The Boris Diaw/Raja Bell deal was pretty strange.  It worked out a little too well for the Bobcats, a little too neatly considering they gave up Jason Richardson, who was perceived to be the best player in the trade.  Maybe he had to get the one good trade idea out of his system, because Michael Jordan’s back to making moves that make no sense, dealing Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown to the Lakers for Space Cadet Vlad Radmanovic.

Adam Morrison isn’t too good as an NBA player, but here’s what he’s not: a complete waste of considerable salary for the next three seasons.  Supposing that the Bobcats still hadn’t seen anything out of Morrison that they liked by the end of the season, they could cut him loose by refusing to pick up his team option (of over $5 mil).  Considering how Ammo has started his NBA career, they’d be perfectly justified.  But instead of refusing to pay Morrison $5 million, they just agreed to pay a marginal player over $19 million for the next three seasons.  Vlad will have his games where makes this deal look genius, exploding for 30-something points and playing decent D.  Then he’ll disappear for the rest of the week, shooting 2-23 over three games and drawing comparisons that are insulting to turnstiles everywhere.

The real downer for the ‘Cats just might be losing Shannon Brown.  The headlines will tell you “Morrison for Radmanovic,” but Shannon Brown has actually posted the highest PER of the three this season.  Brown isn’t a fantastic player and he isn’t as consistent as he should be, but he still makes quite a difference on the court.  You may not believe me, but I’m sure the Lakers do; Brown played a key role down the stretch for the Bobcats in the double-overtime victory in L.A..

All in all, Charlotte’s sending a young, struggling prospect (but notably still a prospect) and a nice role player for a veteran who still makes ‘rookie mistakes,’ couldn’t get his head screwed on right to satisfy Phil Jackson (he’s going to love Larry Brown), and tends to disappear.  Oh, and just forget about that $13 million dollars or so you’ll be losing.  You probably didn’t need it anyway.

Michael Redd.  Andrew Bogut.  Now Luke Ridnour.  Shattered dreams, folks.  Shattered dreams.

On the bright side, we should be given another Ramon Sessions showcase for this stretch of the season.  Sessions has been buried in the rotation at times, and it’s always nice to see an old friend unearthed.  No, it doesn’t exactly bode well for a Milwaukee team that’s already a bit thin, but when you’re looking at 3 significant injuries in about 2 weeks, you shouldn’t be expecting too much of a silver lining.  I’m sure Keith Bogans is stoked, though.

The Bucks have been hanging on to the 8th spot for dear life ever since the undead Sixers began wreaking havoc and climbed their way to the 7 seed.  New Jersey, Chicago, and New York are just chillin’ outside, waiting for a Milwaukee slip-up.

(The Actual Story)

The NBA today rescinded LeBron James’ 9th rebound in his 50 point triple double against the Knicks. Based on undisclosed evidence, the league determined that Ben Wallace had gathered the board. This leaves James one rebound shy of a triple double.

In surprising news, the league has decided to award the rebound not to Ben Wallace, but to Kobe Bryant. In a statement, Commissioner David Stern said “C’mon. He finished with one rebound. One. You can’t have an awesome line like 62 points with zero rebounds. He’ll look like a jerk. That’s not acceptable. LeBron had one to spare.”

When asked about the inconclusive video evidence available to the media and spread widely across the internet by posters like kObERULEZ24 and 2COOL4INTERIORDFENSE, Stern replied “Get out of my sight. Now.”

A statement from the league does imply that the league does not plan on reviewing either Kobe or LeBron’s numerous shooting fouls to determine if they were correctly recorded. When prompted as to why, a league official said “Why? Because he scored 61. And he’s awesome. That’s why.”

LeBron James was unavailable for comment, as he was on the phone with Olympiakos.

Various Things About the Lakers/Celtics Game

1.       The dislike between these two teams is palpable, and is something that hasn’t existed since Heat/Knicks in the mid-to-late 90s.  This sets the tone for the entire league.   Seeing the two top teams disgust with each other pushes other teams to be at that level.

2.       Along those lines, Lamar Odom is going to be the guy who causes the hatred to become physical.  He just will.  And he’ll be smiling the whole time.  And he’ll become an even bigger folk hero than he already is. 

