The Second Arrangement

Hey howdy haven’t talked in a while. What’s the closest you’ve Kramer’d a car?

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Pat Riley is a little too much, sometimes.

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Look at this amazing painting.

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(Never Too Much podcast: Blow Pop flavors, ranked.)

Thank the Nets and Sixers for not being precious.

Buncha babies before the trade deadline, afraid to hand the the other one a division title, a Finals berth, a championship.

Isn’t that what they have games for? Isn’t that why we do trades? Babies!

Morey and Sean Marks got past it, finally. James Harden to Philly. Seth Curry and the suddenly-available Ben Simmons to Brooklyn plus the Nets get a pair of first-round picks (2022 and 2027) and Andre Drummond. Philly gets Paul Millsap.

Win-win, but the Nets won.

Ben Simmons would have an awfully good time shutting Harden down in a playoff game. Kyrie Irving would grin at earning fouls four, five and six against the 76ers’ leading scorer, Joel Embiid, who wants to dunk Kevin Durant right out of the playoffs because deep in his heart Embiid knows Durant is the only one who truly understands social media, and this bothers Joel.

Beef isn’t complicated, but stews tend to blend. You don’t think you like tomatoes or mush carrots or disappearing potatoes or translucent onions but give it a minute and a loaf of bread and you’re in love again. Brooklyn and Philadelphia have only begun to lend depth to the rivalry.

Don’t call Morey a genius, or Marks anything close. They got together and did what they were supposed to do, which is get us back to basketball.

WHO THE CHAMPS GOT

Serge Ibaka may not cover the space between the ground and the rim as well as he used to but every bit helps. Donte DiVincenzo’s slot in the rotation is the price to pay for needing to win now. Ibaka is not the perfect Brook Lopez replacement but that’s not the point, the point was grabbing what was available at the store with a coupon that was about to become paper.

It’s a noble bid. If Ibaka can’t play, you wonder about his ability to linger in Mike Budenholzer’s rotation a little too long. Also Grayson Allen’s impending increase in minutes is going to try and ruin the playoffs for us.

Adding Daniel Theis (whom Boston snared) would have been nice, but Milwaukee has yet to add its first German player.

PISTONS GET

Marvin Bagley III. Rolling one lottery flyer (Josh Jackson) over for another is perfect.

I don’t look to make Bagley a martyr but Vivek Ranadivé’s Kings are an oral history waiting to happen. Bagley’s stroke is good, he scores and rebounds and doesn’t turn it over. He’s going to do well on a really good team someday.

For now he’s on the Pistons, which tells you that the GMs on the really good teams are content to let this nearly-23 year-old bounce around a few more years. It takes time to sweat out all the Kings Poison.

RAPTORS GET

Thaddeus Young. Bloody b******s.

Pairing a first-rounder with Goran Dragic just to duck under the luxury tax feels like a lot, but there are a lot of books to settle in the rumble of a recent championship season. Toronto already has enough No. 20-ish picks already, it’s time for someone born in 1988 to move a few bodies around.

Seven straight wins and Thad Young. Bloody, b******s.

NETS GET

A championship if they don’t blow it.

The Nets won and won and won. I don’t care if BKN was 13-3 with Harden/Durant/Kyrie, that was 13 hamstring pulls ago.

James Harden will be awesome in Philly but at the moment he was surly and superfluous and throbbing in half his quadrants. Brooklyn dealt him for need and saved themselves from paying James Harden $54 million a year.

Ben Simmons covers all angles, Kevin Durant is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, Kyrie Irving was always going to outlast NYC’s mandates.

Seth Curry only has to shoot, not make plays. The Nets retained Patty Mills. Also:

Brooklyn will receive Philadelphia's unprotected 2022 first-round pick, with the right to defer it to 2023, as well as a top-8-protected 2027 first-round pick. That pick would remain top-8 protected in 2028, and will turn into two second-round picks -- and $2 million in cash -- if it doesn't convey in either season, sources said.

Ben Simmons has so much time. By April this trade deadline will feel like it took place in 2017.

Now, go whup Philadelphia’s ass in the playoffs.

KINGS GET

Donte DiVincenzo in a Kings uniform might be a blur, done in April, doesn’t matter, the Kings are running for No. 8.

The seed! Not the eighth pick.

With rookie Davion Mitchell bumping butts with De’Aaron Fox, Donte shares minutes and intermittent playmaking responsibility with new addition and All-Around Talented Dude Domantas Sabonis. Not enough to explain whiffing on 2018’s Bagley selection, but at least Donte’s shooting marks roll back to 0-0 on a brand new team.

Sacto also acquired Trey Lyles and Josh Jackson but, again, you thought these individuals were already on the Sacramento Kings.

MAVERICKS GET

Dāvis Bertāns and Spencer Dinwiddie. Once more I assure you these two were not Dallas Mavericks members until Thursday.

The 28-year old Dinwiddie is owed $36.85 million over the next two seasons, he gets to the line half as much as he did in the campaign before his ACL tear, whatever, he’s perfect for the Mavs.

It’s a lot of money not have to play Frank Ntilikina or the mercurial Trey Burke, but good insurance for 2022-23 as Jalen Brunson hits free agency. Dinwiddie in a full training camp trafficking dumb ideas with Jason Kidd could be a lot of fun.

Paying the 29-year old Bertāns $16 million next year and $17 million in 2023-24 is less desirable, even if he will provide Doncic with a few playoff bangers. If Bertāns works 62 games in 2023-24 his 2024-25 contract ($16 million) becomes fully guaranteed, so it’s not like they’re going to be playing this guy in Year Two.

SPURS GET

A first-round pick from the ascendant Raptors, currently slated for No. 20, in exchange for Thaddeus Young.

The Spurs will also receive Boston’s first-round pick, top-four protected, slated for No. 18. Boston sends Josh Richardson (9.7 points in 24.7 minutes with Boston, 39.7 from deep) and the 22-year old Romeo Langford (not so much) to Texas. Boston and Toronto wanted out of the tax, the Spurs will pay Richardson over $12.1 million next year, Langford over $5.6 million.

For this, San Antonio does not pay for Derrick White’s prime (at three years, nearly $54 million).

Goran Dragic was a Spur, briefly, he will be bought out. San Antonio also gave up on Drew Eubanks, Drewbanks, who was waived by Toronto.

I hate San Antonio for never playing Thaddeus Young and then for not sending him to the Bulls for the rights to let the 7-2 Tom Dore have his way with the jamoke who threw bricks at the Wiener’s Circle:

SIXERS GET

James Harden but at age 32.

There weren’t any better offers out there. Simmons and Rivers and Embiid would never align. Bradley Beal wasn’t available and you wouldn’t want that contract anyway. Damian Lillard wasn’t budging from his extension in Portland and neither he nor Beal were ever MVPs. Harden and Embiid is an impossible pick and roll for opponents to do anything with, even while the pair figures out footwork.

The playoffs are in a few months, by spring a healthier James Harden could begin to approximate his MVP-level brilliance. Maybe then those celebrating as if the Sixers just traded for Harden-the-MVP-candidate will gloat in our face, earn the call, make the free throw.

All aggressive, Philly-like. Beginning to understand this deal for Philadelphia.

It’s the Moses Malone trade, but flipped, like they already had MVP Moses before acquiring an aging Julius Erving to put them over the top.

So the Sixers biffed Ben Simmons, it’s not like that guy didn’t totally suck. Embiid and Harden in a possessions contest with a clock will be tough s**t to overcome four times in seven.

Losing Drummond hurts, but Doc Rivers absolutely is the coach who would run Paul Millsap important minutes at reserve center in the year 2022. Daryl Morey suits his personnel.

James Harden will play for over $47.3 million next season and then he will sign a four-year, $223 million extension. He gives Joel Embiid his best shot at a championship and Daryl Morey believes his front office can keep this going with Embiid and Harden combining to earn $100 million a season.

With roster spots yet to fill, and Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey’s contracts to extend. With Tobias Harris owed $77 million over two more seasons, listen, I’m going to enjoy watching all this money switch hands to the side of the table that does the most.

Now, go whup Brooklyn’s ass in the playoffs.

WIZARDS GET

What don’t the Wizards get.

Montrezl Harrell, Dāvis Bertāns, Dinwiddie, out.

Kristaps Porzingis in. I don’t know when KP will play next but I do know he didn’t begin conceptualizing his role on an empty stomach:

Porzingis averages 19 and 7.7 rebounds in 30 minutes but his knee sucks. Maybe the Wizards are trying to get Bradley Beal to opt out.

Washington saved some money this season (trading starter Aaron Holiday to Phoenix for nothing) but Porzingis is owed $33.8 million next season and $36 million in 2023-24.

The Wizards also picked up 33-year old Ish Smith, who is not as good anymore and owed over $4.7 million next year.

This is Ish’s second time with the Wizards. He has been on a dozen different NBA teams and that is a record, tied with Tony Massenburg, Chucky Brown, Jim Jackson, and Joe Smith, who are all newsletters written by Kelly Dwyer.

Additionally, I hope Ish Smith breaks the record, because he is my height.

Charlotte also gets rumbly, 20-year old center Vernon Carey. Performed 23 games in two NBA seasons (but it feels like you sat through every one of them).

INDIANA GETS

Spry, bespectacled center/forward Jalen Smith. This guy is fun.

The Suns drafted Smith when he was 20 and understandably ignored his rookie year during a title bid. What’s less coherent is the move to decline Smith’s 2022-23 option not long after that rookie season ended. I understand the Suns often do this,

but this was nuts.

Also, Indiana, you gave up Torrey Craig.

