Nuggets, Knicks make trade that brings neither closer to a title

No need for the guy from NoCal, talking about how the NoCal team was robbed, to take the fanboy shot.

So . . .

First you say "If you watch that entire series . . ." then you focus on game Six.

As I said before: did you watch Game Four? Game Five? Game Seven? A single game in a seven-game series looked bad. So did Game Five (if you watched). And Games Four and Seven were not handed to the Lakers by any stretch.

Can we at least acknowledge these games as being part of this series that supposedly was handed to the big-market team?

 

Well, I think the better way would be to split them up "Small" "Medium" and "Large"

If you do it that way, of the 28 titles that have been won under Stern, only four are to a small or medium market team and all four of those went to the same team.

That's a pretty big problem. Everybody bitches about baseball with the Yankees and Red Sox, but baseball has much more parity than the NBA does.

 

If you watch Game 6 and think the refs weren't favoring the Lakers, you're blind, braindead or both.

 

Fair enough.

Care to talk about Game Five, when Shaq fouled out? Or the fact that Games Four and Seven were choke jobs by the Kings?

Again: you keep harping on a single game in a seven-game series. This isn't the Seahawks-Steelers Super Bowl. Sacramento had more than one chance to win that series, and they failed to do so.

 

This has probably been discussed on this board in the past, but still interesting, based on the current debate on this thread.

http://www.82games.com/lakerskingsgame6.htm

 

Mizzou, as I said before, basketball has less parity due to its very nature, not socioeconomic factors. Great individual players have a far greater impact on team outcomes than in other sports. Portland picks Jordan instead of Sam Bowie, and that list of champions would be quite different. The winningest franchise in the sport's history sucked mightily for 20 years until its GM got his hands on Kevin Garnett.

 

I'm guessing most of us have the game that we can't get over or get past and this game was that for me. Yes, as a longtime NoCal resident I did grow up hating the Lakers, but covering that game was the strangest event I ever covered and I've covered a few of a stranger ones. But watching the game, and seeing how everyone involved; owners, coaches, players, media...) reacted to it was the strangest thing I saw in more than 16 years of covering sports.

 

I'd agree with this.

 

I agree with you. But the way the NBA usually seems to work, if Portland had picked Jordan, he'd have played out his first contract and then bolted for a bigger market. LeBron flees Cleveland for Miami, Shaq flees Orlando for LA, Garnett gets himself traded to Boston. They're all well within their rights to leave as free agents, but the result is that the big market teams are at such an advantage that about 20 teams can legitimately claim that they can't realistically compete for titles.

My hope is that Durant staying in Oklahoma City is the beginning of the end of this. But I think it's the exception (like San Antonio) and not the rule.

 

Yep. And trading a young quality point for a fading 14 year vet in Billups also epitomizes another classic Isiah trait: acquiring a washed up former big name right as his tank is permanently shifting to empty (see Steve Francis, Jalen Rose, Penny Hardaway, Antonio Davis, Clarence Weatherspoon, Vin Baker, etc.). I sometimes wondered if Isiah understood the aging process, he was so eager to add big recognizable names that would impress people that he didn't concern himself with WHEN they were big names.

This trade definintely has the smell of an Isiah move. It ain't Walsh's steady and deliberate style at all.

 

Arguably, the cap should negate that effect. If all owners can afford to spend the cap amount, then there should be no bar on players signing with any team and a shrewd owner/GM in a smaller market should be on an even playing field. Any team which wanted Carmelo was going to pay him the exact amount that the Knicks ended up paying.

If the players don't want to play in that city because it is too cold or the clubs better in NYC, then there is nothing that the team can do about that.

 

That's why the NBA is the biggest joke among the four major pro sports. This is the most telling stat, and the only teams which actually drafted well and did well in free agency were San Antonio and Detroit. (Yes, SA got lucky getting Duncan but eh.) Lakers had Kobe and Shaq, Celtics got the big three, etc.

When are small-market fans going to revolt and stop coming to games? I went to a Pistons game three months ago and the arena is 3/4 empty nowadays -0 and this was a team that went to seven straight East finals.