I have slept hardly at all. I’ve barely eaten. And I’ve pumped out stuffy professional blog after stuffy professional blog. So I’m going to be vomiting out my leftover thoughts on the abject midair collision that has been the last six days in the NBA.

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Photo by Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr

Marc Gasol is a Grizzlie/Grizzly and will remain so for the foreseeable future. What does it mean? No one thing, and not everything, but several important things. Here’s a list of things it means.

1. Heisley is good to his word. There’s still distrust that abounds from the disasters of the last decade, and with Heisley’s worrying over the product and the costs, there was always that “Is he really going to re-sign everybody?” No one could believe it. No matter how many times I said the Grizzlies would match any offer and would do anything to keep him, something I picked up from nearly everyone I talked to with any sort of insight on the Grizzlies, there was still “I don’t know, Heisley could get cold feet…” Which is why Woj’s sign-and-trade still terrified me. More so than I would have expected, honestly. With that team, you get to expect the worst a lot of times. “What? Reke’s there? Oh, they’re clearly taking Thabeet.” Things like that. So the idea that after lulling me into a false sense of security, he’d turn around and swap him to Houston for a terrible platter? It made sense for a brief horrible time. But Heisley put his money where his mouth is. He said if the team won, he’d pay for it to continue winning. And he has.
2. Yes, he also said that he’d re-sign Mayo, but that was never going to happen. It’s just not feasible. It’s honestly my biggest problem with how last year went down. It started with Hollins forcing Mayo to play point in Summer League, then being upset when he sucked at it. The guy’s been in the league for two years, three years now. He is who he is. Then he took jabs at him in preseason. Then he benched him, saying he needed the scoring balance. And it worked out for everyone. But Mayo fell apart before centering himself for the playoffs and being a huge contributor. Still, the Grizzlies set him up to give them an excuse to make him the one guy they don’t extend. And he did it with the fight on the plane and the PEDs issue.
3. The Grizzlies will be a playoff team for two years barring injury. They were on shakey ground last year for half the year, but how they figured it out is not something you forget. They’ll be there. And that’s enough to buy the franchise some time.
4. The falloff is going to hurt.

I have not slept hardly at all. I’ve barely eaten. And I’ve pumped out stuffy professional blog after stuffy professional blog. So I’m going to be vomiting out my leftover thoughts on the abject midair collision that has been the last six days in the NBA.

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Photo by Dunechaser on Flickr

At some point along the way, I got lost in that which I hate the most, the obsession with championship contention. Here’s the thing. Without completely shelving the team, going on one of the aforementioned scorched earth approaches, the Pacers are not winning a title with any reasonable likelihood. It can happen. I’m serious, but only in the sense that an asteroid or solar flare could destroy the Earth tomorrow. The fact that it’s possible, that the percentage odds are actually not horrific, is enough to terrify you into staying in bed all day, but they exist nonetheless. Heat and Bulls destroy themselves in a six-game series, then some sort of injury catches them, and bang. Everyone’s moaning about Indiana in the Finals against a Thunder team that goes through the normal growing pains. I know, you’re laughing. Again, I remind you, the Heat won the title in 06 and Detroit in 04. Those things seem sensible to us now, but we tend to retroactively fit the narrative to the result.

But beyond the silliness of that whole paradigm is that Bird? He just put together a good team.

“Well, I could take this freakish small forward who fell to us, but I have George. Hey, I wonder if San Antonio’s still shopping Hill?”

“Well, I could just stand pat and wait for a better free agency class, but I might as well do something. Hey, I wonder if West will take shorter years for more money since his value plummeted like Wile E. Coyote tied to an anvil?”

And finally, probably, but not officially, “Well, I could keep McBob, but we almost had him last time. Let’s see if Mayo’s still on the block.”

And just like that, the opening night roster is probably in all likelihood going to be Collison-Hill-Granger-West-Hibbert with Mayo and George off the bench. That’s a good roster. Yes, it would be better with Nene and Hibbert as back-up, but Collison and West are going to do damage.

This is cluttered data, and in no way an indictment of CP3 who is awesome and the bee’s knees and makes everyone better etc.. But via Synergy Sports, here are West’s Points Per Possession in pick-and-roll man situations.

