Mark Deeks

markdeeks

Mark Deeks owns and operates ShamSports, and doesn’t do much else with his time. He is even more not-Canadian than Trey Kerby, being born, raised and stuck in England. When not writing about basketball, he can be found either appearing on game shows, inventing character names for non-existent sitcoms, or Googling his own name.

Recent Posts

Some potential D-League call-ups for your consideration

Posted by Mark Deeks under D-League on Jan 02, 2013

Starting January 5th, NBA teams can sign free agents to 10-day contracts. And while there’s nothing that demands those 10-day contract signees need come from the NBA D-League, it logically follows that it’s a good place to start looking. Whether a team is struggling and looking for new blood, or just looking for injury cover, the seamless call-up system allows them to plunder the D-League for reinforcements for a week and a half, as an extended midseason tryout. Here’s a list of the top call-up candidates, in no order other than when they were thought of.

Point Guards

Courtney Fortson – 18.8ppg, 6.2 apg, 5.5 rpg: Fortson’s decision to declare early for the draft looked especially ridiculous after he wasn’t able to progress beyond the Romanian league in his first season. Since then, however, he’s turned his career around and managed a few NBA looks. Fortson’s speed, aggression and handle haven’t changed, and now come with a much improved jumpshot and better decision making. But he’s still not a proven halfcourt point guard, and he’s still only 5-foot-11.

Justin Dentmon – 19.7 ppg, 4.0 apg, 5.0 rpg: Unashamedly a scorer as well, Dentmon is the leading scorer on the D-League’s second-highest scoring team. He too cracked the NBA on multiple occasions last season, on account of the quality of his jumpshot (432 from three in his D-League career) and his ability to create them. To stick in the league in any more than a peripheral role, though, he’ll need to be as lucky as Eddie House.

Walker Russell – 14.2 ppg, 5.5 apg, 3.9 rpg: Russell played his way from D-League benches to the NBA within five years, a working demonstration of the league’s developmental qualities. The purest point on this list, Russell played almost all of last season with the Pistons, but struggled at the NBA level. He is unspectacular, unathletic and undersized, without three-point range on his shot and now with 30 years on the clock. But his knack for finding open players and controlling the offense puts him ahead of the rest, should those be the desired qualities.

Chris Quinn – 18.0 ppg, 7.0 apg, 3.0 spg: Knocking on 30′s door, Quinn has returned to the D-League to play two games, after beginning the season in Spain. This is possibly his last chance to make the NBA, and even if he can’t defend his position, he can certainly contribute as both a playmaker and shooter.

Ben Uzoh – 16.1ppg, 5.5 apg, 5.9 rpg: The most athletic player listed, Uzoh thrives in transition, and has the size to project as a quality defense player. However, he isn’t at this point, and as he’s not a pure point and is a sub-par shooter, his usefulness in the halfcourt is limited.

Chris Wright – 16.3 ppg, 7.7 apg, 5.5 rpg: Reports last year that Wright’s career was in jeopardy after a diagnosis of MS were clearly premature, as Wright is performing to a high standard. His all-around game is very solid, and although he still lacks for consistent three-point range, his game management and pick-and-roll abilities stand him in good stead.

Troy Hudson – 11.8 ppg, 4.2 apg, 2.8 rpg: Hudson’s comeback started well with some good shooting performances. However, it soon tapered off, and by this time, he is a fairly average soon-to-be-37 year old D-Leaguer. The speed has gone, as has the hair.

Orien Greene – 15.9 ppg, 2.5 apg, 4.1 rpg: Former Celtic Greene is mostly playing two guard alongide Fortson. In the process, he is proving that he can still defend both spots. He’s also improved his jumpshot over the years, and is shooting 40 percent from three on the season.

Stefon Hannah – 14.3 ppg, 4.4 apg, 4.3 rpg: Perennial nearly-man Hannah is slowly becoming more and more of a three-point shooter offensively, taking eight of them a game and hitting 41 percent last season. He’s also the reigning D-League Defensive Player of the Year; however, neither big nor quick, it’s unclear as to how well this effort may translate.

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Where do the Thunder and Rockets go from here?

Posted by Mark Deeks under Houston Rockets, OKC Thunder on Oct 29, 2012

Irrespective of whether we believe he is truly worthy of it or not, it has surely always been known that it will take a maximum contract to lock up James Harden. If Eric Gordon can get the max on the open market, Harden certainly can. And it seems he now will. But not from the Thunder.

