Yes, I waited

Unless you live under a rock or have Baseball's boring-ass head jammed up your ass since the end of the NBA season, you might have missed that this is allegedly the biggest summer of transactions in the NBA.

The crown jewel of this whole situation, despite my dislike of the kid personally, is LeBron James. True to my reasoning for not liking him, he hammed the spotlight, wasted peoples' time and threw ufcking press conferences and isht.

As per usual, the Knicks wasted money they probably shouldn't have and will be no better for it.

Boston struck first with their long-time star Paul Pierce opting out of his final year and taking a little less money than he could have demanded. As much as I dislike him for being a douche in general, I respect his having done so. It remains to be seen what they will do to make their situation better via trades and other non-megastar free agents, seeing as how they didn't save enough to secure one of them.

Toronto gave Ahmir Johnson, who scored 6.2 points per game last year $34mil.
Thus marks their concession that Chris Bosh was leaving with nothing in return.

Phoenix gave Channing Frye decent cash, but didn't necessarily seem interested in paying Amar'e. Given the outcomes of their seasons and the way he kinda coasted/quit in the playoffs, I can't say as I blame them.

Memphis gave Rudy Gay max money after he flirted with the idea of getting it from Minnesota.
Doesn't Kevin Love play in Minnesota?
I guess this means we won't see any Gay/Love balling together this season.
(pause...)
[Phlip note - not mine, I saw that on a forum last week]

Milwaukee got suckered into giving John Salmons $40mil over 5 years.
After trading for Corey Maggette, and giving Drew Gooden too much money, they will miss the playoffs this coming year.

Los Angeles maintained preferred-to-repeat position simply by re-signing Phil Jackson.
Wait, isn't he a coach and not a player?
Yes, but he was free to sign wherever he chose, or retire, and decided to take one last swing at it. Natural decision, that, given that he was on an established champion where all of the shufflings all over the remainder of the league SHOULD leave him with one last year to win so long as everyone stays healthy.
Also, they filled their need for a right-now point guard without a ton of miles on them in case Derek Fisher doesn't come back for his 6th ring, and in case the guards on the bench can't cut it.

Atlanta overspent on Joe Johnson, offering $119mil to a player who is not worth max money, but capitalized on a market that happened to include 2.5ish of them.

In Dallas, Dirk Nowitzky opted out of his final year and took a bit of a cut in order to free some funds up for Dallas to be made a better team. I will not opine on whether or not this will work, since Don Nelson's son runs the day-to-day on this team and we know Nellieball does not work anywhere.

Orlando finally got Chris Duhon, and for less money than they might have had to give him 2 years ago, but still too much compared to what they will be getting out of him.

New York dropped the ball, as they stay losing...
Maxed out Amar'e Stoudemire with $100mil. What they neglect to realize is that he has been Karl Malone to Steve Nash's John Stockton for the whole of his career, depending on Nash to directly facilitate a full third of his career points. This goes not to mention points gained on the free throw line or via a "hockey assist," where Nash makes the play and passes to a player who then passes to Amar'e to score the ball.
Let us not forget Amar'e being out rebounded by EVERYONE he was up against in the Western Conference Finals -- including his own point guard in one game -- would rather talk about how much better he is than who he is up against than to be bothered with proving it.

Oklahoma City did the smart thing and re-upped Kevin Durant for 5 years for what one could only assume would be max available money now, doing so before we go BACK into this isht next year.

Denver, also seeing the circus, made Carmelo a max-money offer that was the best of both worlds... He could get the longest money, but only 3 years. This, to me, means that he would be able to assess whether or not they were about their business and not be trapped on a non-contender too far past his prime, like Kevin Garnett was. The option for them, though, would be to trade him if he was not accepting of that. Good ideas on both sides, still not reconciled, but we're only one week into this circus now.

Miami had money to play with and made it known that they were willing to do so. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh both signed with them. More on my opinion on this shortly.

Cleveland did the right thing by firing head "coach" Mike Brown due to his failure to coach his team when it mattered, then they apparently informed his buddy, GM Danny Ferry, that his contract would not be renewed.
Then they begged LeBron to re-sign with them, while doing nothing else to get any better. Shaquille O'Neal was in the last year of his contract and free to go where he wanted, taking whatever leftover funds after windfall gains by the top names were taken and overpaid. They did take in a coach who took the ufcking Nets to the finals twice and was a former coach of the year, so they showed commitment to getting a good coach in the folds, but the on-court was somehow back to 2007 status.
Through it all, this invokes memories of having Ernie Davis and Jim Brown, only to lose Davis to Leukemia, "The Shot," the Browns leaving to Baltimore and a "new" Browns team coming in and similarly sucking, The Indians' continued non-chance of ever winning anything and now the Cavs return to the lottery.

Back to Miami...
They hit the lotto, but vacuumed the whole team they had to afford it. They have the crowned jewels of this free agent season and only one other player under contract as of when I type this. As it were, it is very realistic that all this posturing on the part of the much-maligned LeBron James in his pulling the largest primadona dick move in modern sports history might come off to amount to nothing at the end of this all.
"Really?"
Damn right...
Watch me:

The Lakers are head and shoulders above as the best in the west, parity has been FURTHER returned to the east, so the Eastern Conference Champion likely arrives to the finals beat to shit from 3 rounds before it.
Now, look out west, the changing of the guard is happening with Portland, OKC and (potentially, at least) The Clippers (provided Blake Griffin is not a bust) all on that tier just below the Lakers, with the Spurs and Suns aging out of their respective windows themselves. Denver will still be Denver unless Melo leaves. All that being said, the chance that The Heat/MonSTARS DON'T win a title is still very real, even if not likely.

For all the posturing the moves made have been, they have made New York and Chicago NO better, and Miami is observable as having improved by virtue of what they added, but it remains to be seen where and how they make this work, considering you need to suit up more than 7 players (4 under contract and 3 draft picks) to compete.
Yes, this will be interesting to watch as a fan of basketball, but damned if I am preemptively crowning them with a damned thing. Hell, even Boston's "Big Three" had immediate bench support and proven coaching to win so fast.
Wait, coaching?
Yes, Erik Spoelstra is a dead man walking, I give him this season before Pat Riley dicks him over like he did Van Gundy 4 years ago.

I could go on and on and on about the ills of this whole fiasco, but I have never pretended to like LeBron as a person, and this only validates every reason I ever had.
I will let the professionals do that.

Charley Rosen
Mark Kriegel
Jason Whitlock

We know my opinion of him has never been great, but it seems that this fiasco is turning those who were once homers for him against.
With the exception of those working for ESPN, which I apparently never will.

Oh well, they don't play basketball in my mind or on the internets, they play them inside of televisions...
That being said, it remains to be seen how this will be carried this coming November through June.
I will wait patiently.

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