Every new team gets an old NBA player
The concept is silly/awesome. Every current NBA team has a hole to fill, I find a player from their past who could improve things in spite of the setbacks inherent in temporal paradox.
We don’t allow All-Stars in the time machine, either.
THE CONTENDERS
GOLDEN STATE
The Warriors could use help in the front court. A tall, talented smarty set to enervate opponents with savvy and skill.
Plus they kind of owe Joe Smith one, he was the first top overall pick to sign a set rookie contract, a three-year, $8 million deal at the same slot Glenn Robinson signed a 10-year, $68.1 million deal the year before.
“The amount of money I’m making now is a lot of money, so I can’t really say I’m getting cheated.”
Oh shit man I can: Joe Smith was getting cheated.
“We are very pleased to officially welcome Joe and look forward to helping him have a long and productive career in a Warriors uniform,” General Manager Dave Twardzik said.
Smith lasted two and a half seasons with Golden State before they traded him for Jim Jackson and Clarence Weatherspoon.
See, this is fun. Joe Smith is on the Warriors now.
BROOKLYN
The Nets need help on the glass.
A crafty big to hoard boards and lunge for the occasionally accurate dunk. Jamie Feick, who in 1999 turned five weeks of rebounding into a six-year, $15 million contract, seems fit:
Feick, a second-round pick of Philadelphia in 1996, never played for the Sixers. He spent that season in the Continental Basketball Association, played a year in Spain, had 10-day tryouts with the Spurs and Hornets, and last season played just two games with Milwaukee before being released.
The Nets, hurt by injuries, signed him to a 10-day contract before bringing him on for the rest of the season in which he contributed 10.3 rebounds a game over 20 games.
Nets coach Don Casey was, well, he was the Nets’ coach:
“Jamie is here to stay,” Casey added.
No he wasn’t.
“He’ll make his mark here.”
No, he won’t.
“He’ll be talked about for years down the line after his career is over of what he did for New Jersey as we’re rising up.”
It is nearly 2022, you’ve never heard of Jamie Feick, and the Nets don’t play in New Jersey anymore.
Feick worked 81 games as the Nets’ backup to Jim McIlvaine in the first year of his deal but was out of the league less than 19 months after signing his 72-month contract.
PHOENIX
The Suns could use backcourt help.
The Cameron Payne comeback hit a slight snag, he’s hardly a millstone, but Payne presses a little.
Leandro Barbosa pressed, but in a different way, free of worry:
Don’t talk to me about Elfrid Payton after watching that.
MILWAUKEE
The Bucks require help in the interior.
The defending champions circled the wagons somewhat in Brook Lopez’ absence, but the removal of the team’s superior two-way center leaves an o-man in the middle. Milwaukee is familiar with the scenario.
Joel Przybilla is not “the Vanilla Gorilla,” someone at ESPN bestowed that nickname Brad Lohaus a decade before Przybilla came to Milwaukee. Ghostface Przybilla is a superior nickname, Ghostface blocks shots and gets out of the way offensively and Milwaukee is good now, so they’ll forget Joel Przybilla is back on the team.
“He has a very good future ahead of him,” GM Ernie Grunfeld said. “I really think we may have a center here for the next 10-12 years.”
Ernie, I almost picked Lohaus.
“He’s fortunate to be in a situation like this where he doesn’t have to be thrown to the wolves,” Grunfeld said. “We don’t need him to be an offensive player for us. We need him to learn the game.”
Later in his rookie year, after a game against the Wolves, Kevin Garnett tore into Przybilla:
“I hate a fake thug, know what I mean? Just come in and play, man. No sense you yapping about nothing, know what I mean?”
Kind of?
THE NEW CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS
CHICAGO
The Bulls have never needed Toni Kukoc more than the Bulls do right now.
INDIANA
The Pacers, well,
The Pacers are not clutch. Indiana shirks at the idea of a two-possession contest, it flees in the face of one stop for the win. The Pacers have no closers.
I’d like to give ‘em Michael Jordan.
