrow works. If the player salaries don't meet benchmarks, they get all their escrow and then get extra money from the league to split the difference. If there are any cap-heads reading this that have anything more to say on it, or have something to point out that I'm completely missing, I'd much appreciate the shout (especially Larry Coon, though I sincerely doubt he has time to read this). But under previous rules, any overage not covered by escrow would be taken from next year's escrow. Owners could overspend and then take 100% of the escrow in the previous system, with overage being taken from the NEXT year's escrow. This isn't new.

Ric Bucher's fearmongering about how the owners would never be disincentivized from spending so much that they take 100% of escrow seems to me rather silly and misguided -- that's an aspect that's present in the current CBA, and while it's not fun, it is what it is. What the players may be protesting is the imposition of a flat 10% escrow across all years of the new CBA -- a reasonable protest, but not really a game breaking one. If that's not it, they're essentially opposing the system of escrow itself. A reasonable battle, but not one that has any particular relevance given that the escrow system is far and away the most efficient way to reach the BRI targets that this and the old CBA demand they reach. The change in escrow is more an accounting change than anything else, and far from some kind of draconian salary death star that was going to bankrupt the league's players.

4. Maximum Length of Contracts

• Maximum contract length of 5 years for Bird players and 4 years for other free agents.
• Maximum of 4 new years for rookie extensions (except maximum of 5
  new years for a maximum-salary Designated Player rookie extension –
  team can have only 1 Designated Player on its roster at any time).
• Maximum of 4 total years for veteran extensions (e.g., 3 new years if
  extension signed during last year of player’s original contract).

For all the discussion about player movement being hurt (a discussion I'm in agreement with, this CBA proposal definitely hurt player movement with the tax issues and the exception cutbacks), this actually does help it. Even though it does so in a relatively shitty way for the players that they probably don't want to hear. Smaller contracts mean players will encounter free agency more often and ensure that there's more turnover for middle class guys, and more general fluidity around a few core players for each team. It also means bad contracts (the #1 source of wealth for many not-really-top-tier NBA players) will be shorter. Those players will be on the market more often, and going between teams more often.

You can make the relatively strong argument that this isn't the kind of movement players want, but you can also make the argument that players (at the end of the day) will encounter free agency more and have more control over their own landing spot with shorter contracts than they do in the current CBA. And you can make the argument that players will spend less time grossly underpaid. Well. Sort of. Until you get to the indefensible rookie clauses in this proposal. But lowering contract years in general is a good thing for player movement without the agency of teams.

5. Annual Increases

• _ Maximum annual increases of 6.5% for Bird and Early Bird players, and 3.5% for other players._

This is interesting, because while the numbers are less, the structure of raises changes marginally here. In the current CBA all raise calculations are based on the first year of a player's salary. For non-bird players, you get a yearly raise of up to 8% of your first year's salary -- for bird players, you get a yearly raise of 10.5% of your first year's salary. Under this, if I'm reading it correctly, the raises are compounded, meaning that your raise in year 3 is 6.5% of your salary in year 2, not year 1. I may be wrong, but that's how I read it.

Regardless, this is a no-frills concession demanded from the players based on the current CBA. A four percent decrease in Bird player raises and a five percent decrease in non-bird players is serious business. Essentially cuts your raises in half on all contracts going forward, and ensures that Joe Johnson (in the event of contracts not being voided) signed essentially the last full-max Bird right deal ever. Pretty grim. Lowering the years at least has the tertiary effect of giving players more free agency -- lowering the raises essentially hamstrings teams into giving smaller contracts and continuing the league maxim of underpaying superstars. Great success.

6. Minimum Salaries

• Minimum player salary scale reduced from amounts shown in 2005 CBA for 2011-12 in proportion to overall system reduction (i.e., approx. 12% lower than under the 2005 CBA). Scale grows by 3.5% in future seasons.

About the same, just scaled down for the BRI scaling. Scale grows by about the same amount it did before. This is status quo, although the pay decrease isn't great. It's a product of the BRI split -- with a 50-50 split, this is essentially a requirement.

7. Maximum Salaries

• Rules governing maximum individual salaries for new contracts are the same as under the 2005 CBA.

This could not possibly be more Status Quo-y.

8. Salary Guarantees

• _Salary guarantees remain the same as under the 2005 CBA; i.e., there will be no limitations on a player’s ability to receive 100% guaranteed salary in all seasons of a contract.
  _

Wait. Yes it could. It could be this one. This is more status quo-y.

9. Other Contract Rules

• __For new contracts, salary of waived players to be “stretched” for cash purposes such that the player’s remaining protected compensation would be paid over twice the number of remaining contract years plus 1 year.__In lieu of the usual Cap treatment, the waiving team may elect to have the waived player’s salary follow the stretched cash allocation, except that stretching a waived player’s salary for Cap purposes is not permitted where the portion of total team salary attributable to all waived players in any future season would exceed an agreed-upon percentage of the Salary Cap in effect during the season in which the player is waived.
• _ Team and player options are prohibited in new contracts with first-year salaries that exceed the average player salary. Team options in rookie scale contracts continue to be permitted. Non-minimum players with first-year salaries that exceed the average player salary may opt out of the last year of a contract if the contract contains zero salary protection for that last year._
• _ All salaries for 2011-12 to be prorated in proportion to the number of 2011-12 regular season games that are canceled
  _

A few things to unwrap here. First, the Eddy Curry stretch exception. Not really a big problem, given that this will be rarely applied and when applied will happen between that player's lawyer and the team, to ensure the salary paid is inflation adjusted and all that good stuff. Not really a big issue, especially since the player can sign somewhere else as well. Should make trades more interesting, if it is still there whenever the NBA comes back years from now. The second is essentially the Wes Matthews exception, making sure that undrafted rooks don't end up with crazy salaries of over $6 million dollars a year straight up. There was... well, virtually no danger of this happening, but I guess they wanted to protect from Kahn signing a D-League player to a max contract? Whatever. Lastly, pro-rating the current season's salary. Don't see an issue there, frankly -- you're paid to play the game, you play fewer games, you get less cash. I'd be shocked if this wasn't in here.

10. Rookies

• First-year salary amounts for first round picks are reduced from the amounts shown in the 2005 CBA for 2011-12 in proportion to the overall system reduction (i.e., approx. 12% lower than under the 2005 CBA). First-year salary amounts in future seasons’ rookie scales to increase by 3.5%. Year-to-year increases within each season’s rookie scale to increase by 3.5% in years 2 and 3 and by the percentages set forth in the 2005 CBA rookie scale for year 4.

