Suns general manager Steve Kerr met with Stoudemire’s agent, Happy Walters, on Thursday, and league sources say there was little sense an agreement could be reached before the trade deadline. With Stoudemire able to opt out of the final $17.7 million season of his contract, the Suns don’t want to risk losing him for nothing in free agency this summer.

As they did when shopping Stoudemire last season, the Suns want a combination of young talent, salary-cap relief and draft picks for him. Some teams are hesitant to trade for Stoudemire for fear he won’t want to re-sign with them this summer. The Minnesota Timberwolves lead that group of teams, sources say. The Wolves are mostly eyeing small forwards, including the Memphis Grizzlies’ Rudy Gay(notes), the Bulls’ Luol Deng(notes) and the Washington Wizards’ Caron Butler(notes). No one is untouchable on the Wolves roster, sources say.

via Suns seeking trade offers for Stoudemire – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.

Okay, we’ll get to the actual information here in a second. But can we all stop and realize for a second that Amar’e Stoudemire’s agent is named Happy? Happy Walters. “Hi, I’m Happy Walters, and I’m here to play hardball.”  Or, “Nobody disrespects Happy! NOBODY!”

Okay, we’ll get back to Amare in a second. The Wolves would like to acquire Rudy Gay, Deng, or Caron Butler. What do they have to give? There’s a lot of talk (yes, unsourced) about Jefferson not digging the triangle and that he’s on the block. But what in God’s name are the Grizzlies going to take for Rudy? They have Randolph and Gasol, who are both end of the bench All-Star reserve candidates. They can’t send Flynn, they’ll have no point guard on this continent! What, are they going to send Memphis Rubio’s draft rights and some scrubs just so Memphis can trim its payroll down even mo….ooooooooooh. (The CBA required minimum payroll prevents this, but you get the idea.) The Grizzlies seem to be in a “if we can’t outspend the other teams in RFA, fine, but we’re not trading him for .50 on the dollar” which is exactly what they should do.

Chicago, though, is interesting. If they can pry Jefferson out of their hands for Deng, they should absolutely do it. Jefferson with Noah at his back is a significant low-post upgrade. They’ll be weak at SF, but at this point, who cares?

If they can wheedle Caron out of Washington for draft picks or some other peanuts deal, it’ll be the first good one of Kahn’s reign.

On to Amar’e.

The more I look at this rumor, I can’t buy it. What, Kahn’s going to trade his biggest chip for a player who obviously won’t re-sign with them so they’ll have more cap space to pursue a free agent? I still think Ellison plus Jefferson is a reasonable price for Amare, but you’d have to send a pick back with Amare, and the Suns can’t be dumb enough to send another pick away. Oh, wait, it’s the Suns, they’re exactly that dumb.

Thabeet’s teammates have tried to keep him pumped up.

Zach Randolph was the first person to greet Thabeet when the final horn sounded on the Grizzlies’ win over the Thunder. Randolph stopped Thabeet on the court. The veteran forward pounded his hand into Thabeet’s chest as he spoke.

“I told him ‘That’s what you’re here for. That’s what you’re going to get paid to do,’ ” Randolph said. “He just has to control that paint. He doesn’t have to score the basketball. He just has to do what he did the last game. It’s the best I’ve ever seen him play.”

via Grizzlies big man Hasheem Thabeet stepping up game» The Commercial Appeal.

And it was.

I make it a point once per Grizzlies game to tweet about something Thabeet does poorly, a missed rotation, a turnover, a missed layup, and then immediately follow it with “in unrelated news,” then list the last awesome thing or line Tyreke Evans put up.

Passing on Evans sent me screaming in my living room. It was something I knew was happening, and yet couldn’t stop it. I was sure, absolutely sure, that Evans was going to be the best pick of the draft.  They needed a legit point guard, even if Conley developed well, you can’t pass up a talent like Evans. They did. And it crushed me, after watching Thabeet throughout the year look completely one-dimensional. People spoke of his ceiling. “Dikembe Mutumbo” they said. “Really?” I asked, “That’s who they’re spending the #2 pick on? A guy who might end up maybe as good as Mutumbo?”

