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Josh Smith and Monta Ellis in High School

During the NBA Draft, former Knicks head coach Jeff Van Gundy said the smartest, yet simplest thing ever. ” You want to either be really good, or really bad. You never want to be the middle in the NBA.” I agreed and disagreed at the same time. On one hand, 45 wins for 10 seasons and no title appearances could get boring for a fan base and it will always cause coaches being fired, and players being moved around. However, since 1980, only 11 teams won a NBA title. 11 teams split 31 titles? Sometimes, those 40-50 win seasons in Memphis and Atlanta mean something to them. However, what Van Gundy said, could be used to describe some of today’s players in the NBA.

Cole should be able to heat it up in Miami

Some of these picks were terrible, If you want to see the first fifteen picks, click here

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Irving going number one gets a A

You know people give teams grades and count second round picks? Instead of giving out grades to teams, I figured, why not just give each 1st round pick it’s own grade? It allows us to touch upon the picks in a volume, I don’t want to talk about Malcolm Lee at 43 to Minnesota, or Jeremy Tyler at 39 to Charlotte because I don’t know if those guys truly matter in the grand scheme of the team yet. First round picks? They matter, so here’s the first fifteen picks in the NBA draft and their draft grades.

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Lee is one of the developing point guards in this draft.

The 2009 NBA draft. Stephen Curry, Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans, James Harden, Brandon Jennings and Jrue Holiday. Sounds pretty good right? We didn’t think about it at the time, but this draft was considered weak at the time. Turns out it was one of the strongest we’ve seen in a while. The 2010 draft, loaded with John Wall, Evan Turner, Greg Monroe and DeMarcus Cousins, seemed to be strong as well. With just three days left before the NBA draft, the 2011 class is being picked apart, and from the looks of it, this is supposed to be one of the weakest drafts since 2000.

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Where do I begin? How do you say thank you, to average work? If this was a gift, it was the 75 dollar sweater that you only wear once? Yesterday, it was announced that Donnie Walsh will not return to the Knicks GM position for the 2011-2012 season. I don’t know how to feel about it, mainly because we had one winning season in three seasons. Coming in 2008, Walsh and D’Antoni were seen as saviors, but that’s hardly the case at all. In fact, you can argue they hurt the franchise more then helped the franchise.

Am I crazy? We have Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and Amar’e Stoudemire! You made the playoffs! You’re in prime position for next season to be a dark horse eastern conference team! Even though we have two of the top 20 players in the league, I still sit and wonder if we could have changed this all around. On twitter, I constantly said that Walsh did a C plus job and here’s some of my thoughts and reflections on the entire Walsh “era”

- Why Hire Mike D’Antoni?

I always wondered this, why did the Knicks hire Mike D’Antoni to coach a 20 win team? A team full of players who didn’t fit his style (including the highest paid player on the team) with the idea of a rebuild was on the way didn’t make sense to me at all. For one, D’Antoni is a all offense, no defense coach that never won anything. He always shorten rotation, which left players fatigued and even injured at times. I’m not going to sit here and tell you who would have been a better replacement in 2008, because I don’t know, but the Knicks should have went towards the defensive side of the basketball, instead of offense AND ticket selling basketball.

The 2008 NBA Draft

When we go back at this, this might be one of the best draft in the past 10-12 years. The Knicks had the 6th pick in the draft. Should we look at the 2008 roster?

• Renaldo Balkman
• Wilson Chandler
• Mardy Collins
• Jamal Crawford
• Eddy Curry
• Jerome James
• Jared Jeffries
• Fred Jones
• David Lee
• Stephon Marbury
• Randolph Morris
• Zach Randolph
• Quentin Richardson
• Nate Robinson
• Malik Rose

The roster the Knicks had would have helped if they had a shooting guard that can slash to the basket or a center who can fill a vital (and somewhat weak) position on the team. The Knicks decided to go with Italian sharpshooter Danilo Gallinari, just because his father played with head coach D’Antoni in Italy. While Gallinari wasn’t a terrible pick, the Knicks passed up Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, Javale McGee and Serge Ibaka. The four players listed would have been better then Gallinari pick wise, yet because his father played with D’Antoni, Gallinari was the pick.

