Mr. Desperate Makes Another Desparate Move

Compare these two pf's stats:

Player A: 21 pts 4.5 assists 12.5 reb’s 1.5 blocks 48-50% FG 80% FT

Player B: 16 pts 1.3 assists 11 reb’s 1.5 blocks 50% FG 68% FT

Now, player A is clearly better. He scores 5 more points a game, hands out about 3 more assists and grabs an extra 1.5 rebounds a game. If i asked you which player you wanted, you have to take player A. However what if i told you player B is 22, the same age as many college grads and was entering his fourth year in the NBA, while player B is 31 and entering his 13th year in the league. What if i also told you, player A's salary for the upcoming year is $21 million and player B's is $1.7 million. What if i also told you i was giving away another young inexpensive talent with player B to get player A? would you do it?

Of course these players are Garnett and Al Jefferson and the Celtics are about to make another mistake this offseason. Apparently Danny Ainge feels it's time to cash in his chips and make a run for it. He's been stock piling young assets and waiting for the right opportunity to turn them into quality talent. Apparently now is that time for Ainge, most likely since he knows if he waits any longer he'll be shown the door. So feeling the heat he's gone out and traded for Ray Allen and is close to acquiring KG. This move would officially end the youth movement with Jefferson, and possibly Green or Rondo going to Minnesota. It would also instantly turn the Celtics a favorite to win the eastern conference the next 2-3 years.

However when Allen turns 35 before the start of the 2009 season and they're paying him 18 mil in the last year of his contract, they'll also be paying Pierce and KG 20 mil a piece at ages 32 and 33 respectively where does that leave the team? Jefferson, Corey Brewer, West, Green and Rondo will still not have reached their prime and you'll have two over the hill guards and an aging KG. Everyone knows guards don't age well. Here's the list of guys playing over the age of 31 who are guards and play anything but a complimentary role for their teams: Kidd, Nash, Iverson and that's it. All those guys are uniquely talented players, who have defied the odds to stay productive at an age over 31 and there's still only 3 of them.

If I'm a Celtics fan and this trade happens i pray they win a championship in the next 2-3 years because they're going to most likely be one of the worst teams in the league for years to come after that.

Minor League Baseball and Bowling, Small Town Pleasures

This summer I've rediscovered two of the greatest pleasure of small town America; minor league baseball and bowling. Bowling I rediscovered on a boring night with some friends. We went on a Tuesday evening, had a couple beers, joked around and bowled. We then realized the bowling alley had a deal for unlimited bowling after 9 till close for 13 bucks. So you go bowl 5-6 games and have a good time with your friends. I must caution you, bowling can go very wrong. If you go too often, or if you care too much about how you do, you're in for trouble. However if you make up fake names that show on the screen anytime you get a spare or strike you're on the right track. something like Ice Princess for your buddy Jim or Malibu in honor of our favorite American Gladiator will do fine. You should be competitive with your friends, competition is fun after all, but its an absolute must that you realize it's still bowling, it's not that important. The more you quote the Big Lebowski the better.

Minor league baseball i rediscoved at a New Jersey Jackals game in Montclair, NJ. Most minor league baseball, like the stadium in Montclair, is played is small little stadiums that are beautifully built providing a more than picturesque setting to see a game. In addition to the beautiful stadium is the fact that you can actually afford to go. Tickets are less than 10 bucks a game, so bring friends, family whoever, and buy them a meal since that's less expensive than major league parks too. When i went the other night it was 60's night, which meant in addition to 60's music being played, beer was $2 a bottle. This is something a recent college grad is not going to complain about. Thursday night is a food drive which is nice, but beer is also $1 a bottle on Thursdays, so guess were I'll be?

Another great part about minor league baseball is you don't have to care. It's not the Yankees, no one here is going to the world series, so if they lose the game is it really that big a deal?No, and that's important because when the Jackals lost the other night in extra innings that didn't ruin my time at the park one bit. Now if you want to get behind your minor league team and really root for them, that's great, but i say, go, enjoy the game, hope the home team wins, and if not go home happy anyways.

