LOS ANGELES — Is it just me, or is the NBA preseason flying by?
How about those Knicks! Just enough salary room to recruit peripheral players and they rake in two championship caliber chips — Tyson Chandler and Baron Davis. They now have four imposing pieces … three whose celestial bodies are exceptionally breakable. Nobody could feign surprise if Chandler, Davis, Amar’e Stoudemire, or all three, were in casts or traction for the playoffs.
Carmelo Anthony would be back jacking up every other shot as he did with the Nuggets. Then again, considering almost every play was run for him in the Knicks-Nets exhibition (15 attempts in 21 minutes), that’s already happening. That ought to encourage Stoudemire to rebound and defend even more than he has in the past.
Meanwhile, the Nets are still massaging $18.6 million of critical cap flexibility to enhance chances of securing Dwight Howard, who honestly prefers Brooklyn over Los Angeles or Dallas (really, I’m not kidding) and wants to play for Mikhail Prokhorov or Vladimir Putin.
So much room would allow the Nets to assume the contracts of Hedo Turkoglu and Howard ($29 million total), whose meek Miami tap dance (2 of 9 field goals) gave the impression he might be a trace preoccupied.
Of course, once the Nets re-sign Kris Humphries for one year at roughly $7 million — decision time is down to the short strokes — the Magic can’t dump as much toxic waste in New Jersey; Turkoglu is owed $23 million, including $1 million in year three of the $12 million on the books. Meaning, the remainder of Chris Duhon’s three-year obligation ($10.75 million) probably would be substituted.
I wonder if Magic general manager Otis Smith grasps the ramifications of trying to wait out Howard, whose trade demand stands.
I wonder if Smith realizes players owning an opt-out clause for next season, as Howard does, cannot be traded past this season’s tentative March 10 deadline.
Excuse me while I veer left and jump across the divider back to the Knicks. While many fans surely feel they picked up another Past Their Prime-Time player to make Mike Bibby look good in practice, I applaud their signing of Davis with the mid-section exception.
Then again, I can just as easily go the other way. His former coaches, teammates and those responsible for drafting or romancing him feel similarly, and spoke about it anonymously. To a person, essentially they said same thing:
You never know which Baron Davis you’re going to get … day-to-day. He can lead a team to the playoffs (Hornets and Warriors) or he can lead it astray, especially a young team, which is why the Clippers got him away from Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, etc.
Below is the crux of those opinions:
l “Baron should be a pretty good fit in New York. The opportunity and challenge obviously exist, and that’s when he’s at his best. He won’t prop up his feet, he’ll get after both.”
l “His physical condition is always questionable and the likelihood of injury is pretty high. If he’s not in shape, it’ll be a chore to get him to that point. But once he gets in shape you can keep him there.”
* “He’s a little difficult to coach. Sometimes Don Nelson looked the other way. Other times, he came down hard on him. ”
* “It’s not good when your point guard only practices when he wants to practice. It can undermine a team and a season. Guys know when teammates are bull spitting. He’d tell you his back is bothering him, his groin is hurting, you know, things that are undetectable.”
* “Baron turns it on and off like no one I’ve ever seen. But he’ll help the Knicks because he can create for everyone. He’ll get into the creases and get Tyson, Amar’e and ’Melo uncontested layups or dunks. He has great vision. The bigger the game, the better he’ll play.”
* “Baron and Mike [coach D’Antoni] should get along OK … if Mike can figure out how to stop Baron from pounding it, especially at the end of quarters and shot clocks when he always shoots it. Inevitably, he settles for an off-balance 3.”
* “Mike’s thing is to get it and go, spread things out, and let players hoist away. Baron will like that because he doesn’t want to run plays anyway. But that’s not really Melo’s game. Get him the ball early in the possession and he’ll beat anyone.”
* “Baron better learn to play the drums or another instrument. He can be the leader, but the Knicks already have two lead singers. And, in the end, even one of them is probably going to wind up unhappy.”
* “People don’t realize that Baron can defend anyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re bigger or stronger. You can put him on Kobe [Bryant] or LeBron [James] and he can hold his own for an important play or in a pivotal part of a game. He’s that strong and his butt is that big.”
* “It was great roll of the dice in light of how little ($1.4 million) they’re laying out for Baron. He can own New York. He’s a Renaissance Man, hip-hop, cool, into making movies; the documentary he shot on gangs was great. He’s got all sorts of stuff going. He’ll be entrenched in the New York scene in no time.”
* “Off the court, Baron is a great guy, a pleasure to hang out with. You want him to be that on the court, but, very rarely, he wants to be that. You watch, he’ll play great, trick the (bleep) out of ’em, get a great new deal.”
This just in: The Carnegie Deli named a sandwich after Baron. It’s served on a herniated dish.