For people who want to argue, Eric Gordon was a star at Indiana who was the best shooting guard in the draft until O.J. Mayo blew up at USC and Kelvin Sampson shook the entire foundation of the team. Gordon went on a slump near the end of his season, but still ended up with 20.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.3 steals as a undersized shooting guard with no point guard.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/indiana/23-eric-gordon/game_stats

The 2009 Trades

Ugh, can we read these trades?

Mardy Collins and Zach Randolph to the Clippers for Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas.
Jamal Crawford to the Warriors for Al Harrington.
Jerome James, Anthony Roberson and Tim Thomas to the Bulls for Larry Hughes.
Malik Rose to the Thunder for Chris Wilcox.

Here’s the first thing….we swapped Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford, two of the top 60 players in the NBA for Larry Hughes and Al Harrington? Hey, I guess moving them helped the Knicks move the ball faster, but the biggest issue with me: You couldn’t snatch one first round pick? You couldn’t grab a couple second round picks? The trades are null and void because none of these moved helped either team, but for a great GM, I was honestly shocked when Walsh walked out of these negotiations without another 1st round pick for the Knicks down the road.

The 2009 NBA Draft

The 2009 Draft was another position for Walsh to add another good player on the roster. Let’s play the “look at the roster again” game.

• Wilson Chandler
• Mardy Collins
• Jamal Crawford
• Eddy Curry
• Chris Duhon
• Danilo Gallinari
• Jerome James
• Jared Jeffries
• David Lee
• Darko Milicic
• Nate Robinson
• Malik Rose

In a draft full of point guards, the Knicks needed one. With the 8th pick in the draft, the Knicks missed out on the point guard lot of Stephen Curry and Tyreke Evans, but still had Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison and Brandon Jennings all on the board. The Knicks decided to use that 8th pick on Jordan Hill, a power forward. Did I mention David Lee was a 20-10 guy playing power forward on the roster?

I might have been the only one on this, but I wanted Jrue Holiday over any other point guard in that draft. I honestly felt Holiday had the upside to be the best point guard from this draft, he had some offensive skill and he was a whiz on defensive. Not to mention, he was the youngest player in the draft at the time. Holiday’s range was 10-20 by the time draft time came around, but the Knicks should have chosen him.

We could have made the same argument about Brandon Jennings. Jennings went overseas, but he was considered the best point guard in high school and the 2nd overall player in that class. His passing was undeniable, he could slash to the basket with ease AND he had a strong attitude, which was mistaken for a aggressive attitude, comparable to Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson. His cockiness turned off D’Antoni, regardless of if he could play.

As for 2010, the Knicks moved Hill for McGrady, which allowed us to get Amar’e Stoudemire, but it doesn’t change the fact for me. It doesn’t make up the fact the Knicks threw away two seasons, made terrible trades and incorrect draft choices due to the leadership of Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni. I don’t want this to end on a rant, I will say Walsh did make a couple nice moves. Walsh did get the deal done for Carmelo Anthony, and I think that’s what really drained Walsh. A move that involved a borderline top 10 player being pushed around New York and the media was tough for him, and I think it changed him a bit.

While I’m happy as a Knicks fan, I’m sad to see Walsh go, but I’m even sadder to see what he left on the table.

Nobody was surprised when Pat Riley was named a co-recipient of the 2011 Executive of the Year Award. You could make the case that Riley signed the top three names on any GM’s list of the top-10 available free agents. You could also make the case that Riley signed two more names off the top-20 list when he snagged Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem.

The real reason that Riley was able to sign more than two guys off that list was because of a trade he’d made back in February of 2009. You’d have to go even further back to another trade he’d made in February of ’08 to really understand how Riley has made the term “untradeable” practically obsolete.

The trade deadline of ’08 will probably go down as one of the most exciting ever. In the aftermath of the Lakers trading for Pau Gasol, the other contenders in the Western Conference felt the need to keep up. There were rumors for weeks that the Heat and Suns were talking about a trade involving Shaquille O’Neal but nobody took them seriously. Why would any team be willing to trade for the two-plus seasons left on Shaq’s contract at $20 million per year?

Even though Shaq and the Heat had won a championship less than two years prior, the Heat were swept in the first-round of the ’07 playoffs and Shaq had been dealing with a serious hip injury that had kept him out of a number of games prior to the trade.

