So I really am sorry I don't write, but there's just nothing going on. (Suggestions are always welcome.) I'm considering starting another blog for when there's only baseball. I could talk about the iPhone or the Transformers movie or something. Anyway, with that out of the way...
News flash: NBA teams are still doing the craziest things sometimes. The latest example is in this report from ESPN.com, which says the Orlando Magic are about to offer Seattle SuperSonics forward Rashard Lewis a contract.
Don't know who Lewis is? That's fine. But that's also my point. The team's not offering Lewis just any old contract-they're offering him the max contract possible under the salary cap. That puts Lewis, a lanky 6-10 forward who's a good scorer but not near a great one, in the same salary stratosphere as legends like Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal.
Will he actually get paid exactly as much? I don't think so. The NBA cap has all kinds of weird exceptions and rules to it. But it's still absolutely crazy money for someone who's done little to show he deserves it. If he's not famous, he won't move tickets. Okay, he's not a star, but what kind of player is he?
Lewis scored 22.4 points per game last year, a career high. He's tall, and he's got range out to three-point land, but all he can do is shoot. He's not known for his defense, though he has some skills there, and he's a pretty poor rebounder for his size, grabbing just 6.6 per game last year. (But that was a marked improvement over the two previous seasons, when he'd scored just over twenty per game but grabbed in the area of five boards a night.) It's my opinion that six rebounds will fall into the hands of a 6-10 man who's on the floor as much as Lewis; so he's good for 0.6 rebounds on pure skill night in and night out.
The most bizarre thing about this whole affair is that the Magic are giving a maximum deal to a guy who won't even be the best player on his new team. That's Dwight Howard, an absolute beast of a 21-year-old who's a ferocious rebounder and fast-developing inside scorer. Fortunately for the Magic, Howard seems to be a fantastic guy, and he even helped recruit Lewis to Orlando. So this shouldn't result in chemisty problems, just salary cap problems.
What worries me the most is that this is a perversion of a long-developing trend, where the best player on many teams gets maximum money, even when he's not a maximum player or doesn't even give maximum effort. Now the best two players get that kind of cash? (Howard's still on his rookie deal, technically, but he's due for an extension this summer.)
If you're even going to have a maximum allowable salary, only the greatest players should get it, in my book. Who in the NBA deserves it, and why? Duncan, obviously. You can say Shaq, even though he's old. There's another tier of players who are close, but haven't been as great as those two-guys like Kobe, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James. I'm okay with them getting max dollars, too.
But how many teams can defensibly pay two players with top contracts? I could only think of two for sure. The Miami Heat, with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal, are the obvious choice. Though Shaq's on the decline, he still brings a ton of publicity to a team, so he makes sense in business terms. And Wade's a still-rising young star with a ring and a Finals MVP trophy. The Denver Nuggets could sensibly pay two guys in Carmelo Anthony and Iverson. Iverson's one of the league's premier attractions, and Carmelo's good and young enough to command max money, easily, on the open market, even if he hasn't quite cracked the top echelon of stars. The Phoenix Suns are close, with the aging Nash (who I don't think has a max deal) and either the brute force of Amare Stoudemire or the unique versatility of Shawn Marion. Once upon a time, the New Jersey Nets' duo of Vince Carter (as a ticket-seller) and Jason Kidd (as the reputation of a player) could command that kind of cash, but I don't think they deserve it now.
But yeah, it's the Orlando Magic that took a stand and said, "Our next-best guy is just that good." It's tough for fans-you don't want your team to cripple itself with bad moves, but it's better than a team that won't shell out the bucks. The ESPN article tries to make the contract sound dangerous because the team might have to give up rights to Darko Milicic to make it work. Yeah, there's a real loss.
But I'm reminded of the Denver Nuggets a few years ago, when they finally decided to try. Yes, they had a great young piece in Carmelo, but then they started handing out obscene money to Marcus Camby (who's pretty close to deserving it), Andre Miller (no), and Kenyon Martin (ditto). They ended up with a flawed and nigh-unfixable core, though they lucked out when the Sixers decided they needed fewer all-time greats in the locker room. The real test is whether this move lets the Magic compete for a title over the next several years, or whether they can't get over the hump, now that they've siginificantly limited their options. We won't know for a few years, but I can't help but think this move is a mistake.
News flash: NBA teams are still doing the craziest things sometimes. The latest example is in this report from ESPN.com, which says the Orlando Magic are about to offer Seattle SuperSonics forward Rashard Lewis a contract.
Don't know who Lewis is? That's fine. But that's also my point. The team's not offering Lewis just any old contract-they're offering him the max contract possible under the salary cap. That puts Lewis, a lanky 6-10 forward who's a good scorer but not near a great one, in the same salary stratosphere as legends like Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal.
Will he actually get paid exactly as much? I don't think so. The NBA cap has all kinds of weird exceptions and rules to it. But it's still absolutely crazy money for someone who's done little to show he deserves it. If he's not famous, he won't move tickets. Okay, he's not a star, but what kind of player is he?