Like minimum salaries, you knew the 50-50 BRI split would rear its ugly head at some point. This is where they chose to rear it. 12% decrease doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty big gap, especially given the already gaping maw between what top tier rookies should be paid and what they are paid. 1980 Magic Johnson? 1999 Tim Duncan? 2011 Derrick Rose? All of them deserve pay cuts, apparently! Granted, so do rookie Darko, rookie Thabeet, and other such busts. So it cuts both ways. Still. The 50-50 split has to come somewhere, and scaling the system back to account for it certainly does it.

11. Free Agency

• Sign-and-Trades -- Taxpaying teams prohibited from acquiring a free agent in a sign-and-trade, except during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. The maximum contract length for a sign-and-trade is 4 years, and maximum annual increases are 3.5%.
• Offer Sheets -- Period for a player's prior team to match an offer sheet that a restricted free agent receives from a new team shortened from 7 to 3 days.
• Qualifying Offer-- Qualifying Offer amounts for first round picks 16-30 who are “starters” (criteria to be determined by the parties) increased to a range of 55-65% over 4th year Rookie Scale amounts; picks 1-15 and picks 16-30 who are “non-starters” are the same as under 2005 CBA. Qualifying Offer amounts for non-first round picks who are “starters” increased to 140% over prior year’s salary (vs. 125%).All Qualifying Offers fully guaranteed.

The clause that purportedly blew up talks is the first one, here -- the sign-and-trade for taxpayers. Which is patently absurd, given that it has been used 3 times in the last ten years and two of those were Eddy Curry and Kwame Brown. And due to it not kicking in until year 3, it'd only be active in 4 years of the CBA if the players decide to use their leverage in the next negotiation to get it back. Though I seriously doubt they'd think it's worth that, because frankly, it's not worth using leverage to change. It means nothing.

The offer sheet caveat is more of a front-office thing, essentially meant to make sure teams don't mess up other teams a la the Houston Rockets screwing the Cavs last summer in free agency when Kyle Lowry was signed by Gilbert to a great and slightly overpaid contract. The Rockets sat on it a week while agents were getting signed, then suddenly and unexpectedly picked up the option leaving the Cavs with literally nothing to show for the summer. Still, don't think it's a bad addition. I like the qualifying offer pitch, too -- it ensures teams can't lowball their players as much as they tend to do. It's a rather cosmetic change, though the fact that they fully guaranteed the qualifying offer is decent of them.

• • •

I'm really angry and frustrated about the season's demise. Therefore, the last post of this series will be part analysis, part nuclear rant. I'd say "be there or be square", but really, it's an awful thing that makes me mad. My writing will probably suck. Regardless. Be here for the stirring conclusion wherein I determine whether this deal is worth the disclaimer. Spoiler: it's an awful deal and it probably deserves it. Further spoiler: I don't really care.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today.

Continue reading

This post is part one of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. Among the myriad terrible PR moves by both sides during this excruciating lockout, this is one of the more transparent and respectable things they've done. The majority of the lockout coverage has been through hearsay and anonymous sources. To actually release the proposal on the table publically both opens the NBA up to criticism and allows fans and media to actually take a look at the real proposal and figure out what they like, and what they don't. How bad of a deal is it, essentially? If the players blow up talks today and decide to decertify (edit: they did, making this more a retrospective curiosity than anything substantial -- not that I'm going to let that keep me from finishing the job), is it a reasonable response? Given that we now have the ability to do it, I'm going to put on my thinking cap and find out just how crummy the deal is. So let's go through it, point by point.

• • •

1. BRI SPLIT

Players to elect one of two system options:

• Option 1: BRI is split 50%/50% each season between the players and teams.

• Option 2: Same as Option 1, except in addition:

• Players receive a greater share of BRI to the extent BRI exceeds projections, and a smaller share of BRI to the extent BRI falls short of projections. Specifically, the players' share will be increased by 57% of incremental BRI in excess of projected BRI for each season, and will be reduced by 57% of the amount by which BRI falls short of projected BRI for each season.

• The players' resulting overall share of BRI in a season is no less than 49% and no greater than 51%.

So, here's the big pickle. Start the CBA proposal with the rat poison. The current BRI split is 57% for the players, 43% for the owners -- with, believe it or not, a flex exception that allows the player's component of BRI to increase if BRI goes over a certain threshhold (one that it never met, but came within 0.1 billion of happening last season and almost certainly would've happened this season). If it had, players would've gotten 57.5% of BRI, and they would've gotten 58% if BRI had ever gone above 4.8 billion (which probably would've never happened, but still). So, this is a really huge concession by the players. Enough so that you would expect some system levity going forward.

To wit -- full BRI was $3.81 billion last season. With a 57% cut, the players are cumulatively getting $2.16 billion. With a 50% cut? $1.91 billion. May not seem like a huge gap when calculated at the billions level, but that's $250,000,000 the players are giving up, straight off the top. That's huge. With the NBA's losses being reported as around $300,000,000 per year, this (plus revenue sharing, something that will be dealt with on the supply side) should essentially cover that. And that's if you believe the loss numbers. Personally, I don't, but that's a sticky issue we probably don't need to get into right now. Regardless. It's a huge concession. The owners getting the players to even consider agreeing to this level of BRI split is a measure of how thoroughly the players got flogged in these negotiations.

And, frankly, answers the question at the top of the post. If the players reject it based solely on BRI, I can't say I completely blame them.

2. System / Salary Cap

• System includes a Soft Salary Cap as under the 2005 CBA.
• Salary Cap and Tax levels set in relation to the projected escrow level (escrow level equals 50% of BRI, less Benefits, divided by 30) in same proportions as under the 2005 CBA. Salary Cap and Tax levels in years 1 and 2 to be no less than their 2010-11 levels.

Now, there's something relatively important here that isn't getting much play. Notice the last sentence of the second bulletpoint? The salary cap can't fall under 2011 levels for two years, and neither can the tax level. That's extremely important. Combined with some of the points I'll be getting into later, the fact that the cap can't fall from $58.1 million is a very player-positive development. The fact that the tax level can't drop below $70.3 million is a very player-positive development. And the fact that the players kept a soft cap -- even though the tax is on the edge of punitive -- is a good development both for the league and for player salaries going forward.

Let's go over the exceptions, starting with the new three-pronged midlevel.

• Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception: Set at $5M in years 1 and 2, growing 3% annually thereafter; maximum contract length alternates between 4 and 3 years; can be used every year.
• Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception: Set at $3M in year 1, growing 3% annually thereafter; maximum contract length of 3 years; can be used every year.
• Mid-Level Exception for Room Teams: A new Exception is available for teams that use Room under the Salary Cap (and therefore forfeit their Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level and Bi-Annual Exceptions). The exception allows a team using Room to thereafter sign one or more free agents to a contract with a total first year salary up to $2.5M and up to 2 years in length. Exception amount to grow 3% annually.

Really, not great for the players. Though the room exception is interesting, and new. And new exceptions are essentially always player-positive, since they usually will mean more players getting more money. The fact that they're cutting contract length will ensure better free agency periods for the fans, and keep owners from making bad mistakes (like, say, paying Ron Artest $6.7 million a year past his prime). So, they're reasonable changes. But not fun ones, and not easy ones to swallow. For reference, here's what the starting level of the contracts will be over the duration of this CBA. Numbers in millions:

.... 2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017 ..
TAX  3.00  3.09  3.18  3.28  3.38  3.48 ..
NON  5.00  5.00  5.15  5.30  5.46  5.62 ..
ROOM 2.50  2.57  2.65  2.73  2.81  2.90 ..

Not great, but looking at those contract numbers, they're not as awful as expected. The 3% annual growth ensures that these exceptions will both get relatively more palatable over the life of this CBA. It's a beefed up biannual for taxpayers and essentially the current midlevel adjusted for the overall lesser BRI share of the players. Not great. But not a shellacking, realistically.

The most interesting aspect of this is the "room" midlevel exception, a new feature that probably should be labeled the Miami Heat exception. Why? Essentially what it does is it allows teams that start free agency under the cap and fill all their cap room to sign one or two more non D-League players to small contracts. As a general rule, neither previous midlevel could be used by a team who used their room under the cap to sign contracts. This exception allows teams that fill their cap to fill in tertiary players on 1-2 year contracts valued at less than 2.5 million annually. Which isn't bad, if you're a ring chasing vet. This also has the 3% annual growth caveat, which should push the collected value of contracts signed with this exception up to striking distance of $3 million by the end of this CBA. Not bad. And a decent new exception that throws a bone to teams that try to build their own Heat level super-teams.

• _ Bi-Annual Exception can only be used by non-taxpayers. Amount set at $1.9M in year 1, growing 3% annually thereafter. Exception cannot be used in 2 consecutive years and has maximum contract length of 2 years (same as under 2005 CBA)_

This is actually a slight change from the current Bi-Annual exception -- it sets the value back from its current level of $2.08 million to $1.90 million, a difference of about $180,000 for players signed in the new Bi-Annual. Not a big concession, but a slight one that's worth calling out. All other terms of the exception remain the same.

• Disabled Player Exception set at lesser of (i) 50% of the disabled player’s salary, or (ii) the amount of the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception. Maximum contract length of 1 year. Exception available to be used to replace player who suffers season-ending injury (same as under 2005 CBA).

This is also a slight rollback. Under the current CBA, the maximum exception value is the lesser of 50% of the disabled player's salary or the average NBA salary (last season: $5.7 million). Under this rule it'll be the lesser of 50% of the disabled player's salary and $5.0 million, a difference of roughly $700,000. Though I would caveat that average player salaries will certainly decrease under this CBA, meaning that long-term the $5.0 million mark might be better for the players, if only marginally so. Overall, a wash.

• Traded Player Exception increased for non-taxpayers such that the amount a non-taxpaying team has available to replace a traded player or players equals the lesser of (i) 150% of salaries of players being traded plus $100,000, or (ii) the salaries of players being traded plus $5M. (For purposes of this rule, team is a nontaxpayer if its post-trade team salary is below the Tax level.)Traded Player Exception for taxpayers equals 125% of the salaries of players being traded plus $100,000 (same as under 2005 CBA). Base Year Compensation (BYC) in connection with the Traded Player Exception is eliminated, except in sign-and-trade transactions. Trades of players who otherwise would be subject to BYC prohibited until January 15. Criteria for whether a player is subject to BYC same as under 2005 CBA.

I don't really feel like going over the complicated intricacies of BYC right now -- it's complicated, annoying, and altogether hard to explain. The best source I can give you to glean your own understanding is here, where Larry Coon gives his take on it. He's a salary cap God, basically. Nevertheless. This is a relatively neutral development for players as far as I can see, as it basically just means that non-taxpayers will have more friendly math for their own trades. It'll be easier for teams under the cap to take back more than they give away, salary-wise, in trades. From an economic perspective I don't see how this impacts players so much as player movement. I could be wrong, though, and feel free to school me on this if you read it differently.

We're done with the exceptions, by the way. Overall, not player-positive, but the overall picture isn't entirely negative due primarily to the addition of the room midlevel. The increased ability of below-cap teams to take back more than they give in trades should lead to a more interesting trading market, too, which is fan-positive. Otherwise, the owners are placing small rollbacks on a few exceptions, but nothing too exotic other than the taxpayer midlevel that changes the old taxpayer midlevel into a beefed up bi-annual. Let's move on.

• _ Minimum Team Salary increased to (i) 85% of Salary Cap in years 1 and 2, and (ii) 90% of Salary Cap starting in year 3. _In years 1 and 2, Tax rate for teams with team salary above Tax level is $1-for-$1 (same as 2005 CBA).

Alright. While this is nothing like the BRI concession the players made, this is actually a relatively meaningful middle class-positive concession, especially given the circumstances. There's been a lot of rhetoric about how this proposal could kill the NBA's middle class. This is the owners' first (and, frankly, only) real attempt to combat that. What this means is that teams like the Sacramento Kings and the Charlotte Bobcats can't continue to operate with payrolls significantly under the cap -- the current minimum salary is 75% of the cap, and the 85-90% level is definitely going to change the way teams like that (and the Nets, and the pre-LeBron Heat) operate.

If a team wants to enter a free agency period with a lot of cap room, they can't just keep hoarding it and paying virtually nobody to play basketball for them. They'll need to sign players. This is a good improvement for the NBA's middle class, although it may have the tertiary effect of curtailing player movement a touch (in that it'll be harder for teams to clear cap room for big time free agency periods, though nowhere near impossible if their team is well managed).

