Mark Cuban was among the thousands of sports fans across the country who were confused by the “Chauncey Billups is re-signing!” / “Oh wait, not yet ..” debacle from earlier this week. So who does he blame? Why, the bloggers, of course:
Today in the Transactions section of the sports page of the Dallas Morning News, I read that Chauncey Billups agreed to sign a deal with the Detroit Pistons. This is the simplest of questions. Its completely binary. Either he did or he didn’t, Its in the most throwaway of all sections of the sports pages and the newspaper itself. There is no incremental value to readers or the paper to have this tidbit in the paper. Its not a scoop. Its not going to sell papers. Yet the Morning News proved it didnt care enough to get the answer to a Yes or No question correct.
Wanna bet they just pulled this as fact from a sports blog ?
To his credit, after spotting Justin Rogers’ rebuttal on Full-Court Press, Cuban updated his post to report the actual course of events. But wow, in a hurry to make a point about how lazy the mainstream media can be, he certainly jumped the gun in assigning blame.
In any case, I hope this brings all of this “blogger/MSM navel gazing” to conclusion for a while — here’s to hoping we’ll have actual news to talk about sometime soon. Like this: Grant Hill may be soon off the market, and the Suns are looking like the favorites. Meanwhile, Morris Peterson is reportedly favoring the Jazz, although the Cavs are still in contention. What’s Plan C when it comes to signing a backup small forward?
Update: It’s official: Hill will sign a two-year deal with the Suns.
Grant Hill to the Suns sounds like the worst move ever. I’d be leery of having him go full-tilt up and and down the court on such a fast-break oriented team like Phoenix. You’d think he’d be more at home in a controlled system like, say, Detroit or San Antonio.
Plus, it seems like all older, good veterans seem to go to San Antonio.
Grant Hill? Suns? HUH?!
Don’t the Suns like to run a lot, and fast? Isn’t Grant Hill physically unable to run a lot, or fast?
In my dream scenario, Dumars trades Nazr, Murray and Acker to the Clippers for Corey Maggette. Who would be Tays primary backup at SF and is an expiring contract. Probably no chance at ever happening, but It would be great for Detroit.
Plan C might be Desmond Mason at SF. Sure, he can’t shoot, but in most of the Pistons lineups there are enough shooters. He can still get into the lane, which has been a weakness for years.
Hooray! Grant Hill’s NOT a Piston!
I’d deal with Maggette, Cassie. He’s all offense, so long as he doesn’t bring the idea that he’s the starter. Ditto anyone else who shows up here.
Also, Darko Milicic wants 10 million a year? Why? So he can become the next Adonal Foyle or Samuel Dalembert?
Maggette has the idea he should start, or at least play a ton of minutes. Maybe coming in to a situation with a lot of veterans who have won a lot more than he has might change that, but I doubt it.
Plus why would the Clips accept the pu-pu platter for their second best player? You might at least need to throw in Spellcheck.
Pietrus, Barnes and Mo pete are all options like I’ve said before. But the problem is, Joe cant go after free agents until Amir and Chauncey are taken care of and the longer it takes the more we’d have to take bottom of the barrel backup sfs unless theres a trade.
Maggette would hate it here and be a cancer in the lockerroom with him wanting to be a starter. If there’d be a sf we could maybe get in a trade I’d think Marvin Williams from the Hawks since they already have Childress and Smith and now Horford takes the pf spot away from Williams as well. Turkoglu maybe since Rashard is there.
Yeah, besides Desmond Mason the other Plan C SF options would be Pietrus and Barnes of Golden State or even Ruben Patterson from Milwaukee, if Dumars wasn’t worried about his character issues.
Ruben Patterson’s got the style of play that would fit a compliment to Tayshaun, but he isn’t the type of person Detroit employs.
Problem with Patterson, outside of any question of character . . . his past follows him. In every new city, he has to register himself as a sex offender.
Is Amir Johnson fast enough to play SF?
Tayshaun’s quick, and he surprises people with his wingspan, but he’s not that fast.
Sauce,
Amir grew too much in the past year or so. He’s a PF now. Quick power forward, but the days of envisioning him as a Durant-esque tweener are gone.
I like the idea of Barnes. Good young high energy guy.
You could have a starting line-up of Chauncey, Rip, Tay, Sheed, and Dice…and then run the other team ragged with Stuckey, Spellcheck, Barnes, AJ, and Maxiell.
John,
Dumars said that Amir Johnson was faster than Rip. He also said Johnson was 6′10 not 6′11 so he has not grown 2 inches, just One.
Also, I would consider Travis Outlaw, Mikheal Pietrus and Jerry Stackhouse as options for backup 3.
DeMarr Johnson at SF? He’s a 6′9″ 215, very athletic, not a great defender in the past but a solid backup to play 12-15 minutes behind TP. He’s in a little trouble in Denver (he was tasered by Police and charged with resisting but it seems likely that the police made a mistake - Johnson and eyewitnesses say he was breaking up a fight).
