Next to the NBA regular season, my favorite time of the year is the NBA free agent season. For the last couple of years, there has been a twist to it. Included in the crop of players are guys that signed contracts that gave them the option to get out of their deals after a certain number of years. Also included are guys that are coming up on the last year of their deals and have already told their teams that they will not resign. In essence, they are saying that you better trade me now to get what you can.
Now I'm not going to be obvious and talk about this year's guy, Labron James, who may want to take his talents to another team in pursuit of more championship hardware. Like the movie producer told Tom Hagen on the movie "The Godfather" , " I heard that story."
I'm talking about two other prominent guys who are out there. Either (or both) would look good in a Wizards jersey.
Readers of my blog know that I have had both of my eyes on Carmelo Anthony. Back in the day, he would almost be called a "heister". In the playground vernacular, a heister is a guy (putting it lightly) who takes a lot of shots. I'm not putting him in that category, but he is right at the line. While some call that a drawback, he still has a career average of more than 25 points a game. I'll say it again: I'm not looking for leadership. Heck (excuse my language), I'm not even looking for great defense. As Allen Iverson would say, "...we talkin bout points...not a steal, not a rebound (even though he has a career average of eight a game), I'm talkin about points". My new favorite stat is one that was created by the website Basketball Reference.com. Basically the stat, which are called "win shares" is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player. Melo is ranked 13th in the league with 10.7 win-shares. That would have given the Wizards 54 wins for this past season.
The other player available is Kevin Love of the Timberwolves. He has a sideway type of connection to the Washington franchise; his favorite player growing up was Wes Unseld of the Bullets. I also loved watching as a teen Unseld's patented outlet passes that started many a fast break. Double-double guy every night (19 & 12), can hit the 3 and was third in the league in win shares (14.3). Only Bron-Bron and Kevin Durant are ahead of him. I'm even more encouraged that a potential deal involving the Warriors has been nixed.
Now I'm not going to be obvious and talk about this year's guy, Labron James, who may want to take his talents to another team in pursuit of more championship hardware. Like the movie producer told Tom Hagen on the movie "The Godfather" , " I heard that story."
I'm talking about two other prominent guys who are out there. Either (or both) would look good in a Wizards jersey.
Readers of my blog know that I have had both of my eyes on Carmelo Anthony. Back in the day, he would almost be called a "heister". In the playground vernacular, a heister is a guy (putting it lightly) who takes a lot of shots. I'm not putting him in that category, but he is right at the line. While some call that a drawback, he still has a career average of more than 25 points a game. I'll say it again: I'm not looking for leadership. Heck (excuse my language), I'm not even looking for great defense. As Allen Iverson would say, "...we talkin bout points...not a steal, not a rebound (even though he has a career average of eight a game), I'm talkin about points". My new favorite stat is one that was created by the website Basketball Reference.com. Basically the stat, which are called "win shares" is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player. Melo is ranked 13th in the league with 10.7 win-shares. That would have given the Wizards 54 wins for this past season.
The other player available is Kevin Love of the Timberwolves. He has a sideway type of connection to the Washington franchise; his favorite player growing up was Wes Unseld of the Bullets. I also loved watching as a teen Unseld's patented outlet passes that started many a fast break. Double-double guy every night (19 & 12), can hit the 3 and was third in the league in win shares (14.3). Only Bron-Bron and Kevin Durant are ahead of him. I'm even more encouraged that a potential deal involving the Warriors has been nixed.
I'm from the George Allen school of winning: the future is now. You never know when you will have an opportunity to compete for a championship. You can ask Dan Marino about that.