• Beginning in year 3, Tax rates for teams with team salary above Tax level are as follows:
  

  Tax Level     Tax Rate

  $0M - 5M $1.50-for-$1 $5M - 10M $1.75-for-$1 $10M - 15M $2.50-for-$1 $15M - 20M $3.25-for-$1

• Tax rates increase by $0.50 for each additional $5M above the Tax level (e.g., for team salary $20M-25M above the Tax level, the Tax rate is $3.75-for-$1).
• Tax rates for teams that are taxpayers in at least 4 out of any 5 seasons (starting in 2011-12) increase by $1 at each increment (e.g., for team salary $5M-$10M above the Tax level, the Tax rate for a repeat taxpayer is $2.75-for-$1 instead of $1.75-for-$1).

A few thoughts on this. This isn't good for the players. That much is obvious. It means that it's going to get a lot harder for teams to pull a Dallas and spend gobs and gobs of money year in and year out to try and get a championship. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I think a progressive tax depending on the level to which you're overspending isn't an awful thing. It does make it essentially prohibitive to spend $15m+ over the tax line (remember, tax line is still up for negotiation, though even at current levels it'll be a good 12-15 million above the cap line). But there were only three teams that spent that much over the tax line last season, and teams that are that far over the line are actually relatively rare, historically. For example, back in 2007, only one team was over that line (the Knicks, at a cool $45 million over the tax line). This may not be as big of an issue as one would think. In fact, in the 2010-2011 season, out of seven taxpaying teams, four of them would be at the minimum tax level. It will be a change, but not a huge one.

There's also been a lot of ink spilled about the repeater tax. But really? This current agreement makes it essentially worthless. Seasons counted for the repeater tax START at 2011-2012, which means that the repeater tax is not going to be at all calculated until the 2017 season. Which means there will only be two seasons before the inevitable opt-out where the repeater tax is assessed at all. Two seasons! And they need to be taxpayers in 4 out of 5 years -- if they're close to the line a few years, they can make a small trade to get under the line. Or possibly apply the stretch clause. It's unlikely the repeater tax is going to affect more than 1 or 2 teams at a maximum -- in the 2011 season, it would have applied to the Mavs and the Lakers, and that's it. With the disincentive of the repeater tax present as a disincentive, the Lakers could've most likely taken a few mil off their salary in 2008 and kept from paying it. The Mavs were screwed. But if the tax is being paid only by Cuban, it's hardly going to be a big deal on a league-wise scale.

The remaining clauses to section two are essentially housekeeping -- non-taxpaying teams cannot receive more than 50% of tax revenue to ensure the non-taxpayers don't rip off the tax-payers. A team that uses the non-taxpayer MLE cannot turn around and balloon their salary above the tax line later in the season -- though, they can go over the tax line by less than $5 million so long as they do transactions later in the season to get under the tax line. Nothing too impactful, so far as I understand it.

• • •

Due to the length of the CBA proposal, I'm going to split this post into three distinct parts. The next post will cover article #3 (Guarantees/Escrow) to article #11 (Free Agency). The post after that will cover the remainder of the CBA proposal, with some overall thoughts about it and the union's rejection. Perhaps Alex and I will do a small thing with our joint thoughts on the disclaimer, depending on how thoroughly I choose to address it in this series. Regardless. Second part drops later today, while the third part will probably drop Tuesday morning. See you then.

Continue reading

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Ryan Anderson, Lamar Odom, and Samardo Samuels.

• • •

[018] Anderson, Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a pretty bro-ish player. He's a poor man's Rashard Lewis, though at this stage of Rashard's career, he's arguably better. Statheads tend to love him -- Kevin Pelton and John Hollinger are especially adamant about his value, Pelton comparing him to a young Dirk Nowitzki and Hollinger named him a Kevin Love all-star early last season. I don't quite disagree with the Dirk comparison, but I would add about twenty individual grains of salt to it. The thing you need to understand with Anderson is that he's underrated. The thing you need to then understand is that, despite being underrated, he's a relatively limited player. He shoots very well and has an underutilized post game, but up til now he's shown no ability to take up the possessions he'd need to eat to be a legitimate second option on a championship squad (which, if I'm honest, is exactly what he is on the Magic right now). His defense is poor. Not as bad as some no-D forwards, as he does put a bit of effort in on that end, but it's not good. His post game is underrated, and he's a decent rebounder on the offensive end (though that tends to cover up how poor he is on the defensive boards, and why he's only going to look particularly passable as a rebounder if he's placed next to a Dwight Howard or Andrew Bogut type).

I'm very hesitant to go with Pelton's per-36 stretch that Anderson is prime to be a new Nowitzki-lite, though, with reason #1 being Anderson's positively anemic career playoff averages. To wit, he averages 3.4 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 0.4 assists on 28% shooting (29% from three) in about 16 minutes per game. That's pretty awful. To the point that I can't accept any Nowitzki comparison on its face -- part of what makes Dirk great is that he's never really had an awful postseason. The closest thing to it was 2007, where he averaged 20-11 on poor 38% shooting. His first postseason? 23-8, on 42% shooting with a poor 28% from three. Anderson's game can be compared cerebrally to Dirk's. But until Anderson shows himself to have Dirk's sense of how to score on a competent defense, it's tough to really call him a potential franchise guy. Not to mention that he's got poor defensive fundamentals, much like young Dirk without his ability to score on strong defenses. Still. He's a promising young piece, don't get me wrong, I just don't see his ceiling in the same way Pelton does -- Pelton makes sure to caveat his piece by saying he doesn't see Anderson as an MVP-type player, but I disagree with the fundamental conclusion that Anderson can thrive in a larger role. His playoff performance seems to counter that.

As well as the fact that his game is predicated on the pass -- last season, for instance, Anderson was assisted on 98% of his threes, 66% of his long twos, and 100% of his shots from the true midrange. The only area of the court he wasn't assisted over 50% of the time was the post, where he was only assisted a respectable 38% of the time though he converted 60% of his shots there. Dirk has a better ability to create his own shot, which is why the offense runs through him more. Until Anderson learns how to create a shot outside the basket, he's going to continue to be the player he is today. That is, a no-D finisher who plays efficiently but needs quite a bit of work before he can work outside of his role. Off the court? Don't know much about him. He looks like a bro, though. Probably goes to frat parties with J.J. Redick and tries to get Dwight to toke up. ... Maybe not that last one. Definitely see frat parties in his past, present, and future, though.

