Hornets create buzz in Southwest
Paul Forrester
If the Western Conference is the best in the NBA, the Southwest Division is responsible for the honor. Four teams won more than 50 games. (Yes, the Grizzlies lost 60 and handed the conference crown to the Lakers, but those are just details, right?)
Though the league is focused on catching the Celtics, the Southwest has been waging an inter-division arms race for years. This summer was no different with the Rockets' addition of Ron Artest, the Mavs' addition of a new coach and the Hornets' addition of former Celtics glue man James Posey. Who made the right moves? Who didn't? Let's see ...
New Orleans Hornets
What went right:
Chris Paul decided to call New Orleans home through 2012.
Locking up the league's best point guard with a three-year deal, including a fourth year at the player's option, should ensure that the Hornets remain a playoff regular. It also serves as a tasty carrot to attract difference-making free agents.
James Posey placed a bet on the next big thing.
With a plethora of le aspirants interested in his services, the league's new Robert Horry opted for the Hornets' potential. Yes, a four-year, $25 million contract helped, especially when most of Posey's other suitors weren't offering more than the midlevel exception of $5.6 million per season. Still, Posey knew what he was doing by eschewing the likes of his hometown Cavs and his previous employer, the Celtics, who won their first le in 17 years with Posey's help.
Posey has that "it" factor, which teams on the cusp of the Finals feel could be their missing ingredient. His defense will be crucial in defending the West's many weapons and his three-point shooting will prove a welcome burst of offense from a previously underpowered bench. But counting on a Finals berth will be asking a lot from a 31-year-old bench player who hasn't shot better than 43 percent in any of the last four seasons.
The fans bought in.
Overlooked amid the NBA's show of support for New Orleans is a clause in the Hornets' lease that allows them to leave if they don't average at least 14,735 fans per game from December 2007 through the end of the '08-09 season. With 10,000 season tickets sold for the first time since the team arrived in New Orleans in '02, and after selling out most of last season's second half, the Hornets are a lot more likely to remain in the Big Easy and not embarrass the league by packing their bags and moving on.
What went wrong:
Jannero Pargo got his passport stamped for Russia.
Following in Josh Childress' footsteps, the six-year veteran decided to play overseas next season, inking a one-year contract with Dynamo Moscow, reportedly for almost $4 million. Ostensibly a point guard, Pargo rarely found a shot he wasn't willing to take -- a trait that shot the Hornets out of some games (see: Game 7, 2008 Western Conference semifinals) -- though his itchy trigger finger did provide a necessary boost of adrenaline for a bench that often offered little support on the scoreboard.
George Shinn still owns them.
Not only did Shinn dismantle a solid Charlotte franchise to make leaving town a lot easier, but also he got an escape clause in his New Orleans lease -- and this is a guy who claims that he's tired of moving his teams. No fan can feel secure in his team's long-term viability when Shinn is the owner.
Grade: A-
Try as we might, we just couldn't find a whole lot this team didn't do right during the offseason. The Hornets locked up Paul to a new deal, addressed their iffy bench and overall tenacity with Posey, and moved a good deal closer to remaining in New Orleans for longer than its owner perhaps wanted. With good health, this team will be in the Western Conference finals next spring.
Dallas Mavericks
What went right:
Rick Carlisle took the helm.
After back-to-back first-round playoff knockouts, and a helpful nudge from Jason Kidd -- who reportedly told a friend, "When I got [to Dallas], the players all thought [Avery Johnson] was crazy. And he was" -- the beleaguered coach was shown the door after four seasons. Shuttled in from the broadcast chair was Carlisle, who has won 57 percent of his games as an NBA coach and doesn't just talk defense, but knows how to coach it. Then again, Carlisle also knows how to rub teams the wrong way with his demanding ways, a trait that paved his way out of Detroit and Indiana and may not sit well with the notoriously headstrong Kidd and the oft-sensitive Dirk Nowitzki.
Josh Howard is still a Maverick.
After Howard's dismal postseason performance and poorly-timed admission -- in the middle of the Mavs' first-round playoff series against New Orleans -- that he'd used marijuana during the offseason, rumors arose that Dallas was entertaining the thought of trading away the versatile small forward. Owner Mark Cuban may be many things, but he isn't stupid, which is why Howard is still a Mav. Small forwards who can score inside and out, attack the glass, and are willing to play defense are hard to find.
What went wrong:
DeSagana Diop received a raise.