Lewis scored 22.4 points per game last year, a career high. He's tall, and he's got range out to three-point land, but all he can do is shoot. He's not known for his defense, though he has some skills there, and he's a pretty poor rebounder for his size, grabbing just 6.6 per game last year. (But that was a marked improvement over the two previous seasons, when he'd scored just over twenty per game but grabbed in the area of five boards a night.) It's my opinion that six rebounds will fall into the hands of a 6-10 man who's on the floor as much as Lewis; so he's good for 0.6 rebounds on pure skill night in and night out.
The most bizarre thing about this whole affair is that the Magic are giving a maximum deal to a guy who won't even be the best player on his new team. That's Dwight Howard, an absolute beast of a 21-year-old who's a ferocious rebounder and fast-developing inside scorer. Fortunately for the Magic, Howard seems to be a fantastic guy, and he even helped recruit Lewis to Orlando. So this shouldn't result in chemisty problems, just salary cap problems.
What worries me the most is that this is a perversion of a long-developing trend, where the best player on many teams gets maximum money, even when he's not a maximum player or doesn't even give maximum effort. Now the best two players get that kind of cash? (Howard's still on his rookie deal, technically, but he's due for an extension this summer.)
If you're even going to have a maximum allowable salary, only the greatest players should get it, in my book. Who in the NBA deserves it, and why? Duncan, obviously. You can say Shaq, even though he's old. There's another tier of players who are close, but haven't been as great as those two-guys like Kobe, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James. I'm okay with them getting max dollars, too.
But how many teams can defensibly pay two players with top contracts? I could only think of two for sure. The Miami Heat, with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal, are the obvious choice. Though Shaq's on the decline, he still brings a ton of publicity to a team, so he makes sense in business terms. And Wade's a still-rising young star with a ring and a Finals MVP trophy. The Denver Nuggets could sensibly pay two guys in Carmelo Anthony and Iverson. Iverson's one of the league's premier attractions, and Carmelo's good and young enough to command max money, easily, on the open market, even if he hasn't quite cracked the top echelon of stars. The Phoenix Suns are close, with the aging Nash (who I don't think has a max deal) and either the brute force of Amare Stoudemire or the unique versatility of Shawn Marion. Once upon a time, the New Jersey Nets' duo of Vince Carter (as a ticket-seller) and Jason Kidd (as the reputation of a player) could command that kind of cash, but I don't think they deserve it now.
But yeah, it's the Orlando Magic that took a stand and said, "Our next-best guy is just that good." It's tough for fans-you don't want your team to cripple itself with bad moves, but it's better than a team that won't shell out the bucks. The ESPN article tries to make the contract sound dangerous because the team might have to give up rights to Darko Milicic to make it work. Yeah, there's a real loss.
But I'm reminded of the Denver Nuggets a few years ago, when they finally decided to try. Yes, they had a great young piece in Carmelo, but then they started handing out obscene money to Marcus Camby (who's pretty close to deserving it), Andre Miller (no), and Kenyon Martin (ditto). They ended up with a flawed and nigh-unfixable core, though they lucked out when the Sixers decided they needed fewer all-time greats in the locker room. The real test is whether this move lets the Magic compete for a title over the next several years, or whether they can't get over the hump, now that they've siginificantly limited their options. We won't know for a few years, but I can't help but think this move is a mistake.
Comments
Rashard Lewis getting the max is baffling in one sense, but not in another. From an economic standpoint, the salary cap distorts the top end of the pay scale the most. Look at a guy like Duncan - he could pretty much name his price if there were no salary cap, subject only to the constraint of how much revenue he could generate. But that's not true of Lewis - he can make the max because the max is artifically low. There is no way he could command the same as Duncan or LeBron or any other player you've actually heard of in an open market.
That said, there is no way that Lewis deserves that kind of money (even on an open market). He is a one-dimensional player, and I hate to see basketball go the way of baseball and just start throwing cash at players who happen to be available.
Speaking of Transformers, what is the deal? Bumblebee as a Camaro? Megatron as a plane? Who is responsible for this bastardization?
Okay, so, the movie.
1) I've read a few times that the movie doesn't have much of a plot, and that it focuses mostly on the robots and blowing stuff up. That is completely false. The story and action are more human-centric than any Transformers episode or movie I've ever seen.
2) Way too many extreme close-ups, so the Autobot vs. Decepticon fights were sometimes hard to follow-which was a shame, because the effects looked really good.
3) Megatron seemed way more vicious than before. One part late in the movie almost shocked me. You'll know it when you see it.
4) All the Decepticons are exactly the same. (Even for a robot movie, there was surprisingly little character development.) Megatron yells something at Starscream later on and you're like, "Oh, I guess they still don't get along", but take out that one line and you'd have never known.
5) I have plenty to say about the last fight, so let me know when you see it, Cap. I'm glad I didn't know too much about the movie going in, and I'd recommend you do the same.
6) Maybe it was the forgiving opening-day crowd, but the movie was at least fun, as long as you don't expect it to be anything like the cartoon.