2008-2009: 1.073

2009-2010: 1.166

2010-2011: 1.046

Now, getting past the obvious (“OLD GUY GOT OLD”), you’ll notice that the year Chris Paul missed most of the year with injuries, the one in which Darren Collison took over, was the best for West. I don’t have the possessions of Paul vs. Collison parsed, it’s possible there’s no differential. But even so, again, it’s not about showing that West worked better with Collison than Paul, it’s about showing that West worked well with Collison. (It should also be noted that that offensive set was a much smaller part of their offense that year, mostly because 75 percent of their offense without Paul was “give the ball to David West and watch him pump-fake his way from a face-up into a mid-range J he hits 48% of the time.”)

Landing Nene to go with West would have been a coup, but also would have been impossible. Hitching their wagon to Hibbert another season is a big dangerous gamble, but then, remember this brief moment of nirvana?

The point is there’s hope here, even as there’s likely to be room for them under the cap. The backcourt is a mystery. Hill-Mayo? Collison-Mayo? Collison-George? Hill-George? Mayo-Geo…. no. Hansbrough being the bench spark plug is a much better fit for him and Foster is still serviceable as always. Everything, as it always does, lands on Granger. He’s got to make the jump, become unstoppable, and without that, the Pacers are simply a tougher first-round out than the tough five-gamer they were this year. But in a year where so many teams swung just to make contact, the Pacers had their eye on a spot in the field and landed it. They’re on base, and that means something in the bigger picture.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c2jp8WyXms

I have not slept hardly at all. I’ve barely eaten. And I’ve pumped out stuffy professional blog after stuffy professional blog. So I’m going to be vomiting out my leftover thoughts on the abject midair collision that has been the last six days in the NBA. We begin with this Goddamn Paul thing.

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A list of my favorite descriptions of David Stern/Dan Gilbert/The Nefarious League of Evil Owners blocking the Chris Paul trade:

“crime”

“dangerous precedent”

“the worst thing the league has ever done”

“despicable”

“disgraceful”

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

FOR GOD’S SAKE, IT WAS A BLOCKED TRADE.

No one died. No laws were broken. No jobs were lost, no lives were lost, nothing was lost. Well, Lamar Odom was lost, but that’s the risk of putting someone on the block. As Nada Surf once said, there’s always a feeling of rejection whenever someone says they prefer the company of others to your exclusive company. You employ a basketcase and they wind up finding out you tried to send them to what would have been the most boring collection of interesting players ever in New Orleans versus their celebrity life in LA, there are consequences.

But it wasn’t just outrage over the block. It was an opportunity. Everyone leaped to the opportunity to slag Stern for it. There was no hesitation to consider the actual trade. None. Just “league blocked veto? League bad!” And that’s it. Everyone went from having no sympathy for management and their poor decisions, to defending management’s right to make a poor decision. Dell Demps is an exceptionally smart guy. And he likely has a very Spurs-ian plan for what he would have done with Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, and Lamar Odom. But that plot was not something you could readily explain, not something that can happen as easy as “young players get better and team drafts more young players who get better.”

The way to rebuild is simple. You trash everything, clean the books, find an All-Star, the best possible singular talent you can, and go from there. That’s the plot. You can chase the Detroit model but it takes essentially lightning in a bottle sent from the end of the world. the other way to to do it is clean the books, tank, get the best guy you can. You can whiff in the lottery, but if you want that guy, the only way you get it is with a top two pick. The research backs this up.

So if we acknowledge that, there was absolutely no reason for the league to accept the deal.

That’s obviously not why they blocked it. Take your pick. Sale value. An Anti-Laker agenda (my personal favorite). Jealousy. Leftover message-sending from the lockout (very likely). They shouldn’t have been the owners. I talked a lot about this over at PBT, so I’ll direct you there. In short: the BP oil spill helped screw the Lakers. That’s how bonkers this is.

But the fact remains, it was a crappy deal. And immediately afterwards, the cacophony was “Who would possibly trade for Paul now?”