He would come cheap (the $1M exception?), he’s only 27, and he’s got a bit of size at SF which is good for a team with a lot of G/F types.
Actually, size is another issue at the wing. Tayshaun’s rail thin and can’t really be used as a power forward unless there’s a really small lineup out there. I remember what happened to Prince in one of those last games, if not the last game of the ‘05 NBA Finals . . . Tim Duncan was Tayshaun’s assignment, and it wasn’t pretty.
Corliss Williamson was a 3 / 4 and subbed out of either spot because he had the size for power forward . . . just not the defense for it.
They use Ron Artest as a wing player, and that guy’s a tree trunk for girth.
The entire McCosky vs. MSM vs. sickening job vs. bloggers vs. Andy Miller is better than Paris Hilton on Larry King Live.
Kinda ironic that Cuban would point a finger at blogs when he is a blogger himself. Or perhaps it was stupid to blame the long tail, although he does try like heck to prove the theory that enough long tail can give a notion or product momentum on the “vert ramp”.
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/28/is-the-internet-a-long-tail-ghetto/
And I like Mark a lot. Great guy. But silly to do exactly what he accuses others of. Reactive blogging without accountability.
Gerald Wallace is still on the market. I wonder if a sign and trade couldn’t be worked out. That’s going to be a longshot, though.
I like Barnes, but his value is at its peak, in my view. We’d be paying a lot for a bench player who won’t really turn into anything much more.
Demarr Johnson………..oh HELL NO. Just don’t wish that my brother,…..please.
Barnes… Pietrus… with what money? With what playing time? Hate to say it but were probably gonna be stuck with a not so attractive option as prince’s backup.
trade rip, nazr and whatever else you have to for brand
i was going to mention travis outlaw. he’s portland’s amir johnson, a lot of talent but no chance to prove it yet. the only difference is that portland has a ton of young players that are going to have to get paid soon, where we’re not in that position. but we probably won’t have a lot left to make such a steal after re-signing amir.
For Brand, it might be Rip, Nazr, and AJ.
Plus people would still complain that we have no centers.
DerMarr Johnson - difference maker!
Can you believe DerMarr Johnson was the #6 pick in the 2000 draft? I think he’s worth a flyer as backup SF. He worked hard to comeback from a terrible car crash and he’s been around enough that I think he might appreciate playing for a solid franchise like Detroit. He only made $865,063 last year and he’s in no position to ask for a raise (unless a few more GMs hand out Kapono dollars). Cheap is good.
note - I misspelled DerMarr above. DerMarr is correct.
Dermarr Johnson? Come on, the pickings can’t be that slim can it. Damn, is MoPete already committed elsewhere???
I was high on getting Demarr Johnson around 2 season ago. I dont know about now. I think going from Delfino- to Johnson is a less than lateral move.
I still say Travis outlaw is the guy you want to get. He is a restricted free agent but Portland will likely resign him. Id still like Joe D to sign him to an offer sheet for around 4 mil and then sign Johnson for 4 mil as well.
Billups/Stuckey/Hunter
Rip/Afflalo/Stuckey
Tay/Outlaw/Johnson/Afflalo
Maxiel/Johnson/Dice
Sheed/Dice/Samb
Detroit gets MUCH MUCH younger. And has a great young core with Stuckey, Johnson and Outlaw poised to be future stars in the league and Afflalo, Maxiel and Samb being good role players.
Unfortunately, Toronto did a silly thing and signed Jason Kapono to 4 x his actual worth. Now, Morris Peterson’s kind of the same guy, with defense, and he has a load of suitors willing to do the same thing.
As for Kapono, I love the 3-point championship, and I don’t blame him for agreeing to that deal, but Toronto apparently didn’t see what happened to Philadelphia when they signed Kyle Korver to a similar extravagant deal.
This Kapono deal has to make Casey Jacobsen salivate.
E-Double - I agree with you that Mo Pete is good choice. He was my first choice as free agent SF signing but I’m not sure the Pistons can get him for the MLE the way the market is going for SF. I just think DeMarr Johnson is a good risk from the pool of bargain bin SFs.
don’t underestimate the Jason Maxiell/DerMarr Johnson relationship from NCAA either… he could be a sleeper
Boney, how could there be a relationship? Didn’t Dermarr come out about 6 years ago, the same year Mike Miller got drafted by Memphis? Are you referring to maybe there’s an alumni connection (maybe Dermarr played on campus during the summer or something like that)? Otherwise, Maxey would have had to been at Cincinnati for 6-7 years then.
You guys are scarring me with this DerMarr Johnson talk. I’d rather see Afflalo backup Tay. He’s 6′6″ barefoot. Mo Pete save us please!!!!!!!!!
both 1st rnd picks signed deals this morning.