But the Suns did it anyway. They sent Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks to the Heat for Shaq. Marion had a player option for the 2008-09 season and the Suns were sure that he was going to opt out. They wanted to get something for him while they could rather than see him walk for nothing.

The Heat had their eyes set on the Summer of 2009 so it didn’t matter to them whether Marion exercised his option or not. If he opted out, they would have been completely relieved of Shaq’s contract. If Marion were to exercise his option to remain in my Miami, they could either try to trade his expiring contract or just let him walk the following summer.

But Banks was another story.

In 2006, the Suns had signed Banks to a 5-year/$21 million contract to be Steve Nash’s back-up. But he never lived up to the contract. After averaging more than 30 minutes per game with the Timberwolves the season before, Banks averaged less than 5 points in just 11 minutes per game his first year in Phoenix.

By the time the Suns had made the Shaq/Marion trade, Banks still had three-plus years left on his contract, including a $4.85 million salary in it’s final season (2010-11). Pat Riley must have felt that he had enough time to move Banks. Heck, if he was able to trade Shaq, then surely he’d find someone willing to take on Banks’ contract.

And that’s exactly what happened.

In February of 2009 Riley had found that partner in Bryan Colangelo, GM of the Toronto Raptors. It was Colangelo who had made a trade with the Indiana Pacers for Jermaine O’Neal just seven months earlier. 30 games into O’Neal’s tenure with the Raptors, Colangelo had realized that he’d needed to make some moves that would convince Chris Bosh that the team was moving in the right direction.

Jermaine O’Neal had an option on his contract for the following season and there was no way he was going to opt out since he was due more than $23 million. Colangelo knew that if he could move O’Neal for an expiring contract then he’d have a little bit of financial freedom in the Summer of ’09 to improve the team before the start of (what would be) Bosh’s final season.

But by February of 2009, Riley was already focused on the Summer of 2010. He knew there weren’t any realistic free agent targets for the Heat with only the mid-level exception to play with. The Celtics were the defending champions and he wasn’t going to make his team a contender with just the MLE to play with.

So Riley dangled Marion’s expiring contract in front of Colangelo with the caveat that he take the remainder of Banks’ horrible deal. Toronto wouldn’t be able to get completely out from Jermaine O’Neal’s contract but they’d free up a lot of cap space, even with another season-and-a-half owed to Banks.

The question at the time was, “What the hell was Colangelo thinking?” Did he not think for a second that by taking Banks off Riley’s payroll he’d be giving the Heat more cap space in 2010 with which to steal his team’s best player? Was he stupid enough to believe Riley even if he’d pinkie swore to him that he had no intentions of pursuing Bosh in 2010?

Here’s what I wrote a week prior to the trade when it became clear that the Raptors were intent on moving O’Neal:

“The problem with trading O’Neal is that the Raptors don’t want to trade him in a way that would do another team a favor by handing them a huge expiring contract that will give them the cap space to steal Bosh away from them.”

And that’s exactly what they did.

Had Riley not found a taker for Banks by the 2010 trade deadline then there’s no way he’d have been able to both re-sign Dwyane Wade and sign LeBron James and Bosh.

Does James sign with the Heat if Bosh doesn’t come with him? Even with all of the other player s on the current Heat roster, are they a more attractive destination than the Bulls or even the Clippers were last summer with just Haslem at power forward?

I  certainly don’t think so.

In fairness to Colangelo, he was able to make some off-season moves before the 2009-10 season to try and impress Bosh. His big move was obtaining Hedo Turkoglu, Devean George, and Antoine Wright in a 4-team trade with the Grizzlies, Magic, and Mavericks. Who was the primary player he sent to the Mavs?

That’s right. Shawn Marion.

The next summer Bosh fled Toronto and scooped up some of that cap space that Colangelo handed to Riley on a silver plate. Turkoglu, who never worked out in Toronto, was traded to the Suns for Leandro Barbosa and Dwayne Jones.

Fast-forward to today and Bosh and Marion are on opposite sides and major players in the NBA Finals.

The good news for Colangelo is he still has a job.

The only question is whether or not he gets a ring, regardless of who wins the title.

