Kwame Brown signs with Pistons, 2 years $8 million - Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 4:42 pm PST
Before this signing, the Pistons were going to be resigned to having Cheik Samb, Jason Maxiell, and Rasheed Wallace as the options for the center position.  But with Kwame Brown, they get a legitimate big man who can protect the basket and rebound the ball while providing a big body to bang with bigger centers.  That gives the Pistons a lot of depth this upcoming season in their frontcourt and allows them to utilize Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell in creative ways without compromising their other big men.  For Kwame Brown, it’s his 4th team in 7 years and way to start new with a veteran ball club.  Generally, Joe Dumars doesn’t make mistakes with personnel decisions so you have to believe that this signing has a nice chance of working out for both parties involved. 

Kwame Brown has never really been a bad player.  He’s just been an average big man with lofty expectations thanks to when he was drafted.  #1 overall picks usually should be putting up 18 points and 10 rebounds per game and Kwame’s career highs are 10.9 points and 7.4 rebounds.  But with Detroit, all of that pressure is gone to be the man in the middle.  He’s simply a complimentary player around Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess.  With those veterans teaching him the ropes, he should be able to thrive and maybe even earn the starting center position before next season. 
Transaction Score: 8 out of 10

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Sixers sign Royal Ivey, 2 years $1.7 million; Sixers sign Kareem Rush, 1 year $990,000 -
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 3:57pm PST
The Sixers added some depth to their backcourt by signing a few journeyman guards who hope to make the Philly roster and provide some support next season.  With Royal Ivey, the Sixers add a defensive-minded point guard who has good size and can really disrupt opposing point guard bringing the ball up the court.  He’s a bit of a liability on offense but he’s a nice third point guard to have on the roster to backup Andre Miller and Lou Williams.  With Kareem Rush, they sign a smooth, shooting guard who can stretch the defense and handle the ball a little.  He isn’t going to give significant minutes but if any of the Sixers backcourt players go down with an injury, he can step in and utilize his experience to help them team keep going.  Solid signings by Ed Stefanski. 
Transaction Score for Ivey: 6 out of 10
Transaction Score for Rush: 6 out of 10

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Ryan Gomes re-signs with Wolves, 5 years - Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 3:48 pm PST
The last 2 years, Ryan Gomes has been one of the more productive role players in the league in terms of scoring.  He’s averaged more than 12 points per game in each of his last 2 seasons and found a nice niche off the bench for the Wolves last year. This year, the frontcourt is a little more crowded with the addition of Kevin Love and the existence of Al Jefferson and Craig Smith.  But Gomes is a versatile player who can play multiple positions and stretch the defense with a better than average outside shot.  The Wolves did a smart thing in locking him up for the next 5 years, which was the same move they made with Mark Madsen years ago.  It isn’t necessarily a sound decision if he ends up being a futile as Madsen has been on the court, but if he continues to progress the way he has done so far in his career, then he’ll be an absolute steal for the price in 3 years.  I can’t believe I’m saying this but that was a good move by Kevin McHale. 
Transaction Score: 9 out of 10

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Sasha Vujacic re-signs with Lakers, 3 years $15 million - Posted Friday, August 8, 2008 1:33 pm PST
Da Machine is back with the Purple and Gold.  After flirting with the idea of bolting for greener money across the pond in Europe, he decided to stay with the Lakers and try his hand again at a full mid-level exception in 2011.  With this signing, the Lakers don’t have to worry about finding a shooter in a free agent market that doesn’t really have much to offer in that area.  If Vujacic had departed, then the best options available would’ve been Salim Stoudamire, Juan Dixon and the immortal Chris Quinn so the fact that they were able to keep Da Machine for such a reasonable contract was encouraging for the Lake Show.
Transaction Score: 10 out of 10

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Ricky Davis signs with Clippers, 2 years $4.7 million - Posted Friday, August 8, 2008 10:22 am PST
One of the most active teams in the off-season just got … well … more interesting?  The signing of Ricky Davis shows that not only do the Clippers feel that they don’t have enough scoring (possibly off the bench?) and they feel like they don’t have the NBA minimum requirement for selfish players that ultimately could prove to be cancerous any kind of relative success.  NBA teams try to talk themselves into acquiring Ricky “Get Buckets” Davis nearly every year because he is a superb talent at scoring the basketball.  The problem is that he’s only interested in scoring and not so much in doing what it takes to help his team win.  In the paraphrased words of Woody Harrelson in White Men Can’t Jump, “he’d rather look good first and win second.” 

