Throw Down: Reel #1

With the off-season officially starting today, all eyes shift to one of the biggest events in any NBA season's year: The NBA Draft. One team in particular stood out in draft-lottery day other than the Portland Trailblazers, and that was the Boston Celtics. It was a turn-of-history 19-years in the making with the ultimate chance to get either one of the prospected superstars of the next decade. The world feast their eyes as the countdown went lower and lower in number. The Celtic-fans were getting ready to rejoice, as was Danny Ainge as he was sitting at the edge of his seat. Tenth pick.. Ninth pick.. Eighth pick.. Seventh pick.. Sixth pick.. Fifth pick goes to.. the Boston Celtics. And everyone who had once held their breath released all hopes for the near future. All their hopes and dreams for either Durant or Oden were flushed down the toilet. It looks like the Celtic-franchise is going to need to wait for another decade to try and pick up a miracle. The same miracles they held in Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish only to name a very few highlight names. Whatever happened to the Good 'Ol Days? Well, they got old. The only question that remains is when will the Boston Celtics ever regain basketball supremacy. Not anytime soon I guess.

Throw Down: Reel #1.

The Good Old Days, before the Celtic-glory wore out. [LOY's Place]

Why No One Cares About Sammy Sosa, and here's why. [Home Run Derby]

Bryant Wants Out, it looks like we're going to go through this again. [LA Times]

Reseeding Isn't Going To Fix the Playoffs, because boring teams exist. [Fantasy Basketball Guy]

Kobe Bryant's Bodyguard Writes Tell-All Book About Rape, uh oh. [Larry Brown Sports]

Mike Conley Jr.'s Trip to Memphis, and I'd hate to see him go there in draft-day. [Yardbarker]

Larry Brown Interested In the Kings, Artest and Brown: talk about friction. [SacBee]

The Spurs Are Not a Dynasty, they're boring but they're good anyway. [WtTB]

Selig Hoping To Save Face, last sport in the world I expected for steroid-use. [AOL Sports]

Morton Is Done, first sport in the world I expected for steroid-use. [LA Times]

Show credits.

It's All About the Money

If you ask me, he could pass for Goofy.

With much speculation revolving around Gilbert Arenas' future as he announced that he has decided to opt out of his contract following the 2008 season; Gilbert has finally shone some light to pacify some fears in the hearts of Wizards-fans and Zero-fans of the like, announcing that he wasn't going anywhere and opting out is just a business decision. He plans to opt out of his contract and hope to catch an extension with the Wizards with the most Benjamins as possible. Here's Gilbert to bury the majority of the population in his financial plan:

"When I signed my original deal, I believed that I would become a max player so I had a player’s option. So, I make 11 and 12 million the next two years and then the extension would put me at 12.5, 13, 14 in the three years of the extension. The part that I got frustrated about the extension was that I have to play next year at that figure no matter what and then if I extend, all I’m getting is four years guaranteed. But, if I opt out after next year, I’ll have six years guaranteed because I’ll sign a whole new six year contract.

So at the end of the day, it will be a six-year deal instead of a four-year deal and instead of starting at 12.5 or 13 million, I’ll be starting at 14 or 15 million and I’ll be a max player."

Brain-bended? It's not that hard to understand, once you read it six times over. All Gilbert is saying is that he is only opting out of his contract to extend his contract and to earn more money. It's all about the money as everyone can see. Gilbert even rewarded us with a picture of what he used to look like. Really Gilbert, did you have to do that? He looks like D.L. Hughley, with proportional hair size. This is a good time to say that everyone agrees that bald is beautiful, at least for Gilbert Arenas. Moving on, Gilbert even used Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace as examples. The words "I'll test free agency to see what's best for me", have been thrown around a lot; and it is appreciated big time that Gilbert Arenas would come out and clear everything out bluntly and straightforward without throwing the same overused sugarcoats towards the Wizards-fans.

What does this hold for Gilbert Arenas in the future?

If Gilbert's plan is successful, and he gets the contract extension and raise he desires, I can not see a single positive outcome hovering around this situation. Other than the fact of locking Gilbert Arenas in the roster for the next six or seven years, the Wizards will have to give up precious salary cap to give in to the wishes of Gilbert Arenas. Come on Gilbert, you're already making an estimated $12 million a year. Wanting more isn't really bad though; it's just that this presumed extension won't actually benefit anyone other than Gilbert Arenas himself. The Washington Wizards will lose a few million dollars of cap space; dollars which might allow them to sign a valuable marquee player in the future. Arenas has stated however, that he wants to make sure that the Wizards get everybody they needed, sign free agents and draft whoever, before he chains himself into their payroll. That's very thoughtful of you Gilbert. A reasonable compromise would be if Gilbert would get his raise; yet, still leaving quite an adequately sized vacancy in the cap space for future purposes. In other words, get him his raise but not as high as he wishes.

What would happen if Gilbert Arenas gets rejected as the Wizards front-office love their Benjamins too much? He'll be following the foot-steps of Ben Wallace and signing his max-deal with a different city; and we'll be seeing Gilbert Arenas sporting new colors by the year 2009. My support goes out to the offensively-challenged Orlando Magic, if ever the situation comes about. Other than that, it's quite an impossibility. The world loves Gilbert Arenas, and the Washington Wizards love Gilbert Arenas even more. They'd shed the blood of each and every other Wizard on the roster before giving up Agent Zero. So in conclusion, it's a sure-fire business strategy by Gilbert Arenas for a few more million dollars in his contract.

Either way, I still commit myself to Agent Zero discipleship. Get ready for 'the Sequel' coming up next season.

Pistons Trade Delfino To Raptors

There comes a time to every man's life when he should realize and ultimately accept that his once proud semi-dynasty is slowly deteriorating; and plugs must be pulled, sockets must be replaced, cogs and sprockets must be unscrewed, and finally reinforce the foundation that was once great so that it may be great once more. Like every man, Joe Dumars is coming across this very phase in his life as of this moment, and he is doing a pretty good job in realizing and executing the needed actions to keep the Detroit Pistons fine-tuned. The Detroit Pistons have just traded Carlos Delfino to the Toronto Raptors for 2 second-round draft picks, one in 2009 and the other in 2010.

Now a few heads may be scratched following this strange sequence; but then again, maybe not as this is like a pinch on the arm news for most brawny sports-viewers unless the Pistons find away to actually hit the jackpot on a 2nd-rounder in at least one of their newly acquired picks. It was a great exit strategy anyway for a possible business plan that the Detroit Pistons could have come up with when they drafted Delfino 25th overall in 2003. With a history of poor draft-choices however, save for one Tayshaun Prince, it's doesn't seem pretty regarding what Dumars might do with these picks. Since the please-be-the-next-Manu-Ginobili hasn't been a major contributor as they hoped he would be, they can now ship him off to the internationally-bulked Toronto Raptors. However, I can't really see him having any impact whatsoever with the guard-overflowed Toronto Raptors as he gets to share the back court with TJ Ford, Jose Calderon, Anthony Parker, and top-reserve Juan Dixon. What Carlos Delfino adds is another international name to the roster, which helps the Raptors' campaign to have the most international players in a roster in a season; something I doubt would really help in anything that has to do with basketball.

An overall good move by the Pistons front-office. It's something that will hardly be remembered by any NBA fan and ask, "When did Carlos Delfino get here?"; but it's a good start in off-season moves. A few more of these and Joe Dumars can claim that he's on a roll and actually do something recognizable like finding a way around the Chauncey Billups free-agency issue.