Longer post coming hopefully this afternoon, another trip down memory lane (but not to the good years), but in the short term, may I suggest some reading.
The latest Carnival of the NBA is up at True Hoop (a site I try to check daily already). There’s a lot of good stories linked in the carnival, even one for you gamblers out there, but my personal favorites are: 1) Knickerblogger taking apart Charlie Rosen for calling Patrick Ewing a loser; 2) The sportsbusiness blog breakdown of the Addidas/Reebok deal.
Hoopsanalyst’s Bob Chaikin has a good look at the Joe Johnson deal, joining the growingly crowded “what are the Hawks thinking?” train. By the way, I’m not sure Phoenix will miss him too much, but they would have been better with him (but I wouldn’t pay that price either).
Update: One quick added must read. Dallas owner Mark Cuban, on his blog, talks about the decisions he made that led up to the release of Finley this week. it’s an insider’s look at how contracts are done and teams are built in the NBA. Also, for those of you who think the Lakers should just “buy a championship” this will be a sobering reality. (As if the attempt to do that with Payton and Malone wasn’t proof enough.)
The template for success in the NBA changed from the Portland model of 1999-2000 when I got to the league, to the Detroit, San Antonio, Miami model. The finances and rules of the league evolved. The winning teams were ahead of the curve or evolved as the business of the NBA changed. Today, success seems to come from being a smart organization that can identify and develop young talent and have the financial and or cap flexability to be opportunistic and improve your team in season or during the offseason.
Dan Rosenbaum has a great analysis of this.
(As a side note, a computer crash has cost me much of the entry I was working on, so it will be tomorrow before it gets done.)