You also don't have to deal with huge crowds in the parking lots or being put in crappy seats; there generally isn't a bad seat in the house. Heckling is also a underrated part of the minor league experience. You're close to the action, and they can hear you. Now don't be vulgar, there's kids around, and don't be too malicious these guys aren't paid enough. However have some fun, when the ump makes a bad call give him a 'hey blue wadda ya talkin about' or if a batter botches a bunt give him a 'hey buddy, way to get the job done there.'

Lets be honest with ourselves, small town America is kinda boring. However, by rediscovering some of the smaller pleasures available to us we can definitely make it at least a little better.

Bashing ESPN is Old News

I often read comments about how ESPN is awful. People bash them for having stupid gimmicks or bad analysts or for trying to create angles that aren't really there. Heck i fall in this trap often, i want ESPN to do a better job and they certainly can. However the constant bashing of ESPN is really really old news. We get it ESPN has flaws, but one thing remains... it's still the world wide leader in sports.

If you want to catch the NBA or NFL draft, where are you looking to? If you want to watch an MLB game when your team isn't playing on a Monday who are you looking to? That's right ESPN and I'm certainly glad it's them rather then other options like Fox. If you're fed up with ESPN feel free to turn to the "Best Damn Sports Show Period." With a title like that it's gotta be good!!!!!!

Is this who's now gimmick something most sports fans should care about? probably not. It's simply an attention getting gimmick, but lets be honest with ourselves, it's July. In July apart from baseball the biggest sporting event is Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. The NBA and NFL drafts are over, the NFL hasn't even started training camp. The MLS is in full affect, but soccer is played once maybe twice a week and a good portion of the country unfortunately doesn't care about it. So if you're part of a 24 hours sports and entertainment network you're telling me you don't have time for a debate as inane as Who's Now? Yes they could spend mooooore time talking about the NFL or maybe add some cricket coverage, but otherwise i don't really see the problem in having this debate. thousands of people vote every day so someone must care.

I'd love to have a better option besides ESPN, but lets remember they are not in fact Satan.

Why This "Dream Team" Should Be Different

FSN broadcast the USA Blue v White Scrimmage tonight and as an American it made me feel hopeful that this US squad will be different than the recent ones which were unable to win gold medals. Several things plagued these teams most glaringly was their inability at times to beat zone defenses due to their lack of cohension and shooting. There are several reasons this team should be different. Reason number one that this team should be different is Jason Kidd. He is clearly the best American point guard of this generation. Watching him run the break with Lebron would turn anyone into a basketball fan. It's not only fast breaks where he'll help out the team though, he hit Dwight Howard with great passes into the post even against zone defenses; something the US struggled against in the past. Additionally he is a very good defender who will be able to get into passing lanes and disrupt other teams offense.

Reason number two is Kobe. Say what you want about Kobe as a person, but he is the singularly most talented player in the world. He can score from anywhere on the court, he can find teammates on the break, will work off the ball and defend. Try playing the US team man to man and Kobe will kill you. Play zone and he can pour it in from outside. With teammates like this he also will not be hesitate to pass a criticism that plagues him on the Lakers. Perhaps the biggest thing he brings is competitiveness. Kobe is arguably the most competitive player out there, he's the type that would get pissed off losing a game of checkers.

Reason number 3 is the shooters they have available. their options for shooters include Micheal Redd and Mike Miller give the US much better outside shooting options than they've had in the past. Combine these with Hinrich and Battiers outside shooting and zones should not be as big of a puzzle for this team.