Smith rebounds and crushes around the rim and blocks shots and doesn’t foul a lot. Doesn’t hit threes but tries them and makes three-quarters of his free throws, this is what we call a “burgeoning stroke.”

In four starts with Phoenix this season Smith contributed 17.2 points and 9.5 rebound-averages, blocked four shots, two assists, three turnovers, Indiana, sign him up.

CLIPPERS GET

Rodney Hood. Once a trade deadline, someone has to get Rodney Hood.

It’s all good in the nope not going to.

SUNS GET

Depth: Aaron Holiday is nice, a good fourth guard on a team that doesn’t need one, and Torrey Craig is Torrey Craig. More, good, players.

GM James Jones biffed the Jalen Smith situation but it’s so, so tough to argue with a roster like this.

CELTICS GET

Out of the luxury tax, but also somehow into Derrick White. And didn’t do anything stupid like trade a Celtic-for-life.

White is great, he doesn’t crush from deep but he’ll throw himself around for you and keep it tidy defensively. This is a massive pickup for Boston.

The team also dumped Celtic-for-never Dennis Schröder in exchange for Daniel Theis, a burly addition to a top-three defense that suddenly doesn’t have to worry about covering for Romeo Langford or, less occasionally, Josh Richardson. Theis is under contract for two more years after 2021-22, nearly $18 million total.

Boston also dealt Enes Freedom because he kept showing up on all the TV shows Brad Stevens likes.

HORNETS GET

Montrezl Harrell.

Yes. Winners of the trade deadline.

Bill Russell wasn’t helping this team play defense, might as well shoot for video game stats.

VIDEO GAME SLANDER

I apologize for my cheap crack about De’Aaron Fox in the last episode, I’m sure there is plenty to learn from video games.

To aid in my quest I’ve subscribed to a channel that plays NBA video games from 30 years ago alongside era-appropriate RnB and hip-hop.

BULLS THOUGHTS

They are in the podcast.

I do have other thoughts. Retire Dennis Rodman’s number.

Jae Crowder has been in the NBA for almost a decade, 713 contests, still has fewer career rebounds than Rodman’s 199 games as a Bull.

Of the 420 NBA draft picks dating back to 2015, only two of them (Sabonis, KAT) have more rebounds than “Dennis Rodman as a Chicago Bull.”

Top-five jersey in history, let alone sales. Retire it.

REDUCTIVE POETRY REGARDING LAKERS, KNICKS

When LeBron runs your show:

James had a hand in Los Angeles' roster construction in the offseason, consulting with Rob Pelinka, Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager, on everything from the Westbrook trade with the Washington Wizards to free-agent signings, sources told ESPN.

When sidling up with Thibodeau:

“From my understanding, Thibs didn’t want [Cam Reddish] and they did it anyway,’’ said an NBA source who has been in contact with Knicks brass.

It is derision, mockery, you will sow:

BEST PASSIVE/AGGRESSIVE BITS FROM THE ALL-STAR DRAFT

This is exactly when Kevin Durant realized he was going to be making a statement:

Kevin Durant dryly noting Joel Embiid as “the leading scorer in the league, right now.”

I enjoyed LeBron James calling Giannis Antetokounmpo the try-“hardest-playing player in All-Star history.” My paraphrase.

As an NBA blogger from ten years ago, I took offense to LeBron referring to DeMar DeRozan and only DeMar DeRozan as one of his “favorite players in the NBA.”

On the off chance that you do not know how the draft turned out, here it is, watch it in full without spoilers.

The full rosters.

ROCKET 88

What’s better than this song?

If you enjoyed this, consider paying very little money for a lot of NBA basketball:

Thank you for reading, and listening!

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Gregg Popovich took over the San Antonio Spurs at about this point in the season in 1996, replacing Bob Hill as head coach. The firing was a surprise, many expected Hill ousted after San Antonio’s unappealing playoff exit the spring before, stringing him along for 18 extra (David Robinson-less) games the next season felt a little off.

The Spurs lost a lot, drafted Tim Duncan, and 25 years on Popovich is 21 wins away from supplanting Don Nelson (who first dragged Popovich onto an NBA bench) as the NBA’s all-time leader in head coaching wins.

Because of the relationship, and a natural unease with self-analysis, Pop’s been succinct.

Of course, Duncan came awfully close to leaving the Spurs in 2000 as a free agent, after only three seasons with Popovich.

Like, what if?

Too often the re-telling of Tim Duncan’s trip to Orlando includes actual magic, landing Duncan on the same team as Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady, but the Magic only had two max salary slots.

With Tim in Orlando, McGrady wasn’t taking Duncan’s salary position in San Antonio, not after the greeting Benny the Bull gave T-Mac in Chicago:

The Bulls rolled out the red-velvet carpet. They met McGrady at the airport with a three-piece band, the Luvabulls, mascot Benny the Bull and fans chanting, ‘T-Mac!’ They showed him personalized recruiting videos made by Oprah and Jesse Jackson.

They imposed on the Cubs to let McGrady and a trailing media horde visit both dugouts before Saturday’s White Sox-Cubs game, throw out the first ball to Sammy Sosa and lead an adoring throng in ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’

With Duncan (and probably Antonio Daniels) out of the picture, the Spurs have space to work with. Does the team punt it, and hope to lure Chris Webber (then working uneasily with Jason Williams and the stuck-at-eighth-seed Kings) as a free agent in 2001? Does it overpay for Austin Croshere, blow the Bucks out of the water for Tim Thomas, or push in on the Brian Grant sweepstakes?

San Antonio still signs Derek Anderson to a his two-year, big value, deal. The Spurs drafted Manu Ginobili in 1999 and knew what they had. Wherever Tony Parker was about to land in the 2001 draft, the Spurs were going to deal a slot or two ahead and snap him up. Shake the bedsheet all you want, they’re in the Spurs’ timeline.

But no Duncan replacements. The problem is that everyone — Grant, free agent Eddie Jones — wanted to be in Miami, to play along Alonzo Mourning. Florida really had itself a year in 2000.

You couldn’t outbid the Heat, only hope to pluck something in a sign-and-trade. San Antonio could slide into the three-team deal moving Brian Grant to Miami, offering the Blazers a sign-and-trade for Antonio Daniels plus Steve Kerr and Terry Porter, returning Greg Anthony and Portland’s pick in the upcoming draft (Zach Randolph). Later, the Heat and Hornets use the Spurs’ space to alleviate luxury tax troubles ahead of the Eddie Jones sign-and-trade.

San Antonio would re-sign and deal Samaki Walker to the Hornets (already fielding Elden Campbell and P.J. Brown) in exchange for rookie center Jamaal Magliore and (shock horror) Derrick Coleman, a Charlotte cap millstone who gives San Antonio points and rebounds next to David Robinson until the duo’s giant contracts (nearly $20 million combined) expire in 2003.

Grant Hill was on crutches when Tim Duncan chose Orlando, the timeline doesn’t stray and Tim has to do the best he can with centers John Amaechi and Andrew DeClercq. With Mike Miller, Troy Hudson, that whole crew. It isn’t much, and unfortunately for Magic fans, Duncan agreed to the same three-year opt-out with ORL that he actually agreed to in 2000 with San Antonio.

The Duncan-less Spurs haven’t signed any cap-cloggers in his absence. Only four rookie deals (Z-Bo, Mags ahead of his All-Star year, Manu, Parker) alongside the usual finds (Bruce Bowen, 2000 camp signee Raja Bell, Stephen Jackson) and holdover Duncan buddy Malik Rose. Room for Tim’s return in 2003, plus another max slot.

Draft Tim Duncan. After that, stay alive.

ANTONIO MCDYESS STAYS IN PHOENIX

Rookies only had three-year contracts back then. By the end of Year Two a stud could make his future free agent ambitions known, it’s why Kevin Garnett signed a $121 million deal before his 121st NBA start, it’s why the Denver Nuggets were convinced they couldn’t afford to re-sign McDyess, the No. 2 pick in the 1995 NBA draft.

Denver panicked and dealt McDyess to Phoenix before his third season. The Suns not only had McDyess for a playoff campaign in 1998, but also his Bird Rights ahead of an offseason that would see yer Suns replete with free agent cash.

During that offseason, though, McDyess panicked. Nobody expected him to turn down Phoenix’s eventual max offer, but while the Suns were courting Antonio’s future teammates the Nuggies swooped in and glommed a verbal ‘yes’ from the unrestricted free agent.

“I didn’t want to sign there,” said McDyess, a forward. “I sort of had an in-between mind at that point.”

Problem was, he had given a verbal commitment to the Nuggets, and they had flown him in on the eve of training camp to sign the contract.

“When I got to Denver, I just felt like that wasn’t the place for me,” he said. “So I called Jason Kidd (his teammate in Phoenix the previous season) and told him, ‘I don’t know if I want to sign here, man.’ He said, ‘Just stay right there and don’t do nothing you don't want to do. I will be there soon.’”

Kidd, along with Suns teammates George McCloud and Rex Chapman, chartered a plane and flew through a blizzard into Denver that night.

McCloud and Chapman weren’t even Suns yet, only free agents under Bird rights. McCloud was about to sign for the minimum to accommodate free agents, just as Chapman did in Phoenix the two previous seasons ($574,500 total).

Chapman would sign six-year, $22.1 deal with Phoenix eventually, but like McDyess his contract couldn’t become official until the new Suns were acquired. The Nuggets, flush with free hockey tickets, disrupted the plan.

“I was at a (Colorado Avalanche) hockey game (in the owner’s suite) and I wasn’t going to sign until they got there,” McDyess said.