Employing a player who has never averaged more than three points per game or as many as six rebounds for his defensive prowess is common practice in the NBA, but paying him $31 million for the next five years is uncommon exuberance, to put it nicely. Cuban has never been shy about blowing through the salary cap and into the luxury-tax stratosphere, but deals the likes of Diop's clog the avenues a team needs to make further moves. Such flexibility will be vital for Dallas in the tightly-packed Western Conference.
Jason Kidd didn't get any younger.
Look, Kidd once was the league's best point guard, a player capable of turning a team's fortunes around to a degree surpassed only by Shaquille O'Neal in his prime. But anyone from LeBron James to the Mavericks' front office crew who thinks that Kidd can make a similar impact now didn't watch him last season. They didn't see him mail in the first 51 games while shooting a career-low 36 percent from the field or that he was benched late in games after he arrived in Dallas because he's a shadow of his former self. At age 35, Kidd won't find an extra gear this fall.
Grade: C
Clearly this team had tuned out Johnson. But will the hard-driving Carlisle have its ears for very long? Of course, he may not need very long with Kidd sliding toward the end of his career. For a team that boasted one of the youngest and talented cores only two years ago, the le window appears to be closing. It will be hard to keep it propped open with the more balanced Lakers and Hornets emerging as the dominant Western powers. If Carlisle can't get this club past the first round in the spring, a housecleaning could be next.
Houston Rockets
What went right:
Ron-Ron's in town.
To some, Ron Artest is the embodiment of all that sent the NBA's stock plunging in the post-Jordan era. To the Rockets, he's the catalyst who can get them past the first round of the playoffs. Yes, his mercurial ways will be a risk to locker room harmony, but defense like his isn't found in a 10-day contract, nor is his ability -- and willingness -- to score. On a team filled with useful but limited role players, adding a third point of attack can only help navigate the deep Western waters.
Yao Ming healed.
After seeing his second straight season come to an early end due to injury (a broken left foot in February), Yao appeared to have recovered by the Olympics, where he averaged 19 points, 8 rebounds and more than a block per game. That's good news for a club that was forced to employ a 41-year-old Dikembe Mutombo as its starting center in the playoffs.
They added some size.
Big men don't come cheap once they are in the league, but the draft still offers a chance to beef up at a reasonable rate, something the Rockets demonstrated in dealing for defensive-minded power forward Joey Dorsey during the draft and fellow rookie forward Patrick Ewing Jr. with his 42-inch vertical leap via the Artest deal. Neither may reek of superstar potential, but they will bolster the understaffed frontcourt.
What went wrong:
Dikembe Mutombo is still the backup center.
Not many people could average 3 points, 5 boards and more than a block per game in the NBA, and there's only one who did it at the ripe old age of 41 last season. But that doesn't mean he should a le contender's primary backup to a Yao, who hasn't taken the floor for more than 57 games in a season in three years. Not when there are spry Amare Stoudemires to slow down or dominating Tim Duncans to wrestle.
Carl Landry and the team faced off.
Landry, a 2007 second-round draft pick who averaged 8.1 points, 4.9 rebounds and shot better than 61 percent as a rookie, has spent most of the summer waiting and wondering. Why won't the Rockets make an offer more lucrative than the one-year qualifying amount until he undergoes an extensive medical examination of the sore right knee that caused him to miss seven games last season? Would they match any outside offers for the restricted free agent, as they've said they will? Is Europe a palatable option for landing the lucrative contract Landry feels he's earned? Until those questions are answered, one of the league's most underrated big men will sit and a frontcourt that's low on experienced size will suffer.
The bench needs dentures.
Houston's reserve corps is long on grit, but short on bite. Brent Barry, Shane Battier and Luther Head can seal a game with their shooting, but just as easily blow it when they go cold. Clearly this didn't stop the Rockets from reeling off 22 consecutive wins last season, but it will be the sort of shortcoming that GM Daryl Morey must address at the trading deadline.
Grade: B+
This team will only go as far as a healthy Yao can take it. Artest doesn't change that equation, but he gives the Rockets another weapon for getting through the long regular season and, perhaps, locking up some games early enough to keep Yao on the bench. A bench that lacks punch, though, will test those efforts. It's a weak spot that the Rockets' draft may help a bit, but for a team with aspirations as large as this one has, rookies likely won't make much difference. Morey will. He's subtly added useful support pieces (Luis Scola, Artest) to make Houston more than the two-man team that it was. His work isn't done, but he got off to a good start this summer.
Memphis Grizzlies
What went right:
A new brand of Gasol.
