Sports Blog

This week in sports blogs and news:

• Charles Barkley gets a DUI - Fox Sports
• Khloe Kardashian hooks up with Timberwolves’ Rashad McCants - SportsByBrooks
• Kirilenko’s flop may be the best every - Larry Brown Sports
• What is Bryant Gumble wearing - The Sports Hernia
• Student Athletes not allowed to sell merchandise on their blog - The Big Lead
• Tim Tebow apparently is an offensive lineman for Cincinnati - Awful Announcing

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This week on the Smarter Sports Blog we covered:

• “I’m trying to watch the game Jeff”
• Face Slap: Jeffrey Lurie High Fives the Face
• Come Home! Baron Davis Wants to Go Back to the Warriors
• A Year to Remember: Your Favorite Moment of 2008
• Happy New Year from the Smarter Sports Blog!!!
  

Golden State Warriors Gear  Baron Davis Jerseys

This comes as no shocker to me.

According to the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Jackson, his former teammate Baron Davis wishes he had never left the team and wants back. And just like everyone else who’s been on the Clippers, he wants to be traded.

Apparently Davis must have been sleep walking when he thought it was a great thing that he was going to Los Angeles when he was signed as a free agent. And then apparently he woke up recently and realized it was to the Clippers and not the Lakers.

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Teams in the NBA’s Western Conference let out a collective moan earlier this week when small forward Ron Artest was traded to the Houston Rockets.

Artest was already in the Western Conference last season – although on the playoff irrelevant Sacramento Kings – but by pairing him with All-Stars Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, the mighty west just got a lot more difficult.

The move wasn’t exactly a shocker. Artest had publicly admitted he regretted not opting out of the last year of his contract after watching marquee free agents like Elton Brand and Baron Davis decide their own fate. Rumor mills have been turning all summer, especially at the idea of a trade that would have sent Artest to the Lakers for Lamar Odom.

Kings GM Geoff Petrie settled on Houston though, receiving back up Bobby Jackson, first-round pick Donte Greene and next year’s first-round pick in return. Not quite the coup the Lakers pulled off in getting Pau Gasol, but a nice trade for the annual first-round-exit Rockets.

The question now is whether or not T-Mac and company can finally abandon their perennial above average status and finally join the Lakers, Spurs and recent juggernaut Hornets in the battle atop the west. The answer is … well there isn’t exactly one.

McGrady has never been able to claw his way out of the first round, and both he and Ming have a reputation of being soft. Artest will bring with him a tenacious attitude that should shore up any questions of the Rockets toughness.

Artest is also known as a defensive stopper, which coincidentally, is the one thing that the Rockets can say they are already pretty good at. They ranked second in the NBA last year on defense and also have Shane Battier on their roster – who isn’t exactly a slouch on the perimeter.

The biggest perceived challenge is Artest’s large personality and sometimes volatile emotions. We all remember the brawl at the Palace, but Artest has played for Rockets Head Coach Rick Adelman before and put up some of his best numbers in his career under Adelman’s guidance.

Regardless of how it turns out, you can’t fault the Rockets for trying. They weren’t going to win a title with the roster they had last year, and while I still don’t put them above the Lakers, Spurs, and Hornets, at least they’re taking a risk and shaking things up.

Now, for the Rockets sake, let’s hope Artest doesn’t decide to shake things up again.

While this NBA off-season has lacked household names like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, it has more than made up for its shortage of star power with exciting free agent dramatics.

Baron Davis kicked things off by leaving Golden State to play with his buddy Elton Brand in Los Angeles. Unfortunately for Davis, Brand decided to head to the Eastern Conference and pursue his title dreams with the Philadelphia 76ers.

This left the Clippers with quite a bitter taste in their mouth, but also a lot of cap room. They decided to use part of that cap room Wednesday by trading for veteran big man Marcus Camby. So just how much is the reigning NBA shot block king worth?

As it turns out, he’s not worth a whole lot. Denver traded the defensive guru for what basically amounts to a box of Cracker Jacks. For the rights of Camby’s services, the Clippers only had to give the Nuggets the option of switching second round draft picks in 2010. Go ahead and let that sink in for a moment.

The Nuggets were the eighth seed in the Western Conference last season and atrocious on defense, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to get rid of their best defensive player. It does provide them with some much needed cap relief, but when that comes at the expense of a playoff berth, I’m not sure it’s worth it.

Although the Camby deal is hard to stomach, it’s not even the worst trade involving a Los Angeles team in recent history. Here are three recent trades that made the Camby-for-a-swap-of-draft-picks look like a genius move by the Nuggets.

3) The Lakers trading Shaquille O’Neal to the Heat for Brian Grant, Lamar Odom and Caron Butler. Although the Lakers decision makers wouldn’t say it, this trade was more about Kobe and Shaq feuding than anything else. The Lakers are now back in title contention, but Miami won an NBA championship while Kobe and company watched from the comfort of their own homes.

2) The Memphis Grizzlies trading Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and two first-round draft picks. The Lakers received an all-star caliber big man without giving up any of their top-10 players, and the Grizzlies, well, the Grizzlies got nothing. Brown never lived up to potential and Crittenton is destined to be one of the most dynamic players in the Spanish league. The Lakers, on the other hand, are coming off of a trip to the NBA finals and look to make their way there a few more times in the coming years.

1) The biggest coup in LA history has to be the Hornets giving up Kobe Bryant in exchange for Vlade Divac. Divac was a popular player and solid big man, but Bryant has turned into one of the best players in the history of basketball. Divac will be remembered for teaching American basketball players how to flop while Bryant will be remembered for bringing three (and counting) championships to LA.

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We should have known that it was too good to be true. In hindsight, to have thought otherwise was just plain silly.

