Dwight to LA!

[cohenj21]

Just got a small new piece of information on the trade. It seems that, although it was not reported in ESPN's original article on the trade (perhaps because the players are not very well known), Orlando will also be sending guard Chris Duhon and forward Earl Clark to the Lakers in exchange for forward Josh McRoberts and swingman Christian Eyenga. Not sure how much this means to y'all, but thought I would share it anyway.

[RyanB06]

So in other words, Orlando decided if they were going to play for the No. 1 overall pick anyway, let's get the worst all-time record while we're at it.

Good idea, except for that pesky lottery thing.

[rams80]

Christ on a cracker Miami's going to just coast to a division title next year. A division with both Charlotte and Orlando? Good Lord.

[ninersdd]

Christ on a cracker Miami's going to just coast to a division title next year. A division with both Charlotte and Orlando? Good Lord.

And Washington!

[HedleyLamarr]

Christ on a cracker Miami's going to just coast to a division title next year. A division with both Charlotte and Orlando? Good Lord.

And Washington!

And supposedly Atlanta's going to take a step down.

Though it seems the East has a bunch of teams in decline. The Hawks may still wind up with a top-4 seed in the East....

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, we're running out of not-playoff spots. Try as they may, teams like the Bulls and Hawks still won't make the lottery.

[cohenj21]

Yeah, we're running out of not-playoff spots. Try as they may, teams like the Bulls and Hawks still won't make the lottery.

This, haha. The East is just loaded with bad teams. I can think of plenty of teams that should not make the playoffs in the East, but 8 teams have to make it. Might as well hand Miami the Eastern Conference title.

[The_Admiral]

We can debate this if you'd like, but I feel like the optimal number of bona fide contenders in a thirty-team league is eight. Maybe two longshots beyond that, but once you get past one third of the league, you shouldn't have anyone in the championship conversation; past two thirds, don't even want to hear it. The NHL, with approximately oh let's say 25 teams who can conceivably win it all in a given season, has too many. The NBA seems to have it down to about three. That's too few. While I am perfectly happy to have some teams be elite, this sort of consolidation of talent is a bridge too far for me. It's weird how the culture has changed since the NBA we grew up with. With all the Dream Team at 20 stuff, we're finding out that all these guys we loved for on-court rivalries indeed had fun playing and gambling and partying together, but outside of the Olympic fortnight, they were still quite fine with playing against one another. Everyone's so buddy-buddy now, I won't be surprised if a Heat-Nets game is cancelled right from the jump: Deron Williams and Joe Johnson will stop this petty fighting and join forces with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to start a pickup game, running up the score on some stockbrokers with courtside seats. It kinda blows!

[cohenj21]

We can debate this if you'd like, but I feel like the optimal number of bona fide contenders in a thirty-team league is eight. Maybe two longshots beyond that, but once you get past one third of the league, you shouldn't have anyone in the championship conversation; past two thirds, don't even want to hear it. The NHL, with approximately oh let's say 25 teams who can conceivably win it all in a given season, has too many. The NBA seems to have it down to about three. That's too few. While I am perfectly happy to have some teams be elite, this sort of consolidation of talent is a bridge too far for me. It's weird how the culture has changed since the NBA we grew up with. With all the Dream Team at 20 stuff, we're finding out that all these guys we loved for on-court rivalries indeed had fun playing and gambling and partying together, but outside of the Olympic fortnight, they were still quite fine with playing against one another. Everyone's so buddy-buddy now, I won't be surprised if a Heat-Nets game is cancelled right from the jump: Deron Williams and Joe Johnson will stop this petty fighting and join forces with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to start a pickup game, running up the score on some stockbrokers with courtside seats. It kinda blows!

I think that's a fair assessment. I might go a little higher, say 10 teams or so, and I think that the MLB and NFL really have optimal levels of parity right now. I don't think the NHL has as many as 25 contenders, but definitely too many, and the NBA is just ridiculous the way power is so concentrated at the top with the same teams year after year. The Lakers current payroll is $97.741 milion. The salary cap is $58.044 million, and the luxury tax line is $70 million. This is why the NBA needs a hard salary cap set around the current luxury tax line. If an owner like Jerry Buss is willing to pony up the luxury tax, the cap is rendered totally meaningless. A cap, albeit a higher one than the current "cap," is needed to inject some level of parity without making it a total free-for-all.

[The_Admiral]

Food for thought: the intrinsic low randomness of basketball requires a strong external force like a salary cap to create competition, while the intrinsic high randomness of hockey should have much weaker external forces upon it (that is to say a wider +/- from the payroll midpoint). Right now, it's flip-flopped.