Andrew Ungvari is a professional screenwriter and co-lead blogger for SirCharlesInCharge.com. Follow him on twitter.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the Los Angeles Lakers and owner Jerry Buss plan on retiring Shaq’s No. 34. That’s because even when the relationship between Shaq and the Lakers was at it’s most contentious, the Lakers still took the high road. Every time Shaq blasted the organization or went out of his way to diss the franchise by either declaring every one of his post-Lakers coaches or teammates as “the best he’s ever played for or with” the Lakers as an organization never took the bait.

When Lamar Odom arrived in Los Angeles as part of the Shaq trade he asked for his usual No. 7. The only problem was that Brian Cook, who was coming off of a rookie season in which he averaged a whopping 4.4 points and 2.9 rebounds a game, already owned the No. 7.

So Odom and Cook made a deal that convinced Cook to give up No. 7 and choose a new one. Cook’s first choice was the No. 34, the same one he wore when he won Big 10 Player of the Year honors at Illinois. Cook didn’t see why he shouldn’t get the number that Shaq had vacated upon getting traded to Miami.

The organization told Cook that nobody would ever wear the No. 34 for the Lakers again. So Cook went with No. 43.

If that was the Lakers attitude in 2004, then there was no reason to think they’d change their mind seven years later. There are plenty of people in Los Angeles who still harbor great animosity towards Shaq and would love to see the Lakers freeze him out. I’m not one of those people. I spent Shaq’s post-Lakers career rooting against him. It was tough to watch his 2005-06 Miami Heat team win a title with an unimpressive 50-32 record.

But my plan all along was to go back to embracing Shaq the moment he announced his retirement.

The game will never see another like Shaq. If I only listed my favorite Shaq memories that I witnessed in person it would bore you. Denying Shaq’s place on that wall would be denying myself the ability to reminisce about the great moments we shared.

Good luck, Shaq. Thanks for the memories. Both good and bad.

Could you believe that the NBA Finals start Tuesday? Me niether, but the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat made it. It’s quite interesting to see how both teams made it. Miami swamped through the East with strong series against Philadelphia, Boston, and then Chicago. Dallas, the team alot of people expected to lose in round one, defeated Portland, then swept the Lakers in a shocking series. After LA, Dallas took down a young Oklahoma City squad. I have a couple questions here:

- Can Miami stop the Kidd/Chandler combo?

For one, Jason Kidd had a little bit of a flashback in the OKC series, plus he was hitting jumpshots. Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler had combined for a great amount of alley oops and even little pick and rolls to allow Chandler to get into the offense. The best soultion for this is to probably place LeBron James on Jason Kidd when Kidd is on the perimeter, but a couple switches, and Kidd could be in easy position to lob it to the 7-1 dunking machine, or find a open shooter behind the line.

- Who’s defending Dwyane Wade?

Another huge question here, who’s defending Dwyane Wade? Dallas could lean on Shawn Marion to defend LeBron James, and honestly, that’s not a bad defensive matchup. However, the Mavs might have to throw *gulp* DeShawn Stevenson on Wade. Stevenson has averaged 15.3 mintues per game, but for a defensive need, Stevenson might get a solid bump in his mintues.

- How Does Miami handle the post players of Dallas?

Remember when Miami lost game 1 to Chicago? Chicago’s post play and rebounding killed Miami’s momentum and it seemed to look 2-3 possessions at a time for Chicago. With Dirk Nowitzki, Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood on Dallas, I wouldn’t be shocked if Dallas outrebounds Miami in most games.

- Who stops the clutchness on the other ends?

In case you’ve been living under a rock, both Miami and Dallas have been led by the clutch baskets by both Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James. Dirk went into overdrive against Oklahoma City, but LeBron James have been the most impressive player the entire postseason. LeBron dominated, and more importantly, closed out the Boston and Chicago series with his last game heroics.

My prediction: I have the Miami Heat in 6 games. I have the Heat for a couple reasons, the biggest reason is who’s guarding Dwyane Wade. In 2006, Wade torched Dallas. What’s new now? Wade still has the advantage at guard. LeBron James, even with Shawn Marion on him, should be able to get 20/8/7 a night. Chris Bosh and Dirk Nowitzki are both great offensive talents, but not really great defensive talents. In the end, it comes down to the bench. Even with the bench, adding Udonis Haslem is the deciding factor for me and the Miami trio will be looking to add a title to their resume.