3.       I’m not entirely sure how much we can learn from this game, aside from the fact that right now the Lakers are obviously better than the Celtics.  If they make their free-throws (currently at 77% on the year), they win this game in overtime.  Yes, Garnett fouled out but the Lakers handled him pretty well in the second half, limiting to 6 rebounds in 33 minutes (about 2/3 of his usual rebounding rate).  I stress that this applies to only “right now,” as the Celtics will be ready in the playoffs.

4.       One of the things that’s been spoken about the Celtics all season is that their bench depth will hurt them come playoff time.  Last night, they were certainly problematic.  Eddie House was light-out, and Leon Powe had a good game, but after that they played two guys (Davis and Tony Allen) who did nothing.  The loss of James Posey is huge, and not just because he made some shots in the Finals and can supposedly guard the excellent guards.  The real problem with losing him is that it leaves the Celtics zero reliable wings.  There was some hope that Bill Walker would be able to fill that role, but c’mon; he’s Bill Walker.

5.       As much as I hate the Kobe fade-away 20 footer at the end of regulation, I hate what happened on the Celtics final play even more.  Watch the tape and see how a) Big Baby whiffs on the screen for Allen and then b) drifts to the three point line, hoping for a kick-out.  If you change either of these, Allen gets a better shot.   If he actually sets a screen, Ray has a WIDE OPEN shot at three right off the screen since Gasol didn’t come to help right away.  If he rolls, Gasol follows him and Ray has a tough shot, but it’s over only Derek Fisher.  That’s a rookie mistake (two, really) but he’s not a rookie.  Disappointing.

6.       Paul Pierce’s defense on Kobe down the stretch was amazing.  Any time Kobe tried to create space, Pierce devoured it.  Kobe doesn’t want to shoot that fadeaway twice down the stretch, but he really had no choice.

7.       I’m still confused about Fisher guarding Pierce for significant portions of the fourth quarter when Kobe only had one foul.   Maybe Jackson was saving his legs for the last minute but it seemed strange.