Followed by 24 hours later talks of the Clippers getting in. And if the second-run by the league at a Clippers deal falls through, someone else will come hustling up to the door knocking. Know why? It’s Chris Goddamn Paul. And Paul does things no one else can do, sees things no one else can see. Which reminds me…

I like Eric Gordon. This should be known. Yes, I’ve called him short when he’s a perfectly reasonable 6-3. Yes, I did not think he would translate after seeing him at Summer League. I’m wrong on a lot of guys. But Gordon convinced me. You say he’s going to be an All-Star. I say yes, he is. You say he’s one of the top 25 players in the league. I say yes, he is. You say you can’t trade that kind of guy for an injury-prone player missing meniscus in one knee. I say go to hell and be in fire. Because this is not a talent or youth or injury question. This is “What does the most good for Blake Griffin so he stays happy with you and will never ever leave you all alone in the cold dark world, even if there’s no way he leaves after his rookie deal because of how the CBA is structured?” And the answer is “the best pick-and-roll point guard in the league (apologies to Nash).” Paul guarantees Griffin in Clipper blue for a decade. It guarantees that the Clippers are relevant, every year. It means that Griffin will hit his potential and we won’t be left constantly saying “Well, if he could just play with a competent point guard.” No one looks at a dynamic slashing, God of Thunder power forward and says “You know what that guy needs? An undersized two-guard who can create his own shot.” No, we save that for Dwight.

Truth is, I like all the players offered for Paul. Luis Scola is a MAN. He works his tail off, fights for the ball, has a reliable mid-range, rebounds well, is a solid passer, the works. I bleed for Kevin Martin to wind up in a big situation. It could never happen but can you imagine if he was on the Bulls? It would be awesome. And LO. Oh, LO. I’ve loved LO since that ill-fated Heat squad that was detonated for the Big Paycheck. But Scola is on the wrong side of 30 and has no lift, Odom is about as likely to have his head screwed on straight on a lottery team as I am after seventeen Red Bulls and no sleep for five days (kind of like now, whee!), and Martin is nearly impossible to move in trade, because his contract makes him overpaid but his role makes him undervalued. They don’t help the Hornets long-term. Period.

And Gordon is not worth losing Paul. He’s just not. You get one chance at this, to remake your franchise, to change the narrative. Let’s be clear on this. The Clippers have a shot, with the Lakers reeling and trying to settle themselves, to rewrite the narrative in L.A.. They can be the fortunate ones, the shrewd ones, the big ticket, the popular team while the Lakers are that aging team that was blown apart by ego and celebrity. They can seize a whole new destiny.

Or they can overvalue Eric Gordon, a probable All-Star. That’s how good Paul is.

Now the talks are ongoing with the potential of them not giving up Gordon. And that’s great. In reality, the league should have taken the Kaman-Aminu-Bledsoe-Pick offer to the bank and not looked back. The horrific Hornets would be a lock, to get a top three pick. That means Davis/MKG/Barnes. Then the Minnesota pick. Even if Adelman brings them up six lottery spots, think about that, makes them better than six teams last year, that’s still the 8th pick. And that puts you in Perry Jones/Jeremy Lamb/Jared Sullinger (if he slides as he should)/Andre Drummond/Marquis Teague/Bradley Beal (my pick) territory. Take the freak of nature power forward, slot him next to Okafor for a season before you ditch Ok, take Beal as the best perimeter shooter since… you guessed it… Eric Gordon, and you’ve got Bledsoe-Beal-Ariza (ugh)-Davis-Okafor. Or you’ve got Bledsoe-Beal-MKG-Aminu-Okafor. You’re on your way.

But beyond all of this, no one died. The league vetoed a trade as an owner, which they shouldn’t have been, a trade that was terrible, even if Demps had been given the authority to make it. That’s all. Owners do stupid things every second in this league. What makes the NBA any different?

The owners were jerks in the lockout. I get that. I wrote about it. A lot.

But that’s over. It’s reconstruction time. We have games in less than two weeks and all anyone’s talking about is who Chris Paul is going to oop to. And you want to tell me this is a bad thing? I’ve got some traffic numbers to show you if that’s the case.

And finally, to those that say it hurts the credibility of the league?

THIS IS THE NBA HAHAHA THERE IS NO CREDIBILITY HAHAHA THE INMATES WILL TAKE YOUR PAPERWORK AT THE COUNTER HAHAHAH.

