We normally get rebounds when we draft power forwards and centers. The more power forwards and centers we can draft, the better we do in rebounds (and often field goal percentage and blocks), and the worse we do in assists (and often free throw percentage and steals). As we draft for rebounds, however we need to be very careful about some of our other statistical categories and that we are not doing irreparable harm to them for this season.

Let’s take a look at a few of the players who lead the league in rebounds and which ones you should keep an eye on and which ones you should simply avoid, despite their aptitude on the boards.

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As far as NBA Free Agency goes, this has got to be a summer to remember.

The summer begins with 90% of the teams over the cap and armed only with mid-level exceptions.

Philly, due to trading Korver away for nothing at around the trade deadline, had a little money.

Memphis, due to the fact that nobody wants to play there, also had a little money (but apparently isn’t really choosing to spend it).

So nobody has any real money unless they don’t re-sign some of their top free agents.

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I am used to seeing lots and lots of articles where sports analysts complain that the league has been watered down by too many teams.

That’s why I was surprised to see an article the other day on why there aren’t enough teams in the NBA. As evidence of this, the writer supplied the names of young NBA players who were very good, but, as of the writing of the article, had still not found a team. Some of them were restricted free agents and others just didn’t have enough spots on their current team for them AND for the players drafted in the off-season. The writer also noted that there were several retired players looking to make a return to the NBA, taking up roster spots that might have been used by these unrestricted and restricted free agents.

The arguments were persuasive, Read the rest of this entry »

I get annoyed at some sportswriters who think that every team except for the NBA Champion (and sometimes even the NBA Champions themselves) needs to make high profile trades and acquisitions in order to improve their team.

They grade a team on what they did to shake up their team in the off-season, including giving some teams poor grades for ONLY re-signing their free agents and a couple of draft picks.

There are teams that make frequent trades and/or bring on good free agents and they never seem to improve much. There are teams that never seem to make any trades and they are good to great year after year.

That’s not to say that teams shouldn’t EVER make some moves to get markedly better, but I think two things need to be taken into account by every General Manager in the league. (I actually think most of them do, much to the dismay of their local sportswriters and/or fans.)

At the risk of repeating myself, I explain yet again why the boring teams in the offseason are usually the teams playing in the NBA Finals.

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The free agents available were good, but not really great. Most teams didn’t have more than the mid-level exception to spend on free agents in any case. Most top players were expected to re-sign with their current team.

Big trades break GMs much more often than they make them, so they are not often willing to pull the trigger on them.

The draft was so deep that most GMs wanted to see how well their draft picks did, and hope that they might be better than any possible player they can get in Free Agency. It’s rare indeed when the biggest talk after the trade moratorium is lifted is how well your rookies are playing in the Summer Leagues.

All of this provided for a rather bland off-season acquisition and trade season thus far, but lets look at the highlights as of early today, July 18.

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