The final reason is simply the growth of the team. Many of the players on this team are very young. Carmelo Anothony (23) was already the best player on the bronze medal winning team from the world championships last summer and has gotten better every year; especially shooting which will allow the rest of his game to shine. Lebron James (22) still has work to do on his jump shot, but it's better than it was. Deron Williams (23) is a better shooter than Chris Paul who he replaced. Chris Bosh (23) came into his own this year with the Raptors and Dwight Howard (21) is getting better every day.

Obviously these guys will win games and do relatively well for a regular country, but relatively well is not what the US wants to see. So, while the second half of game was very sloppy, the competitiveness hustle and talent they showed tonight indicate these guys have the makings of a team that can get the US back to the top spot on the medal stand.

Things I Don't Care About

The last week or so I've found it's been tough finding things in sports that I'm particularly interested in. The NBA draft already happened, free agency has been relatively boring, the NFL doesn't start up until September and unlike the obsessed masses in this country i can't get fired up about training camp. Baseball and my team the Yankees in particular have been getting more interesting recently; the Yankees after all have won 10 of their last 13 games. However it's tough to get realllly fired up about it when they're still 8 back in the division and 7 games back of the wild card with 3 teams ahead of them. The much easier task however is finding things that are being covered and i have absolutely no interest or at least very little interest at best.

One thing I'm not interested in is Yi Jialian. I'm not sold on the fact that he's really that good. He could likely be the Chinese version of Toni Kukoc, which isn't bad, Kukoc was a very useful player for awhile, but he was also by no means a star. So I'm supposed to be interested in a player who MAY be a decent player, and whether or not he goes to Milwaukee. Am i supposed to be shocked his Chinese team won't allow him to go there? The Bucks new all along there would be issues and they took him anyway. So when he goes back to China or gets traded let me know until then i don't care.

Another thing I'm not interested in is the Barry Bonds home run chase. He's going to break the record eventually whether it happens in July or September it will happen. While he did take steroids we can't necessarily prove anything and therefore we can't do anything about it. I've accepted it as reality and now I'm ready to move on. I'm certainly not going to celebrate this accomplishment by this guy. So when it happens let me know, I'll say good for him and move on about my day.

Also don't care about Pacman Jones coming to training camp. He's not playing this year right? As Allen Iverson said 'what are we talking about? we talkin' bout practice. not a game, not a game, practice.' Why exactly am i supposed to care about a player who won't even be playing in preseason games, much less regular season, coming to practice?

the good the bad and the ugly: NBA contracts

The NBA free agency period has started off and there have been some tremendous contracts, some awful contracts, and some even worse than that. Among those great contracts are that of Gerald Wallace with the Bobcats. He signed for 6 years and $57 million. That's about 10 million a year for a player who scored 18 points and pulled down 7 boards. While 10 million is a lot it's less than Vince Carter, Chancey Billups and Rashard Lewis, who we'll get to later. Additionally Wallace is only 24, I'll repeat only 24, at the end of the contract Wallace will be only 30. Really the only other good deal would be Fabricio Oberto's deal with San Antonio. While players like Jerome James are sitting on the bench making 5 million a year, Oberto will be making a little over 3 million a year, to start for a championship team.

Then comes the bad contracts. These include Jason Kapono for 24 mil over 4 years. It's not an awful contract since he'll only be 30 at the end of the contract, but you're paying 6 mil a year for a guy who can shoot and that's about it. Matt Carrol and Luke Waltons deal also fall in that bad area, as they're going to be paid way too much money well into their thirties.

But worse than the bad contracts are the ugly ones. By far the worst has to be the the Rashard Lewis contract. Now i love the idea of signing him, they had the cap space and he's an improvement over Darko so it could have been a great signing. However, they're going to pay somewhere in the range of 110 mil over 6 years for him. To do this they had to sign and trade, giving Seattle a second round pick and a huge trade exception, just so they could give him more money. This will lock up lewis till he's 33 at big time money, for a player who while good, ain't thaaaat good. Compare that to Gerald Wallace who signed for 57 million and it looks even worse. they're essentially paying more than twice the price for 2 more buckets a game. You would have thought they would have learned about these max contracts with T-mac and Hill, but i guess not.

now there are a lot more bad and ugly contracts i could talk about but I'm going to Vegas tomorrow so i won't take the time. Next post will probably be Tuesday, and if I'm lucky maybe I'll have gotten some inside scoops from the summer league... but most likely not.