• • •

[019] Odom, Lamar

Lamar Odom is a bit more well traveled as a dude than as a basketball player. At his core, he's a manchild -- completely addicted to candy, married to the generally uninteresting heiress Khloe Kardashian, has his own fragrance of perfume, and has appeared in a video with Linkin Park that I philosophically refuse to watch. The last one is true, by the way. Look it up if you doubt me, because I refuse to link to it. Absolutely, 100% refuse. No deal. As for his game? He's a stretch three/four depending on the matchup. Phil got a pretty good amount out of him at the three, though he can't stay there for a whole season. Very multifaceted game, honestly. Doesn't have good three point range, but he shoots the long jumper decently well and defends the power forward position about as well as he defends the small forward if he's matched there in small stretches. He's a very good weakside rebounder.

If I'm honest, there aren't many flaws in his game outside of his effort. Because no matter how nigh flawless he is when he's on... when he's off, Odom can be a player with absolutely no positive impact on the outcome of a game. Which is absolutely befuddling given his talent. It's almost like his sweet tooth infects his play -- this is patently absurd, but it's a decent metaphor. He plays as though he's consistently facing a crazy sugar rush. He unpredictably oscillates from amazing all-star level 20-15 kinds of dominant games to these nights peppered with atrocious 1-6 shooting with 3 rebounds in 37 minutes of underwhelming defense. It's like he has no control whatsoever as to his play, and you get the sense that while he could put in a lot more effort on his bad nights, his game is fundamentally broken when he has an off night. He comes and goes. Superstar to shitshow. Constantly.

To stick with the terrible metaphor I've been pushing this entire post, Lamar Odom is like sticking your hand in a candy jar on Halloween night. You can be the cool kid and pull out a full-on snickers bar that they didn't mean to put in the candy jar and hop away as the housewife stares longingly at the Snickers bar she did not mean to put there. Or, you know. You can grab one of those small packets of M&Ms with, like, one friggin M&M in it. And it's not even a cool color, it's just yellow or something. How do they get away with that? I bet David Stern owns Mars Candy.

Mars? More like Mar$$$.

• • •

[020] Samuels, Samardo

I think this is the first "wow, I really have to write about him?" player on my list. Samardo Samuels is the backup's backup's backup big man for the Cleveland Cavaliers. His game isn't particularly complicated. He's not a good scorer at the NBA level unless his man completely lays off him (something that happened relatively often, as he got to enter the league playing on a team nobody got up for in one of the worst teams in the last decade) and he's a pretty terrible defender. His only particularly useful trait is that he's a bulldog rebounder, which is a pretty decent trait to have, though not one that's going to make him an NBA starter anytime soon. He hustles, too, so that's worth something.

Still. He's undersized and unathletic. He tends to try and get his defender by doing an endless array of poor countermoves and bad footwork in a almost-always-unsuccessful attempt to make his defender forget that he's taller than Samardo. Which is depressing, as a Cavs fan. Possessions that end in Samardo taking a bad shot in the post are some of the worst moments of my life. Then again. He was responsible for one of my favorite moments of the 2011 Cavs season, where the Cavs beat the Knicks and Melo had no idea who Samardo was. That was probably his best game of the year. And probably the "this is the pinnacle of my talent" moment for Samardo's career. I feel like I'm being kind of harsh on him, honestly. He was an undrafted rookie last season. Like Manny Harris, he at least occasionally contributed. That's better than you'd expect, and should have him in the league for at least 3 or 4 years, if not more. True, he probably will never be a starter. But he hustled and when he succeeded it was fun to see him succeed. Can't ask for much more in an overutilized bench player.

Also, a few days ago, Samardo was involved in quite possibly the most hilarious out-of-nowhere twitter "scandal" I've seen in a long time. The guys at I Go Hard Now alerted me to it on Twitter. It was basically the best. Essentially, Samardo started ranting about how he was "addicted" to having sex with women and how he didn't hate gay people but he definitely, without question, was not gay. It seemed to come out of nowhere and it was totally worth spending a while on his twitter page trying to figure out what he was talking about. I can't do it justice here. Read up on it. And just remember: Samardo Samuels can't be homophobic. He went to St. Benedicts.

• • •

Sorry for the sparse updates the last few days. The post about depression wore me out, much like this lockout is doing.

Here's hoping it ends soon.

Continue reading

Depression is, at its core, a selfish disease. I once heard someone describe his depression as walking into a McDonalds and immediately being paralyzed with the fear that everyone in there was judging him. It obviously wasn't true -- after all, nobody was looking at him, and everyone was wrapped in their own little world. It's honestly a pretty narcissistic thing to assume that everyone in a room is waiting on your every move to judge you. But despite that, to the mind of many people who suffer from depression, the faintest sideways glance, the most imperceptible frown, the offhanded sigh -- all of them are magnified to impossible levels. Their existence all seem to inexplicably signify the weight of the sins and guilt a depressed man carries on a day to day basis. It isn't logical. It doesn't make sense. And people who are depressed realize that, dwell on it, and feel worse about it all. Because self-obsession is actively harmful when you legitimately hate yourself. But alas. Still happens.

Another thing most are familiar with is the "I can't get out of bed" type of depression. Those days when the weight of the world and living with the mistakes you've made -- many or few as those may be -- is too much and you simply cannot bring yourself out of bed without some sort of substance, or incentive, or -- for some people -- simply convincing yourself that if you stay in bed you're a terrible, horrible person. Thus perpetuating the cycle. It's always a cycle, really -- you try to do something, do it wrong, mentally eviscerate yourself for it, feel bad for doing that, etc, etc. You try to stop feeling sorry for yourself and end up playing a mental cat and mouse game, pretending you're Kevin Garnett and screaming at yourself like you're a misbehaving stanchion. Stop doing that. Be happy. Stop it. Why do you do this. Great questions, even without proper punctuation. But the answer always seems elusive.

I have lived the majority of my life with severe depression.

• • •

I try not to talk about it too much. In fact, I probably will refrain from linking this blog to any of my friends in real life for a few weeks while Alex and I pour on more player capsules and stories and games and other distracting things. This is my first particularly public mention of my depression on the internet. It is also my last. Because I'm only really writing about this in the context of basketball, because I feel like writing it down and I've long since realized that in this stupid lockout, there's really not a damn thing a fan can do besides write stuff down. We have no power. And we shouldn't really have any power, but that's not really in the scope of this piece.