Part of the return for trading Pau Gasol to the Lakers, and handing them the West le, was Pau's younger brother, Marc. A 7-foot, 280-pound center who averaged 16 points, 8 rebounds and almost two blocks per game last season in Spain, the younger Gasol comes at a cheaper price and, if his performance at the Olympics is any indication, with a lot more aggression in the low post.
Mayo in the mix.
No matter what T-shirt slogan the No. 3 overall draft pick inspires, the 6-4 combo guard gives Memphis the promise of one of the West's most dynamic backcourts. With Mike Conley at the point, Mayo will be free to create or fire away from outside, which he did to the tune of 41 percent in his one season at USC. Mayo's ego has been fed by carte blanche coaching from AAU to the Pac-10, so catering to it will be vital. The Grizzlies' struggles on the floor are likely to tempt an upstart rookie into trying to take over before he, or his teammates, are ready.
They were prudent financially.
For all of the heat that GM Chris Wallace took for trading Gasol, he rightly assessed that the Grizzlies were a lot farther from Western contention than a player or two. Rather than blow the cap space he earned in the Gasol deal on a field with few appealing unrestricted free agents and a slew of restricted ones, Wallace banked the dough, presumably for a time when talent is more available and Memphis is a more attractive option for free agents. (He really banked it after his five-year, $58 million offer to RFA Josh Smith was matched by the Hawks.) A season of letting a club with an average age of 24 to percolate and mature should better allow Wallace to assess how best to allocate those millions next summer and beyond.
What went wrong:
They were prudent financially.
The Grizzlies could have opened their pocketbook a little, if for no other reason than almost anybody they bring in can help a team that won only 22 games. Further, Memphis' war chest of cap space may not go as far next summer when as much as half of the league could have space to play with. The bank didn't have to be broken, but it wouldn't have hurt to shake it a bit.
The point guard still has three heads,
Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry battled all of last season to win the starting role only to be rewarded with a third contender for the job: rookie Javaris Crittenton, who arrived via the Gasol trade. With more than a few teams in desperate need of a point man, the Grizzlies held onto their bounty as if it were the last piece of a tasty cake. Potential, though difficult to give up on, is often easier to trade than a player who has been relegated to the bench after the victor in a job battle has emerged.
The front line is still thin.
Adding Gasol the Younger and drafting promising Kansas forward Darrell Arthur added needed size and athleticism to the frontcourt, but Memphis likely won't address the scoring needs of a line that sports but a single player who averaged more than 12 points a game last season: Rudy Gay.
Grade: B
Rebuilding takes time, and the Grizzlies appear determined to take as much time as they can. For the most part, that's a sound strategy, given the deep organizations ahead of them in the West. But the key to being a successful GM is knowing when to capitalize on the right opportunities at the right time. Rolling into the season with three potential starting point guards and a boatload of unused salary-cap space suggests that Wallace is like a fantasy owner who has been left with too much money at the end of an auction. He's a good judge of talent, and his steps this summer were under-the-radar savvy, but they had better only be the start.
San Antonio Spurs
What went right:
Kurt Thomas returned.
After escaping Seattle at the trade deadline, Thomas decided re-up for another two years in San Antonio. There was no reason not to. Thomas did his penance for seven years in the Knicks circus before soldiering through a tenure on a Suns team that wasn't geared to utilize his low-post talents. It's about time he spent some time with a club that not only knows how to use him, but needs his abilities. Duncan is now 32 and sporting significant wear on his tires, so sparing him as many regular-season minutes is crucial to the Spurs' postseason fortunes. Rugged 6-9 forwards such as Thomas, who average almost 10 points and more than 7 rebounds a game, can help in that cause.
The backcourt expanded.
Free-agent signees Roger Mason and rookie George Hill may inhabit the lower tiers of the Spurs' depth chart for now, but injecting athleticism and shooting range into a backcourt so thin that it had to add Damon Stoudemire in the middle of last season can only help a team that must deal with the varied styles of its Western rivals.
Michael Finley returned.
Maybe Finley isn't quite the dirty-work glue guy that many consider Posey to be, but career 37 percent three-point shooters aren't easy to find. The Spurs have one, and they were wise to keep someone who can produce some offense from the bench while stretching a defense at the same time.
What went wrong:
They didn't turn back the clock.
If being the league's oldest team -- average age of 29 -- isn't enough to test the Spurs' legs over the course of a 100-plus game season, the fact that San Antonio has played an average of 15.5 playoff games a season in the Duncan era sure will. There isn't much the Spurs can or should do as long as they remain a le contender, but their odometer will again test Gregg Popovich's willingness to limit the minutes of his best players even if it costs a win -- or a playoff seeding -- during the regular season.