Not a Pacer, you’ll say, and I’ll agree. Jordan coulda been, but Indiana traded away its shot three years before he was drafted.
In 1981 the Pacers made the postseason for the first time in the club’s five-year NBA history. The team was cash-strapped, ready to sell to the lowest bidder and, potentially, right out of Indianapolis.
Desperate to keep the postseason momentum rolling, Indiana refused to match Cleveland’s free agent offer ($3.2 million over four years) to Pacer center James Edwards, trading the No. 2 overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft to Portland for 32-year old, veteran pivotman Tom Owens.
Pacers coach Jack McKinney was an assistant in Portland a few years earlier, back when Tom Owens was still good:
“We have lost the services of James Edwards and I’m looking forward to Tom being our starting center. We want to encourage him to reach back and get a few of the years (he had) when I was coaching him and he was scoring 16 to 18 points a game.”
Any 32-year olds in the audience feel like a return to twentysomething performance levels is only a “reach back” away?
“We had the choice of grabbing a center in the draft, which wasn’t good, or getting the names of three or four (veteran) centers that were available. Tom Owens was the best. We’re pretty fortunate to end up with him.”
They were not. The Pacers were fortunate to draft Herb Williams, already “good,” already better than Tom Owens, three weeks after the deal.
Owens split 1981-82 as Pacer starting center with Clemon Johnson, the Pacers missed the playoffs and dealt Owens to Detroit for a second-round pick, he was out of the NBA a year later.
If Jordan breaks your “no All-Stars” rule, give the Pacers Jamal Crawford.
Ultra-clutch and as close to it comes to Michael Jordan in my eyes.
MEMPHIS
Big Country relieved by Steven Adams, over 14-feet of indecipherable accent.
LOS ANGELES
This team needs another entitled Laker.
The locker room pleads for someone to step up and set everyone straight but it’s never gonna happen because nobody tells the truth in this town. Instead, require someone to play defense, hit the occasional three and roll eyes after losses on Zoom interviews. The Lakers get Robert Horry.
(It’s Barkley, by the way. In that dumb argument, you choose “Barkley.”)
(You don’t sell your soul to play like an NBA player and settle on “Robert Horry.”)
UTAH
The Jazz love to shoot threes.
Donyell Marshall fits right in, he’s a big tall guy that just wanted to be skinny forever:
Marshall bravely took 2578 three-pointers from 1994 through 2009.
PHILADELPHIA
Andre Miller throws lobs so sweetly, Ben Simmons would come back.
IN WITH A CHANCE
NEW YORK
The Knicks publicly humiliated another starting point guard, time to fall back again on Derek Harper.
Tom Thibodeau coached Harper before, and Thibs was fine with 60-year old Derek Harper until we explained the time machine.
Which by the way did not faze Thibs in the slightest.
DENVER
Everyone is injured.
Michael Porter Jr. was supposed to kinda replace Jamal Murray and Paul Millsap and Jerami Grant and, while we’re at it, Mason Plumlee. P.J. Dozier was supposed to sop minutes. It wasn’t supposed to be this bad.
Denver, in 1997, was supposed to be bad. The Nuggets dealt Antonio McDyess prior to a tanking season, one buttressed by the presence of the emerging Eric Williams, a former lottery pick who averaged 13 points per game for two seasons for Boston.
Rick Pitino dealt Williams to Denver for two second-round picks in a bid to sign Chris Mills to a six-year deal and then trade Mills two months later because success is a choice.
Williams scored 79 points in four games for Denver before tearing his ACL. He’ll avoid injury in the return scenario because we like Denver and we want Denver to be happy.
WASHINGTON
The Wizards need an interior presence.
Good thing Rick Mahorn has an exterior presence as well:
Considered Larry Hughes, but Larry Hughes was never involved in a fight against his ex-team (Mahorn as a Bullet: 8.2 rebounds, nine points, 1.5 blocks, 1.5 assists, 4.0 fouls per game) that ended with Wes Unseld throwing Bill Laimbeer to the floor.
L.A.
