Ron Artest is now in Houston. Another seismic-shift in the West as Houston tries to follow the blueprint and get it's own big-3. They sure have the big-3 with T-Mac, Yao and now ron-ron, but the question is never about his talent. He is a baller for sure. But his head is messed up and he is not great for your chemistry either. He can decide to hog the ball any given possession, go 1-on-5 and mess everything up for his coach and the team. When he gets into that mode, nobody else in the team can talk sense into this guy, not T=Mac and definitely not Yao for sure. If Rick Adelman, who will be coaching him for the second time, figures out how to keep him in check and if ron-ron decides to stay in his shoes, this trade will elevate Houston to a good spot in the West. May be top-4. Pushes the Suns further down.
In other NBA news, Tim Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in jail for his gambling crime. I am sure Commish Stern probably wouldn't mind banishing him for life, but Tim will be back in 15 months (or less) and probably write a tell-all book for some big bucks. Stern should love that. The other guy who has a lot of explaining to do is referee Scott Foster, Donaghy's only real friend among zebras. NBA is not letting him speak. That doesn't seem like a good strategy. To me, the big story in the NBA is Josh Childress signing a 20 million euros deal for 3 years and going to play in Europe. This is unprecedented. Looks like Josh is using his Stanford education and taking some smart financial decision. Given the slide of the dollar and the US economy and the strength of Euro these days, thats a very financially rewarding decision.
This news should ring alarm bells all over the NBA HQ. This is the first time somebody is spurning a NBA career to go play in Europe. Josh Childress is not a superstar, but he was not a bench warmer either. He was a decent NBA player who had a guaranteed career in front of him in the NBA. For him to make this move means many things. Not to go too political, but this could be another sign of a declining super-power status of the US of A. Players always wanted to come here and play in the NBA, but now things are starting to move in the other direction. This means the Lakers and the Suns will not only be competing with the Spurs and Cavs for the services of some NBA players, but they have to compete with a whole bunch of European teams.
Or may be the situation is not that bad. It's just that Josh Childress has figured out a way to get out of the semi-slavery called the rookie salary scale. The rookies really don't hit the open market until the 4-Th or 5-Th season and they can now go make money in Europe in the meantime, That could be a big problem for the NBA because this means they have to change the rookie scale to compete with Europe. Not sure if the Commish will like that. Except the Superstars, everybody can do this and make just as much or more than the NBA and even the superstars can make more money in Europe in their first few "rookie" years. Josh Childress might have just opened a new can of worms. There were also rumors that more players, especially young Euros like Andris Biedrins, will go there as well. Andris ended up signing a 62 mill contract with the W's to stay here, but it should be interesting to see how many players will do what Josh Childress did.
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