Please don't disrespect Hank Aaron

As Bonds approaches the all-time record for home runs, inevitably people are going to want to compare him to Hank Aaron. They'll want to talk about how each one went through their trials and tribulations and were able to overcome them to become the greatest home run hitters ever. They may even talk about all the things Roger Maris has to go through in breaking the single season record. However to compare these men to Bonds is an absolute insult to both.

Hank Aaron played not too long after baseball had first been integrated when racism was still ripe in this country. He did nothing to bring negative attention to himself. His only "faults" were being born black and playing baseball. Nonetheless he received death threats and had to go through a tremendous amount of undue hatred. Despite this he remained extremely classy off the field, and performed to the best of his abilities on it. I can't fully appreciate what was happening at that time, but from what i read, and see on TV i can only admire the way he handled himself.

Even Roger Maris has a more legitimate gripe than Barry Bonds. Maris was just a nice guy who happened to have a good season, but the fans liked someone else. They wanted to see Mantle, their hero break Ruth's record, not some schmo they brought in from St. Louis. Maris ended up losing his hair because of that season.

Than you look at Bonds, who no one outside of San Fransisco has ever particularly liked. Even in college his own teammates voted to kick him off the team. His trials and tribulations are at least 50 percent his own fault (if you want to blame the media for the other 50 percent fine, but i don't). Even if steroids were common in this era it was still his choice to take them and the resulting backlash was not someone else's fault. We can debate whether Bonds knowingly took steroids or not, but when players know if a particular type of lettuce made them way an ounce more than another type of Lettuce i think Bonds knew what he was doing.

So, do I wish a classy guy like Aaron could keep the record? Sure. Do i hope a guy who's never really done anything particularly wrong in his career like A-rod breaks the record? Absolutely. However, Bonds is clearly going to break the home run record, I've come to accept that. There will not be an asterisk next to it and there shouldn't be. That being said just do me the favor of not comparing Bonds to Maris or Aaron; its insulting.

home run derby and summertime sports

As a person who claims to be a huge sports fan, I'm not sure what it says about me or the home run derby that i chose to watch History Channels, "Cities of the Underworld" instead of the home run derby. I mean the History Channel does have some interesting stuff and I suppose when your first round leaders hit 5 a piece, the final round is won with 3 and yet it STILL takes over 2 and a half hours i wasn't missing much. I did tune in for a few a little bit of it and Vlad Guerrero and Matt Holliday did hit a few long ones, which is always nice. Vlad Guerrero is a heck of a player to watch hit; he can hit any pitch in any location at any time. Tonight we have the all-star game to uh... look forward too?

that's all i really have to say about that. My boy Dan at Celtics Green Party mentioned i might have some thoughts on how his Celtics can get themselves another veteran like Kirilenko or Camby. Unfortunately i don't see either of these happening. In fact i doubt any huge trades are gonna happen and its unlikely more than one "big" trade will happen. (you can call the Ray Allen and Zach Randolph trades big). Kobe... not going anywhere. KG... not going anywhere. Camby most likely not going anywhere considering they traded for Iverson and are clearly making a run at the title NOW. Kirilenko is one player the Jazz might think about moving. He has a max contract which means he's tied up until 2010/2011 season at increasing salaries starting at aprox 14 mil this year and moving to nearly 18 mil in the final year. they insist they're not going to trade him, but if they have any common sense (which most NBA teams don't) they will. He clearly hasn't fit in there and other teams would trade them expiring contracts and perhaps young players for him. If the Celtics offered me Gerald Green and Theo Ratliffs contract i have to do that deal. you're saving almost 50 million dollars and getting a potential stud. on the Celtics side you've made a decision to compete now with the Ray Allen trade, so stick Kirilenko at the four and go after it.