The only time we’re letting someone (Q-Rich) bring a friend.
MIAMI
The Heat need to borrow a center for December.
Maybe. Does anyone think Bam Adebayo is taking the full four-to-six weeks to return from (Dec. 1) surgery on his non-shooting wrist?
We were tempted to use Udonis Haslem as replacement but it turns out Haslem did not retire in 2016. Hassan Whiteside is surprisingly also not retired and averages a block every 15 minutes with the Utah Jazz. There’s no way Chris Andersen doesn’t already live in Florida but there’s also no way he’s vaccinated.
The Heat get P.J. Brown. It’ll be fun to watch P.J. Brown push Immanuel Quickly into the front row while everyone records it on their telephone.
ATLANTA
The Hawks have no elasticity.
Depending on the week’s schedule, it often hurts to watch Danilo Gallinari move and dribble a basketball at the same time. De’Andre Hunter has his troubles staying in the lineup, Bogdan Bogdanovic has ankle knobs made of knedles, Cam Reddish has a cold.
Plastic doesn’t wear. It’s in your bloodstream. It is breaking down Drazen Petrovic and dunking on Chris Dudley:
Bill Raftery used to do Nets games and it was as marvelous as you’d imagine.
TEAMS HISTORY CAN’T HELP
ORLANDO
The Magic start Gary Harris.
Everyone likes Gary Harris, everyone, but it is nearly 2022 and we have a time machine now, a time machine to help you not start Gary Harris. Gonna pick up Nick Anderson.
In 1997 Anderson was a free agent, months after shooting only 38-94 from the free throw line in 2163 minutes spread out over 63 games.
The Magic have submitted an estimated 4-year, $10 million offer to Anderson, according to sources close to the negotiations. Anderson, reportedly seeking a 6-year, $30 million deal, slammed the telephone in anger upon hearing the offer, sources close to Anderson said.
Why was he angry?
One proposed addition included a clause that allowed the Magic to terminate the contract if Anderson “was involved in . . . any act, situation, or occurrence, involving moral turpitude,” or if Anderson was involved “with harmful, dangerous or unlawful substances.”
Anderson and [agent Bill] Pollak rejected the clause, which caused another two days of talks that finally ended the stalemate.
“The wording was not only inappropriate in a basketball contract, but it was inconceivable that any lawyer would allow his client to sign such a contract,” Pollak said.
Why did they put that clause in?
Anderson had been sidelined since Feb. 13 as a result of a fractured right eye socket. He was injured while attending a rap concert in Orlando. An argument over seats at the concert escalated into a fight and Anderson fell and hit his eye on the armrest of a chair after he was punched.
Why did he go to that show?
Look at this incredible lineup:
Tickets will go on sale Saturday for a Feb. 13 concert by rap acts Ice Cube, the 2 Live Crew, D.J. Quick, Black Sheep and Yo-Yo at the Orlando Arena. Ice Cube is touring behind Death Certificate, which rocketed up the Billboard chart despite (or maybe because of) its inspiring a public furor with its controversial themes. The 2 Live Crew is no stranger to controversy either, although the group’s new Sports Weekend album hasn’t created as much fuss as its highly publicized debut disc. Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show are $22.50.
Anderson signed with the Magic, a four-year deal that could turn into a six-year contract, providing achieved incentives:
“We put the incentives in hoping to help Nick get back to being the kind of player he was,” Magic general manager John Gabriel said. “We feel that this is a chance to reward a player for performance.”
[…]
He’ll get an extra $1.05-million if he shoots 67 percent or better from the line and another $1.05-million if he averages at least 2.9 free-throw attempts per game (he took 1.49 last season). He also will get a bonus of between $50,000 and $300,000, depending on how far the Magic gets in the playoffs.
Anderson did neither of those things the next season but raised his average 3.3 points and tied for fourth in Most Improved Player voting.
Why?
What triggered Anderson’s turnaround was desperation. Last fall, he turned to noted sports psychologist Jim Loehr.