But we’re stuck with him.

And I cannot deny that he was a huge difference maker in the game against Oklahoma City, one I had little hope for a win in. Making plays at the rim is something it turns out this team needs in a huge way defensively. From that angle, I can more easily swallow Heisley’s thinking. This team is  a dynamo (not a juggernaut) offensively, capable of bruising teams with speed and muscle for long stretches, but unable to shut down teams when they take their defender off the dribble. Thabeet provides that.

I’d still rather have Evans in a million ways, but Pogo Stick is proving the value of being a tall guy with long arms.

Injuries and professional basketball go hand in hand like problems and opportunity.  It’s only natural that important players will eventually get hurt and wear down every season; in the process seriously affecting the way history will remember a certain team, player or coach.  If the timing is terrible, as it recently was with Kevin Garnett, Jameer Nelson and Andrew Bynum, a year of hard work can quickly go down the drain.

This is why in the end general managers are truly judged on the depth they’re able to create.  Anybody can draft Lebron James or Dwight Howard, it’s the duty of finding those “just-in-case” guys  who can step in and reincarnate the energy, statistics and intangibles that the fallen starter would have provided that separate the dependable decision makers from Ernie Grunfeld.

With the exciting label of young and talented team on the come up, Portland has seen more debilitating injuries this season than most could weather. Greg Oden, who’s favorite childhood hobby was cracking mirrors, and his fellow seven foot tag-team partner Joel Pryzbilla both had season ending leg injuries.  When the two went down, Portland’s playoff run slowed to a speed walk.  Their once powerful front line was relegated to the defensively liable LaMarcus Aldridge, 68-year-old Juwan Howard and a second round draft pick who had off season hip surgery.

That rookie? His name’s Jeff Pendergraph and he’s quickly becoming Portland’s heart and soul.  Had Pryzbilla and Oden been born with stronger appendages in their lower half Pendergraph would have likely seen less action than Stephon Marbury, but they weren’t and he’s stepped it up.

What makes Pendergraph so interesting is the role he’s been thrust into for one of the league’s more competitive teams. After a disappointing first round exit courtesy of the Houston Rockets last year, Brandon Roy said the one thing his team needed was toughness. At a chiseled 240 pounds, Pendergraph fits like a glove.

What he does when in a game is very routine.  Very unexciting.  Very secreted.  Very important. On offense his literal existence revolves around  using his wide frame to set picks for the Trailblazers’ many scorers.  Having the ball in his hands is a rarity he’s accepted and canoodled with.

At just 6’ 9” he’s playing undersized at center, but still doing the gritty things on defense that gets him under his opponent’s skin. He takes charges and prohibits lay-ups by doling out hard fouls all the while supplying unprecedented rookie energy.

Since entering the regular rotation, Pendergraph has become the center of attention during pre-game introductions.  His teammates crowd around him, like the bad boys used to do with Sheed, and pandemonium ensues.  Tagged the Pendergraph pre-game pow-wow by the Oregonian, the rookie has become a motivational pawn.  The players love him, the fans love him, his head coach (who’s son was Pendergraph’s teammate at Arizona State) loves him.

While the more reserved Oden and Pryzbilla wouldn’t likely be caught dead as a monkey in the middle center of interest, Pendergraph has embraced it, hopping, shrieking and waving his arms every which way.  Now his teammates embrace him.

Has it been mentioned he’s only a rookie? Not that Pendergraph is the second coming of Moses Malone or, heaven forbid, Kenyon Martin, but his actual game will certainly improve; with his fearless, free spirited attitude surely creating a long and productive career.

It’s a timeless situation not just in sports, but in life.  Where there’s a major problem, opportunity isn’t far behind.  Jeff Pendergraph is a testament to it.

