So we package Eddy Curry and Chris Duhon and . . .
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Oh, yeah. I’m finished with that. But there are more than 400 other NBA players who might benefit from playing elsewhere. And it’s my job to find out who they are. These trading suggestions are all in fun, and occasionally they happen.
I usually try to have them make sense for both teams, which I thought was the situation last spring when the new, defense-oriented Dallas Mavericks disappeared again in the playoffs. Lots of great players weren’t great defenders, and Charles Barkley will agree. And the only way to get value if you trade a star is to trade for a star.
So I thought it made sense for a megadeal: Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki, the offensive star, to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Kevin Garnett, a David Robinson type in that he’s asked to be a great offensive player when he probably should be Bill Russell.
It seems that very small window for Minnesota has closed, with Flip Saunders fired and now coaching in Detroit and Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell gone. The Timberwolves are here Monday night to play the Bulls, and it’s a young team in transition with one constant–an aging Garnett.
The “kid” has played almost 30,000 minutes in the NBA, which is the twilight for most great players. He’s entering his 11th season. And after knee problems slowed him last season–if you can call averaging 22.2 points and a league-best 13.5 rebounds slowed–the team rested Garnett in the first two exhibition games. He is expected to play Monday, but it’s hard to see him being on a contender anytime soon in Minnesota.
As a defensive spider, he would be perfect for the style of play coach Avery Johnson is pursuing in retooling the Mavericks. It is a rebuilding of sorts with Steve Nash and Michael Finley, the other two-thirds of Dallas’ one-time Big Three, let go for nothing the last two off-seasons. Though owner Mark Cuban always says he’ll keep Nowitzki, comments to the Dallas Morning News last week raised questions.
Said Nowitzki: “I learned pretty quick in this league that it’s a business. If you don’t perform the way they want you to, or sometimes if you do perform but don’t fit in with the future of the team, I understand what happens. You might be out of that situation sooner or later.
“I thought [the team would stay together], especially after we came so close in the Western Conference finals. I thought we were going to try a couple more years, but we decided a different route, and here we are now.”
And Cuban added: “It’s a job. Do people work for General Motors their entire careers? People do what’s best for their careers. You have to remember we’re in an era of free agency.
“You don’t hire anybody in any business with the idea that they’re going to leave. You want them to stay, and you hope things work out that way. I have a philosophy that you re-earn your commitment both ways every day.”
It still sounds like a deal that makes sense for both teams.
Hoiberg on hold
Also here Monday, but not playing, is former Bull Fred Hoiberg, a special assistant for the Timberwolves after off-season heart surgery. Hoiberg said he’s already doing some shooting and weightlifting and hopes to be the first NBA player with a pacemaker.
“I’ll probably take this year off,” said Hoiberg, who added there’s a chance he could play later this season. “This is the first year since I was 7 I haven’t been in uniform. My outlook is to get healthy this year and try to play again next year.
“If there’s something wrong or a chance something can go wrong, I’ll hang ’em up. I’ll think about that first hit (if he returns). My game is diving on the floor, setting screens, but if the doctors say it’s OK, and they say the heart has healed, I’ll play.”
Heat coach hot
It’s not like we didn’t warn them. The Heat lost to Charlotte on Saturday after losing to Memphis, and though it’s the exhibition season, coach Stan Van Gundy already is bemoaning his remade roster.
“This is hopefully rock bottom,” Van Gundy said, with the Heat averaging almost 25 turnovers a game. “Everybody’s trying to go one-on-one.”
And your point?
“Third preseason game, and Coach looked like he coached the end of the season,” guard Dwyane Wade said. “Guys are putting their heads down already.”
Meanwhile, you have to wonder about Shaquille O’Neal, who agreed to a $100 million contract extension. Though he played at 330 pounds last season under orders from Pat Riley, O’Neal came to camp at 350, saying he was too weak last season. Eyes rolled everywhere.
And for all that talk about moving on, it seems only O’Neal hasn’t.
“Some guys let greatness come to them, and some guys talk themselves into thinking they’re great,” he said. “[Wade] isn’t really like that. He’s going to get his, and he’s going to keep everybody involved.