Back in late 2009, I took a bad dive headfirst from "got the sads" depression into serious "you need help right now" depression. For a several month period of my life, basketball wasn't just a hobby to me. It was essentially my daily drug. Every day, I'd sit down after I'd done all the homework I could stand to get done and watch whatever NBA games were on. Grainy streams, all, but everything I could find. The Spurs and the Cavs -- my two favorite teams -- were doing well. LeBron was working miracles every night, and while I dislike him now, I will never forget just how happy his good games made me. For that dark, dark period of my life, where I felt alone and hated myself and couldn't bring myself to get over a sad breakup and the death of my very close grandmother. Basketball was the thing that got me up every day. "Hey, Aaron. Wake up. Yeah, you have a lot of bullshit to do today, but after you get off work you're going to watch a shitload of basketball and forget about every other thing in your life."

Got me out of bed, regularly. Got me on my feet again. Got me to where I forgot about the things that triggered my descent and eventually got OK. I didn't get well, I got OK. And getting OK is a momentous achievement to someone who was (and still is, to some extent) in a place as low-down as I was. And having finished college and moved on to a job I love, I am alright now. Sort of. I still have my bad days. Sometimes my very bad days. Days when my antidepressant isn't strong enough, where my girlfriend and I have a minor tiff that manages to set me off in the worst way, where I get stressed out about something and need to latch onto something to calm down. And those are the days that the NBA's sheer existence actually helps me out. Keeps me from going to bad places. Keeps me chugging along on my overachieving, gray hair-inducing, self-loathing life.

In the end, this blog exists in its own little corner of the internet, a project for me and Alex to work on our writing and hopefully entertain the few who happen across our work. I don't expect nor particularly desire your pity for being a poor man who has a dumb, annoying disease. I don't really know what I want. From you? Nothing, really. From the league? I just want basketball. When I watch the NBA, I know none of the players are judging me while I ceaselessly analyze their games. I know that the storylines, the narratives, the rivalries don't matter. I know that in the broader sense I'm wasting a whole hell of a lot of my life immersing myself in something trivial, something that simply doesn't matter. But I don't care. I love this sport. There's a dumb ad campaign from the early 2000s where teenagers cited what their anti-drug was. Mine is the NBA. Because for a few hours a night, when the league is on, I get to watch a game and feel normal. I don't focus on myself at all. I don't think about what the people around me are saying, or thinking, or analyzing about me -- I'm watching a silly game played by athletically gifted people and it's well within my rights to act silly. I may cerebrally know that few people judge me on a regular basis every day, but when I'm watching basketball, I'm too engrossed in the action to really tell.

So, I'm scared about basketball being gone. I'm scared about my favorite players, people who I hold in admittedly far too much respect -- Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Steve Nash, Anderson Varejao, et cetera -- I'm irrationally scared about never seeing them play my favorite game again, or having a bad day when I realize that there's not going to be basketball for quite some time. My opinion on this matter sincerely DOESN'T matter. I say this knowing that full-heartedly. This is a labor issue, and the owners have lowballed the players to the point that the players are fully entitled and (quite frankly) probably SHOULD reject their offer. It's insulting. It's disgusting. It was made in bad faith and the owners are well aware of it. But I really, really want a deal. I want it so that I can selfishly reimmerse myself in basketball -- I don't even care if my teams are good. Because I love the league. I have a favorite player on every team, and there are hundreds of guys I want to see succeed in this league, and in this sport. It helps keep me grounded, in a lot of ways. Therapy helps. Medication helps. But having something to immerse myself in, a hobby where I feel I have true confidence in my opinions, observations, and actions? That's just invaluable.

When LeBron said after the finals that his haters will "wake up tomorrow with the same life and problems as they did the day before" it struck extremely deep for me. Because that's what basketball is, for me. As Scott Raab turns to drugs and idolatry and too many of my other depressed friends turn to alcoholism and smoking, I use my love for -- some would say my obsession with -- the NBA to keep me from making choices I'll regret and getting attached to substances that'll get me horrifically addicted. Or any other number of sins I could jump to. It's an escape, and I admit that. But there are far worse sins than basketball. But in the end, LeBron is absolutely right. If I'm honest. When the lights go out, I do indeed have to return to my life and the same problems I had the day before.

And with the lockout looming large, that's exactly what scares me the most.

Continue reading

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Andray Blatche, Hasheem Thabeet, and Kyle Lowry.

• • •

[015] Blatche, Andray

I'm going to be honest. I don't like the current Wizards team. John Wall is nice, but Javale McGee is an overrated shot blocker with poor defensive fundamentals and little offensive talent. Nick Young is a chucker with no particularly glaring redeeming factor. I agree with David Thorpe that Yi had some promise when he entered the league, but he's pretty clearly failed to capitalize on it and at this point shows little in the way of signs that he'll ever put it together. Rashard is still a passable 3rd or 4th man on a contender when he's healthy, but honestly, is there any chance he's going to show up properly motivated to play on this terrible Wizards team? No. And don't get me started on Al Thornton. No, the Wizards are a bad team -- overrated as a possible playoff team in the east (which, while true that they could sneak in if EVERYTHING goes right, it's really phenomenally unlikely) and with very little in the way of future prospects outside of the fact that they have a franchise point guard and a never-ending stream of high draft picks to play with. Jan Veasley is a good start -- from the film I've seen, he looks like he's gonna be a stud.

But this all ignores the most unlikable part of the entire Washington Wizards roster -- Andray Blatche, of course. There is no redeeming quality behind Blatche's play for me. Statistically, he's a semi-all-star type player -- 17-8-3 is a pretty solid statline, and he certainly had his share of decent games last year. In fact, I watched two of them. His 34-19 game against Cleveland and his 25-17 game against Charlotte, to be exact. Those are beast games. Star-level numbers, even. But watching his game is just... it's an excruciating experience, to say the least. He took 32 shots in the Cleveland game and would've taken more if his teammates didn't exclude him from possessions occasionally to make sure they got to work with the offense. If he gets the ball, he tries to end the possession. That's his maxim, essentially. There's only one player in the league with a worse tendency to take bad shots than Blatche, that being Demarcus Cousins. There's only one player who fights their teammates for rebounds as much as Blatche does (hint: he also plays for the Wizards). And frankly, there aren't any players who immediately come to mind for more prick-headed and lazy on the court.