A league source said Golden State, Minnesota and Cleveland have shown interest in acquiring Suns power forward Amar’e Stoudemire.

Major hang-ups in a possible deal are the Suns’ need to get good value in return and the other team’s need to feel secure in knowing it has a chance to keep Stoudemire, who can opt out of his contract this summer.

Stoudemire has said he wants to play for a title contender but prefers to stay with the Suns, who met with his agent Thursday.

via Suns’ Amar’e Stoudemire drawing trade interest.

We’ll leave Cleveland alone for now, since reteaming him with Shaq would be exceptionally complicated and Cleveland has almost nothing Phoenix wants as long as they’re contending.

Golden State we’ve been over. The Warriors should have pulled the damn trigger back before the draft. You have a perennial All-Star with 40-point potential in him on the table for a boom or bust draft pick and some table scraps (no offense, Andris). You do that deal. They didn’t.

But Minnesota is really intriguing. Minnesota could send Ellington, one of the Jeffers0n-Love combo, and a pick. That’s a tasty combination. Throw in either of those guys into the 7 Seconds or Gentry and you’ve got a pretty potent unit, and you finally have some future potential.

It’s an interesting idea that could end up being a huge get for Kahn, a season saver.

What does an offense looks like? I can give you some ideas from watching the teams. Houston moves really fast and really consistently and never underperforms or overperforms. Cleveland can slow to a crawl or detonate underneath a powder keg. The Lakers are largely impacted by Kobe, it feels like Gasol doesn’t get enough touches and Odom has been negatively impacted by Artest’s arrival, though overall they’re the biggest juggernaut in the league. Chicago’s a damn trainwreck.

But how do they look through numbers? Last year in the playoffs I broke down how San Antonio looked in the regular season and post-season with a Parker-heavy attack. I decided to take a similar look at all the teams and where they are as of right now, just past the halfway mark of the season, using data from HoopData.com.

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NBA: JAN 10 Hornets v Grizzlies on Flickr – Photo Sharing! by Jonathan Bachman Photography

My favorite part about this picture? David West’s stinkface.

“Dayum!”

The Hornets won. Shut up. But still!

Yao Ming on Flickr – Photo Sharing! – aligzandr

Remember this guy? He’s out there somewhere. I believe. I believe he’ll probably get injured again, but still.

I love to debate meaningless things.

I mean I REALLY love to debate meaningless things. The two greatest things to debate about are movies and sports. I would debate about music like lots of people like to do but I simply don’t know enough about it nor do I really care to learn enough about it to form arbitrary opinions about music. I know what I like and I know what I don’t like. That’s good enough for me.

But with movies and sports, I will argue literally anything. Recently, I was arguing with a friend about the movie Tombstone with Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell. If you haven’t seen Tombstone, I’m just going to assume that you have recently been taken from the past (let’s say 1973) and brought here to the future/present and you were about to watch the movie until you decided to find out with this internet thing was all about (and naturally, you went straight to Hardwood Paroxysm). Well, it’s a phenomenal movie. It’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen and it’s not really supposed to be.

The argument with one of my friends regarding Tombstone was over the debate of who was a better cowboy/difference maker in the town of Tombstone, Arizona between Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp was a pretty incredible cowboy. He was able to affect everybody around him in a positive way. He was a dominating force that the bad guys and rebel rousers had never had to handle before. And they couldn’t handle him. They couldn’t handle him at all.

At the same time there was Doc Holliday. He’s a little brash and colder than people want him to be all while being disarmingly charming. He makes jokes at your expense that either strike fear in you with the vastness of his wit or completely piss you off to the point that you want to duel with him right then and there. But the problem with that is he’s the best gunslinger there is. He’s killed many men before they even knew they were in a gunfight. It tickles him that he can do that to people and he has every single gun trick in the book.

