the urbane league

Is this thing on?! Does anybody speak any English?! Why is everybody looking at me like I’m crazy?!

Those are actually just some song lyrics, but I think they actually convey how I feel about this NBA off season thus far. I don’t remember an offseason like this with so much significant movement. And Elton Brand, ooooooh, I ain’t seen nothin’ that shady since Carlos Boozer. But in all seriousness, this free agent period was way more interesting/tragic than I anticipated.

It started with a rash of opt outs by some pretty big names. I was wondering why this would happen, but then when you consider the likes of the players who will be coming up in 2009 and 2010, Kobe, Iverson, McGrady, LeBron, Rasheed Wallace, Yao Ming, Dwayne Wade, Michael Redd, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Amare, Manu, Chris Bosh…you get the idea. So it seems to me the players who opted out realized they better go ahead and get while the gettin’s good, because in the next two years the watering hole is going to dry up for lesser players. I understand that some of the players I listed will resign before they even hit free agency, but then again, nobody thought Elton Brand or Baron Davis would opt out.

Let’s start with Elton Brand. Elton Brand is a moron. “Philly suits my tough grind it out style,” he says. Bullshit, more like the West is too hard and I’m only concerned with making All Star teams and making a ton of cash without having to deal with the pressure of expectations. Brand spends all summer telling the Clippers that he just wants some help; they draft Eric Gordon (who I’m actually not sold on, but still). Reports were out that he specifically wanted the Clippers to target Baron “Boody Doo” Davis, they make it happen; then he promptly splits town. I’m going to borrow a term from a well spoken friend of mine, “What a pussois.” Brand turns down an offer from the Clippers to take $82M (which actually turned out to be $79.795M), and his excuse was “Oh, it’s closer to home, and I’m expecting my first child, and I want my baby’s grandparents to be close.” Elton, that’s fine, it’s not like for $80M you couldn’t fly the whole extended family out to the west coast once a month, but that’s neither here nor there. The problem I have is that as of two weeks ago, “your intent was to resign with the Clippers,” it’s not as if you didn’t know you had a baby on the way, or that California is about a six hour flight away from the New York. Those aren’t great truths humanity has just recently stumbled upon, you knew those things when it was supposedly your intent to stay in L.A. And it wasn’t just for the money because, the Clippers were giving you comparable money. So where does that leave us? With Brand being soft & selfish? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, what else would you expect from a Blue Devil? Somebody should tell his agent that it’s just poor Brand management. But don’t let all my hating fool you, as far as “seemingly” good guys (because nobody really knows these guys) I still feel Elton Brand, the person, is still good in my book…and $80M is $80M.

Baron Davis, I feel sorry for. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have gone to L.A. just for the money (he wasn’t going to see that kind of money from anyone else) but Brand no-doubt was a selling point in getting Boom Dizzle to sign. Now, I don’t know any of these guys, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t call up Baron Davis if I wanted to, but my name also isn’t Elton Brand. I don’t think it would be impossible for Brand to call Davis (directly) and saying something to the effect of, “hey man, I’m out.” Again, I don’t know either of these guys, and Brand may have very well done that, and if he did, I commend him for not screwing a franchise as well as one of my favorite players in one fell swoop. All I know is, just watch Baron Davis and the newly minted member of the German National Hoops Squad (Chris Kaman) to do some things if they can stay on the court together.

From bone-headed player moves, to bone-headed organizations, the Milwaukee Bucks reportedly will re-sign their center to a 5 year $72.5M extension. Why are you looking at me like that? Ohhhh you don’t know who their center is. Andrew Bogus—I mean Bogut is all set to become the highest paid Aussie in the league. Think about that, an average of $14.5M dollars per year, [in contemplation] hmmm 14.5, 14.5 why does that number seem familiar? Oh I know, because that’s about how many points per game he averaged last season. I just don’t even get this, if you’re going to break the bank in keeping one of your stars, at least let it be someone you already know someone else is going to drop the bank on, but Andrew Bogut? This is like when Isiah drafted Renaldo Balkman because he “was certain” the Suns were going to draft him with the next selection. When asked about Renaldo Balkman, the Suns GM responded, “Who is Renaldo Balkman?” GMs all around the league most be pissed. All kinds of marginal players and their agents are going to show up and say, “Well Andrew’s dad gave him $72.5M!” Actually the more I think about it, it’s just funny; Elton Brand is only worth about $1.4M/year more than Andrew Bogut. Bogut better thank that agent, get him a Patek Philippe, or send his kids to college, oh wait, he already did.