Chuck V will be hoping It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Detroit Back next season

How’d you like the strained Public Enemy reference in the caption?  I know, awesome, right?  I’ve got millions of tenuous hip-hop/NBA connections floating around in my brain, and I’m more than happy to use them liberally!

But let’s get down to business, shall we?  The meat and ‘taters of the NBA offseason kicked off yesterday, and there is plenty of Free Agency news to discuss.

• Detroit signs Ben Gordon to a 5 year, $58 million deal and Charlie Villanueva to a 5 year, $40 million deal. – My first impression on this one is that these are both nice pickups for Detroit.  The Villanueva contract is one of the better value signings I can recall in recent years.  16 and 7 from a young player that is still improving doesn’t come cheap.  When you consider that fact that Hedo Turkoglu (about 16 and 5) and Trevor Ariza (9 points and solid defense) are going to get $10 mil and $6-7 mil respectively, $8 mil for Charlie V is phenomenal.  Gordon I’m a little more wary of.  He’s one hell of a talented player, but $11 mil a year is a boatload for a guy that they allegedly plan to use off of the bench.  Still, a starting lineup of Stuckey/Hamilton/Prince/Villanueva with Gordon and Afflalo coming off the bench is a very nice core.  Oh, there’s five players in a starting line up, is there?  Well, let’s just see who they can play at the 5 spot.  Hmmm…it appears to be a choice between Jason Maxiell (6′7) and Kwame Brown (basketball challenged.)  Take that Dwight Howard!  The road to First Team All-NBA centre goes through the D-Town now baby!
•  LA trades Zach Randolph to Memphis for Quentin Richardson – The reaction to this trade from some people has been similar to Tugg Speedman in Simple Jack (that is to say, “full retard”)  People are inexplicably flabbergasted that Memphis would want to add a  legit 20 and 10 guy that plays the position where they are the weakest.  Seriously?  His salary is not a huge concern for Memphis, whose next highest paid player is Marko Jaric (!) at $7 mil per.  What is a concern for Memphis?  A lack of frontcourt talent, which they have now addressed by adding a guy who scores 20 a night with a variety of offensive weapons, and gets after it on the boards.  Attitude problem?  Maybe, but that’s a risk that a bad team needs to be willing to take in order to upgrade.  Memphis now has top notch talent at the 2, 3 and 4, and will hope that this allows Thabeet to focus on rebounding and defense, and not worry about forcing things offensively.  Of course, this was a no brainer for LA.  They would have traded Randolph for a couple Korean employees, so the fact that they got a guy who can bomb from long range and expires next summer is just a bonus.

That’s all that’s official at the moment, but let’s take a quick look at some rumours that are out there as well.

• Kidd to New York – Aging point guard goes to young, rebuilding team that has nothing even resembling a go-to scorer to compliment him.  Yup, that sounds about right for the Knicks.
• Ariza not returning to LA – Young, athletic, defensive minded player builds up solid rep in the Playoffs and expects to cash in to the tune of $32 to $40 million.  Everyone conveniently forgets that he has never averaged double figures in scoring, and has only started 51 regular season games in the NBA.
• Turkoglu to Portland – Supposedly the Raptors were unwilling to renounce half of their roster in order to give Turk big money, so he seems likely to land in Portland.  Great fit, in my opinion, as long as he doesn’t try to do too much.  Brandon Roy is runnin’ the show over there in a way that no one was doing in Orlando.
• OKC apparently might give Paul Millsap an offer sheet too rich for Utah’s liking.  What of Jeff Green, then?  Is it he or Millsap that comes off of the bench?
• Houston, Dallas, and New York are after the Polish Hammer.  In other news, Houston, Dallas, and New York are now considered the early favorites for the 2010 NBA Championship.
• ‘Sheed is being courted by a number of different teams.  The two LA teams are said to have the edge, due to their close proximity to the stickiest of the icky.

Still lots of movement left to happen, so keep checking back as we update.  Chris Mihm is still available, in case you were wondering.  Anyone interested?  Hello…?