other players that teams should try to move and realistically could would be Chris Kaman of the Clippers, Miami (and by that i mean Pat Riley) reportedly like him and if you can get rid of him for Antoine Walker and a first round pick you save yourself a looot of money over the next few years. Kaman is an ok center, but not worth nearly what they paid him; based on last years performance anyway. Andre Miller has two years left at 9 mil a piece for a Philly team that isn't going anywhere in the next couple years they need to get value for him while they can.

final thought as i look at the contracts and rosters of these NBA teams. One only need look at the contracts of Mark Blount, Marko Jaric and Troy Hudson and you'll know why Kevin Mchale is such an awful GM. The free agent signing period is about to open tomorrow and I can only look forward to seeing how these gm's will waste their midlevel exceptions on players that will tie up cap space and be untradeable for years to come. A role player who provided quality minutes for cheap working off a rookie contract becomes a useless salary cap albatross when the word midlevel exception starts getting thrown around. One only need look up Scalabrine, Brain.

Hometown robbery and the all-star game

Mark Buerhle just signed a new contract with the white sox recently to stay in Chicago for 4 more years. He got the pretty sum of $56 million dollars for his trouble, and yet he was basically robbed. He has nearly identical stats to Barry Zito is the same age and got 70 Million dollars less. Now generally i applaud athletes for not running for the money, after all how much do you need really? In fact i grew up wanting to be an agent, vowing that money would not be the most important factor in deciding where my clients would go. However, when your market value is potentially twice what you got paid, I'm not sure you're really making the smart decision. Heck he could have probably worked out a deal to go to the Cubs for 20 mil more and stayed in the same place. Not only that, but the White Sox wouldn't give him a no-trade clause agreeing to an extra 15 million player option if he gets traded after he had asked for a 17 mil.

Buerhle will not be attending the all-star game so like the rest of us he will most likely catch the game on tv... yawn. I'm probably in the minority of baseball fans but i couldn't care much less about the all-star weekend. The home run contest is just muscle bound guys standing there and hitting BP fastballs very hard. It's interesting to an extent, but not for the 2 hours or so it goes on. Then comes the all-star game... were i question if we really need it. Before free agency and inter-league play there was a clear and defined NL and AL. The two leagues legitimately disliked each other and wanted to beat the others brains in to prove they were the better league. Now the players don't care and it shows. They play anyway which is admirable since they do it for the fans, but do we really need it as fans? We're gonna see most of these players play against our favorite team soon enough with inter-league play and if we're that interested in seeing them, we can watch them online or via special TV packages. Sure seeing a potential Verlander-Bonds matchup is interesting, but Haren facing Bonds happens potentially twice a year anyway. This game is supposed to mean something, but the world series hasn't gone to a 7th game since they've used the all-star game to decide home field advantage. If it does mean something though then why do we have reps from every team? The home team should have a rep and everything else is based on merits.

As a Yankee fan i voted for A-rod because he was by far the best third baseman, but I'd rather see him sit. He's got a sore hamstring and the Yankees are done for without him, so take a break instead of playing in a meaningless game.

Why Americans are slow to catch on to soccer

Imagine yourself for a second a fan of the New York Yankees. You've grown up your whole life in America following "American" sports like baseball, basketball and football and maybe a little hockey (it's at least a North American sport). You are currently 25 or older, and in addition to following those sports you grew up playing them. So now someone says come watch a soccer game and you laugh in their face. You say it's a boring sport, 90 minutes of nothing. From your perspective you are absolutely correct.