The foreign pipeline dried up.
Regularly drafting late each June, the downside of garnering high playoff seeds, the Spurs have long tapped relatively unknown foreign talent and let it mature overseas until both parties need each other. That influx of fresh blood dried up this year when Tiago Splitter, a 6-11 Brazilian center drafted No. 28 in 2007, re-signed with Spanish league club Tau Ceramica through 2012. That means no relief for a starting power forward-center duo that averages 32 years of age, and more strain on the future of a team whose success limits its ability to restock the cupboard.
The Lakers got healthy.
Kobe Bryant and company needed only five games to take care of the Spurs, and they did it without blossoming big man Andrew Bynum, whose knee injury ended his season early. With Bynum presumably healthy, and Gasol avoiding the brunt of the low-post bump-n-grind, the Lakers would appear to have enough weapons to battle the Spurs' frontcourt to draw next season. That will leave things largely in Kobe's hands, and, well, there aren't many opposing teams that survive when things are left in the hands of the reigning MVP.
Grade: C
It wasn't the best nor the worst of summers for the Spurs. That won't be a problem in the short term, but it could make keeping their main cogs in one piece through the long season a bit of challenge. Coach Gregg Popovich is a master at monitoring his stars' health in addition to motivating his players, but there's only so much opposing talent and young legs that San Antonio's moxie and guile can overcome. Last season revealed the Spurs' limits and this one could do so again.
I'll add:
We knew GNob was going to play in the Olympics and we knew he might (IMO probably would and did) get hurt. Yet we offered Barrdog nothing to stop his trip to Houston when he could not only fill in for injured GNob but backup Parker. Oh well, maybe he would not have been the savior.
But Mason and Hill will be? I dunno. Oh thats right, we've got Findawg to take Gnobs place.
Heres hoping Mason blows up.
And we've still got Bonner. And Pop.
The author forgot Manu was only at 50% in the WCF.
They hit this one right on the money. Make no mistake, when we signed Kurt, we made Timmy's life more difficult. By bringing him back we made our bigs life more difficult.
What are the odds Mahinmi will get signed this season?
Mahinmi is already on a rookie contract with the Spurs I believe.
They're just deciding whether or not to bring him up from the D-League. He played pretty well during the summer league so my guess is 90% sure they'll be bringing him in to the Spurs lineup during the season.
He's still only something like 21 I think and probably Oberto's replacement in the near future.
In terms of having the ability to counter the bigger frontlines of the West, I still say Duncan needs additional help. How nice it would've been to have added both Splitter and Ian. However, that's not going to happen. Pop will have to roll with what he's got.
I do, however, have high hopes for Ian. Yet I fear Pop will ceremoniously banish him to the dog house for the better part of 3 months, when he could be gaining valuable playing time. I trust Pop will exhibit some patience with Ian, overlook early mistakes, and try to working him into the regular rotation. Same as he did with Parker. I'm also hopeful that Tolliver will steal some of Bonner's minutes. I'm not impressed with Bonner to this point and have doubts that he can consistently provide production off the bench. In order for this frontcourt to solidify, Ian needs to develop fast and the Tolliver/Bonner combo need to produce when called upon.
The author forgot to mention the other thing that went wrong - the fact that Maggette rebuffed the Spurs. Even with that rejection, it's unclear as to what type of option Roger Mason will be. I hope he earns the starting job - especially with Manu hobbled and Finley getting creakier by the month.
The author also forgot to mention the health and welfare of Manu. If TD is the heart of the team, then Manu is the soul. The Spurs cannot win if he (or any of the Big Three for that matter) are not healthy. We were painfully reminded of that during the series against the Fakers.
Last edited by SenorSpur; 08-28-2008 at 08:34 AM.
i hope mahinmi will develop into a decent defender, for him to help reduce the load off timmy. ian's scoring would be a bonus. kurt as usual, is a dependable perimeter shooter and enforcer. if the spurs trio of timmy, tp,and manu are healthy in the play off, i like our chance. go spurs go!
The article says exactly the opposite. IOW: WTFRUTA?
Duncan = Anything Is Possible.
It is difficult to understand why Spurs fans like you find it difficult to understand that though the Spurs made a run on Splitter, Margette, etc. but it is really difficult to convince players who wants money more thanthese days. I find it difficult to imagine why you still are a Spurs fan and difficult for me to believe that you believe on this team.
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