His actual skills? Well, if he reined in his shot selection, he'd be a passable shooter for his position. When he stops fighting his teammates and simply shows some grit on the boards he's not all that bad. He has horrible, horrible defense in every conceivable way but has the frame to be an average defender if he puts his mind to it. Unfortunately for the wizards, he won't. And as I said, if he reined in his shot selection, he'd be a passable shooter -- as is, he's the modern day incarnation of Antoine Walker. He takes over 15 shots a game despite shooting under 45%, playing less than 36 minutes a game, and taking only 18 threes on the season -- that's about as bad as you can get, shot selection wise. Two turnovers a game. Enough bad decisions to make everyone watching him unhappy. Why is he considered a franchise cornerstone for the Wizards, again? Just wondering, guys.

• • •

[016] Thabeet, Hasheem

Time for a Controversial Opinion about Hasheem Thabeet. The opinion in question: he's going to have an 8-9 year career in the league at a minimum, and will carve a role as a niche roleplayer near the end of his career. I don't have many reasons to think this, if I'm honest. Thabeet has shown his offensive skills to be utterly nonexistant, and while he's a shot blocker, he's a blocker of more the Manute Bol type than the Alonzo Mourning type -- IE, a blocker who goes for highlight blocks instead of truly getting his man down. He jumps for low difficulty blocks in blatant stat padding. And his offensive skills are minimal at best. To say he's a 7'3" tall bust at the second pick is beyond accurate. At this point in his career, he's played about as much time in the D-League as he has in the big leagues, and it's soon going to be time for him to put up or shut up.

Personally, I don't think he's going to be out of the league that easily. Lost in his complete lack of basketball ability is the fact that he still is 7'3", and the barriers to entry of him being a productive nba player are virtually nil. Whether or not he deserves it, Thabeet is going to be picked up constantly in the next ten years, always by teams who think their big man coaches are going to do what no others have done and make a productive and useful player out of him. They may succeed -- he's tall enough that, if he had any moves whatsoever, he could simply place the ball daintily in the hoop. His rebounding is poor, his post defense is poor... really, at the moment, his only particularly redeeming quality is that he is decent at helping on defense to cover for a poor defensive four. At the moment, that's the sum total of his skills. But Thabeet is probably going to be much like the sirens of Odysseus to a number of NBA teams -- coaches that refuse to take no for an answer, refuse to believe that Thabeet will never put it together, and think that he's one coaching session away from being a competent backup big. But nevertheless. In order to put in context how hilarious Thabeet's draft location is, here are players from his draft class who are better than Hasheem Thabeet despite being drafted below him.

Pick   Player (Team)
3   James Harden (OKC)
4   Tyreke Evans (SAC)
7   Stephen Curry (GSW)
9   DeMar DeRozan (TOR)
10  Brandon Jennings (MIL)
12  Gerald Henderson (CHA)
13  Tyler Hansbrough (IND)
17  Jrue Holiday (PHI)
18  Ty Lawson (DEN)
19  Jeff Teague (ATL)
20  Eric Maynor (UTA)
21  Darren Collison (NOH)
23  Omri Casspi (SAC)
25  Rodrigue Beaubois (DAL)
26  Taj Gibson (CHI)
29  Toney Douglas (NYK)
30  Christian Eyenga (CLE)
36  Sam Young (MEM)
37  DeJuan Blair (SAS)
38  Jon Brockman (SAC)
39  Jonas Jerebko (DET)
41  Jodie Meeks (PHI)
43  Marcus Thornton (NOH)
44  Chase Budinger (HOU)
55  Patty Mills (POR)

Twenty-five players. Yikes, Thabeet. You better hope Odysseus can teach a good jump hook.

• • •

[017] Lowry, Kyle

Kyle Lowry is currently the best player on the Houston Rockets. Rather shocking statement, actually, but it's 100% accurate. At the start of last season I would've said that was Scola, but despite Scola's excellent opening act to the 2010-2011 season, Lowry had his number by the end. In the same way that Manu Ginobili and Amare Stoudamire absolutely destroyed all opposition after the all-star break in 2010, Lowry was quite possibly one of the most valuable players in the league after the all-star break, posting an insane 20-5-8 line in the month of march on 47-43-87 shooting and in a conservative 36 minutes per game. Anyone remember how the Rockets almost snuck into the playoffs despite their god-awful start to the season? That was essentially all on Lowry, who played better than any other point guard in the last two months of the regular season, and spent the season strengthening his vice grip on the title of "best defender at the point guard position."

It has been written that Lowry's breakout may be a case of small sample size bias, and I agree. I don't think Lowry is the kind of player who is going to average 20-5-8 in a full season. But it's worth noting that ending a year with a streak of amazing performance, if consistent enough, doesn't often evaporate. Amare and Manu came off their torrid 2010 closing acts to be strong MVP candidates for the first few months of the 2011 season. And Lowry is younger than either of them, and roughly at the age and minutes threshold where a point guard will start to reach his peak. I don't think a 16-4-7 line is out of line for Lowry, and if you look at NBA point guards, that's a top five line. Especially when you're running a team as efficiently as Lowry, and defending the other team's best perimeter player every possession down the court. And taking charges without flopping, like a boss. He's essentially the worlds most anonymous almost-elite point guard, and could be considered our generation's poor-man version of Jason Kidd. I look forward to seeing if Morey can leverage what he's got to fill this Rockets team in with pieces that let Lowry break out -- in particular, I'd love to see a team with Lowry, Iggy, Scola, and a lockdown defensive big. That wouldn't be a championship contender, but it would be an incredibly fun team to watch.

Anyway, stop underrating Lowry, it's getting aggravating.

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I'm tired, so no daily riddles today. Goodnight, folks.

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As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys — none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's player is KEVIN GARNETT, whose name we will put in all caps to ensure he knows we are giving him the proper respect. Don't kill us, KEVIN.

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[014] GARNETT, KEVIN

Kevin Garnett can't read.

Now that I've started with the most important sentence of the piece (and one that I will explain later), I will try to explain my horrendously complicated feelings on Kevin Garnett. I'm not one of those people who thinks that KG at his prime was really equivalent to Duncan at his prime. I know there are some, and I don't think they are altogether lacking in a point, but I simply don't think that you win four titles with KG in Duncan's place. One, maybe. Two, possibly. Four? No way. There's no way KG dominates New Jersey the way Duncan did in 2003 with the battered and old Spurs team that was behind him, or even simply beats the Lakers. I don't think Garnett leads the Spurs back from being down hard in game seven in 2005. I don't think 1999 Kevin Garnett would stand much of a chance at a title, and while I think he'd still win 2007's title, I wholly admit that 2007 was the only title of Tim's 4 where Tim wasn't the first, second, and third options on his team -- he was merely the first*. Regardless. Perhaps he'd have won 2006 as well, or broken through in 2003 or 2004. Perhaps he'd still have 4 titles. But I sincerely doubt it.

