The Count Down - 5 more days before the 2010 NBA free agency

The NBA has been unexpectedly quiet considering that we are less than 5 days before July 1st. With most teams are not willing to take on more salaries and trying to clear more cap room as they prepare for free agency, trades are really difficult to come by. And there are only 4 teams or so who are actively involve in trade disussions ...

1. The Chicago Bulls are still trying move Luol Deng before July 1st. By trading him, the Bulls would clear another $11.4 million in cap space giving them over $30-40 million to spend in this summer. But with Deng signed through 2014, it is unlikely that they will find a taker, even on a sign-and-trade deal ...

2. The Miami Heat are "trying" to trade Michael Beasley to clear more cap space but no one wants him due to his past (and possibly future) off court issues ...

3. The Golden States Warriors are, all of a sudden, putting everyone except for Stephen Curry and Anthony Morrow on the trading block. They have already traded Corey Maggette just a couple of days ago ...

4. The Minnesota Timberwolves will move Al Jefferson for the right deal this summer as they know they are still years away from being a title contender. And head coach Kurt Rambis' reluctance to play Kevin Love alongside Jefferson the past season basically forces GM David Kahn's hand ...

As for the King himself, it is reported that he will not travel to the teams and cities that he's interested in, but will invite the teams' representatives over to Ohio and meet with them starting on July 1st. They six teams on the list are the New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers ...

source: nba.com

The Count Down - 6 more days before the 2010 NBA free agency

We are only 6 days away from the biggest free agency summer in NBA history, but still, the 2010 NBA draft last night ended quite uneventfully. For people who have been following some pre-draft news and reports, the first 5 picks went exactly the same as all the reports have suggested ...

1st pick ... Washington Wizards ... selected PG John Wall (Kentucky)
2nd pick ... Philadelphia 76ers ... selected G/F Evan Turner (Ohio State)
3rd pick ... New Jersey Nets ... selected PF Derrick Favors (Georgia Tech)
4th pick ... Minnesota Timberwolves ... selected G/F Wesley Johnson (Syracuse)
5th pick ... Sacramento Kings ... selected PF DeMarcus Cousins (Kentucky)

source: espn.com

I know everyone has been talking about John Wall since the beginning of last season. And he has signed a $25 million shoe contract with Reebok 2 weeks before he was even drafted by an NBA team. I have to agree that he could be a star one day, but I will believe it when I see it. With John Wall's amazing 24% turnover rate in half-court offense, it will be interesting to see how many turnovers per game will the Washington Wizards backcourt combo of Gilbert "the gunman" Arenas and John Wall average next season (4 + 5 = 9?). But of course, we might not have a chance to see that if the Wizards could finally find a taker for their $111 million problem ...

Now shift our attention back to the NBA draft. After a series of picks and trades right before and after the conclusion of the draft, the net outcome is that ...

1) 4 of the 5 AP All-Americans were taken with the top 5 picks in this year draft. The 5th All-American, Scottie Reynolds (Villanova), made history in a bad way and went undrafted ...

2) The Atlanta Hawks got the extremely famous G/F Jordan Crawford (Xavier) in the draft. Now see if he can repeat what he did last year in a real NBA game, that is making another two-handed dunk over LeBron James ...

3) The Oklahoma City Thunder finally get a center they badly need. They picked up Mo Peterson and rookie center Cole Aldrich (Kansas) from the New Orleans Hornets ...

4) The Chicago Bulls have traded Kirk Hinrich to the Washington Wizards to clear up even more cap room to put themselves in position to sign 2 max-contract players!!!

5) The Miami Heat have traded 3-point champ Daequan Cook and the 18th pick of the draft to the Oklahoma City Thunder to go further under the cap. With just 2 players under contract for next year, they are now in position to sign 3 max-contract players!!!

The last 2 points are definitely bad news for teams trying to resign their own big name free agents. With the cap room that both the Bulls and the Heat are having, free agents like Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson might no longer wait for their respective sign-and-trade deals with their old teams, but instead, join forces and jump right into the team they think have the best chance of winning an NBA championship ...

The Count Down - 7 more days before the 2010 NBA free agency

With the 2010 NBA free agency just around the corner, everyone is talking about where LeBron James will be playing next year. Rightfully so. There is no doubt that he's the best player in this year's free agency pool. And if he really decides to play for the New York Knicks next year, I'm sure he will not be the only big name free agent playing there. In my mind, however, the biggest free agent this year is not LeBron James but Chris Bosh ...

source: nba.com

Chris Bosh? Yes, Chris Bosh. Let me ask you the question. Among all the big name free agents (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer, David Lee, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen), who has the least chance of returning back to his own team? The answer should be pretty obvious. There is only 1 max-contract player on that list who failed to make the playoffs last year. That's Chris Bosh. And he basically has no, zero, nada intention whatsoever of returning to the Toronto Raptors since day 1 ...

During the past season, Bosh tried not to talk about the free agency situation / future with the Toronto Raptors / possibility of playing alongside LeBron James. But we all (including most Raptors fans) knew he is leaving regardless. When he got hurt in that Cleveland game late in the season, we knew right away it was the last and final game that Bosh played in a Raptors uniform. But as an NBA fan, you also got to be excited about the fact that we were going to have a much more entertaining first round playoff series with the Chicago Bulls playing the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially after the December game in which Joakim Noah and LeBron James exchanged words due to some non-stop dancing from the King throughout the entire game ...

Now back to the Chris Bosh's free agency story. The only twist we might have here to prevent Bosh from leaving Toronto is that Bosh isn't willing to leave any money on the table by just walking out and signing elsewhere. And this is exactly the reason why he gave Raptors GM Brian Colangelo his wish list of teams (Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, and New York Knicks) that he would like to get sign-and-traded to so that he could get the absolute maximum on his new contract. But with the Hedo Turkoglu situation in Toronto, GM Brian Colangelo is not going to take the first sign-and-trade offer he gets for Chris Bosh unless he also has a deal for Hedo Turkoglu with yet another team. He needs to use Bosh to get him the right mix of players, draft picks and contracts in order to use them in return to ship Turkoglu out of town ...

Therefore, for all the Raptors fans out there, you can hate Mr. Hedo nightclub Turkoglu as much as you want. Or you can hate Raptors GM Colangelo for signing Turkoglu last summer. Regardless of the outcome, Turkoglu will play an important role in dictating which team will end up getting Bosh or whether Bosh will actually get his wish and leave Toronto with a big fat contract. Even though it's unlikely, Turkoglu and Colangelo might be the ones that eventually keep Bosh from leaving the city of Toronto as Bosh runs of out options in late August ...