Both of them have prominent roles throughout this movie. Wyatt is trying to make a respected name for himself in his new town while Doc is suffering through an illness that is sure to take his life. And yet they’re equally feared men for completely different reasons. We debated about this for a good 45 minutes before discovering that maybe there wasn’t a best cowboy/difference maker. Maybe they were both the best. Yes, it’s a copout to the discussion at hand and yes, it’s a bit lazy in thinking that way. However, if there is no definitive reasoning can there be a definitive conclusion?

And here’s where I manage to send two rabid sides of the aisle into a fury and rage against me for stating the following:

What if there isn’t a best player in the NBA?

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Once it became apparent that the New Jersey Nets were the single worst team in the National Basketball Association and that John Wall was going to be the number one overall pick by light years, the questions immediately began.

If they do land the overall pick, do they trade Devin Harris?

When Harris hasn’t been in a suit due to injury this season, he has watched his performance plummet on the worst team in the league. Points, PER, assists, rebounds, all have dropped dramatically. Given the fact that Wall is considered by many (including people who aren’t completely delusional like myself) to be one of the best picks of the last decade, even with only a 25% chance of actually winning the lottery, the seeds for moving up a Harris-move timetable were planted.

That line of thinking started evolving once it became apparent that the Nets were broken beyond repair and it was worth considering a complete blowup.

It’s a minefield. Trade him too early and you risk ending up without a point guard next year. Ask the Sixers how that’s working out. Even if they were able to get back some reasonable talent for Harris, that could potentially complicate their summer free agent plans. Then again, waiting till after the lottery could result in Harris’ value dropping between now and then. Keeping the two of them is simply too tricky of  a situation, not to mention like hoarding beef jerky in the desert instead of trying to find water.

The complex nature of the problem has created conflicting reports, with the latest outlining a full recline from aggressive trade talks, if there was ever considerable intensity in the first place.

But exactly how do you figure this kind of a question out? What are the parameters that need to be considered and ignored? How can we approach this in a more subjective manner? My first thought was to attack the question using a game theory model. After all, a trade by necessity involves interaction with competition in a marketplace, revolving around a primary decision. But I needed help. A lot of help.

With a big ol’ hat tip to Henry Abbott, I contacted Brian Tung of the advanced theoretics blog The Null Hypodermic and asked him for help with a conceptual model. I gave him the following elements to consider.

• The Nets will undoubtedly finish with the worst record in the league, giving them a 25% chance at winning the lottery. John Hollinger’s adjusted probabilities actually put it at 25.5%.
• Wall’s value is more than just being widely considered not only the best prospect in the draft, but according to many (including myself) the best prospect to come out of college since Dwyane Wade.
• Harris has shown a significant downturn in production this season.
• Trading Harris lowers the Nets’ payroll, assuming they trade for assets of lesser or expiring value, which is a premium for them.
• At the same time, trading Harris costs them a valuable young veteran point guard, which could be an incentive for free agent prospects this summer, their ultimate goal.
• There are no other outstanding point guards in the upcoming draft, which would make losing out on the #1 and falling to 2-4 disastrous without Harris.

Having provided Brian with the basic elements with which to construct an outline, here’s his response:

From the outset it must be acknowledged that any model will leave out all kinds of things.  It is best therefore to be clear about what we’re leaving out, so that they can be addressed outside the model.  Also, I’m writing as I think (and vice versa), so this may only be half-baked.  I’d have to give it some more thought to bake it outright.

One difficulty in modelling most of these kinds of decisions is determining how to value basketball assets.  Advanced statistics like PER and APM have improved matters somewhat, but as the dispute over them demonstrates, we still have a long way to go.  But a more significant difficulty is determining how to compare basketball assets to fiscal assets.  Since the Nets are probably going to get the first pick with a 1/4 probability whether or not they trade Harris, this decision simply cannot be made on the basis of basketball assets alone.  Fiscal assets must be taken into account, and they must somehow be valued on the same terms as basketball assets.  I’m going to assume without evidence–either for or against–that the Nets are able to do this.