* Yes, goddamnit, he deserved that finals MVP. He had more support in 2007 than ever before, but he still wholly deserved that MVP.

No, I'm not particularly conflicted about his basketball talents. Dirty though he may be, KG is a top six power forward in league history. Duncan is first, Malone is second, and KG is in a nice little bubble with Dirk, Barkley, and Kevin McHale. Maybe Elvin Hayes -- I honestly haven't seen much of him, so I don't feel comfortable rating him. The other six, though? They're the class. And KG is among them. Not at the head, as Duncan pretty well laps the crowd, but he's among the stragglers. Not a bad place to be, all things considered. And in all the whining about LeBron's "horrible" Cleveland teams and offhand comparisons to Kevin Garnett's awful Timberwolves teams rather ignores the fact that his Timberwolves teams were roughly 200x as bad as LeBron's Cavs teams.

After Ferry got into town, he got LeBron a great shooting close to all-star point guard who let him run the offense, a close to all-star big man who has and always will be incredibly underrated (Big Z in 2007-2009, until the playoffs), a veteran defensive wizard who still had stuff in the tank (Ben Wallace), the only man in the league fat enough to guard Dwight Howard (Shaquala Williams, clearly), and a competent cast melded around LeBron's skillset, flaws and all, so that LeBron could be the best player he could possibly be. Oh, and he also got the best defensive system coach around to make sure that the team's problems could be hidden. And would always spend on draft picks and refuse to make sure the Cavs had the biggest chance they could have. KG? He had... Sam Cassell. And that was pretty much it. Terrible coaching every year he was there, terrible teammates, an owner that didn't spend a dime to keep KG around, and quite possibly the worst NBA market in the league. Remind me again why people consistently compare the two situations? KG didn't do as well in Minnesota because Minnesota didn't do as well as Cleveland to put a team around him. Not to mention KG in his prime was worse than LeBron in his last few Cleveland years. But that's a whole other turkey.

Regardless, I'm not really conflicted about his basketball talents -- very talented, but I think I have a proper sense of where an all-hustle all-grit defensive savant with a knack for filling the box score belongs. What I'm truly conflicted about is KG as a person. Because there are a lot of times I think about KG and I feel a whole lot of sympathy. And you should too. Did you know that KG lost his closest Timberwolves teammate, best friend, and college idol in a car crash early in his NBA career? Because he did. Malik Sealy, in case you were wondering. There's a relatively well done interview on the subject. KG cries. If you think you know a damn thing about KG and you haven't seen this interview, you're utterly mistaken. And KG, more than most, has a legitimate case for being enormously misunderstood throughout his career. While he has a bully-ish sense of humor, he's a pretty funny guy. No Shaq, no Duncan, but it's a great sense of humor that's fun to watch when he's not being super obnoxious. Like this. Or perhaps this would suit your fancy. Both great examples -- hilarious, classic KG. And the side of KG that has gotten virtually no play in his career in favor of the "KG is literally a crazy person" narrative.

Which brings us to the unfortunate part of this post, and the part where my conflict begins. Ever since KG was traded to Boston, he began a slow descent into proving that pesky narrative right. The playful though intense and colorful KG of Minnesota was replaced by -- frankly -- pure unadulterated lunacy and screaming. When he was with the Wolves, his intensity always struck me as a very real manifestation of a suffering star who really wanted to win, but was simply hamstrung by a terrible situation. And when he first got to Boston, I gave him something of a pass -- he hadn't won a title yet. He'll ramp it down when they win something, and go back to being a KG that a man can root for. Right? Hah. No. I absolutely positively detest the KG I see on the court now. I can't stand Boston games, and it's primarily because of him and Pierce. He has chosen to deal with his body breaking down by transferring what used to be defensive acumen based on athleticism and his crazy lift for "hey, if I stealthily elbow you in the gut, maybe you'll be slower and easier to defend" and general dirty tricks on that end. And, obviously, his intensity has gone from "hah, ringless vet getting at it" to "wow, this guy needs some anger management classes." He has told rookies that wanted his autograph to fuck off. He refuses to pick fights or even react to players who ACTUALLY have the ability to hurt him, and now focuses all his trash talk on undersized bigs and guards -- people who pose no real threat to him.

Which leads me to be about as conflicted as I could possibly be about him, at this point. I remember rooting for KG, back in the day. It was fun. And I wish there was a way to do that now without feeling like I'm rooting for a schoolyard bully. Who can't read. And now that I've used it a second time, I'll explain the line. There was a post on CelticsBlog about two years ago where they were discussing one of Garnett's injuries. It was pretty sad. He was gonna be out for the season. The comments were a bunch of people discussing their issues and things they thought KG needed to do. I don't usually read comment threads, but something compelled me to keep reading. So I did. And there was some joke about how Kevin Garnett couldn't read. I laughed, because it made no sense but seemed like a KG kind of joke. Then I read another. And another. I linked Alex, and we kept scrolling and scrolling, eventually stopping at a count of about 37 comments mentioning in some form or another how Kevin Garnett couldn't read.

Then, just as soon as we finished, I saved the HTML for safekeeping and Alex reloaded to see if there were any more. There weren't! Because, as it turns out, the admins deleted all of the posts and were most likely in the process of deleting them when Alex and I found them. The posts had begun about ten minutes prior, which means for anyone else to have read them, they would've had to have been at the website in that ten minute interval with the two of us. Highly unlikely. So I doubt I'll ever get any kind of confirmation as to what the hell kind of a ridiculous trolling concept that was or where it came from. Which is a shame, because the "Kevin Garnett can't read" meme is probably the most hilarious meme I've ever heard of. Just imagine -- KG at a library, just getting furious because he cannot access any of the information around him. Just, steam billowing out of his head, an insatiable urge to beat a stanchion, etc.

Man, KG is fun to write about.

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And now, the daily riddles.

015: I honestly don't think there's a less entertaining to watch player in the league than this guy.
016: While he is a bust, I think he's gonna get minutes next season. Whenever that may be. He might pull a Kwame surprise.
017: Might be the single most underrated point guard in the NBA, bar none.

Until next time.

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