Seattle vs Vancouver in the 90's

In a pefect world?  We could just add another set of NBA teams and life would be good.

Rumors, hatred, feelings, emotions, revelations. That’s what alot of fans had when Oklahoma City and Memphis played a game 7. The fans? Vancouver and Seattle. Both cities lost their team to Memphis and Oklahoma City, and many couldn’t help but feel some level of pain, or even remorse for not supporting those cities. For Vancouver, it was almost a failure from the start. From the Bryant Reeves pick, to the Steve Francis’ draft look, to the terrible trades and picks that followed, Vancouver had no chance of being successful.

For Seattle, it must hurt ten times as much. Seattle drafted Kevin Durant and Jeff Green and got to see some of the glimpse of the future. Seattle even got to see Russell Westbrook wear the Supersonics hat, only for Clay Bennett to uproot them to Oklahoma City, where they reached the postseason in 2 of the 3 seasons since. Both cities thrown it’s name into the ring for a basketball team, as well as the Kansas City area, but if we see movement, one must believe both areas will recieve teams before Kansas City.

Now? The question must be what teams are up for movement? Here’s my idea:

The main moving team has to be the New Orleans Hornets. Currently, the Hornets are being ran by the NBA and the idea is they will be moving down the road, due to the fincial issues. They do have a franchise face in Chris Paul, but one must wonder if he will be there in the next couple seasons. With David Stern, he admitted his biggest mistake was Vancouver, but the first team to get a NBA city would be Seattle. Move the New Orleans Hornets to Seattle. Why New Orleans to Seattle? I think the city of Seattle just wants basketball back, regardless of the franchise status. The Hornets can get a good haul back for Chris Paul, and slowly rebuild the franchise back, with support for the Seattle fans.

The second team moving would be the Toronto Raptors. While the Raptors aren’t a poor attendance team (19th home, 23th away), they are always a team considered for movement and it makes alot of sense in terms of moving them to the Vancouver area. Unlike Seattle, I don’t think the people of Vancouver would enjoy the post-Chris Paul rebuild. Instead, give them building blocks like Demar DeRozan and Andrea Bargnani that can get the fan base excited to come out to view. From 1995 to 1998, Vancouver’s attendance wasn’t terrible, it was actually quite average, ranging from the 16,000 to 16,500 range. I believe if you give them a solid team, we could see a increase to the 17,000 range.

The third movement isn’t a team, but a conference change. Let’s move the Memphis Grizzlies to the Eastern Conference. When looking at a map, the Memphis area is more southeast, close to teams like Orlando, Miami and Atlanta. Moving a solid 40 win team to the East is a smart thing, mainly because we just seen a 37 win Indiana team get in as the 8th seed. With Memphis in the east, this gives the Eastern Conference a replacement for Toronto, if not an upgrade. Imagine Zach Randolph, Mike Conley, Rudy Gay and company running around with teams like Orlando, Miami and Boston? I can see a couple strong playoff matches there, and a young team like this could be a solid contender for years to come.

The final move I would make is to move Sacramento to Kansas City. They want to get out of Sacramento, why not go to familiar territories? The Kings could do something similar to the Vancouver idea: Go into a new city with Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins and a bright future down the road. Like I said in a past story,Kansas City has history, and that’s a huge thing. With all the movement, let’s look at all these teams and the conference alignment now:

Eastern Conference

Atlantic: Boston, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Philadelphia
Central:  Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Charlotte and Memphis
Southeast: Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland Detroit and Indiana

Western Conference

Pacific: Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, Minnesota and Golden State
Southwest:LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Sacramento, Phoenix and Utah
Midwest: Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Oklahoma City and Dallas

Why wouldn’t it work? Why can’t we have those cities back in the NBA family? Who knows, one day, we might have both back….and we might get to keep Toronto and New Orleans.

(Note to Memphis fans, Toronto fans and New Orleans fans: I hope I didn’t offend you, I was just making a case why Seattle and Vancouver should get teams back. If I did offend you, I apologize)