The Los Angeles Clippers, who as little as two days ago were on the verge of being relevant in a city that often forgets it has two professional basketball teams, let Elton Brand slip away, and with him, any chance of being, well, not the Clippers.

Brand signed a five year deal Wednesday with the Philadelphia 76ers for a reported $79.795 million. He will take with him a career average of 20.3 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.1 blocks. But that isn’t all he’ll take.

He also takes with him any chance the Clippers had of making the playoffs in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, and perhaps more importantly, an interesting departure story that goes something like this…

A week ago highly coveted free agent Baron Davis verbally committed to signing with the notoriously frugal Los Angeles Clippers, sending a strong message to the world that the Clippers were finally ready to spend the money necessary to win.

Or so we all thought.

Pairing two all-star caliber players (Davis and Brand) gave the Clippers at the very least immediate respect, and at most, a chance to survive the wild western conference. There was one caveat though – Brand wasn’t actually on the team yet.

Brand opted out of the final year of his contract a few days prior to give the team cap room to sign a lucrative free agent and show him they were serious about building a contender. They did, and then something interesting happened – nothing.

A day passed and no word from Brand. Then another, and soon, the rumor mill started to turn. The Clippers allegedly made a lowball offer to Brand, and with what many people saw as a retaliation move for taking away Davis, the Golden State Warriors made a max-deal type offer to him.

Brand’s inaction then got the 76ers interested. They made a trade to free up cap room and then they made a lucrative offer to Brand. Here is when things got really interesting. Clippers owner Donald Sterling apparently made a take-it-or-leave-it offer to Brand for significantly less dollars than the Warriors and 76ers were offering, and to top it all off, he allegedly said that he would be happy with Brand’s decision either way.

Is Sterling freaking serious? He’s fine letting one of the best power forwards in the league go without getting anything in return? He’s fine letting any hope of making the playoffs vanish with the stroke (or lack thereof) of a pen?

There are bad basketball decisions, there are moves so bad I need to create entirely new words to describe them (McHalean!), and then there is this. This is beyond inexcusable. It’s a slap in the face to Brand (who I don’t blame for leaving if said reports are true) and it’s a slap in the face to the few people in LA who still root for the Clippers.

Sterling has shown time and time again that he doesn’t care about winning, only about squeezing every last nickel and dime from his fans. He doesn’t deserve Brand and certainly doesn’t deserve an NBA franchise.

And you know what? I hear Seattle just happens to be looking for one.

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With that debacle known as the NBA finals behind us, teams are already looking towards next season and beyond.

That’s right folks … the 2008 NBA free agency period has begun! With the uncertainty that comes with draft prospects, GM’s are now turning their heads to already proven NBA talent. The dream of winning the NBA championship is alive in all 30 NBA teams, probably with the exception of the Charlotte Bobcats, who for some reason let Michael Jordan make important personnel decisions.

Free agency is always one of my favorite times of the year. Not only does it provide the drama of high-priced athletes potentially leaving their team quicker than you can say mercenary, but we get to see floundering teams pillage other team’s rosters with the hopes of taking one team’s trash and turning it into another team’s treasure.

Really, what can be more entertaining than seeing historic mistakes like the Heat giving Brian Grant $84 million? Even Grant must have laughed hysterically when he got a call from his agent, which probably went something like this.

“Hey Brian, it’s your agent. You’ll never guess what happened.”

“You’re freaking kidding me! They know I only averaged 7.3 points and 5.5 rebounds, right?”

“I’m serious. I sent it as a joke, but they’re sending the paper work over right now.”

The 2008 free agent pool isn’t being touted as particularly strong, but I wouldn’t write it off so quickly. Although it’s true that it doesn’t feature MVP caliber names like LeBron James and Dwayne Wade (likely to be free agents in 2010), here are a few star players and intriguing storylines to keep an eye on.

Baron Davis, who was due to make a handsome $17.8 million next year, opted out of his contract somewhat unexpectedly. While Davis is an extraordinary talent who helped the Warriors end a 12 year playoff drought, with few teams under the cap and able to afford a player of Davis’s caliber, his options are fairly limited unless he wants to take a hefty pay cut. One possibility being discussed is a possible deal to land with LA’s other team, the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Los Angeles Clippers face a few difficult decisions this off-season. Elton Brand left the final $16.4 million he was due on the table, as did teammate Corey Maggette, who was set to make $10 million next year. Brand has said that he wants to see the Clippers sign a quality free agent and Baron Davis is said to be a player the Clippers are honing in on. This leaves Maggette, a favorite of owner Donald Sterling and the subject of many trade rumors over the years, likely to be left out of the Clippers’ future.

Restricted free agents may make the biggest splash of the year. Players like Jose Calderon of Toronto, Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis of Golden State, Ben Gordon and Luol Deng of Chicago, and Emeka Okafor of Charlotte can receive contract offers from any team. While each players current team has the right to match any offer, these players are sure to garner a lot of interest from teams looking to inch their way closer to the NBA finals. Many of them are unlikely to be signed away outright, but look for a lot of action in the way of sign-and-trades this summer.

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This week in news and sports blogs around the Net:

• Chris Weinke’s stat sheet is only full of injuries - The Sports Hernia
• Clemens may still play although taking service contract from Astros - Deadspin
• Baron Davis takes a shot at Steve Lavin - Larry Brown Sports
• Don Shula won’t give the Patriots credit - Sons of Sam Malone
• 3,500 kids named Olympics in China - 100% Injury Rate

And in Smarter Sports we talked about:

• Adrian Peterson has a record day
• Buzzer beater, basketball montage
• Curt Schilling’s crazy bonus
• The next great basketball player?
• Chris Henry can’t stay out of trouble