Reportedly, Oklahoma City went as high as $54 million in their offer to Harden. With a maximum salary of as-near-as-$60 million, the Thunder’s final offer left them a comparatively meager $6 million short of the maximum, $1.5 million per annum less to spend elsewhere on the roster should they yield and tender the maximum. That’s one less Lazar Hayward or Hasheem Thabeet type per season. That’s nothing, no hardship at all. And it’s therefore easy to find fault with Oklahoma City’s budgetary constraints, which had thus far allowed for spending as much as it took.

Similarly, though, Harden could be faulted for letting what is a trivial amount of money (in extremely, extremely relative terms) become an immovable obstacle that has broken up the league’s best young trio. Especially since he had previously spoken of the need for sacrifice. You can go either way on that one. Ultimately then, perhaps apportioning any blame is needless. It’s all too easy and helps nothing going forward. Both teams gave the others their instructions, and it seem the gap wasn’t bridgeable. Probably should have been, but it wasn’t.

Typically ballsy, Oklahoma City decided not to let the chips fall where they may. They dictated their terms, didn’t get what they wanted and acted fast. Whether they acted correctly or not, however, is a separate matter. Having not done much to upgrade the roster over the summer, save for the drafting of Perry Jones, the Thunder unequivocally and emphatically downgraded their roster with this deal. Even if Kevin Martin were to experience a career resurgence, he hasn’t the effect Harden does, and even if Jeremy Lamb realizes the best possible prognosis for his career, he’s not the half court weapon Harden already is.

They chose between Westbrook and Harden and chose Westbrook; they chose between Ibaka and Harden, and chose Ibaka. In a super teams era where it is demonstrably proven that teams need multiple consistent half court scoring options to succeed, Oklahoma City just lost a high quality one without gaining the means to replace him. They won’t have cap space, won’t pick from the top of the draft again, and now rely a great deal on the development of Lamb and the knees of Jones and Eric Maynor. They’re still good, very good, but they took a backwards step when they needed a final forward one. If an expiring contract doesn’t equal cap space, it doesn’t really matter how large it is. Not unless you’re going to use it in trade, as Houston just did.

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Why the Dwight Howard trade was such a disaster for the Magic

Posted by Mark Deeks under Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers, Orlando Magic on Aug 10, 2012

It’s finally over. But it shouldn’t be.

Orlando have finally traded Dwight Howard today, sending him to the Lakers in a four team deal that sees them get in return Arron Afflalo and Al Harrington from Denver, Mo Harkless and Nikola Vucevic from Philadelphia, and three protected first round picks from each of the other three teams. In addition to this, the reported deal sees Andrew Bynum go to the Sixers, Andre Iguodala to the Nuggets, and a few other contracts thrown in that frankly do not matter.

It takes only a moment to understand quite how ridiculously good a Lakers team of Nash, Kobe, anybody, Pau and Dwight should be. It’s a team that has everything, and even if Kobe continues to play the Black Mamba way that means the unit produces at less than its optimum capacity, the lineup is so good that it just shouldn’t matter. The same guy who built the Smush Parker-Chris Mihm team has now built arguably the strongest on-paper team in NBA history, and it’s frankly brilliant. All those teams who had been maneuvering to sign him as a free agent next summer need to now change their plan, for Dwight has no incentive to leave.

Denver, meanwhile, does it again. Just as they previously overpaid to re-sign Nene without ever really wanting to, they have done something similar with Afflalo, re-signing the player to a long term contract without intending to have him long-term. The Nuggets stockpiled players always with an eye to move them on later, as evidenced by the subsequent Wilson Chandler signing, and sought to get younger, more athletic, and better. They’ve done that while also managing to get cheaper; the approximately $45 million outstanding to Afflalo and Harrington dwarfs the $30.6 mil still owed to Iggy. With Ty Lawson about to command eight figures annually, this is not to be overlooked.

Philly remains a confused, ill-fitting question mark, but upgraded their best player, which is never a bad thing. Their offseason hasn’t made a whole lot of sense to date, and the players they did bring in are now even more awkward of a fit with Bynum in play. Then again, they probably never thought this was possible. And while they had to give up their best player, a huge cog of their impressive defense and three decent young assets to do it, they got an elite offensive player at his position, something they haven’t had since Allen Iverson. In downgrading their defense slightly, they should upgrade their offense significantly, a move they simply needed to make. Now, they just need a Lou Williams type. Whoops.

But all of that is secondary. Tertiary, even. This is all about Orlando, and quite what on Earth they have done.

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The Rockets made another trade, but are they any closer to Dwight Howard?

Posted by Mark Deeks under Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks on Jun 27, 2012

Well that didn’t take long.

One day after I said Houston would stand pat at least for two days, they are back in the trade market, reportedly agreeing to trade Samuel Dalembert and the No. 14 pick to Milwaukee in exchange for the No. 12 pick, Shaun Livingston, Jon Brockman and Jon Leuer.