But McDyess said Dan Issel, Denver’s coach and general manager at the time, knew Kidd’s rescue party was on the way, and instructed security and ticket sellers at McNichols Arena to keep Kidd and company out of the building.

“I mean, it was a blizzard outside, and they wouldn't let those guys inside the arena. They kept them out in the snow,” McDyess said. “It was crazy times.”

McDyess, true to his character, honored his verbal commitment to the Nuggets and played four more seasons with them. But he’s always regretted the decision he made on that snowy night.

Let’s melt some snow.

Tom Gugliotta was Phoenix’s consolation prize, instead he heads to Denver as a free agent. McDyess remains in Phoenix, on a verbal guarantee, while the Suns use cap space to lure Vlade Divac. Keeping the team’s 1999 first-round pick, as the Suns don’t need to sign-and-trade for Luc Longley anymore.

Too timid to take on Metta World Peace, the Suns draft James Posey and build the two-way banger of Scott Skiles’ dreams. Prior to the draft the Suns also dealt the rights’ to Dallas’ pick (No. 9, originally Shawn Marion) to Chicago in exchange for Brent Barry. Jerry Krause is smitten with Marion but Chicago uses its selection on Corey Maggette.

(No, I haven’t already written a Krause-in-’99 fan-fiction called ‘Chin de Siècle.’)

Denver loses McDyess but signs Gugliotta to a cheaper rate. The Nuggets had to clear cap room for McDyess’ return but in this scenario gets to keep capable center Dean Garrett and forever Sixth Man candidate Bobby Jackson, along with its own pick in the 1999 draft, which Denver uses on Richard Hamilton. Denver also owns Milwaukee’s first-round pick from the (say it with me) Elliot Perry trade. At No. 18, Dan Issel selects “Ron Artest.”

Nick Van Exel, Googs, Metta, Tony Battie, Rip Hamilton, Bobby Jackson, Danny Fortson, Eric Williams and Raef LaFrentz are, I assure you, “not bad.”

McDyess stays healthy in Phoenix, never becomes a Knick, never visits the Pistons, never leaves Arizona. He’s in the Ring of Honor, people love him there. He won three playoff games in 12 years, but let me tell you, the guy can’t walk down the streets of Tucson without mobs accumulating.

SIXERS MAKE ALLEN IVERSON A PISTON

Except that this was a very real deal. In its most well-known incarnation:

Eddie Jones, Glen Rice, Jerome Williams and Dale Ellis were Philly-bound;Iverson and Geiger headed to Detroit; Jerry Stackhouse, Christian Laettnerand Travis Knight routed to Charlotte; and Anthony Mason, Toni Kukoc andTodd Fuller dispatched to the LA Lakers.

As [Sixers owner Pat] Croce himself told ESPN The Magazine’s Tom Friend: “It came close, brother, it came close.”

So close that Croce, siding with coach Larry Brown, rang Iverson with the word:

“I did not want to trade Allen Iverson, but I could no longer defend him because he was breaking Larry’s rules,” said Croce, who personally called Iverson to inform him of the would-be trade. “Allen just told me he didn’t want to go. He wanted to be a professional.”

To complete the trade, however, the Sixers needed cooperation from Geiger, whose six-year, $47 million contract contains a clause that says awards him a 15 percent pay raise -- another $3.3 million on a contract that expires after the 2002-03 season -- if he’s traded. Under the NBA's complicated salary cap rules, the trade wouldn’t work unless Geiger waived the so-called “trade-kicker.”

“I looked at Detroit and didn’t think Allen and I would’ve been better off there,” Geiger said. “So the decision was easy.”

Even after Geiger squashed it, the Sixers pushed to deal AI.

Had the 7-foot, barbed-wire tattoo pioneer waived his no-trade clause, free agent Eddie Jones would become a Sixer via signed-and-traded max deal. The immediate punishment would come in Miami, where Pat Riley would kick in door after door after not only missing out on Jones but 2001 All-Star Anthony Mason. For once, Miami is on the inside looking out.

A Sixer team featuring the aging Glen Rice, emerging Theo Ratliff and Jones at home in a lead role would have made the playoffs under Brown, but not spectacularly. Ratliff went down for the season midway through the real 2000-01 and the Sixers were able to pair him with Kukoc in exchange for Dikembe Mutombo, a deal that doesn’t exist in our timeline. Larry Brown already traded for Tyrone Hill, he’s out of ideas.

Could be worse. Could be Detroit.

Geiger and his barbed-wire tattoo were out, they never stayed healthy, luckily the Pistons acquired center insurance in the form of Ben Wallace via the Grant Hill sign-and-trade earlier in the summer. George Irvine’s real-life 2000-01 Pistons led the NBA in pace (94.7, which woulda ranked 32nd last season) and were top-eight in defense but without the presence of the Philadelphia team Iverson was just jettisoned, publicly, from.

The only thing lifting this Detroit squad into the playoffs is a superhuman, MVP-effort from the pissed off but also sad, actual 2000-01 MVP. Luckily, Allen Iverson is emotional.

Rick Carlisle and Cliff Robinson hit the next season, in 2002 Detroit still uses its full MLE on Chauncey Billups, Joe Dumars assures Iverson it can work, and he’s right.

Iverson and Ben and Billups make the next five consecutive Finals before Bulls GM John Paxson signs Iverson and his two championship rings to a bloated free agent deal in 2006.

Back in 2000: Anthony Mason is perfect for the Laker triangle but Mase might not agree with as much while at its point, and may not last the season under Phil Jackson.

This is the year Miami loses Alonzo Mourning to the start of his kidney woes, the Heat stay competitive with Jamal Mashburn, Brian Grant and P.J. Brown but badly misses the sort of playmaking Mase (an All-Star in 2001) provided. Jackson’s Lakers should trade Mason to Pat Riley’s Heat for Brown, whom Jackson coveted while coaching the Bulls, but nah, Brown goes to the Sixers for Aaron McKie.

Jackson probably trades Anthony Mason to Orlando for Pat Garrity and Los Angeles makes the 2001 Finals where the Lakers meet Toronto, briefly.

The Hornets would still end up in New Orleans but Baron Davis and Jerry Stackhouse eventually got a podcast out of it. Mostly about Laettner.

WEBBER STAYS IN D.C.

Sacramento swingman Mitch Richmond was on the trade block throughout 1997-98. Kings being the Kings, he was fine with that:

“I’m just happy when I hear the rumors.”

Now that’s what I call, a Sacramento King.

Several teams wanted a shot at Richmond, Sacto GM Geoff Petrie dragged it out.

“When I step up to the microphone to say I traded Mitch Richmond, I want to have something to say.”

Even with this qualifier in place, it was a surprise Richmond stayed on his Kings to the trade deadline, let alone past it.

And it was a surprise Webber was on the block at all, C-Webb had his hiccups in D.C. but few thought Wizards GM Wes Unseld would actually trade his franchise player. Yet, two months after Webber turned 25, Washington astonished the NBA in dealing Webber to Sacramento for Richmond (about to turn 33) and Otis Thorpe (always 36).

The trade took place in the middle of the playoffs, the night Sinatra died, the night of the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, we didn’t need any content, nobody asked for any trades. Had Unseld and Petrie waited a bit, big moves could still take place on draft night, just ahead of the 1998 NBA lockout.

When, in our what-if, the Wizards get Eddie Jones. Webber stays.

The Lakers get Otis Thorpe, Kings draft pick Jason Williams, and Mitch Richmond.

The Kings get Juwan Howard, Elden Campbell, Nick Van Exel, Ben Wallace.

Sacramento is not the beneficiary of an all-time lopsided sports deal anymore. No Vlade. Corliss Williamson comes back for the minimum, same as Jon Barry, and this is the year 1996 draft pick Predrag Stojakovic appears.

At the next trade deadline Petrie spins Campbell to Utah for Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley and the better of Utah’s two first-round picks (Andrei Kirilenko). Corliss eventually turns into Doug Christie, Tariq Abdul-Wahad becomes Hersey Hawkins, the team is very good, not great, yet sources an expectation: Sacramento hasn’t missed the playoffs this century.

The Lakers’ lockout year featured out of shape Shaq and fitful Kobe, angry at each other over shot attempts and literal labor battles. It was so bad the team hired Dennis Rodman and Kurt Rambis in the same month, cosmic chasms an aging Mitch Richmond and wild Jason Williams could not fix. Otis Thorpe is suspended five separate times for laughing on the bench.

Richmond is nearly washed but the Hornets still need a shooting guard and at the ‘99 deadline deal Derrick Coleman and a first-round draft pick to the Lakers for Richmond and Thorpe. The pick vaults six spots in the lottery and the newly-hired Phil Jackson agrees with Jerry West: Los Angeles should draft Lamar Odom.

For the next decade the Odom-Kobe-J-Will-Shaq-led Los Angeles Lakers win the only titles Washington doesn’t.

The Wizards balk at losing Ben Wallace but Webber and Terry Davis Sr. are more than enough to subsist on up front, though the group falters during the lockout season Unseld cribs point guard Andre Miller out of the lottery to pair with Eddie Jones. Unseld deals Rod Strickland to Portland for Isaiah Rider.

Annoyed with their practice habits, Charlotte GM Michael Jordan sends Ricky Davis and Brad Miller to Washington in exchange for Jahidi White and Calbert Cheaney. The Wizards win three championships and cannabis has been decriminalized on a federal level since 2006.

KRAUSE DUMPS SCOTTIE PIPPEN FOR SHAWN KEMP

With Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s relationship at a low point, we can pretend MJ would have been indifferent over losing the teammate he knew best.