8.       Pau Gasol.  He’s a top five center right now.  Love it.

• Okay, so it’s really just on the first game, since I’d overloaded my brain with NBA this week and needed a game off. Jazz-Mavericks, you were the weakest link.  Looking over the boxscore and reading recaps, I don’t know what’s sadder. That this is a big win for the Jazz, or that the Mavericks got murdered. Wait, yes I do. Fail, Mavs.
• I’ve been struggling overnight with what to make of The Game last night. On the one hand, it’s certainly understandable for Celtic fans to growl “We play for June” and that two games in the regular season don’t matter. But I’ve had a growing suspicion this year that the Celtics just weren’t the best team in the league. They were obviously no worse than third, but just not the best. Part of why I was so confident picking them last season was that they approached every regular season game with the fullest importance. That’s been missing this season. They look tired for long parts of games. This could certainly change and they could get back to killing everything come playoff time, but they simply haven’t been dominant. And their inability to slam the door last night brought back nightmares of all the things we used to question Doc Rivers about.
• I kept screaming this through the BDL LiveBlog: LA can’t defend underneath. At all. If you attack the rim, 7 out of 10 times you’re going to get a pretty easy look. And when the Celtics were rolling, starting to gain momentum, that’s what they were doing. I recognize that they’re loaded with shooters. And I know that KG just isn’t an amazing post-presence anymore, and he’s always favored the J. But they could have bludgeoned that team to death going inside, and instead they settled, time and time again, for long jumpers and perimeter shots.  Everytime the Celtics attacked the basket and got an easy layup, the Lakers unravelled a little bit. And everytime Boston would rotate, rotate, and just shoot a J, LA would exhale and get a little more confident. This team, particularly without Bynum, but even before the injury, is weak inside. And Jackson knows it. He has tremendous perimeter defenders, so he tries to push everything to the outside, run the clock down, and prevent interior attack.  Gasol’s been brilliant on offense lately, don’t get me wrong, but most of his blocks come from weak-side help or, in the case of last night, players being dumb enough to not realize that their flat-footed jumper is probably not going to go over the seven footer lunging at them. They got around Cleveland thanks to being bullies and getting a ton of no-calls, and Boston by pressuring them. This bodes really well for them, especially with the Jameer Nelson injury.  No one in the West has the guns to keep up.
• I keep saying this after every relevant Celtics game and will continue to say it. I understand for many of you this is not news, but it still bears repeating. Pierce’s knee is violently not right. I watch him and think about what his post-games must feel like, and I get sick from imagining the swelling.  This makes it all the more remarkable that he’s able to contribute that he has, and the defense he’s able to play on players like Bryant through it. It also means I think that the odds of him being able to contribute deep down the stretch in the ways the Celtics need get less and less.
• Again, I’m not trying to bury the Celtics here, it’s only February for God’s sake. But they need something. Even one more guard who could attack the basket would help. The best thing for them, though, would be for Kevin Garnett to man up and go do the offensive work down low.
• I recognize the Lakers put up 109, but it was in OT. I just didn’t feel like the Celtics let their offense get out of control. They kept them where they wanted them, for the most part, until late, late in the game. Then Kobe did a few Kobe things, Garnett fouled out, and that offense lost its nerve. There are terrible selection shots that go in. That doesn’t mean you should take them. If Kobe nails a pull-up three when the Lakers are up 1 with 13 seconds left on the shot clock? That’s a bad decision. He’s still going to hit the shot, but it’s a bad selection. Now, he only does this about once every 100 shots. Conversely, Big Baby Davis taking a 15 foot jumper inside the last minute is never a good shot selection. And when they tried it again, you saw how it worked out.
• Pau Gasol, who still can’t dunk cleanly, has been the freaking man. It’s like finally Bryant head-butted him in practice one day and screamed “STEP! HOOK! RE! BOUND!” All the offensive weaknesses in his game from last June have been replaced with a downright nastiness. Sure, he still gets punked nightly down low. But his height alone gives him a couple of blocks and pads his rebound total, and that’s the tradeoff for his touch. If you asked me for one player that makes me certain the Lakers will be playing in Game 5 of the NBA Finals this season, it’s Gasol.
• Close game. Heated rivals. Historic rivals. Bad blood. Pushing. Shoving. Technicals. Big plays. Huge shots. MVPs.  And Lamar Odom is chuckling to himself. The same thing happened that’s happened in almost every big game I’ve seen the Lakers play over two years when they’ve been down. Bryant makes a terrific pass to Odom, and he’s not paying any attention to what’s going on. Ball sails out of bounds. Bryant has that disgusted look on his face, like someone just brought him a plate of vomit. “Why would you do that?!” the look screams. And then they show Odom. Shrugging and chuckling like a lovable sitcome character. And the clock keeps ticking on my internal watch for when Kobe runs over to him, breaks his neck, and then sprints back on defense.
• Watching Lakers fans come to the realization that there’s a reason Trevor Ariza got dumped from Orlando is kind of hilarious.
• Celtics fans: It’s pretty obvious to anyone that reads this site that I’m not huge on the Lakers. I often times will comment on the number of dubious calls that swing the Lakers way. I picked you in the Finals, was rooting for you, and was glad when you won. The officials did not decide that game last night. For every push on Ray Allen there was a slap on Kobe. For every bump into Pierce, there was a bump on Odom. Does it suck that Garnett fouled out? Absolutely. It happens. Talk to Kobe about the Bobcats game. Are the two games equal? No, but that’s the point. There should be an equal likelihood of stars fouling out against lottery teams as Finals contenders. And Garnett should have been more careful on the other five fouls. Just like Kobe should have been against Charlotte.
• If LA walks away with a sweep on Sunday against both top East teams, after the Jameer Nelson injury, you still can’t pencil the Lakers in. But you can have the stamp printed, I guess, if the metaphor holds.

L-O-A-T-H-E.

TONY DILEO
You see, he lives in you.

[Iggy is awestruck. The wind picks up. In the air the huge image of Elton Brand is forming from the clouds. He appears to be walking from the stars. The image is ghostly at first, but steadily gains color and coherence.]

ELTON BRAND
[Quietly at first] Iggy . . .

IGGY
Elton?

ELTON BRAND
Iggy, you have forgotten me.

IGGY
No. How could I?

ELTON BRAND
You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Iggy. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Eastern Conference.

IGGY
How can I go back? I’m not who I used to be.

[Shot of cloud-Elton Brand, with glowing yellow eyes.  He is framed in swirling clouds, radiating golden light.]

ELTON BRAND
Remember who you are. You are the one true king…kind of, not really, though.

[Close up of Iggy's face, bathed in the golden light, showing a mixture of awe, fear, and sadness.  The image of Elton Brand starts to fade.]

Remember…WHO YOU ARE.

[Elton Brand is disappearing rapidly into clouds. Iggy runs into the fields trying to keep up with the image.]

IGGY
No. Please! Don’t leave me.

ELTON BRAND
Remember…

IGGY
Elton!