It is of the utmost importance to state that Samuel Dalembert is the best player in this deal, and by quite a long way. It is also of the utmost importance to establish that, one way or another, Houston wasn’t keeping him beyond this summer. Dalembert was signed to a two-year deal that had less than 25 percent guaranteed this season for a reason: to make him tradeable at this time of the season. It is not a surprise, therefore, that he was traded this week.

What is a surprise is what he was dealt for. Dalembert, a legitimately decent starting center in the NBA, was just traded for two backups, one spare part, and a move-up of two spots in tomorrow’s draft. Considering his production (8/7/2 in 22 minutes per game) and relative contract value (signed for $6,698,565 next year, only $1.5 million of which is guaranteed), you’d think he’d garner more than that, be it as a player or as a contract. Alas, it seems that he has not.

What Houston absolutely and totally did not need was more fringe players. What they got was more fringe players. Shaun Livingston’s sporadic career has crescendoed with a couple of solid years of bench play. However, he only has value to this Houston team if Goran Dragic is not retained. (And since Dragic is better than Livingston, Shaun’s arrival should not prevent this.) Meanwhile, Leuer is coming off the back of a pretty good rookie campaign, yet still only projects to be somewhere between Eduardo Najera and Jared Jeffries, a solid rotational player with little projectability. He too is a “he’s not bad” caliber player, the kind of player you wouldn’t mind having on your team, but feel no envy at not having them either. As we’ve seen, Houston pretty much only has players like that.

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Why we can’t know who won or lost the Pistons-Bobcats trade for a while

Posted by Mark Deeks under Charlotte Bobcats, Detroit Pistons on Jun 27, 2012

Ben Gordon left Chicago for Detroit three summers ago in rather bitter circumstances. After two summers of failed contract negotiations, while on his way out the door, Gordon unsubtly stated that he was leaving to join an organization “where winning is the number one priority.”

This has been the exact opposite of what has actually transpired, and last night, he found himself in a trade that proved it. Gordon was traded to Charlotte, along with a protected first round pick, to Charlotte in exchange for Corey Maggette. More pertinently, Gordon and the pick were traded for Maggette’s expiring $10.9 million contract. With all due respect to Corey Maggette, he’s otherwise irrelevant here.

Perhaps Gordon thought that Detroit spending big, on him and Charlie Villanueva, was synonymous with prioritizing winning. If so, he was wrong. Since that summer of expenditure, the Pistons have been a moribund franchise, hamstrung by a lack of cohesiveness, submarined by infighting, and unable to do much about it due to the payroll inflexibility they saddled themselves with. Indeed, despite not winning more than 30 games in any season since signing the duo, the Pistons have been the least active team in recent years with regards to roster turnover, sticking with what they had even while knowing it wasn’t working. With so many big, underperforming contracts, they hadn’t the flexibility to do anything else. Last summer’s business was spent on re-signing a team that had just lost 52 games. The Pistons have been stranded in a wilderness of their own making.

The only salvation since that time has been some success in the draft. Greg Monroe is well on his way to a maximum value contract, Jonas Jerebko has made Villanueva completely obsolete, and Brandon Knight pretty much matches Gordon’s production already while being only 20. There’s another top 10 pick coming. The only thing missing from quite a nice situation going forward has been financial flexibility.

With this trade, they now have it. Gordon’s contract runs for two more years for a total of $25.6 million, whereas Maggette expires after this year. The financial savings in the upcoming year are negligible to the point of irrelevancy. In the summer of 2013, however, the Pistons can finally start again. Between Maggette, Jason Maxiell, Will Bynum, Austin Daye and the remainder of Rip Hamilton’s bought-out deal, the Pistons will see over $28 million of expiring (and largely dead) salary fall off their cap. If the amnesty clause is used on Villanueva at some point between now and then, that figure rises to $37 million. Waiving Rodney Stuckey — whose final season is not fully guaranteed — could add an extra $4.5 million if needs be. And the young talent will still be there.

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The Chase Budinger trade is really all about Dwight Howard

Posted by Mark Deeks under Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves on Jun 26, 2012

The Carroll Dawson-era Rockets were built around two stars and not nearly enough help. When a prime Tracy McGrady and a healthy Yao Ming are flanked only by David Wesley, Scott Padgett and Torraye Braggs, they mean little.

The Daryl Morey-era Rockets have always been the opposite — a team full of “yeah he’s not bad” players with absolutely no foundation of star talent around which to put them. And despite the fact they usually always narrowly win every trade they take part in, this hasn’t gotten them anywhere. In the Morey era, the Rockets have only one playoff series win, only two playoff appearances total, and have finished ninth in the Western Conference for the last three seasons.