Jordan understood he paired expertly with Pippen’s array of skills. Pippen was younger and similar enough to take over the more dominant aspects of Jordan’s pre-retirement package (crazy rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, on-ball defense) and let MJ, now in his mid-30s, concentrate on maintaining that 30-point average.

If Jerry Krause adds another talent, no matter how Dunk-a-licious, there is no guarantee that Jordan returns as a free agent in 1996. Jordan spent mornings lifting weights with Pippen and Ron Harper, he wanted people his age he could relate to, he may have found that with the Knicks. We’ll have to prevent this.

Pippen wasn’t sent to Seattle ahead of the 1994 NBA draft because the SuperSonics couldn’t guarantee the return of Eddie Jones with the No. 10 pick. However, Jerry Krause had a thing for Jalen Rose’s dad when Jimmy Walker was a top pick out of Providence, and an even bigger thing for lengthy, lefty point guards. Rose, whom Krause traded for in 2002, was available at No. 10.

So what you would get, sports fans, was Pippen and Gary Payton out in Seattle with George Karl, inspiring future blog and book content, winning 66 games a year and going out in the second round. Eddie Jones in El Lay, and Michael Jordan returning to a Bulls team featuring Toni Kukoc, Shawn Kemp, and Jalen Rose in braces. The Dobermans!

Ron Harper still signs as a free agent in the 1994 offseason, and with Kemp there is no need for Dennis Rodman in this timeline: Chicago deals Will Perdue for a draft pick and uses the savings to re-sign Scott Williams.

I know you expect something splashier than “Scott Williams,” but you should trust the fan-fic author of ‘Fully Krausened: The Time-Traveler’s Guide to a Minimum Eight-Peat’ to capably work inside Jerry Krause’s head.

MINNESOTA NEVER TRADES RAY ALLEN FOR STEPHON MARBURY

In 1996 the Bucks drafted Stephon Marbury, who put on Milwaukee’s cap and immediately wept tears of joy.

Marbury melts Milwaukee’s hearts, GM Mike Dunleavy calls off the trade. The Timberwolves aren’t upset, team president Kevin McHale was crying when Dunleavy called him, McHale telling Mike that he couldn’t be the guy to take the Bucks cap off Marbury’s head. The interview really shook these guys up.

With Minnesota’s blessing, the deal is off.

Steph starts in Milwaukee alongside Anthony Peeler, whom Dunleavy rescued from his buddies at the Lakers (trying to clear cap space for Shaq) for a pair of second-round picks. The Bucks make the playoffs in 1997 but, fearful of impending contract extensions for Marbury and Vin Baker, deal Baker before 1997-98 to the Pistons, returning Theo Ratliff and Aaron McKie.

(Vancouver offered Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Bryant Reeves and what turned into an unprotected first-round pick in 2003 for Baker and Lee Mayberry but Dunleavy insisted on McKie, who can defend and shoot at off guard while at the same time minding the temperament of a fire-first backcourt mate.)

The Bucks falter before George Karl elbows in to rescue the franchise in 1999, ahead of Marbury’s contract extension. Marbury and Karl get along famously, Steph outranks the rest of his generation in the post-MJ sponsorship battles, AND1 is a top-two shoe company by 2003, the Bucks rule the East, routinely.

Gary Payton joins the team in 2004 in the search for a ring. Glenn Robinson’s career is salvaged by Marbury’s touch in the pick and roll, somewhere in Greece a child dribbles a basketball along with the broadcast of an internationally televised Big Dog performance and decides he wants to be a Buck for life.

Your favorite Marbury-in-Milwaukee memory was when Steph embarrassed Sacramento’s Jon Barry during overtime of the Bucks’ lone win in the 2001 Finals. Nearly 200,000 people watched that series.

Allen and Garnett would get on like treble and bass, they wouldn’t have to like each other to succeed fabulously. And unlike Marbury it wouldn’t offend Allen that Garnett snuck ahead of max contract ceilings.

Ray is the guy that negotiated his own max deal in 1999, in the first week there were “max deals,” cutting out an agent and saving himself over $2.36 million:

“I don’t need somebody skimming millions off the top,” said Allen, who chose instead to pay a team of lawyers, including celebrity lawyer Johnnie Cochran, a business manager and an accountant at an hourly rate of up to $500.

“When agents see what I’m doing, they’ll say, ‘Well, he’s a flagship for something that we do not necessarily agree with. It’s going to take away our livelihood,’” Allen said. “And I think it’s something important for this league and for the players, when we’re smart enough to take care of our own money.”

Allen negotiated directly with team owner Herb Kohl, the senior senator from Wisconsin, because the NBA’s new labor accord sets limits on what players can earn based on years of service.

At the time, George Karl said Allen “has shown a lot of people that you may not need agents”

Jeremiah DeBerry, Allen’s lawyer, said agents are necessary only for “middle of the road guys.”

“For the rookies and for the high profile guys who are going to get the maximum, certainly this is the way to go,” DeBerry said. “It just makes sense.”

(When it came time to negotiate his next max contract with the SuperSonics, Allen employed Lon Babby as his agent.)

Allen would slide right in with Minnesota, who in real life were about to trade shooting guard Isaiah Rider for two blips and a bleep (Bill Curley, tweener guard James Robinson, a first-rounder McHale turned into Paul Grant) just to get Rider off the team. Terry Porter returns and starts capably at point guard through the end of the century, when McHale takes the same bet on Chauncey Billups (after four teams in two seasons) the Wolves took in our timeline.

It’s a Big Three, and it wins a title in 2004 over the Indiana Pacers.

The series shown on four-hour tape-delay on ABC (though in real time on Spike TV) after Kevin Garnett says “cheat-ass motherfuckers” on live air during ABC’s broadcast of the Wolves’ deciding Game 5 win over the Lakers in the Western finals.

To replenish lost revenue, the league contracts the New Orleans Hornets.

McHale jokes about his refusal to “change horses midstream” during the trophy presentation, to thunderous applause. George W. Bush wins re-election with 323 electoral college votes.

BETCHA GOT A CHICK ON THE SIDE

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(Never Too Much podcast: 2000-01 NBA League Pass, Monday’s games, soothing rain, occasional guitar.)

Whingeing over “points of emphasis” in the NBA’s first weeks is an annual tradition. One year the emphasis was on upsetting Rasheed Wallace and it went wonderfully. Lots of points.

The NBA cracks down on baited contact this year, they swear. You can’t feint into a cushion at the free throw line, can’t beguile your way toward a whistle. Lunging, out.

If James Harden shot only nine free throws in the first week of any other season we’d just assume it was for a trade demand, something we’re used to. We’re not used to players actually trying and not getting away with it.

James Harden, to his credit, really doesn’t want any attention over this right now, if you wouldn’t mind.

The problem is Steve Nash, first to the podium. His super-fine offense can’t get going until his MVP gets rad, so he’s going to lay in:

“No big deal,” says Harden, because it ain’t.

If James Harden fails against the Hornets in October it’s because October. James Harden will be washed, one day, and that day won’t be in October.

Here’s how our hero looked early Sunday evening:

I mean, yeah: Cody Martin balls. NBA sometimes happens.

You build to a shift. The 2004-05’s crackdown on hand-checking wasn’t opinion fodder straight off the bat, not with the Spurs and Pistons appearing in that season’s Finals. Bush was in office, people were cynical. The NBA tried to stop hand-checking before, 1994, nothing happened.

The 2004-05 season started with two teams — Phoenix, Seattle — scoring at obscene marks. The answer wasn’t pace, Seattle was the league’s fourth-slowest team, but the flexibility to express:

“The new rules have given players more freedom of movement. The fact that there are no illegal defenses has increased ball movement and increased man movement that make it hard to defend. And more coaches are relinquishing control.”

This is Dwane Casey, then a Seattle associate head coach, speaking to Howard Beck at the New York Times.

“You look at Phoenix, the coaches give up control of the offensive set. That's no disrespect to the coaches, but a lot of plays you just can't really design a defense for. That makes for more points. I think players today are better offense players. Shooting has improved. Ball-handling has improved.”

Pacer coach Rick Carlisle wanted to shout out the loosened zone defense restrictions from three years before, so, shout out to loosened zone defense restrictions from three years befooooorrrrrre:

“I think since the major rule changes of three and a half, four years ago, style-wise, we’ve become a better ball movement league. We’ve become a higher basketball I.Q. league.”

The league’s reigning Finals MVP was not impressed:

“I don’t understand,” Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said then. “I think you should reward hard work, not try to make it softer.”

Whatever Chauncey.

Anyway, Charlotte is it:

B*LLY SPORTS OPINION

Weren’t they the company that saved money and didn’t send MLB announcers to the road games the network was charged with (and charged for) covering?

Yeah, f**k those guys.

It’s getting worse. Several NBA radio announcers stay home at the behest of those who pay them, calling games off television feeds. Soon enough television crews won’t stray from the home city.

When announcers aren’t actually at the game, coverage suffers. The program turns into a talk radio show, nobody wins but the latest round of investors who saw televised sports and thought they could squeeze slightly more money out of it than the last pain in our ass.

And Mark Cuban sees the nickel and dime operation for what it is — real cheap, uninspired stuff — and I wish other NBA owners cared about their fans as much.

The same owners that won’t spring to pay for a hotel room for the lone radio announcer.

HALFTIME

Pre-Nash Amar’e Stoudemire giving it to the team that passed on him twice (Nene, Nikoloz Tskitishvili).

This was a month into Mike D’Antoni’s term as interim head coach and the contest was never in doubt.

Stoudemire finished with 28 points and eight rebounds and Nikoloz only played five minutes and missed all three shots but Denver got out to a big lead early and never looked back because say it with me “Voshon Lenard scored 32 points to lead all scorers.”