I’m also going to assume for the time being that the Nets will not get Wall unless they get first pick.  I’m not sure how valid that assumption is; Minnesota could easily get the first pick and it’s not clear to me that they would pick Wall, or that if they did pick Wall it would be with the intention of keeping him.  Of course, if they did pick him to trade him, they might want to trade him for Harris, so if the Nets have already traded Harris away at that point, it might conceivably diminish their chances of getting Wall via the trade.  But for now I’ll assume that’s not a viable avenue anyway.

If that’s the case, we’re not really talking about game theory because the Nets are not competing against anyone other than themselves (irony duly noted).  There are four possibilities:

1. Trade Harris, then fail to pick up Wall in the draft. The Nets gain some fiscal assets (call it F), but lose significant basketball assets (call it H).
2. Trade Harris, then pick up Wall in the draft. The Nets gain fiscal assets F (might be a little less, depending on how closely we’re modelling fiscal effects), and basketball assets are about a push (you gain W – H).
3. Keep Harris, then fail to pick up Wall in the draft.  Fiscal assets and basketball assets largely unaffected.
4. Keep Harris, then pick up Wall in the draft. Fiscal assets mostly unaffected (again, like 2, might be a little reduced), but gain basketball assets along the lines of (H, W) – H.  This mumbo-jumbo basically means that having both Harris and Wall is worth more, basketball-wise, than Harris alone, and the difference between them is what you gain.  Because they can’t play point at the same time–not in the usual sense, anyway–this difference will, however, be less than Wall’s worth on his own.

So, if you trade Harris, you gain fiscal assets F and “gain” basketball assets worth W/4 – H; we divide W by 4 because there’s only a 1/4 chance of picking up Wall, but you always lose Harris’s worth if you trade him.  If you keep Harris, your fiscal assets remain basically unchanged, but you gain basketball assets worth [(H, W) - H]/4.  If you can somehow place F, H, and W all on the same scale (i.e., compare fiscal assets to basketball assets), you can then compare your gains from the two options:

F + W/4 – H vs  [(H, W) - H]/4

Do a little algebra and you can convert that into

F vs  [(H, W) - W]/4 + 3H/4

Let’s keep things straight now: the left side is the “trade Harris” side, and the right side is the “keep Harris” side.  Now, just as adding Wall to Harris gains you less than Wall’s worth on his own, adding Harris to Wall would also gain you less than Harris’s worth on his own.  We can represent that as

F vs  (H – a medium-sized bit)/4 + 3H/4

or just

F vs  H – a little bit

The “medium-sized bit” basically represents the cost of having only one basketball to share amongst the two, in case both Harris and Wall are on the team; the “little bit” is just one-fourth of that cost.  What does this tell us?  It tells us that if you feel that you can in a sense break even on a Harris trade (i.e., gain fiscal assets equivalent to Harris’s basketball worth), you go ahead and pull that trade.  This may seem a little odd because it’s (to first order) independent of Wall’s basketball worth.  There are a few counterpoints to that observation:

• Harris’s basketball value includes, as Matt says, his ability to attract free agents in the summer, in addition to whatever value he brings strictly on the court.
• The “little bit” depends on how good Wall is.  If he’s a draft dud (unlikely, but it could happen), it’s essentially zero.
• On the other hand, if he’s amazing, as in a significant upgrade from Harris out of the box, then that little bit in the final comparison could be one-fourth of Harris’s worth–possibly including Harris’s ability to draw free agents, if Wall is so good that free agents would want to play with him, too.  Of course, we wouldn’t really see Wall’s performance until after this summer’s free-agent bonanza.  (Frankly, I’m not sure it’s going to be that much of a bonanza, but we’ll see.)

If the last point is true–if you are certain Wall is that amazing–then you pull that trade if the fiscal assets you gain are worth even three-fourths of Harris’s basketball value.