The problem soccer encounters is that on its face it's a boring sport. All you do is kick a ball around for 90 minutes, occasionally there's a nice pass, someone shoots on goal and most of the time misses. If you're lucky you have a couple goals a game, but that's it. Sounds pretty boring to me. However it's all a matter of perspective. If you look at baseball all it is, is one guy throwing a ball to another for 3 hours or more. Most of the time the ball isn't even put in play and when it is most of the time it's an out. Even when you get hit most of those don't score, so other than the occasional run every few half innings, there's not a whole lot of action.

If you know baseball however, there's much more to it. When you know the players and follow a team closely, you're thinking along with the action. You're thinking about what pitch the pitcher should throw, whether the manager should put on a hit and run, pinch hit, bring in a new pitcher, etc. Plus you know on any pitch your team could hit or give up a home run that alters the course of the game.
Soccer is just the same, every pass matters, every tackle matters. All it takes is one quick pass or one player faking out another and there's a cross from the wing headed into the goal, and the game is completely changed. Even when the defense is just passing the ball around the back, one mistake and the other team is on goal.

Trust me I understand how people wouldn't like soccer, for the first 16 years of my life i never watched it or played it; in fact i thought i hated it. I watched the 2002 world cup and the American team (MY team) made a surprising run. Then i went and worked for an MLS team for two summers and i was following the team I worked for. All of a sudden i had a rooting interest and i started to see why soccer is a game that the rest of the world loves. If you have a rooting interest you will love it. Try betting on a soccer match before watching it, all of a sudden you'll have a reason to root for a team and it'll be much more interesting. The same goes for baseball, try watching a Royals-Orioles game that's being played in August when both teams are out of the race. You won't care who wins and you'll probably fall asleep midway through the 4th inning. Now try betting for one of the teams, and see if you aren't more interested. I'm not advocating betting on sports, i never do, it's illegal. However, decide to root for a team for whatever reason and all of a sudden you will understand the beauty of the "beautiful game" that is soccer.

Jorge Posada in the Hall of Fame?

Summer is traditionally slow for sports, with only baseball and soccer being played and half the country not interested in soccer. As evidence of this paucity of sports stories ESPN devoted a rather long segment to the hot dog eating competition. Luckily there was a Yankee game on today. Watching the game today, one of the announcers mentioned that Reggie Jackson said Posada is a borderline Hall of Famer. When I think about it, I believe this is the case, but I know most non-Yankee fans will say that’s ridiculous. So the easiest way to prove something like that is clearly statistics.

To me if you are to be considered a Hall of Famer you need to be one of the top 2-3 players at your position for your era. So I looked for catchers who have made the all-star team at one point or another during Posada’s career. As of now there are 14 catchers who have made the all-star team at least once in that time and have over 500 career games (which excludes Mauer and McCann). These catchers are Posada, Sandy Alomar Jr, I-rod, Ramon Hernandez, Todd Hundley, Charles Johnson, Kendall, Javy Lopez, Victor Martinez, Damien Miller, Piazza, Pierzynski, Benito Santiago, and Jason Variteck.

Among these catchers Posada ranks 2^nd in OBP, 4^th in slugging and 2^nd in OPS. In each of these categories he ranks ahead of the new hot shot hitting catcher Victor Martinez. Posada ranks 5^th overall in home runs, but will pass Santiago with 10 more home runs and Lopez with 53. Assuming he has his average season of around 20 homers a year over the next 3 years he will certainly pass him. He ranks 5^th in RBI’s and will pass Lopez with 48 more RBI’s and Santiago with 98. There’s no reason to believe Posada doesn’t have at least 3 good years left in him as he’s having, so far, one of his best seasons offensively. The two catchers that rank ahead of Posada in many categories in this era are Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez. Both of those are sure fire Hall of Fame candidates; despite the fact Piazza was one of the worst defensive catchers to play the game. If Posada finishes his career with over 250 HR’s, over 1000 RBI’s and the second highest OPS of any catcher in his generation I’d say that’s hall of fame worthy. He also will also have been been the plate handling the pitching staff for a minimum of 4 World Series winners, compared to 0 by the other hall of fame catchers of his era.