OH, NO

You want to know why I cover basketball?

Every year a new batch of players enters the NBA. Every year the previous season’s new batch grows a little. The constant repletion engages me, the NBA keeping its ground game groovy, its gunk gobbled up yearly via tectonic plates.

Also I get to quibble over dumb s**t with Chris Mannix:

For those of us present as friends traded blows over rights to the Hornets selection in NBA Jam, this doesn’t scan.

The LJ-and-Zo Charlotte Hornets were absolutely must-see TV and were often scheduled nationally as such, like the time they were slotted as NBC’s Game of the Week in March 1995, before Jordan’s comeback bumped them to regional action.

Qualifying Chris’ claim for the League Pass era does him fewer favors, but happy Hornet teams are rare. The five-year history of Hornets Mk. II doesn’t bring a lot of heat. And the Charlotte Bobcats, such as they were, aren’t.

What does make the cut, however, is one of the top-five teams in the history of NBA League Pass: Baron Davis’ 2000-01 Charlotte Hornets.

Davis could not be kept out of the fray by year No. 2, his first as a starter. “I was gonna dunk on everyone,” he told Forgotten Seasons in August. “My second year is the year I was catching bodies.” Blindfolded or not.

League Pass denizens loved tuning in to watch the Hornets give the champion Lakers a push on a Friday night, or lose in Toronto on a Sunday afternoon while everyone else (Chris) watched the NFL conference championships. Your Hornets made TBS and TNT a few times, always against the Knicks, but it was on Channel 754 that we saw Charlotte score seven unanswered points in the final two minutes to overcome Allen Iverson’s 47 and beat the Finals-forward 76ers.

Philadelphia split the season series with Charlotte and was damn lucky not to meet the Hornets in the postseason.

Not with Hornet forward (and ex-and-future 76er) Derrick Coleman looming.

“He was like an X-factor for us,” Davis said in summer, with words that would not look great in print, “because people would not expect him to show up.”

Milwaukee beat the Hornets in the second round in 2001 but it took seven games, by then everyone on Charlotte’s roster was wearing a headband, it was very 2001. I think this is the month all of us decided to go with a shag haircut.

These Hornets made it past the opening round by upsetting the Miami Heat, Charlotte working with enough motivation to sweep a 15-game series, let alone a five-game quickie.

Miami didn’t shake hands with Charlotte before the series started, but it wasn’t like the sides were unfamiliar.

Eddie Jones and Anthony Mason (after much pining for Pat Riley) were dealt from Charlotte to Miami in training camp, earning the ire of David Wesley and other Hornet vets. Ex-Heat trade returnees P.J. Brown and Jamal Mashburn wanted to destroy their replacements and Hornet sixth man Eddie Robinson wanted to show off for whoever was picking up the tab that night in Miami.

Charlotte head coach Paul Silas had sterner motives up against Riley, whom Silas blamed for lousing the waters in Silas’ decades-long search for a head-coaching gig.

After the Hornets swept Miami (Davis: “punked them, from all angles”), Silas earned a victory lap:

“It was no contest,” Riley said on TV. “It’s a feeling of being outplayed, outcoached, out-everythinged.”

Outcoached? That admission sparked a grin from the 57-year-old Silas, whose relationship with Riley has been strained since 1991-92, when he worked for Riley as a New York Knicks assistant.

Silas felt that Riley didn’t give him enough responsibility that season and viewed him as lazy. Until Charlotte hired him late in the 1998-99 season, Silas hadn't held an NBA head coaching job for 16 years, and he believes that Riley disparaged his work ethic around the league.

“That always came out anonymously, but I know who started it,” says Silas. “I’m still so offended by that. I tried to erase that stigma for a lot of years.”

(Riley denies that he ever ripped Silas. “That’s absolutely untrue,” he says. “I have too much respect for the man.”)

For the record, the two didn’t shake hands after the series.

Must-see:

TOUGH GUY OVER COFFEE

I don’t drink coffee every day because in 2000-01 (while staying up all night BtB’ing for NBAtalk) I developed Huron-sized ulcers and was told to stop. Had a 21st birthday coming up, had to save that jejunum.

I still drink coffee occasionally, not much, less often than occasional partiers do with the professional night spent B/W powdery white. I drink coffee black because I enjoy the taste of coffee, I preferred the taste of mocha yogurt and coffee ice cream to all other options as a kid, it’s the bean that works for me and it is fun to make fun of people that put a bunch of s**t in coffee when your veins do so wonderfully on just the base.

I’ve never had one of those tall ones, the squat ones, the pumps-full-of-oat-and-cedar spearmint white chocolate “coffees.” I have never enjoyed a mocha, not in my loca, never a latte, not even in my sadder days.

Because I am the stupid one.

Chocolate is delicious. So is dairy and so are dairy-ish products. “Pumps” of gooey, sugary goodness melting inside your steamy caffeine machine? Yes.

Yes and yes. They are right. I am wrong.

If people want to shove an éclair inside the coffee instead of paying for it separately, celebrate them. Especially those who figured out ways (again, oats) to emulate the taste of German chocolate cake in a coffee order without also ordering a horse’s bale’s worth of calories. You f*****g champions.

You’re the ones that have done it right, not me, the guy whose tastiest taste of “coffee” flirts with a few freeze-dried crystals and the hottest water this hotel’s bathroom faucet could come up with.

Fancy coffee drinkers see the world differently, in brighter colors, and not just because of all that sugar. They are awake, and I am not.

DANCING FOR MONEY

This song has been in my head since Megan Koester’s Sunday email hit, you should subscribe to get her Sunday email.

I know that James Harden got a ton of free throws during his trade demand year I just didn’t want to use a footnote.

It is time for BtB:

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(Never Too Much podcast: Brooklyn and the best of Kyrie, Pau Gasol retires, Kelly brags about being flown to Orlando.)

If you’re a Sixers fan, fine. Continue gnawing on your elbow.

The rest of us? I think we’re supposed to leave Ben Simmons and those Sixers alone until they actually do something.

Each side dropped its hand last month, thinking it would be enough to pull the pot and end the evening. Simmons’ reps, Rich Paul and co., are intent on playing by their own rules and for this, they rule. As Kyle Neubeck of Philly Voice opine-de-re-layed:

Fair or unfair to Paul — and there’s an argument he draws more heat than any non-player in the league right now — there are people at the team and league level who see this as the continuation of a pattern with his clients, characterized by one league source as throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. The expectation is that there will be another attention-seeking headline generated in the days to come as they assess their options of what to do next.

I’d guess they’re probably going to keep doing what they’re supposed to do.

Neubeck reported late Tuesday that Paul and co. sought to recoup the fines the Sixers docked Simmons, $360,000 and counting after an exhibition loss to the Raptors on Monday that I sincerely hope you did not watch.

The Sixers’ front office is full of corporate cologne and cufflinks plus what’s left of Daryl Morey after he out-foxed zero hounds. Rooting against Ben, in this instance, isn’t an option. Especially when the payout — finally, a balanced lineup around Joel Embiid — aligns with our interest in seeing a player push these puddles around.

The Sixers’ front office is so full of men used to getting what they want that Morey will absolutely follow through on orders to burn the crops ahead of retreat. Nobody asked for the bunker Morey dug, and Simmons’ side has a duty as legal reps to fight for the money at stake in spite of long odds of recuperation.

Everyone earned a Ben Simmons opinion during his indifferent single season at LSU, Simmons was either the hero that saw the forest for the trees or the straw that broke the layman’s back. Uncommon inspire conversations you think you have to shout through.

Simmons is worth shouting over, and the NBA hasn’t had a holdout in ages. It is normal to gargle over someone this unprecedented, doing something we haven’t seen since 1994.

Maximum extensions are a two-way street, they provide the most money possible to a player and they fasten the most cash possible to a top-flight asset, making it resoundingly easier for GMs to demand ready-to-play-tonight talent in return.

Sam Presti was the first to roll with it, he couldn’t be happier that Paul George made a single-team request, and look what the Clippers had to pay to find George a new place to live. David Griffin, rather beleaguered, still nailed the Anthony Davis deal. These things can work for you if you don’t take them personally, or try to act like the smartest crank among 30.

Daryl Morey and the Sixers failed one and two and, now look, three. He and his bosses had to act like they’re different, which they are not. They couldn’t just trade Ben Simmons for Some B******t at Guard and give the generational center more room in the paint and his head coach a proper training camp.

Morey’s ostensible hope is cynical. Penalize Simmons until he breaks, corrupt a common team into relenting sometime past mid-December, bank on the NBA news cycle to help us forget September and October (and probably November) ever happened. Still not a wow.

Many things wow me, the layman. Basketball trades do not, because they’re sports.

Make a basketball trade, get back to sports.

1994

Jimmy Butler relented, so did James Harden. Ken Norman showed up to the Omni every night and put on his warmup jacket and sat at the end of Lenny Wilkens’ bench. Eric Bledsoe didn’t want to be there but he tried to show up to work the next day, because he wanted to be paid.

Free agents have sat out, the Cavs took a while to sign restricted free agent Tristan Thompson in 2015, the team pulled the same junk with Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic in Cleveland’s 2007-08 Eastern Conference title defense. Bison Dele was ready to pass on an entire season rather than sign with the team (the Clippers) glomming onto his Bird Rights, eventually making $27,164 (plus title share) with the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls.

Players have retired for religious reasons. Some guys walk away citing burnout and/or the trading of Paul Silas. Some players set the record for most three-pointers ever made, retire, and then spend the next few years annoying us with comeback rumors.