Last season was Ricky’s worst scoring season in 6 years and he still averaged 13.8 points per game.  But the question is where will the minutes go for this Clippers team.  They already have Baron Davis and Jason Hart at the point to go along with Cuttino Mobley and Eric Gordon at shooting guard.  Small forward is still fairly wide open after Al Thornton and Tim Thomas so Ricky could see some minutes there, but if he’s not playing then he’s not going to be a model citizen in the locker room.  So either Mobley (who struggled immensely last season) or Eric Gordon (who they may feel isn’t ready to play on a slightly above mediocre team) will see their minutes drastically cut to get some buckets for Ricky Davis.
Transaction Score: 4.5 out of 10

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Eddie House re-signs with Celtics, 2 years $5.6 million; Tony Allen re-signs with Celtics, 2 years $5 million -
Posted Friday, August 8, 2008 9:57 am PST
This will be a quick analysis for sure.  This was a very smart move by Danny Ainge, especially after losing out on James Posey.  When you win a championship and you win it fairly convincingly, you usually have a pretty good team that will most likely have a good shot at repeating the following year.  So it’s usually a good idea to bring back the entire roster from that title winning squad.  And that’s exactly what the Celtics are doing here.  They aren’t overpaying for either guy here and that’s the most important part of retaining valuable role players.  Eddie House’s deal is essentially a one year deal because he has a player option for the second year and will be looking for more long term financial security.  And Tony Allen while under-used last season is a valuable defender off the bench who can get to the rack.  Ainge retained 2 of the 3 guys that he needed to retain this year.  Solid signings.
Transaction Score for House Signing: 10 out of 10
Transaction Score for T. Allen Signing: 9 out of 10


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Nuggets acquire Renaldo Balkman from Knicks for Taurean Green, Bobby Jones, and 2010 2nd Rd Pick -
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2008 8:17 am PST
The Knicks poor roster structuring over the past 5 years were to their detriment and the Nuggets’ good fortune this time around.  The Nuggets have acquired Renaldo Balkman,  who has ended up being a nice find in the first round when nobody had him going there, for second year player Taurean Green, swingman Bobby Jones, and a 2010 second round draft pick.  Why would the Knicks trade an energy guy like Balkman who has progressed so impressively and managed to get better at a fairly quick pace?  They needed a point guard and simply didn’t have the room for him.  Until they can trade Stephon Marbury or decide to eat 80% of his contract in a buyout, the Knicks have plenty of dead roster spots thanks to the former Coney Island standout and human septic tanks like Jerome James. These dead roster spots often cause casualities that end up in perfectly good players being cut or traded for next to nothing.  Since the Nuggets already traded Marcus Camby away for next to nothing to avoid luxury taxes, they decided to shore up their bench by bringing Balkman in.

What this does for the Nuggets is replace what Eduardo Najera was able to give them last year.  Balkman can be an energy guy that runs the break, plays very solid defense, and gets some garbage buckets thanks to the defensive emphasis thrown towards Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony.  Balkman isn’t going to come in and supplant J.R. Smith (assuming he re-signs) or Linas Kleiza (who is apparently the second coming of Kiki Vandeweghe), but he will be able to play 3 positions off the bench for the Nuggets and give them intangible that they desperately need to win,  For the Knicks, with the signing of Anthony Roberson to become the backup point guard in Mike D’Antoni’s system, they needed to clear a roster spot.  They’ll waive Taurean Green and Bobby Jones to get down to 15 guys going into training camp next month. 
Transaction Score for Denver: 9 out of 10
Transaction Score for New York: 3 out of 10


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Maurice Evans signs with Hawks, 3-years $7.5 million - Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2008 4:44 pm PST
What do you do if you fail to sign one of your young core players and he bolts to Europe for potentially 3 years?  You bring some Mo Evans into your life!!!  Get happy Hawks’ fans!  There will be absolutely no pressure on your squad this year.  With Childress leaving, Josh Smith not wanting to play there and not caring if he ends up taking the money, and the fact that you were still an under-.500 team last season, the Hawks chances of repeating the magic they gave us in the playoffs last year are about as good as Speedy Claxton being relevant this year.  Now, Mo Evans is a nice guard to have on your team.  He’s athletic in a fun, crowd-pleasing way and he can occasionally knock down a corner three.  However, he isn’t an adequate replacement for Josh Childress and the fact that they are going to make him the backup wing player doesn’t bode well for Joe Johnson’s boys.  Evans is a guy you want as the 5th guard on your team.  You want two competent point guards and two competent shooting guards playing in front of Maurice so that he can come in and simply be an athlete.  That doesn’t happen in this scenario and unless they figure out how to get another good player here in the next couple of years, it doesn’t look like it will happen for a while. 
Transaction Score: 4.5 out of 10