“What we determined was that Nick was a person who avoided conflict,” Loehr says. “He was a peacemaker. So when the dynamics of his team changed, he reacted with passiveness, figuring if he merely hung in there, things would be all right. Our goal was to get him to be as aggressive as possible in taking control of his life.”
Anderson barely played the last four years of his contract but made over $19.6 million, and good.
OKLAHOMA CITY
Clay Bennett moved the team away from Seattle.
He gets no SuperSonics.
He gets:
PORTLAND
The Blazers trap too much, Boylen-style.
The team plucked Cliff Robinson out of the second-round in 1989, it should get to pick Uncle Cliffy all over again.
Why did Robinson fall to No. 36?
“There were a lot of things we just had to guess at,” says Donnie Walsh, general manager of the Indiana Pacers. “With Cliff we questioned the way he wanted to play, how hard he’d want to work, how physical he’d be willing to get. We questioned his intensity.”
No player from the 1989 draft played more NBA years, minutes, games. Nobody scored more points.
“So,” says Walsh, “everyone was wrong.”
How wrong?
“Let’s put it this way,” says Walsh. “He plays harder than some guys on that team who are making more money than he is.”
SACRAMENTO
De’Aaron Fox can’t keep leading the starters in rebounding.
In 1997 the Sacramento Kings had one big man, and, barely: oft-injured power forward Brian Grant. At the same time, the Portland Trail Blazers had Clifford Robinson, Rasheed Wallace, and Jermaine O’Neal. So Portland decided to lure Grant away from Sacramento with a seven-year, $73 million contract, because Vulcan is mean.
A quarter-century ago Grant’s deal averaged about what the 2021 Kings pay Tristan Thompson to not be good at this anymore.
HOUSTON
The Rockets can’t afford to use the time machine so they end up with Cuttino Mobley:
DETROIT
The Pistons need a center.
Of attention.
John Salley asked the past-championship Pistons for a contract extension in 1992 and instead they sent him to Miami for 1992 first-round draft pick Isaiah Morris and the Heat’s top selection in the 1993 draft.
Sam Smith said the Pistons were after unhappy Rocket star Hakeem Olajuwon:
NBA sources say the Pistons sought Miami’s top pick to package with its own in a deal for Orlando’s backup center, 7-foot, 290-pound Stanley Roberts.
The Pistons would then trade Roberts and disgruntled forward Dennis Rodman to the Houston Rockets for another disgruntled center, perennial All-Star Hakeem Olajuwon.
“In three weeks,” said Pistons chief executive Tom Wilson, noting the Pistons are now under the salary cap, “you’ll see us make another move.”
The Pistons instead signed Terry Mills to a five-year, $9.5 million deal and kept the picks: Allan Houston and Lindsey Hunter.
Orlando eventually traded Roberts for picks that turned into Geert Hammink and Brooks Thompson and no I didn’t make up those names.
Salley has not and should not move on:
“Am I disappointed that the Pistons traded me in 1992?” Salley told MLive.com, somewhat lightheartedly. “Yes, and I don’t let them forget it either.”
“I don’t let them forget - and I want you to write this - they they decided after winning two championships, doing all I do in the community and being told that this is a family, that they decided Terry Mills was better for the team than me. How did that work out for them?”
NEW ORLEANS
Adding Garrett Temple’s sensible tone did not have the effect David Griffin was going for, so we need the opposite.
Add Bonzi Wells.
It is tempting to take Kendrick Perkins off TV, and Emeka Okafor is sitting right there, but the Pelicans don’t need help in the middle. I also don’t have the heart to drag J.R. Smith out of the classroom and into those Pelicans uniforms. P.J. Brown doesn’t need to be part of this mess. Nope, Bonzi Wells.
“Everything that trash consists of, we did that.”
MINNESOTA
In 1997 the Nuggets outbid the Minnesota Timberwolves and offered 31-year old center Dean Garrett a five-year, $15 million deal, $6 million more than Minnesota offered. “I thought I’d be going back to Minnesota,” Garrett offered.
He got to the Nuggets and looked around and holy shit.
