Assuming there isn't a lockout...

Good write-up. Bulls question/comments:

Who is Thomas?

I don’t know that I trust #’s that suggest Luol Deng is more valuable than Derrick Rose

The Knickerbockers’ expected win total is great news for ze Houston Rockets.

Dexter Pittman has got to be a happy man

Jarvis Varnado may be starting at the 5 over Dex.

David Lee to the Warriors in a good sign and trade for both teams.

I heard the Heat already traded Beasley.

Unless I missed something, Hinrich went to the Wizards. It was Steve Blake who signed with the Lakers.

Is Boozer that much better than Bosh? I’m not sure about that. He really isn’t that much older – -only 2.5 years. Boozer was 17 when he started at Duke.

I like Scheyer on the Heat if he can stay in front of anyone on defense – combo guard that can hit the open 3. Smart player, etc. If they are able to bring in Mike Miller that would be good to. He can just stand in the corner every offensive possession and wait for the ball.

Thanks for your thoughts on the “who takes the last shot” garbage. That’s the kind of idiocy you have to suffer through on sports radio from guys who know nothing about basketball.

Hinrich went to the Wizards, not the Lakers.

Bosh is an infinitely better player than Boozer. Who do you think would have more wins if Deron Williams played with both of them? Just watch them play, it’s not even close.

Anyway, the wins thing doesn’t work at all in the case of people changing teams.

Chris Broussard is saying Mike Miller is headed to the Heat.

Could you add in his numbers?

My feeling is that he’s exactly what the Dr. ordered for that squad. The WoW free agent index revealed Miller to be the most underrated free agent on the market.

Also, for comparison, the 97 Rockets squad (potentially the most recent comparison in terms of HOF trios ((if Bosh is a HOF’er, which is debatable))), used up approximately 75% of their cap space on Dream, Glyde, and Barkley. 8 players on that roster made essentially the minimum.

If my fuzzy math is correct, the 11 Heat are devoting approx. 85% of their cap space to King, Flash and Avatar. But they are substantially younger and in their primer than the sadly decrepit clown-shark 97 Rockets. So maybe it’s a wash.

Who knows?

After surveying the remaining FA landscape, if I’m Pat Riley, I’m trying to accomplish the following:

PG: Jason Williams or Rafer Alston
SG: Wade
SF: James
PF: Bosh
C: Shaq or Brad Miller

6th man: Mike Miller
Shooter: Steve Novak
Backup point: Chalmers
Perimeter Defender: Matt Barnes
Size: Sexy Dexy
Size: Varnado
?? Role: Dasean Butler

I have no idea whether any of the above-mentioned names would be willing to chase a title for minimum (NBA) wage, but this gives at least an idea of what a potential Heat roster could end up looking like.

Looks like a title to me.

Mike Miller is an incredible addition to that team. And ditching Beasley was a must.
 
Now they need two more pure shooters.
 
D Wade and Lebron both slash and dominate the ball. If you don’t surround them with shooters, they can be had with size and zone concepts. Lakers.
 
Homesick -
 
I’m not sure they can have a point guard. Seriously. D Wade and Lebron need to control the ball. I think getting Shaq would be an incredibly bad move. C’mon man. Think about it. This is an uptempo team that needs an absence of ego around its stars, a clean post area for Bosh’s face up and Wade and Lebron’s drives, and a big with the ability to pop out and hit 18 footers.
Shaq gives them dick and hamstrings their identity.

I agree with Scipio on Shaq. He just wants titles for his own ego, he doesn’t switch on pick’n’rolls and the other things he offers aren’t enough to cover for that as much. He just wants to be on the team now that brings down Kobe’s dynasty, it’s eating him up inside.

So yeah, a center who can defend the rim and shoot from outside offers far more than O’Neal at this point. I would rather take a chance on Ekpe Udoh then Shaq for 3 years.

Max: that’s tyrus thomas.

Yeah, looks like I missed the Blake/Hinrich deal.

Blake B: my old nemesis. The basic point of WoW is that we can’t trust our eyes because there is too much going on in a game for us to fully grasp what is occurring. That statistical breakdown consistently yields results that can be tested whereas the eye test is accountable only to the eyes of everyone else.
Boozer isn’t far behind Bosh as a defender and actually rebounds the opponents misses more consistently which is the most important part of a defensive possession. You don’t think Boozer plus James would have worked?

I’ll run the numbers on the Lakers with Blake and the more likely Heat roster now.

The Lakers with Blake instead of Hinrich drop down to 58 wins but it’s still an upgrade over Fisher or Farmar.