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Warriors re-sign Monta Ellis, 6-years $67 million; Warriors re-sign Andris Biedrins, 6-years $63 million -
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2008 12:42 pm PST
There are two things that you can always guarantee about the Golden State Warriors.  1) They are going to be a lot of fun to watch if you aren’t a W’s fan.  2) Chris Mullin is going to give money away like Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest.  Let me start this off by saying that I have absolutely no problem with re-signing Monta Ellis and/or Andris Biedrins, especially when Baron Davis has left your franchise without a star or potential star.  However, you can’t overreact to the departure of the iBoom by giving away $130 million to two guys that really have very little chance of making an All-Star game during the next 6 years in which they are signed to your team.  So in analyzing the two signings, I’ll begin with Monta Ellis. 

Monta Ellis has the potential to be a pretty good player in this league.  He’s lightning quick with the ball, attacks the basket well and is a high-flyer who finishes with Youtube-spectacularity (don’t worry about that word; I made it up).  But is Monta Ellis a player that you want to pay twice the amount of money that Leandro Barbosa is getting over 5 years?  Barbosa’s new contract kicks in this season and will pay him $33 million over the next 5 years.  In terms of Per 36 Minutes averages, Barbosa scored 19.1 points (compared to Monta’s 19.2), had 3.4 rebounds (4.7 for Monta), 3.2 assists (3.7 for Monta), 1.1 steals (1.5 for Monta), and made 38.9% of his threes (compared to 23.1% for Monta).  Is that worth twice the price of admission?  I understand the need to keep a crowd pleaser with Baron leaving, but Chris Mullin has this terrible habit of paying too much to retain players because he bids against himself (see: Adonal Foyle, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy).  They need a potentially elite scorer so keeping Monta was a priority, but they probably could’ve completed the deal for around $50 million over 6 years. 

As far as Andris Biedrins goes, somebody needs to explain to me why this was a great signing.  I get that he puts up nice numbers in the limited amount of playing time he gets.  In fact, he nearly averaged a double-double last season (10.5 points, 9.8 rebounds) in just 27.3 minutes per game.  In fact his Per 36 Minute averages are phenomenal at 13.8 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.  So all of this looks great on the superficial surface of this signing, but there are some gaping holes to this deal.  You have to be concerned with a guy that plays under 30-minutes per game and gets $10m per year to do so.  He’s extremely limited in terms of offensive ability.  He can’t create his own shot consistently.  He’s a poor defender in terms of man-on-man defense.  He’s not even that good of a help-defender.  The defense of all of this is that he’s only 22 years old.  Unfortunately, that has little to do with winning now (which used to be a concern of the Warriors).  With the money they’ve given to two good but by no means franchise players.  The Warriors had a chance to remain competitive by spending wisely.  That has not happened with these signings. 
Transaction Score for Ellis Signing: 9 out of 10
Transaction Score for Biedrins Signing: 6.5 out of 10

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Chris Anderson signs with Nuggets, 1-year League Minimum -
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2008 10:15 am PST
The Birdman is back and it couldn’t have been a wiser move for the Denver Nuggets after literally giving away Marcus Camby, Babe Ruth style.  Now perhaps at the tender age of 62 years old, Marcus Camby won’t become one of the greatest players of all time but it still left a huge hole in the Nuggets front line.  Signing Anderson gave them some much-needed depth, assuming that he can come back to his 2004-05 form when he averaged 7.7 points and 6.1 rebounds per game off the bench for New Orleans.  Personally, I think that going after Kwame Brown would’ve been a much smarter decision to fill the void in the big man rotation but for such a cost-conscious team like the Nuggets (after realizing what they were paying for a maximum of 5 playoff games every year) getting Anderson for the league minimum was a nice way to acquire a big man that does so much in the paint.  Anderson if he’s able to regain his form will not only rebound and score off the bench, but he’ll also block a lot of shots.  Per 36 minutes for his career, he blocks 3.0 shots per game.  The Birdman is back and this time with fewer dunk attempts. 
Transaction Score: 6 out of 10

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