The Offseason Really Lags: Second Installment

As promised, a few more cliched offseason stories...

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1. The junk swap: Teams trade their overpaid, dysfunctional players for each over in hopes of improving chemistry. Case in point: Juwan Howard was traded from Houston to Minnesota for Mike James. Does that help Minnesota? I can't see how, Howard is years beyond his prime and has no shot; that's a diffu

   
   

2. The "throw-in": players involved in the blockbusters desperately hope to be relevant in new situations. Delonte West would be a nice example of this.

   
   

3. Pointless free agent signings: I'm thinking along the lines of Jamaal Magliore, Desmond Mason and Mikki Moore. Extremely marginal players who are supposed to boost the fortunes of mediocre, fringe-playoff clubs (New Jersey, Milwaukee and Sacramento in the above examples). You might hear some nonsense about "if Magliore can return to his all-star form" or "Moore led the league in shooting percentage," but I don't think anyone seriously expects these players to do more than give a few fouls, relieve the starters and make a few wide-open dunks. Anyone who's seen Magliore or Mason knows they have zero offensive game; my suspicion is that Moore will immediately fall into the group of "marginal players who looked pretty good with Jason Kidd." Like Steve Nash, very middling players tend to have near-all-star seasons playing with Kidd because his style provides opportunities for high-percentage shooting and increased scoring. One only needs to look at Tim Thomas' problems on the Clippers on Kenyon Martin's on the Nuggets to see the influence of premium PGs on marginal forward production.
   

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More later... let's get this season started...