“That’s the true definition of a great player, not taking 40 shots to get 20 points, not doing [unnecessary] highlight stuff. When you come down and somebody’s in your way, just kick it to the guy that’s open. [Kobe Bryant], he likes to put the [ball] between his legs, he likes to take 40 shots to get 20 points.”
The NBA probably doesn’t object to that. The Lakers and Heat are scheduled for the prime-time Christmas game.
Adelman on spot
Everyone will be watching for a slow Miami start to see when Riley returns to coaching. The other most-likely-to-go-with-a-slow-start coach is Sacramento’s solid Rick Adelman, who wasn’t thrilled with the Kings’ open courtship of Phil Jackson last summer.
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“I’m going to do what I can to win, and if it’s not good enough, they’ll tell me,” Adelman told the Sacramento Bee. “But there’s a big difference. This year, if we do well and I can get this team to win, it’s my choice what I want to do at the end of the year. It’s nobody else’s. This isn’t just a one-way street here.
“Sometimes it amazes me, the things that are said. It amazed me what happened the day after our season ended (with a first-round playoff loss in Seattle). It’s just not the way things should have been done. You can say, `Well, Phil Jackson was available.’ Well, so was Red Auerbach.
“I thought I did a pretty good job last year with what went on. And it wasn’t about contacting Phil Jackson, but one day after the season ends, and without anybody talking about anything, after being here seven years? I thought that was a mistake.
“But I can’t worry about it. I’m not running the team. I don’t own the team. I have a contract right now, and I’m coaching the team.”
All style, no substance
Seven of the 15 players for Portland went directly from high school to pro ball. That should be entertaining for old-school, tough-guy coach Nate McMillan. Here was McMillan to his team at practice last week:
“No! No! No! I’m sick of these NBA cuts, these NBA passes. We’re coming down here, making this pass, `Yeah, we’re cool.’ Making this cut, looking cool.
“We are so concerned with how we look to people as opposed to going out there and getting the job done. We are too cool to get on the floor for the ball, we are too cool to communicate to each other on the floor, we are so concerned with looking a certain way. It’s that `pro’ thing.”
Funny, you don’t see that in the league promo commercials much.
Keep bags unpacked
Your early most-likely-to-be-traded team includes: San Antonio’s Rasho Nesterovic, Portland’s Theo Ratliff and Atlanta’s Al Harrington and Tony Delk. . . . Former Jazz and Knicks general manager Scott Layden has returned to Utah as third assistant coach to Jerry Sloan. . . . Good guy Rick Brunson got his first guaranteed contract last summer with $1 million from Seattle, his seventh NBA team. Now he’s in danger of being released in a competition with free agents Alex Scales and Mateen Cleaves. . . . The Spurs had Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim spend a day at practice teaching his famed 2-3 zone. No word if Carmelo Anthony has figured it out yet.
Around the league
The player to watch if the Nets are to do anything is center Nenad Krstic, who averaged 14.1 points and 7.3 rebounds in April to help the Nets reach the playoffs and then 18.3 points and 7.5 rebounds against Miami. . . . Charlotte coach Bernie Bickerstaff called Melvin Ely “one of the better post-up scorers in the NBA.” Huh? Of course, Bickerstaff also is heaping praise on center Jake Voskuhl. Yes, it’s preseason. . . . Former Bull Craig Hodges is working as a Lakers shooting coach. . . . Deron Williams of Utah snapped back quickly from a five-turnover opener to score 13 fourth-quarter points against the Pacers and earn grudging praise from Sloan. . . . Tim Hardaway, 39, is player/general manager/part-owner for the ABA Florida Pit Bulls and said he’d like another NBA shot. . . . Black Enterprise magazine lists one athlete, Jalen Rose, among its top 15 philanthropists. Among other endeavors, Rose is paying scholarships for 15 students. . . . The NBA has asked referees to cut back on foul calls on flopping and start calling more palming on crossover dribbles. . . . Joe Johnson will be paid 43 percent of Atlanta’s total payroll this season. . . . Since the dismissal of Bob Huggins at Cincinnati, Denver’s Kenyon Martin is asking he be announced in introductions from Dallas’ Bryan Adams High School. It probably was the last place where he attended class, anyway.
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