Nobody’s given money back, not in a move I can find, in a bid for a trade. Losing a paycheck is a bridge too far, any trade demand with a GM who isn’t a weirdo can land a dealing partner plenty. Trade demands don’t usually get this far because nobody’s ever bowled with Daryl Morey before.

Rookies used to hold out, all the time, Jim Jackson waited until there was a month left in his rookie season to sign his first contract, and if you’d seen the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks, you’d understand why.

Hold-outs haven’t existed 1994, a year before the NBA and its players’ union agreed on rookie scale contracts, deals which could be added to a capped-out payroll.

Prior to the 1995 draft, teams with a lottery pick to sign had to consider their capability of keeping an unhappy camper on the farm (Danny Ferry fled to Italy rather than play with the Clippers), and trim payroll ahead of an expected, probably record-breaking, rookie contract. Veteran cuts led directly to rookie hires, not a great scene.

The 1994 rookie class took full advantage, setting the bar at $100 million and holding out until they didn’t get it.

Agent Ron Grinker says that if [a draft pick] gets $100 million, “it’s going to cost other guys, those who will be renounced to make room. I believe that you should pay players who prove themselves. What we’re talking about now is paying one player four times more than what a franchise was worth 10 years ago.

“Why pay a rookie $100 million? Is that team going to be in the playoffs next season? Why not pay him in three years, when he proves what he can do?

Top overall pick Glenn Robinson’s agent got the ball stopping:

“I was asked about it, and I said that seemed to be the way the market is going,” [Charles] Tucker said. “I would say any No. 1 pick in any sport would have a chance to do it. Situations change every day.

“People tend to react to the singular impact of $100 million. A player can sign for four or five years for any number and no one says anything.

In backtracking, Tucker reduced everyone’s yearly take:

“Say ‘$100 million,’ and everyone jumps. They don’t look at the terms. For a contract to be worth that much, it would have to be over a long number of years.”

The No. 2 pick, Jason Kidd, signed a nine-year, $54 million deal a month ahead of training camp. Third selection Grant Hill inked an eight-year, $45 million contract at the start of camp, as did No. 4 pick Donyell Marshall with his $45 million deal.

No. 6er Sharone Wright got six years and $18 million from the 76ers early, though No. 7 pick Lamond Murray had to hold out two weeks to get five-years and $13.5 million out of the L.A. Clippers. Eric Montross, 11-years, $20 million. The Sacramento Kings, as you’d guess, had the No. 8 pick, selecting Brian Grant, who held out a month before signing to be a Sacramento King for 13 years.

Grant threatened to play in Greece before signing a $29.33 million, 13-season, deal with the Kings. The thirteenth year of the contract was conditional, Brian had to play seven seasons to earn it.

Kings officials said Grant was expected to be in uniform for the final preseason game Sunday night against the Golden State Warriors.

“It will take Brian a little time to get adjusted to the level of competition in the NBA,” coach Garry St. Jean said. “His running and jumping abilities along with his strong skills on both sides of the ball indicate that he will be a strong player in this league for many years to come.”

Thirteen years, even. And of course the Kings gave him an opt-out clause after three seasons.

Grant helped Sacramento to its first playoff berth in a decade in 1996, missed most of the next year with injury, and left for Portland (and a seven-year, $63 million deal) in 1997. He asked for an opt-out clause from the Blazers after a three years, which Brian used to negotiate a sign-and-traded, seven-year, $86 million deal with the Miami Heat.

Robinson held out the second-longest right until the edge of the 1994-95 season, inking a ten-year, $68 million deal with Milwaukee:

“Both sides won,” said the team’s owner, Herb Kohl, a United States Senator from Wisconsin who is up for re-election Tuesday.

“Glenn Robinson has now got a pro career under way in a city that he wanted to play in with a very nice 10-year contract fully guaranteed. And for the Milwaukee Bucks, it’s wonderful to sign the No. 1 pick.”

Asked how the deal was reached after months of gridlock, Kohl said: “The season starts tomorrow. Glenn Robinson’s a basketball player. He wants to play basketball.”

The team was quiet ahead of Robinson’s absorption, signing Johnny Newman to a minimum deal (Newman later sign a three-year extension with a 400-percent yearly salary increase, huh) alongside a two-year, minimum contract to Marty Conlon (Conlon later sign a two-year extension at a thousand-percent increase, huh). Even after shedding salary, the Bucks couldn’t convince Robinson to come to camp.

When Big Dog suited up, only Juwan Howard remained unsigned. The No. 5 pick sat out seven Washington Bullets games before Chris Webber tried to create a superteam:

After much acrimony between his representative and the Bullets, Howard, the fifth pick in June’s draft, signed an 11-year deal worth $36.6 million.

Webber, acquired from the Golden State Warriors for forward Tom Gugliotta and first-round draft choices in 1996, 1998 and 2000, signed a one-year deal worth $2.08 million. Under the terms of their respective deals, both players could possibly leave Washington, Webber after one season and Howard after two, but fans didn't seem very concerned about the future.

Nah.

“We’ve never had anything this big in the 30 years I’ve owned the team,” said Bullets owner Abe Pollin, who in one day guaranteed millions to the two players.

Abe Pollin’s team won a championship 16 years before this statement, and this is back when 16 years only felt like 16 years.

“[…] Webber went public with his desire to play in Washington -- on the condition that he play with Howard.

“[Webber] and Juwan spoke, and, despite his situation, Juwan really liked the area,” Strickland said. “Juwan was a part of the appeal.”

Though Howard’s representatives downplayed Webber’s role in Howard agreement, Juwan submitted to a $1.3 million salary slot, lower than Lamond’s, for his rookie season. “A sticking point in negotiations” in exchange for an opt-out after two seasons, which sounds ridiculous until you realize that the Bullets only had to be negotiated down from three seasons.

Howard opted-out, of course, and eventually signed a seven-year, $105 million deal with the Bullets, making him the NBA’s second (SHAQ) $100-million signee.

BANG!

First four Pie albums. I’m telling you.

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Here is our first-ever footnote, which is by now fun to read out of context:

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(Never Too Much podcast: what it was like to be a big ol’ fan of Norm MacDonald in 1996, why Tuesday was the only good day Twitter ever had, click ‘Listen in podcast app’ to subscribe.)

You got the feeling that Norm MacDonald’s favorite space on camera were the times he got to impersonate David Letterman on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ the show he wasn’t great at, performed live from the workplace MacDonald wasn’t liked at.

Norm was not interested in what Monkey Boy was up to but he clearly liked the idea of telling his version of the Dave Letterman story one tortured non sequitur at a time, on Lorne Michaels’ dime.

MacDonald got to play his ‘Weekend Update’ a little cooler and tougher and rougher than Norm really was. His SNL affectation wasn’t nearly as sincere as the moments when he tried to imbue his “Dave” with all the moral clarity MacDonald could muster, at a time when bein’ Dave was hardly as much fun as it used to be.

Norm pounced on that unease, celebrated it, re-made a hero out of it. The popular giveaway — Norm’s Letterman bumping three guests and firing his blazer at the desk while the band rushes Dave off — ended the sketch. The real impetus, MacDonald’s deep appreciation of Letterman’s ardent lack of appreciation, also wasn’t cleverly disguised.

MacDonald was familiar to Letterman and Leno’s shows by the time he joined SNL’s cast in 1994, he’d already told the joke about winning a stick in the Olympics, he’d already worn his best jacket and thanked the audience and ‘SNL’ was never his goal.

At all times it felt as if Norm MacDonald was the only person on television who didn’t want David Letterman’s job, something Letterman picked up on. Norm MacDonald was never in any danger of taking anyone off the air but Norm MacDonald, which Dave also picked up on.

Stand-up comedy was inescapable in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It was cheap programming for three different prominent cable channels — A&E, VH1, and the fledgling Comedy Channel/Ha! networks — the type of disposable content you could skip through with prejudice.

Your viewing options were set at the top of the hour unless you stuck with channels featuring four-minute music videos or five-minute stand-up comedy sets. Discerning hoppers could note from the outset who to flip from (FireHouse), and who to stick with:

These are the suits you learn everything from, all the contextual clues that help you navigate that pre-pubescent minefield, pretending to know how tough dating was because Wendy Liebman said so, pretending to understand what “orgasm” meant because the rest of Rita Rudner’s special was so funny.

Norm wasn’t anti-comedy, he wrote jokes and told them and encouraged laughter because he thought his thoughts were funny. He surveyed the scene and discovered there was still silly stuff to bring up, observations to cultivate. Norm never tried to break anything.

It is true that he did not suffer pretense gladly, a chip which did not serve him well at SNL, an institution staffed with writers and actors who can’t wait to raise a little spirit and put on a swell show. MacDonald wasn’t dangerous, he wore leather jackets and smoked cigarettes and lost too much money gambling but uncles do that. Grandmothers in front of slot machines do this.

Still authentic enough for MacDonald to sniff out the desperation at the program, the overwhelming eagerness to please the host and the writers and the dress rehearsal audience and Lorne and anyone else who might be paying attention in L.A. plus whoever’s at the afterparty, probably Bijou Phillips.

Norm MacDonald didn’t care about pleasing anyone, stand-up already taught him he could earn affection simply by acting himself, but funnier. By straightening the ribbon and delivering a joke. Not wearing a literal monkey suit.

The ‘Weekend Update’ gig is an instant introduction, it’s the only thing on the show that escapes ambivalence because you’re not, and he’s Chevy Chase, or maybe you’re a shitheel like Colin Jost. They’re using their own names, you’re going to form an opinion.

MacDonald didn’t owe his renown to this exposure. He earned the attention because Norm MacDonald was the only one in the building who wasn’t trying to be our friend. He was the human at the party that the cat walks up to.