“I feel sorry for [rookie coach] Bill [Hanzlik],” Garrett says. “He has the hardest job. They’re throwing us to the wolves without any weapons. They’re throwing him out there with nothing.”
With nothing!
Garrett did well as a 31-year old rookie the year before alongside All-Stars Kevin Garnett, Tom Gugliotta, and Rookie of the Year runner-up Stephon Marbury.
“Those guys in Minnesota were the Big Three,” says Garrett. “Maybe I’ll be one of the Big Three on this team ... except we don’t have a Big Three.”
Denver dealt him back to Minnesota 16 months later mostly because Garrett was sad, obviously.
We added him because the Wolves need defensive rebounding, sadly.
FOR FUN
CLEVELAND
In 1989 the Cavaliers dealt the 25-year old, pre-ACL tear Ron Harper (19.4 points, 5.1 assists, 4.7 rebounds, 2.3 steals a game in three seasons with Cleveland) for the rights to sign Danny Ferry, a year later, after Ferry played in Italy for a season and turned 24.
Cavs GM Wayne Embry was unmoved.
“Boston waited a year for Larry Bird. San Antonio waited two years for David Robinson. You will see. Danny Ferry will be well worth the wait.”
Horrifying.
Put Ron Harper on this year’s Cavs and let’s see Cleveland in the second round again.
SAN ANTONIO
The Spurs won’t shoot threes.
As a Spur in 1995 Chuck Person set the mark for three-pointers made off the bench before it was surpassed by, let’s all say it together, Mirza Teletovic on the 2015-16 Phoenix Suns.
And Person never made an All-Star team, even with records that lasted until the Mirza Teletovic aeon:
“My high school coach told me my on-court antics took away a lot of All-Star-type years, and I totally agree,” Person says. “I’ve heard it time and time again: I’m the best player in the league who has never made the All-Star team.”
“I talked trash, I’d tell someone what I was doing to him while I was doing it,” Person says. “That’s the edge I had. I’ve got to get that edge back.”
A great scorer needs the ability to forget, quickly.
TORONTO
The Raptors deserve a real center.
Playoffs with Keon Clark.
BOSTON
The Celtics need someone to take minutes away from Danny Ainge’s draft picks.
Dee Brown, early three-point adapter, consummate tweener guard, good guy to have around.
Dee may not want to return to Boston, you remember Dee Brown’s time in Boston, don’t you? When the retired Larry Bird went on record for no reason to rip him?
Bird criticized Brown last season for failing to live up to his potential and still doubts his commitment.
“Dee may be in good shape now,” Bird told the New York Post, “but he’ll get hurt, wait and see. He doesn’t work hard. Never did.”
Remember when Dee was caught reading his mail:
Days after the Celtics drafted him out of Jacksonville, he sat with his fiancée in their rental car at a suburban Boston post office, reading his mail, when police forced him out of the car and surrounded him at gunpoint. They had mistaken Brown for a bank robbery suspect; the only similarity was both were black.
Or when Rick Pitino called him fat?
It was the night of the NBA draft, and Pitino was on a stage at the FleetCenter, answering questions before an audience of some 7,000 season ticket holders.
Asked whether he thought Brown, who played last season at a bulked- up 210 pounds, was ready to share backcourt duties on a Pitino-style team, Pitino said Brown was better suited to share dinner with him at an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End. That got a laugh.
Dee “didn’t take offense” to Pitino’s comments at the time, but he might ask Keon Clark about re-teaming in Toronto.
CHARLOTTE
The Hornets employ Eric Collins.
Tyrus Thomas was a lot of trouble but he also might be a top-five in-game dunker.
If this fails, we can get Eric Collins to re-record play calls over old Tyrus Thomas dunks. Like when Natalie Cole did that album with her dad.
DALLAS
Jason Kidd is Mavericks coach.
Put Jim Jackson on the Mavs.
There is still time to let Toni Braxton convince the Mavericks to lose Jason Kidd.
MR. HIGHWAY MAN
Thank you for reading! Next year we’ll do All-Stars.
(More to come.)