This is the NBA. It’s a league that had its championship series on tape delay two and a half decades ago. It’s a league that had to survive a widespread coke problem. It’s a league that features insane contracts given on a regular basis, which will never stop no matter what is changed to the CBA. It’s the league of The Punch, the ABA, of Planet Lovetron, of the frozen envelopes, of lottery balls to determine franchise fates, of t-shirt guns, and EV-ERY-BOD-Y-CLAP-YO-HANDS. You want serious legitimacy, stern control, a flawless business model? Plop your ass down on the couch on a Sunday.

Tuesday night in late February is all right for Gonzo.

When the going gets weird, the weird put together a three-way trade.

God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of Basketball.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGI1bkiLBEE

Photo by HarshWCAM3 on Flickr

Here’s what sucked the most about the lockout. Yes, those of us trapped in its tangles, forced into paying attention can tell you about the owners’ intransigence, their obstinacy, the obtuse veracity of their never-satisfied lust for money and power. I came to think of the owners as a giant maw, constantly consuming everything, Roger Mason and JaVale McGee caught between the strains of their whale teeth as Billy Hunter made tea for everyone. We can tell you about one tactical error after another made by the players, by their unending string of missed appraisals. We can tell you about long nights waiting for no word, about the repeated yanking of the rug from out from under us and on our chain.

But the worst part about the lockout was this.

Nothing came next.

There was no “next game.” No “Oh, well, we’ll get ‘em next time.” There was no “Next year, we should get a wing/guard/center/living body down low.” You can imagine what the league will be like but not really because it could be six months from now it could be six years from now it could be six minutes from now. Tomorrow does not exist in a lockout. Next game does not exist. There is no offseason, trade deadline, All-Star Game, playoff run, anything. None of it exists. It’s like the whole of this sport that so many draw joy and escape from is simply held in purgatory. There’s no sunrise coming to save you.

And then there was light.

Beyond the immediate joy of discovering there would be a season, that friends would have jobs and I would not have to research legal proceedings any further, there was something else. I started writing about the NBA because I need somewhere for my mind to go. I need an outlet for the constant wheeling. The same lack of sleep that leads to too many words on too many subjects every day doesn’t go away without a season. It just meant nights waiting, and resenting the entire process. There was nowhere to go. The process of thinking about trades, free agency, rotations, adjustments, development, the constant evolution of the game is what gives the steam engine up top somewhere to release the product created. In short, I needed there to be an NBA tomorrow, and for a long while there wasn’t.

But now there is. And while there’s bitterness and hurt from just about everyone over how this went down, about how over 300 people lost their jobs, about how cities that needed it lost economic engines, about how a group of people essentially got together and pouted their way into nearly killing a sport because they didn’t like young black men telling them they were going to control their own professional futures, the season is still coming. And maybe it’s short-sighted to just be happy about that, to forget all the economic, moral, ethical, philosophical and financial impacts of the result of the lockout and the future of labor disputes in the NBA. but it doesn’t make it any less valuable. That’s probably the biggest thing I learned in the lockout. We need it. Those of us who love the game, the hardcore fans, the psychos who post 100 times a day on messageboards, who haunt Twitter looking for news and rumors all while complaining about the rumors, the ones who can tell you the 12th man on every team, that’s a lot of people. Everyone needs an escape, a way to get past the cruel reality that life is difficult and most times out to get you and those you care about. The league does that. The game does that. Not Euroleague, or college ball, or exhibitions (Dear God, don’t get me started). There’s something about the league that gets to people, that drives a love. And that joy is worth saving. It’s worth remembering.It’s worth basking in.

So, no, I don’t care that we’ve immediately switched to talking about CP3 in New York or Dwight Howard in Los Angeles. I don’t care if the Lakers go 66-0 or the Celtics and Lakers play again in another terrible Finals series. I don’t care if the Heat don’t try and still win 55 games and win the Finals. I don’t care about the luxury tax or escrow payments. I care that for a few years, there’s a tomorrow. There’s a league. There’s the Heat trying to figure out a rotation and Denver trying to figure out an identity, Golden State trying to figure out a defense and Tyreke Evans trying to figure out a position. There’s something else.

There’s a million ways to think about this league, and we discover smarter, better, and more interesting ones every day.

Just imagine what we’ll think of tomorrow.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS9_ipu9GKw