Dear NBA Teams (re: Free Agency)

If last week's draft was the beginning of the Summer of Madness, then today is the calm before the storm. At 12 AM on Thursday, July 1st, 2010, the NBA will become a feeding frenzy. No one's team is safe. Everyone is grappling for position as the number one contender for a max-contract free agent. The prospects are alluring. LeBron James is enticing you guys to come to Cleveland. Chris Bosh is tweeting about where he wants to go and telling everyone about his travels. Joe Johnson and Dwyane Wade are having secret dinner meetings with everyone. Teams are already letting free agents know that they'll be contacting them. My question to you, teams, is as follows: Why is free agency supposed to be the end-all be-all of building a franchise?

Guys, take a look at basketball history. Remember those ridiculous dynasties in the 70s, 80s and 90s? Remember how the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics went back and forth as the best teams in the league? Remember how the Bulls pulled off two 3-peats behind Jordan and Pippen? Remember the Bad Boys of Detroit who had the repeat before them? What about the Spurs and Lakers of this past decade? What was the fabric behind all of those teams? What made those teams so good? I'll give you a second... Think about it (DING). The answer is continuity, NBA teams. Continuity, not high priced free agents was what made these teams great. The core players were the same in every championship run. Whether it was Zeke, Joe Dumars, Rodman & Adrian Dantley sticking together for 5 years before their two 'ships, or Shaq, Kobe & Company, or just Kobe & Company, or the Showtime Lakers, there have always been solid cores of players for every championship caliber team. Rather than exploding the team after every losing season (coughcoughKnickscoughcough), these teams stuck with the players they knew were doing the job, and then built around them. That's not the case today, teams.

When you look at all the players ready to make moves come Thursday, it's exciting, yet sad. There's no such thing as player loyalty or any desire for continuity. Even LeBron, aka Mr. Cleveland, is courting offers from potential suitors like it's a firesale. I suppose its a sad day when the NBA's supremacy becomes a high-stakes bidding war. Then again, are you teams engaging in the hype even positioning yourselves that well? The teams that usually contend already have their places in piece, and aren't worrying about integrating another star into their system. I don't know teams. You'd think that starting from the ground up, rather than trying to go fork overkill would be the best idea. Even so, the allure of signing one of the best players in the league is undeniable. Just make sure you remember a timeless Latin phrase: Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware)...

Dear Atlanta Hawks

This picture is worth so much more than 1,000 words...

My oh, my oh MY... How the once mighty have fallen. ATL, I was probably your biggest fan in 2008. No one picked you guys to go to the Playoffs that year. I did. No one thought you would win a game against the eventual champion Celtics. I did, and ended up winning a few dollars, while you guys took the Celts to 7 games. No one thought you'd be able to keep up the improvement for the next two years. And you know what?? They were right. Hawks, you guys have gone from a Cinderella story in the NBA to a team that's gotten as good as it's going to get.

Not only did you get VACUUMED (swept can't even be used anymore) by the Magic, you guys got blown out every game this series. You made Dwight Howard look like the best big man in the league (he is far from that) by letting him impose his hoe-wifing, no post move-having self all over Al Horford and Josh Smith's face. Marvin Williams didn't show up, as usual. When are you guys going to just give up and admit that you drafted the wrong Williams (Deron isn't doing much better after getting swept himself, though) in 2005?? Joe Johnson, you looked like a SCRUB. There are no words for how terrible you played. If this is what teams should be expecting out of a 'max-contract' player, then they will be getting robbed of every penny come July. As a man who's playing for his contract, you were playing like you had already signed the dotted line. No, you haven't. You and your backcourt mate, Mike Bibby, played like you deserved to be riding the bench, like above. I think I saw Bibby hit one shot all series. Even Jamal Crawford seemed out of sink, and he's usually the one pulling the offense out of nowhere. I don't know what the deal is, but it's obvious you guys have hit your peak.

Joe 'No defense & no max contract' Johnson


The thing is, I should've seen this coming. Last series against the Bucks, you guys looked bad. And not good-bad.. Sluggish bad. Unprepared bad. Overconfident bad. You let a Bucks team playing without their star big man (Andrew Bogut) bring you to 7 games, much like you did to Boston 2 years ago. Brandon Jennings, although a bit inconsistent was torching your 'defense' at times, while John Salmons and Carlos Delfino quietly closed the casket on you. Hell, you guys were down 3-2 before finally buckling down and sending the Bucks home. Regardless, that doesn't excuse the woeful performance against the Magic. I'd go as far as to say that this team needs some drastic changes in the offseason. Whether it's shipping Bibby or Smith or Johnson or Williams or SOMEBODY, something needs to be done to shake up this roster, because it looked dead in the water last night. I guess when you don't have the support of the fans like Joe Johnson (sarcasm), it doesn't matter how bad you play...