It’s kind of hard to calculate the Heat right now because there are so many unknowns. I’ll say this Mike Miller was worth 8.24 wins last year and Udonis Haslem was worth 8.89. You grab those guys plus Chuck Hayes (9.46 wins) and Raja Bell/Earl Watson…the heat can assemble an awesome team if they sign undervalued guys Rockets-style and pretty much guarantee a title on paper.

Scip-

Your dick and hamstrings argument wins the day, but one way or the other the Heat will need bodies to throw at Howard, Gasol, Bynum, Odom, Perkins, etc.

Also I envision Sexy Dexy being open for many, many, many, many, many alley-oops.

Nickel-

Is Chuck Hayes free?

Lebron playing alongside Rose, Noah and Boozer would have been a tremendous team. I think their skills compliment each other better than Lebron, Wade and Bosh. Either way, he wasn’t going to win a championship in Cleveland. He put up staggering numbers the last two years in the playoff series they have been bounced from. The best guy they put alongside him has been Mo Williams, and the Cavs played their best basketball last season when he was out.

I just re-watched the Heat vs Cavs game from jan 25th of this past year and it has me all pumped for this coming season.

Wade took on the role as the 6th man for the Olympic team, so he has no problem taking the backseat if needed. I watched plenty of Heat games the past few years as they sucked and you could see the hunger and the pain he carried on his shoulders. Lebron plays his best as a point forward (see the 13 game stretch where Mo Williams and Delonte West were out this past season) and is pretty much going to put up 30-10-10 each playoff game. The Cavs only lost because there was literally nobody who could come in and score for any stretch of the game without Lebron, not a problem with Wade around. He distributes the ball as well as anyone in the league and has been criticized (unfairly IMO) for being too unselfish. I wouldn’t worry about alpha dog problems like we had with Kobe and Shaq. I think opposing teams will fear a final shot from the Heat with Wade and Lebron on the floor at the same time, not from those two. Watch that Jan 25th game at the end of the first half. Lebron puts up something like the last 15 for Cleveland and Wade puts up the last 16 for Miami. They both hit threes in the last 5 seconds of the half to cap off their hot streaks and they walk off the court smiling to each other.

As far as role players, they are a dime a dozen. The only difference between Kerr and any other guy was Kerr was there alongside Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. Watching the Cavs the last few years, they had nothing but role players who Lebron made better. Come playoff time they needed someone who could actually stand on their own, and they just didn’t have it. Varejo, Hickson, Moon, Parker, Williams and Gibson, hell even Shaq, could step up and help spur a run but they couldn’t be counted on. Certainly not while James was on the bench.

November can’t come soon enough.

Homesick Alien: no, of course not. I’m wrong again. The rockets already resigned him.

Eggnog: Nice comment and you hit on a point I really wanted to make and forgot about.

Bill Simmons makes an idiotic comment where he says that the Derek Fishers and Robert Horry’s of the world are essential for a title.

Well those guys are only heroes for making very brief plays at big points of the game. Really most NBA players thrust into a spot of needing to hit an open 3 or make a put-in at the buzzer can do so at as good a percentage of Horry and Fisher.

The difference between Fisher and another crappy point guard in this league with similar jumpshooting skills is opportunity. Fisher has had a lot of chances to hit important shots and consequently he has.

It’s another form of championship bias and it fills the pages of Bill Simmons Book of Basketball (which is still a wonderful read of course). Players like Dennis Johnson and James Worthy he lauds as heroes when realistically they were just good players on great teams that were provided opportunities to make memorable plays in big spots.

My overall point being that the Heat can fill out their roster with average NBA players and those players should be able to shoulder the limited responsibilities they’ll have with the hyrda carrying so much of the load. Then, when one of them does make a big play in a playoff game they’ll be lauded as indispensable cogs in the machine. Wrong.

LeBron James is indispensable, Kobe Bryant is indispensable, Pau Gasol is indispensable. Derek Fishers and Robert Horry’s come a dime a dozen, it’s just about opportunity.

Interesting factoid I learned yesterday which seems relevant here about as much as anywhere: In his entire 7 year career, Lebron James has never been the highest paid player on his own team.

Nickel -
 
I own Simmons’ book of basketball. He rates Robert Horry as one of the Greatest 100 NBA players of all time.
 
Not most clutch.
 
Greatest players of all time. For a guy that spends a lot of time on the NBA, he doesn’t really get basketball. There’s a reason Big Shot Rob had those open shots.

I think he gets basketball as well as anyone else like him, but he was trying to recognize the guys who do the little things that win championships without realizing that it made his rankings primarily about luck and not actual skill or greatness in the game.

I know this about Robert Horry: I saw him out one night last year, and he was not the least bit interested in conversing with me.

I rank him in the Top 1 of all time of Robert Horry’s who didn’t want to talk to me.