The Yankees

I love the Yankees and despite how they're doing i felt like i needed to devote a little time to them. This year may be the first year since 1994 (strike shortened year in which they would have made the playoffs) in which they haven't made the playoffs. This doesn't upset me as much as the fact that they've played so poorly at times. You'd like to pinpoint one problem as the cause of their troubles this season but you really can't. Earlier in the season they had injuries to the pitching staff so it was in shambles and right now they're just not hitting very well. It seems like if one part of their game is going well, another will fall apart.

Yet through all of this one of the oddest occurrences has been the correlation between Bobby Abreu's success and the Yankees success. coming into today when Bobby Abreu knocks in even one run the Yankees are 20-7. Now i wish the explanation was as simple as he's one of their key hitters so of course when he hits they have a better chance of winning. However two nights ago Abreu hits a monster shot, it's the only run of the game he scored or drove in and Clemens goes out and pitches amazingly and they win 5-1. All Abreu seems to need to do is drive in one run and the rest of the team magically plays well. So it seems the Yankees will only go as far as Abreu takes them and being that he's a .260 hitter right now... that's not a comforting thought.

Another oddity to this season has been the struggles of Robinson Cano. Last year he hit around .340. This year he's hitting around 270 and quite frankly looking pretty awful doing it. He's never been a selective hitter, allergic to walks apparently. This season however, he's been even less selective swinging at anything within the area code of the plate. Much the way the Yankees success depends on Abreu it will lie with Cano as well. The Yankees are only 14-10 when Cano drives in a run, so success seems to lay more with Abreu than Cano.

Other notes from the season so far:
A-rod is a beast.
Jeter is as solid as ever
Wang and Pettitte have been solid, Pettitte has had awful luck so far though.
If Andy Phillips can hit around 270 with any kind of power it will be a blessing for the Yankees, since he plays a pretty good first base and Miguel Cairo should really be a utility player.

Rod Thorn (NJ's anti-Zeke)

I'm tired of always criticizing people so i wanted to take the time to acknowledge one of the better GM's in the game: Rod Thorn. Thorn started off his reign as Nets gm by trading Eddie Griffin who is now basically out of the league for Richard Jefferson, and Jason Collins. Collins while not good is better than Griffin (although thorn did make a mistake in paying him too much after his rookie contract was up) and RJ is a potential superstar although his development is unfortunately being retarded by VC. The next year he was able to get a then 18 year old Nenad Krstic with the 24th pick in the first round (their were only 28 teams at the time). Krstic is now 23 and if not for an injury last year would have been a much needed low post presence averaging around 16 points and 7 boards a game.

He has made some mistakes, in 2003 he selected Zoran Planinic, Christian Drejer in 2004 and Antoine Wright in 2005 (the last of whom I'm not willing to admit is a total bust yet). However even when he has his hands tied needing to trade Alonzo Mourning he is able to turn that into VC. Say what you will about VC (and i certainly have) but getting him for Alonzo Mourning who's kidney disease was still a question, had quit on the team and had asked for a trade, is a steal. Then last year he picked up Marcus Williams the heir apparent to Jason Kidd and Josh Boone who was very effective in limited minutes last year.

Speaking of Jason Kidd, Thorn made the small move that brought him to NJ. If not for that move the Nets would be, well... the Knicks. He moved Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, the main reason the Nets made two conference finals runs and have made the playoffs every year since he came to the team, while Marbury's teams have done not a damn thing. Thorn resigned VC the other day which was unfortunate, but the other option was to let him walk and not be able to replace him. It's an option that may not have been worse than signing him, but they were certainly close. That being said the owner loves Carter and he's the one paying the checks so Thorn made the deal. knowing he would have carter on the squad Thorn made the correct move and took Sean Williams, by far the best option for the Nets despite his past troubles.

Not enough for you? oh, well... he also selected one Micheal Jordan.