[cohenj21]

Food for thought: the intrinsic low randomness of basketball requires a strong external force like a salary cap to create competition, while the intrinsic high randomness of hockey should have much weaker external forces upon it (that is to say a wider +/- from the payroll midpoint). Right now, it's flip-flopped.

EXACTLY. Couldn't have said it better myself. Basketball needs something (a hard $70 million cap) to stimulate some movement between the small-market teams and the upper echelon of perennially powerful elite teams. Hockey needs something to tie down its inherent craziness (a looser salary cap). Me and you should talk to Stern and Bettman about this

[dfwabel]

We can debate this if you'd like, but I feel like the optimal number of bona fide contenders in a thirty-team league is eight. Maybe two longshots beyond that, but once you get past one third of the league, you shouldn't have anyone in the championship conversation; past two thirds, don't even want to hear it. The NHL, with approximately oh let's say 25 teams who can conceivably win it all in a given season, has too many. The NBA seems to have it down to about three. That's too few. While I am perfectly happy to have some teams be elite, this sort of consolidation of talent is a bridge too far for me. It's weird how the culture has changed since the NBA we grew up with. With all the Dream Team at 20 stuff, we're finding out that all these guys we loved for on-court rivalries indeed had fun playing and gambling and partying together, but outside of the Olympic fortnight, they were still quite fine with playing against one another. Everyone's so buddy-buddy now, I won't be surprised if a Heat-Nets game is canceled right from the jump: Deron Williams and Joe Johnson will stop this petty fighting and join forces with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to start a pickup game, running up the score on some stockbrokers with courtside seats. It kinda blows!

Are you talking a hard cap league or a soft cap one? If it a soft cap one, people will just to to where they would like to live or where there is a history of winning.

I will leave the NFL and its hard cap out of this, but In January before the kings win their first series since 2001, a writer for the NY Post did write this about the NHL and their "hard cap" years:

For despite the perception that adoption of the hard cap has created a league-wide utopia of parity, the reality is there have been as many, if not more, chronic ne?er-do-wells in seven years under this system as existed in the NHL?s uncapped world.

Ten of the league?s 30 teams have not so much as won a playoff round in six years of cap tournaments, an increase of three teams when compared to the six seasons immediately leading into the lockout.

What?s more, over the last four playoffs, seven teams have accounted for 78 percent of the playoff series victories as opposed to the final four tournaments preceding the cancelled season during which 11 teams accounted for 76 percent of series victories.

The cap lowered the bar, there is no doubt about that, though organizations such as the Bruins, Red Wings, Canucks, Penguins and Flyers ? all of which have gone about it slightly differently ? have managed to attain a consistent level of excellence even allowing for the obstacles presented by the collective bargaining agreement.

The cap, however, has not magically transformed losing operations into successful ones any more than it has turned desirable seat locations into more affordable ones.

The combination of gaining top picks annually in the draft, restrictions on Entry Level contracts and the absence of arbitration rights in second contracts have not measurably altered life for the clubs who have taken up residence in Shantytown.

There were teams who under the older NBA CBAs from 2001- 2011 who were willing to gamble on paying the luxury tax to be a contender: NYK, CLE, BOS, DAL, POR, SAC, DET, and to a degree ORL/ATL. DAL and DET were the only ones even able to get into The Finals and each went 1-1.

[Billy B]

Yeah, we're running out of not-playoff spots. Try as they may, teams like the Bulls and Hawks still won't make the lottery.

The Bulls will probably be hosting a playoff series in the first round next year. For what it's worth, they've got the fourth best odds to win the championship this year after the Howard trade. I think just sitting out Rose the whole year is probably the best option, but they'll likely be in "contention" by the time he'll be able to go. If that's the case, I don't think he'll be sitting out the playoffs.

[crashcarson15]

Yeah, we're running out of not-playoff spots. Try as they may, teams like the Bulls and Hawks still won't make the lottery.

The Bulls will probably be hosting a playoff series in the first round next year. For what it's worth, they've got the fourth best odds to win the championship this year after the Howard trade. I think just sitting out Rose the whole year is probably the best option, but they'll likely be in "contention" by the time he'll be able to go. If that's the case, I don't think he'll be sitting out the playoffs.

Eh, the rest of the Bulls lost to the 8th seed Sixers. Are they really gonna bring Rose back if they have to go 12-4 down the stretch just to match up with Miami in the first round?