I must emphasize that this cold-blooded analysis leaves out factors that may be of great importance.  For instance, I’ve assumed that the cost of losing Harris is limited to on-the-court value.  In a sense, that is true, but it discounts the psychological cost of being a historically terrible team, and the fiscal cost of diminishing gate receipts.  You could probably account for the latter, but the former is something you sort of have to feel with your gut.  Also, I’m not convinced that Harris’s downturn at this stage of his career is much more than a blip.  He could get better next year, easily.  Then, too, it might be a result of playing on a crappy team; for a ball-handler, that’s sort of a minus, statistically speaking.  If he stays with the Nets and draws some free agents, his own performance could improve as a result.  On the other hand, Wall represents youth.  If by some chance the Nets could surround him with some established talent, they could be playoff contenders at some level for years to come.  There are probably quite a few other factors that I’m not thinking of at the moment.  Probably you can come up with more.

As I said, not wholly baked.  Hope this gives you some idea of the kind of analysis that could be done, though.  A more thorough analysis would be much more time-consuming, of course.

Here’s a graphic representation of our decision choices modeled:

While obviously a base of a soup and not what you’d ladle up for paying customers, Tung’s analysis does give us a reasonably stout set of elements to consider. First and foremost is the effect of the unstable probability of Wall in the current atmosphere has in simplifying the Harris trade value to a monetary one. Given the possibility of Wall on the horizon, even at the relatively low chance they currently have, if they find the right economic model to offset Harris’ value, it would make sense under this structure.

While Harris is undoubtedly an asset not to be traded brazenly, there is some support for this kind of an approach. Jettisoning Harris provides even more freedom for what is already one of the most unburdened teams in the league come July, provided they can avoid taking on long contracts in return. And the value of Wall, determined by New Jersey’s scouts and management, is off-set by the Lottery and the devastating effect a premature trade would have on the franchise if it were to miss out on Wall.

There’s more to this question than simply “How desperate are you?” and hopefully in the weeks to come, we can shed more light on it.

Thanks to Brian Tung for his help with this post, as well as Henry Abbott for lighting the way.

Say what you want about Uncle Jeff. Yes, his stats have dipped. Yes, he’s slumped shooting the ball. Yes, sometimes he’s not great on the glass. But if there is one thing about Jeff Green, it’s that he’s a winning basketball player. When the Thunder was struggling offensively, he hit two HUGE shots. When Minnesota had a chance to tie the game, he just makes another incredible play at the rim. He’s exactly the kind of player you need on a team. Someone that no matter what, will give max effort and always seems to be making winning plays. I don’t care what you say, it isn’t a coincidence that he’s playing 40 minutes a night for a 24-18 team.

via Jeff Green comes through again in the clutch as OKC wins 94-92 | Daily Thunder.com.

I’m rapidly approaching the point of saying that OKC needs to take Green off the trade block, permanently. As in saying, “No Durant, no Green. Everything else we’ll entertain.”

It’s not that Green’s a better player than Westbrook (he’s not), or even Harden (we’ll see how the Beard 2.0 does next year). It’s that you can tell he and Durant are linked. There’s a bond there, they’re buddies. And in that friendship are elements of confidence on both sides. Green will do Durant’s dirty work, and Durant gives him confidence that he can be a star in this league. Breaking them up undermines both of their value because they know and like playing together so much.

Green has No-Stats All-Star potential.He makes a ton of hustle plays, battles for loose balls, runs off three point shooters, and isn’t so desperate to prove himself offensively that he’ll take every shot. There are giant, glaring holes in his game (rebounding, reliable offensive moves), but they’re not things which can’t be solved. And in the meantime, Green’s evolution has not only been as important to the Thunder’s winning percentage, it’s correlated with Durant’s leap. It’s a dynamic duo, and OKC would do well to let the caped crusaders battle together.

And sweet Jesus, that dunk on Josh Smith…