A stance like this doesn’t have to include brusque, punch-down humor; avenues MacDonald certainly, carelessly, stomped. He didn’t worry about anything else but being funny.

It’s why he was the best part of SNL. It was probably why he was the best two-drink minimum someone ever bought.

It’s why he was the finest talk show guest, it’s why every time a clip of his podcast came across your feed you’d click on it and wonder why Norm always sounded like he was reading jokes off a script. There was no secret to anything, he was just funnier than everyone else. Like you’re supposed to be, if that’s your job.

Or, if the ponies don’t always trot so hot.

We benefited from his progeria, it’s what makes his way-too-early passing a little more sensible than it should be. Norm’s been on the TV acting like a pensioner since he was in his 40s.

So he won’t live until the age that suited him best, anybody who pens a memoir when they’re living with disease is probably happy with what they’ve left. Which, as your feed reminded you on Tuesday, was plenty.

A lot of comedy will try to identify with Norm MacDonald this week. Try to remember what Norm did best.

PLACE OUT THERE

This song is hilarious but also emotional, like right now is.

Yo, help me do independent hoops:

Thank you for reading and listening.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tsa.substack.com/subscribe

(Never Too Much podcast: Reasons why you should subscribe to an NBA newsletter in summer, something nice about every team, click ‘Listen in podcast app’ to give us a spin!)

Remember last summer when the bubble started and life was chaotic and ridden with anxiety and you weren’t sure if you felt up to get back into NBA basketball again and then acknowledged Irishman Michael Malone sent out this lineup …

… and you were immediately all the way back in?

Look at Hollinger’s timestamp, a full year ago. Which means this league in all its currency dragged on your energy and interest for a dozen months, ten of which were filled with games to pay attention to. That’s a lot. Too much.

Our fix disappeared sometime early Wednesday morning but our brains haven’t stopped. Jalen Rose yelled at Kendrick Perkins, fine, we needed that, but the kvetch didn’t end with KP groaning. Media started ranking things again, NBA things, grading them. It’s summer out, I don’t want to hear about grades.

And I don’t want to hear any more bellyaching, which is why we’re sticking friendly.

FRIENDLY IDEAS FOR 2022

From a fan.

SHOTS FOR SHOTS

We all saw this, posted before Giannis hit 17 free throws in Game 6:

The obvious follow-up: Giannis’ favorite fast food chicken chain offers Bucks fans in attendance 50 free chicken nuggets (total value of product involved: $1.12) if Giannis makes 17 free throws in a game.

The obvious problem: Giannis’ favorite fast food chicken chain makes good food but it is also run by a bunch of a******s.

Better follow-up: Bucks offer $17 gift certificates to local bars (the team even has a list of Buck-approved pubs on its website) every time Antetokounmpo hits 17 free throws in a game. Kids get into bars (with their parents) in Wisconsin, so everyone in attendance makes out.

That’s enough for a domestic beer and well shot and then a good beer (you bring the cash for tip). Meanwhile, the kids have seventeen bucks to wipe out on Cokes and whatever this bar’s kitchen has to serve to keep its liquor license.

Instead of wasting all his time on his milquetoast neolib b******t Marc Lasry can just do right by the people. Let them make their own decisions with how to fill up that $17, maybe a double-tall in a pint glass because you’ve got a ride home? Maybe an almond cordial shot and six plain soda waters (with no ice)?

Maybe you can exchange the certificate for 17 singles to roll through one of six gaming machines the state of Wisconsin mandates be placed within 48 inches of every beer tap.

UNIFORMS HAVE TO SETTLE DOWN

It’s all backwards now, the Chicago Bulls’ bench is on the opposite side of where Jordan used to sit, and half the league’s teams suit up looking like they’re wearing the uniforms from CBS’ (alternate) 4:30 game.

If the NBA wants to follow the NFL’s lead and run with dark-colored uniforms for every home team, fine, the opposing team has to wear white uniforms while working on the road.

Here is a list of colors that are not white:

1. Orange2. Mauve3. Light orange4. Yellow5. Blood red orange6. The Miami Heat in yellow7. Any color that is not white

Here is a list of colors that are weird:

1. “Cream”

Also, the Bulls have to wear white at home. Best uniform in basketball and you waste it on games in Indianapolis?

NO MIDSEASON TOURNAMENT

No, instead of finding new ways to introduce us to sponsors and wear out the athletes who entertain us, the NBA should take the time and effort it was going to spend on a midseason tournament during football season and instead work on making NBA League Pass something better than the least-liked website on the internet.

It’s not that I mind logging in four times a quarter, it’s just that my phone and laptop get awfully hot every time I have to do it. Way warmer than what it sweats through while streaming games illegally after inevitably bailing on League Pass. At least with those you get to learn about Australian tire sales.

THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES CAN’T BE THIS DWEEBY

This picture is horrifying. They took it right before A-Rod told the other guy that they weren’t going to get to go to space in Bezos’ Cock Rocket.

There is no way this country is running out of rich guys, and Minnesota had to settle on these two? Why do they always shave their heads? Why can’t we ever get billionaires that look like Treat Williams with a beard?

THESE IDEAS ARE GETTING A LOT LESS FRIENDLIER

Yeah well subscribers understand that I had a bag quarter-full of Calm Down but then the officer took it from me.

START GAMES ON TIME

You flip to ESPN when the NBA game is supposed to start, you see the players and they’re only shooting around. This isn’t timely, and it isn’t the same for TNT games.

When there’s a game on TNT you flip to TNT, see ‘Seinfeld,’ and then try to remember if TNT is two channels up or two channels down from TBS. You wonder if your parents were confused about the same thing thirty years ago. You wonder if all the choices you made to avoid their futures ironically brought yours to their same, exact, point.

You find TNT and of course ‘Bones’ is on but just a minute of ‘Bones’ before ‘Bones’ ends. You wonder how a show called ‘Bones’ manages to scare up these wisecracking endings but, geez, they land it, corpse and all. Two or three minutes later and the basketball game tips off.

Why? Because Charles Barkley hasn’t showed up to set on time.

ESPN needs to hire the habitually late. With George Jones moved on, I hear Jermaine O’Neal is available.

Available, eventually.

THE SPURS HAVE TO TELL US WHAT THEY’RE DOING

Just, an idea.

Like, “San Antonio, what’s your deal?” And they would have to answer.

BRING BACK THE SUITS

Coaches can’t coach in team-issued practice gear, it has to stop, they look like the new owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves out there.

The NBA is the league of showy opulence, money spent on things which devalue as soon as it scurries off the lot, and its coaches should be forced to express themselves via whichever sportwear collection they choose. If they choose “blue blazer and khakis,” as Gregg Popovich did 97 times a season between 1998 and 2018, more power to the coaches.

Coaches need a bit of relief from being coaches, even if it means having to think about how many suits to take on the road, or how to tie a tie. Matching colors? Don’t push.

I don’t know what part of the brain NBA coaching derives its power from, but these sleep-deprived coaches need some sort of daily, real world task to accomplish before they go Full Thibodeau.

FREE RADIO ON THE NBA APP

Preppin’ kitchens or washing dishes to the sounds of the ol’ ballgame? The NBA should be after this.

I’m entering my third decade of paying for League Pass, if you don’t count those two seasons the NBA gave it to me for free after they felt sorry for me when I got laid off. We’re all already on the NBA’s app, the NBA knows everyone we’ve swiped and how many steps we haven’t walked, it should give us something back for all that access.

It’s impossible in the bustle of traffic to find whichever ESPN radio outpost is left to broadcast the league’s national games, let alone the local channels that bounce between affiliates. NBA League Pass audio, something I paid for in the century before this one, should be free to anyone who pops in for the app. It sells the product, it sells the local culture, it sells League Pass, and it costs the league nothing.

We stared at your screen for a full year in a row, NBA, we even tried to develop a currency based around your visual highlights. It’s time for you to give our eyes a break.

AT LEAST ONE EX-PLAYER IN EVERY PARADE

One that never won a ring. One that never came close, preferably:

Lakers win again next year? Bring back Brian Cook. You can try to get Kwame Brown, I would really like you to try to get Kwame Brown, but it’ll probably be Brian Cook.

Nuggets? Andre Miller, and all the cognac we can lift.

The Nets have so many to choose from, Ed O’Bannon’s done some fine work off the court, Jamie Feick looks like he could do some embarrassing stuff on a float, but I’d have to invite Stephon Marbury. Maybe also the not-the-Nets’ all-time leading scorer Robin Lopez, as a joke.

The Suns? The Suns aren’t winning a title.

Sixers? Elton Brand is already going to be there and I don’t want Sam Hinkie within 1000 yards of a championship parade unless you want everyone there creeped out. I’d pick Charles Barkley, mostly because the Suns aren’t winning a title.

THIS DATE IN HISTORY’S REGRETTABLE TRANSACTIONS

Today, we look at July 23rd 2001.

HORNETS AND COACH PAUL SILAS SIGN EXTENSION

Silas’ Charlotte Hornets turned in a semi-surprising second-round playoff run in 2001 amid rumors of franchise displacement, the team rewarded him with another two years at the NBA’s cheapest rate ($1.5 million) for head coaches. Low pay, and also the highest point.

The now-New Orleans Hornets made the Eastern quarterfinals again in 2002 but fell in the first round in 2003, mainstays Jamal Mashburn (broken bone in his shooting hand) and Baron Davis (bone bruise to his surgically-repaired left knee) gutting through injuries. With the Hornets and Silas at an impasse over salary, the team removed the 59-year old from the head coaching position in 2003 by declining to pursue contract negotiations, most recently valued at $2 million a year.