ELTON BRAND
Remember…

IGGY
Don’t leave me!

ELTON BRAND
Remember . . .

[Iggy is left out in the fields. There is just a cloud left where his father's image was. The wind tosses the grass  restlessly. Tony DiLeo approaches.]

TONY DILEO
What was THAT? [laughs] The weather– Pbbbah! Very peculiar. Don’t you think?

Annnnnnd SCENE.  Good, right?  It’s alright, I don’t need your approval — I know it’s golden.

What an awful way to end the season for Elton Brand.  It’s been raining acid since he took his first step in Philly, somehow corroding what seemed to be the most basic of playoff blueprints.  The Sixers were a nice team with a fast, active defense that had trouble scoring in the half-court.  Elton Brand is a stud at power forward (the notable hole in the Sixers lineup last season), a great defender in the post, and can run the floor.  Didn’t quite shake out the way we all thought it would, and exactly why is a point that’s been debated extensively.

It’s all irrelevant now, because Brand will be watching from the bench/comfort of his living room couch.  Which is both tragic and delightful, in its own way.  The first few games of Pistons-Sixers last season were golden, and watching a Sixers team that strongly resembles the 2007-2008 model could still be wonderful.  The tragedy is that come playoff time, even if Philly does put up a bit of a fight, it will all look strangely familiar.  Cleveland, Boston, Orlando, Atlanta, it doesn’t really matter.  The Sixers would fin-slap their opponents like a fish out of water, but all a true contender has to do is watch those gills come to a slow stop as the playoff air asphyxiates them.  There’s a morbid appeal to watching a team flounder, and the Sixers should make a reasonable ruckus on their way out.  Still, watching this team revert to their former selves, exciting as that former pre-Brand team may have been, makes me a little sad.

Of course they’ll hopefully get a chance to give it another go next season, and maybe all will be right in the world of the Sixers by then.  But for now — get ready for a flashback, as the Sixers remember who they are.

Note: Script “borrowed” and modified from here.

The “Holy Crap, I totally forgot it was my turn” addition – meaning it will be mostly pictures.

Pacer @ Sixers 7:00pm

Cheer up Sixers fans, it’s not like Elton is out for the year. Oh, wait.

Lakers @ Celtics  8:00pm (TNT)

Which team will be which guy? Gonna be awesome finding out.

Dallas @ Utah  10:30 (TNT)

Somebody’s gotta take a chance, right?

I was going to title this post “In Lue of Jameer,” but I thought better of it.

The Magic traded Keith Bogans to the Bucks for some cashola and good ol’ Tyronn Lue, everyone’s favorite former Hawk/Laker/Magic/Mav/Wizard who apparently once ‘shackled’ Allen Iverson.  Right.  I’ve gotta say, I like this deal for Orlando, though.  Going into the season, it was a bit perplexing that Milwaukee would spend over $2 mil on a third-string point without room to grow.  Now we know why: so they could eventually trade him to the Magic and keep the Redick man down.  Word.

Lue is 32 and a step slow, but he can still run and offense and is a much better shooter on the whole than Anthony “The Acrobat” Johnson.  We’re done with ripping AJ for now, but I will say this: he’s not going to go for 25 every night.  He won’t even go for 10 every night.  There will be times where it would be wise for Orlando to have a back-up plan that doesn’t involve Redick or a rookie shooting guard playing point.  Tyronn Lue gives them that flexibility, and this deal makes a lot of sense for them given Courtney Lee’s rise and Keith Bogan’s growing dispensability.  Good work, Otis.

Bogans happens to be a perfect fit in the Skilesian school of hard-nosed, hard-working players with limited offensive skill sets.  Hey, if Malik Allen and Dan Gadzuric can find a place with the Bucks, I’m sure Bogans can log some minutes in the empty vacuum that was once The Great Hitch-Shot Hope, Michael Redd.  Will Bogans make a huge difference?  Doubtful.  He’s just not that kind of player.  But he should bolster a Milwaukee defense that lacks a true wing stopper.  Ridnour and Sessions have been nice this season, but neither is a Ruben Patterson DeShawn Stevenson Bruce Bowen Ron Artest, amIright?

Photo by Tracy Boulian/The Plain Dealer.

Which NBA player thinks he’s a lot better than he really is, even though he actually is better than everyone?

LeBron James, Cavaliers SF/Messiah…..100%

[Based on a survey of 1 blogger.  Probably ripped off of this slightly less important poll.]