2010 NBA Free Agency - Winners And Losers

Kobe Bryant told Matt Barnes, "Anyone crazy enough to (bleeping) mess with me is crazy enough to play with me."

source:espn.com

There you have it. Matt Barnes is officially a Los Angeles Laker after signing a 2-year, $3.6 million contract last week. Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak is obviously the clear-cut winner here as he somehow managed to use their full $5.765 million mid-level exception to sign 2 NBA starters (Steve Blake with the Portland Trailblazers and Matt Barnes with the Orlando Magic) to further improve their chances for a 3-peat ...

While the best team from last season is going for a 3-peat, the worst team from last season is also going for their own repeat. The Minnesota Timberwolves drafted 2 more foreign big men, traded their best players Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes away, failed to land any big name free agents, got fined by the NBA last week, and are still more than $20 million under the salary cap. Just when you think the Timberwolves had finally got rid of their bad GM Kevin McHale, they got themselves a worse one - David Kahn ...

Bonus - How many names on the Minnesota Timberwolves roster can you pronoun?
1 - Sasha Pavlovic?
2 - Oleksiy Pecherov?
3 - Darko Milicic?
4 - Greg Stiemsma?
5 - Nemanja Bjelica?
6 - Paulao Prestes?
7 - Kosta Koufos?
8 - Nikola Pekovic?