Silas said he received a phone call Sunday from team co-owner Ray Wooldridge, who said the Hornets would not renew his contract.

“The decision was made for me. It was a little surprising, but they have the right to make their own decisions,” Silas said. “We had a good ride, and I appreciate the opportunity they gave me.”

The a*****e that owned the Hornets, George Shinn, lived in the same neighborhood as Silas. Silas decided to pay him a visit:

Paul Silas was ringing the doorbell of the man who had just fired him, and nobody was coming to the door at George Shinn’s house.

Silas kept ringing, and someone inside disconnected the chime.

So Silas knocked and knocked and knocked until Shinn’s son finally answered, telling Silas that his father was in the shower.

“I said, ‘Well tell him to get on down here,’” Silas recalled.

The co-owner of the New Orleans Hornets and the ex-coach eventually had a talk, which Silas said was amiable in the end.

With a coaching hole to fill, the Hornets reached out for some cheap labor.

From Sam Smith at the Chicago Tribune:

The New Orleans Hornets must feel proud. They have hired the worst coach in NBA history.

Who?

Tim Floyd.

Oh, Sam goes on.

What a great country. Do your job as badly as it has ever been done by anyone, antagonize your bosses and virtually every player on the roster, see nothing but improvement for the team only after you've left.

And then get a three-year contract worth about $4.8 million to coach one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

Told you the Hornets bid low.

He rarely worked on the floor at practice unless the owner was around and was always quick to run to the side of an influential columnist making a rare trip to practice. He seemed like he could charm you out of your wallet, or perhaps $4.8 million over three years.

But it would be surprising if Floyd isn't moving on before long. His combustible relationships with Bulls players were legend, Floyd frequently stalking out of meetings screaming and cursing, players laughing about his inability to control himself or deliver any workable plan.

Floyd had bitter relationships with Jamal Crawford and Ron Artest and tried to humiliate Tyson Chandler, calling him lazy in front of reporters. All, including Elton Brand, improved dramatically after they left or Floyd left, as did the Bulls.

Unsure of themselves, the free agents the Bulls brought in and out during Floyd's tenure were in no position to challenge the coach. But when the team brought in veterans such as Charles Oakley, Ron Mercer and Greg Anthony, they were shocked at Floyd's lack of game plans and organization.

The Hornets fired Floyd after one year, because he sucks.

DETROIT SIGNS MAURICE EVANS

An undrafted swingman in 2001, Evans is the guy who asked for more playing time from the Detroit Pistons, so they traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers, featuring (swingman) Kobe Bryant’s 40.8 minutes per game.

Buoyed with all that rest, Evans went on to a formidable career in BIG3.

DETROIT SIGNS RATKO VARDA

Here are two things I know about Ratko Varda.

Three things. Here are three things I know about Ratko Varda.

1. Do not cross him.

2. He went on to grow this mustache.

3. He played garbage minutes in Michael Jordan’s first exhibition game as a Wizard.

These are the three things I know about Ratko Varda.

Don’t ever forget the first one, I nearly did.

(This is also Rick Carlisle’s first exhibition game as NBA head coach.)

NEW YORK RE-SIGNS ALLAN HOUSTON

In 2000 Dave Checketts traded Patrick Ewing, sign-and-traded for four-years and $36 million of Glen Rice and then got the heck out of town after New York’s first-round exit in the 2001 playoffs. Checketts left GM Scott Layden as the lone buffer between James Dolan and the New York Knicks and, with no rebuilding options on the table, a capped-out Layden committed to more of the same and six years of Allan Houston.

Aged 30 at the time of its signing, Houston didn’t make an All-Star team during the contract. Houston and his achy knees worked only 70 games for the Knicks in the two seasons prior to the summer of 2005, when the NBA gave a waiver provision to each luxury tax-paying club, known as the ‘Allan Houston Rule.’

That’s what we called the amnesty provision in back in 2005. It was a weird time, we all thought bangs were a great idea.

When the amnesty rule was announced earlier this summer, many believed it was a certainty that the Knicks would cut their ties with Houston, the longest-tenured member of the team. Some even nicknamed the amnesty provision the ‘Allan Houston Rule.’

But Houston’s close ties with Knicks owner James Dolan, along with incoming coach Larry Brown’s history of coaching Houston with the 2000 U.S. Olympic team, also factored into the decision for him to remain on the roster.

Isiah Thomas ran the Knicks then. Just the voice you want.

“[Houston’s] working hard, trying to get back, and he believes one day he’ll get back to his original form,” Thomas said. “When you have players that have been injured for some time, you have to find a way to move on and make the roster better. If Allan was to come back and regain his form, then it’s an added bonus.”

If Patrick Ewing came back to regain his form, that would be an added bonus, and not just because Isiah recently signed Jerome James to start at center. Don’t bank on bonuses.

Houston’s contract had two years and $40 remaining, but Thomas chose to waive Jerome Williams with the Allan Houston Rule, eliminating the final three years of the the forward’s contract.

“Jerome was a big asset in our rebuilding program, and he was great with our young players,” team president Isiah Thomas said. “But this was a tremendous opportunity to save more than $21 million.”

Which is way less than $40 million, but this was Dolan. He’s good friends with these players, they hang out and everything.

In weighing the amnesty option, Thomas said “there was some discussion about Allan.”

The final decision to cut Williams instead was not made until Friday. Houston’s friendship with James L. Dolan, the Cablevision chairman, played a role.

“The way Mr. Dolan handled it I think is the best way to do it,” Houston said.

The thing where he saves you from having a rule named after you?

“He’s trusting me that basically I can do it.”

He did not do it.

TORONTO RAPTORS SIGN ROOKIE MICHAEL BRADLEY

Under terms of the collective bargaining agreement, the 6-10 Bradley, who left Villanova after his junior year, receives a three-year contract that has an average salary of $1.1 million.

“We are happy to have Michael signed and look forward to his contributions to our franchise,” Raptors general manager Glen Grunwald said. “He has the tools and a great feel for the game.”

Bradley played five years, worked 173 games.

Thirteen players drafted after Bradley’s No. 17 selection went on to NBA careers of ten years or more: Jason Collins, Zach Randolph, Brendan Haywood, Gerald Wallace, Samuel Dalembert, Jamaal Tinsley, Tony Parker, Gilbert Arenas, Scalafuckinbrine, Mehmet Okur, Earl Watson, Bobby Simmons, and Jarron Collins. Even Trenton Hassell made it nine years.

Here’s Bradley enjoying a meal and interview alongside obvious teammate Eric Montross:

You don’t remember Bradley and yet he wasn’t nearly as cloaked as Joe Forte (No. 21, 25 career NBA games), Kirk Haston (No. 16, 27 games), Brandon Armstrong (No. 23, 108 games), Raul Lopez (No. 24, 113 games) or, sadly, Jeryl Sasser (No. 22, 82 games).

The Raptors waived Bradley with a month remaining on his guaranteed third-year in favor of veteran Corie Blount, a veteran addition already ineligible for postseason play.

Which was no problem for the Raptors, because Kevin O’Neill was coach at the time.

DALLAS MAVERICKS RE-SIGN MICHAEL FINLEY

By 2001 Michael Finley hadn’t missed a game in four years. The 28-year old averaged at least forty-one minutes per game during that stretch, twice eclipsing 42 minutes a night, leading the league in minutes per game three times. In nine seasons with the Mavericks, Finley averaged 39.7 minutes per game, averaging 19.8 points and guarding the opposition’s best perimeter scorer.

At the 2005 trade deadline the Mavericks added Keith Van Horn in exchange for expiring contracts with fanfuckingtastic NBA names (Alan “Hendu” Henderson, Calvin Booth). Van Horn’s addition plopped over $15 million onto next season’s payroll, in a league with a $49.5 million salary cap and $61.7 million luxury tax threshold.

Player salaries waived via the 2005 amnesty provision still counted against the salary cap, the provision simply provided for dollar-for-dollar luxury tax relief. No basketball, just bailouts. The Mavericks ended up using the Jerome Williams Rule on Michael Finley with three seasons left on his deal:

The Mavericks spent all day Monday exploring trade options, and waited until just before the late-night deadline to release Finley and take advantage of the provision in the NBA's new labor agreement.

Dallas avoided a dollar-for-dollar tax on Finley's $15.9 million salary for the 2005-06 season. The two-time All-Star is due $17.3 million and $18.6 million over the final two seasons of the seven-year contract owner Mark Cuban gave him in 2001.

The Mavs cut salary commitments in 2004 by refusing to compete with Phoenix’s offer for Steve Nash and, eyeing massive extensions in Josh Howard, Dirk, Jason Terry and Devin Harris’ futures, were capped from making any moves in the 2005 and 2006 offseasons.

Finley joined the Spurs and won a ring in 2007, the same year the Mavericks lost in the first round.

Even with Finley’s savings, the Mavericks still paid $17.3 million in luxury tax penalties in 2005-06, second-most in the NBA, behind the Allan Houston-led New York Knicks, whose $126.6 million payroll won Isiah Thomas’ Knicks 23 games in a year where they didn’t own their top draft pick.

I did all this to get back at Isiah. He blocked me on Twitter after this joke:

Took the time to type ‘RT’ in and everything.

We do goofs here. You don’t need any more info, you don’t need anything else to think about, you need goofs.

And this price? This price is a goof.

WHITING H. & G.

Heads and guts. A selection from the greatest summertime concept album of all time.

Subscribers get a big Bulls thing next.

Be well, and thank you for reading and listening!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tsa.substack.com/subscribe