Fully cognizant of the need for a super duper star, the Rockets’ plan has always been to stockpile assets in order to get one later. They’re always looking for misfits, rejects, late bloomers and draft steals, pieces spurned or underappreciated by other teams that they can nurture into decent NBA players, thereby building a roster out of maximizing minimal assets rather than ever having bigger ones. It doesn’t always work — trading first round picks for Jonny Flynn and Terrence Williams, for example, and inexplicably passing on Nikola Mirotic — yet the Rockets have built an entirely decent roster out of it.

Dwight Howard is the new target man. He’s a super duper star; moreover, he’s a center, a position at which Houston have so badly wanted to find an answer that they even gave Hasheem Thabeet a look. Even if he were to bolt after one year, Houston wants him, because a team with Dwight Howard is a team that won’t come in ninth. With this in mind, today they agreed to trade Chase Budinger, along with the draft rights to 2006 pick Lior Eliyahu, to Minnesota in exchange for the No. 18 pick in Thursday’s draft.

The inclusion of Eliyahu is not insignificant. He has not played in the NBA in the six years since being drafted, but he could have, and despite frustrating inconsistency and well-founded accusations of softness, Yahoo is a truly quirky inside-outside talent. Houston worked him out earlier this week, ostensibly to look into finally bringing him to the NBA next season, knowing him to be on the cusp of making the jump. (Give him a three-point shot, and he could be the next Scott Padgett!) Nevertheless, the deal is mainly about Budinger, who joins a cluttered but decent Timberwolves roster with the hopes of solidifying it.

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Wizards and Hornets swap pieces, show different rebuilding strategies

Posted by Mark Deeks under New Orleans Hornets, Washington Wizards on Jun 21, 2012

When the Washington Wizards traded for Nene back at the trade deadline, they did so because of their cap flexibility. They used this flexibility (akin to, but not synonymous with, cap space) to take on the massive contract of a decent player, thereby saving themselves the effort of having to overpay a decent player via the cap space route later on.

This cutting out of the middle man has now happened again. Out of nowhere, Washington traded Rashard Lewis’s big, redundant contract to New Orleans in exchange for the big, slightly less redundant contracts of Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okafor. Seemingly, then, this is Washington’s modus operandi now. If they knew they weren’t going to sign anyone anyway, losing the ability to sign someone is no real loss.

Since disbanding the Arenas/Jamison/Butler first round caliber team of a few years ago, the Wizards have gone from having incredibly little cap flexibility to having quite a lot of it. They have also been very bad, which has not made them an attractive free agent destination, if ever they were one, thus rather undermining said leverage. Perhaps cognizant of this, the Wizards haven’t attempted the big name cap space route — they haven’t signed another team’s FA to a multiyear contract since overpaying for Darius Songaila six summers ago, and, even prior to the Nene move, have burned millions in theoretically lucrative cap space acquiring Kirk Hinrich and Ronny Turiaf by trade. This move is a clear continuation of that strategy. Right or wrong, it’s a strategy.

Trading someone you didn’t want for two decent players is rarely a bad thing. Warts and all, Okafor and Ariza are undeniably just that. Ariza will bring his usual brand of league average, sporadic, effective-but-infuriating ball to a team who really need stability and mentorship on a roster already overladen with young forwards. Nevertheless, he is good enough to help the team on both ends. And the Wizards certainly need help on both ends. This trade, in theory, gets them into the playoffs.

Any success derived from the trade, however, is ultimately contingent not on Ariza, but upon Okafor’s coexistence with Nene. Other than brief stretches — including at the start of this season — Nene has exclusively played the center spot in his NBA career, whereas Okafor has spent all his time there. Okafor has always been slightly undersized for the position, yet his skill set and lack of athleticism prevents him from playing anywhere else. Nene’s skill set rather straddles the two big positions, yet, with Okafor’s inability to play outside of the paint on either end, the two are either going to awkwardly try and make it work (Yao Ming/Kelvin Cato, 2004) or sub in for each other (Eddy Curry/Tyson Chandler, 2005). Since the latter isn’t going to happen, Randy Wittman has a summer’s worth of tape in his future. Considering the relative costs involved, it’s just going to have to work.

(And if it doesn’t work, trade one of them for Kevin Martin. Simple as!)

Whether Washington could have sourced such decent veterans for cheaper — by acquiring, say, the comparable Sam Dalembert, or just seeing where they were at with Nene in the middle and using their assets elsewhere — is debatable. This may not have been an optimum appropriation of resources. How they plan to build a team around John Wall and yet surround him with absolutely no shooters is also a perfectly valid question. This move still leaves plenty to do. Nonetheless, they were returned decent players who will help.

New Orleans didn’t. They saved money. And that’s all they did.

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