The East really is going to suck this year. I can finally dream of seeing the Cavs in the playoffs again, though.

[tBBP]

We can debate this if you'd like, but I feel like the optimal number of bona fide contenders in a thirty-team league is eight. Maybe two longshots beyond that, but once you get past one third of the league, you shouldn't have anyone in the championship conversation; past two thirds, don't even want to hear it. The NHL, with approximately oh let's say 25 teams who can conceivably win it all in a given season, has too many. The NBA seems to have it down to about three. That's too few. While I am perfectly happy to have some teams be elite, this sort of consolidation of talent is a bridge too far for me. It's weird how the culture has changed since the NBA we grew up with. With all the Dream Team at 20 stuff, we're finding out that all these guys we loved for on-court rivalries indeed had fun playing and gambling and partying together, but outside of the Olympic fortnight, they were still quite fine with playing against one another. Everyone's so buddy-buddy now, I won't be surprised if a Heat-Nets game is cancelled right from the jump: Deron Williams and Joe Johnson will stop this petty fighting and join forces with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to start a pickup game, running up the score on some stockbrokers with courtside seats. It kinda blows!

I was kinda thinking about something along this line a couple days ago...thinking back to the '90s, and even before, when even though the Bulls were the buzzsaw of the NBA, you still had the Blazers, Suns, Rockets, Cavaliers (at least in the early part), Knicks, Heat, Pacers--basically what I'm getting at is that there was more competitiveness across the board. Hell, even Orlando made a name for itself for a short while. And remember back in the '70s when Milwaukee was among the better teams in the L, what with Kareem, Oscar Robertson and such? S*** ain't like that no more...even as an impartial NBA observer (and fledgling Pacer convert), that sorta irks me.

Now all that having been said, at least in the past two years, it seems we've started to see some new names, faces, and places emerge. I still think the 2010-11 postseason was one of the best in recent memory, what with the inclusion of some new faces (Memphis and OKC, namely), and even past postseason, more people probably became familiar with the 76ers than they would have otherwise, which is saying something considering their recent fit of sucktitude (same can be said of the Pacers, who seem like they're trying to channel the 2000-2004 New Jersey Nets in terms of attitude).

So yeah, I guess what I'm saying is that sure, more (most) of the superstars might flock to one team or another, but I still don't think the competitive gap is near as narrow as some might make it out to be--that is, if you're like me and watch the game for the inherent spirit of on-court competitiveness, disregarding the "superteam" stuff.

[Billy B]

Yeah, we're running out of not-playoff spots. Try as they may, teams like the Bulls and Hawks still won't make the lottery.

The Bulls will probably be hosting a playoff series in the first round next year. For what it's worth, they've got the fourth best odds to win the championship this year after the Howard trade. I think just sitting out Rose the whole year is probably the best option, but they'll likely be in "contention" by the time he'll be able to go. If that's the case, I don't think he'll be sitting out the playoffs.

Eh, the rest of the Bulls lost to the 8th seed Sixers. Are they really gonna bring Rose back if they have to go 12-4 down the stretch just to match up with Miami in the first round?

The East really is going to suck this year. I can finally dream of seeing the Cavs in the playoffs again, though.

Noah didn't play either and Deng as playing hurt. Deng should just get that surgery now and miss some of this season since Rose won't be there anyways. But they were without Rose for a good amount of last regular season and still had the best record in the league. Without him for the regular season they should be a lock to make the playoffs and probably be in the top four. I don't think Rose should return once he can play, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if he played this year because they think they can make another deep run.

[The_Admiral]

Presumptive Bulls roster with Rose out and Deng getting the surgery:

PG Kirk Hinrich

SG Rip Hamilton

SF Taj Gibson

PF Carlos Boozer

C Joakim Noah

Bench: Nate Robinson, Vladimir Radmanovic, Marco Belinelli, Jimmy Butler, Nazr Mohammed

Like, I guess that team can win 44 games if they get really coached up and everyone else blows goats, but to what end? That team's not making a deep run. I hope for the good of the league that that's not the fourth-best team in the conference. It might be, though. Barf.

[Billy B]

Deng's not getting surgery, though. He'll be playing the whole season unless something else goes wrong. Either way they aren't championship contenders this year which is why I think they should sit Rose the whole year and make Deng go through with his surgery now.

[hellslayer2000]

I don't think they need a cap, they need the bad teams to get better management look at OKC and SA good small markets, or large market teams like NY and Philly that can't do anything.

[rams80]

OKC has loaded ownership though. Not a good example.