The move is good for both, which is why the sides need to work to get something finalized. Thorn hit the home run he was looking for, while Cuban mortgaged the future because he had to.
Get it done. After the past few blockbuster deals, it would be good for the NBA to get back on track and get teams making mutually beneficial deals again.
Up next: Bishop takes pawn?
The question everyone now wants to know is whether we're done with all the jockeying for position. That answer, good news for all you rumor mongers out there, is no.
Sources indicate that the phone lines are still being worked heavily and the league sewing circle is merrily trading secrets and feeling one another out in anticipation of the Feb. 21 trade deadline.
Most interesting among the rumors heard Wednesday while chasing down the Kidd particulars was the one that involves the Lakers perhaps having one more move up their sleeve. It seems that despite his steady play, L.A. might have a desire for a more conventional small forward, dangling Lamar Odom in the process. Although Odom is having a terrific impact playing alongside Gasol, a source told CBSSports.com that another move could be in the works. Completely throwing it out there, but it would be interesting if the Jazz would set aside the stigma of dealing with a conference rival if it meant trading Andrei Kirilenko and saving on paying a couple of extra years of his large salary.
Memphis' Mike Miller is rumored to be on the move, though any move involving him would require taking on Brian Cardinal's deal, which has two years and nearly $13 million left. Folks criticizing Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace are openly wondering why he didn't force it on to the Lakers in the Gasol deal. Ron Artest doesn't expect to be in Sacramento in a few weeks, but if the Nuggets want his services, it's expected to require more than Eduardo Najera and a draft pick to acquire him. Mickael Pietrus similarly wants out of Golden State, but Don Nelson has gone on record insisting on someone who can fit in his rotation in return.
Brown backs his Cavs
Most coaches allow their players to address perceived slights, preferring not to buy into the age-old cliché of a team not getting any respect. However, after months of hearing speculation about how his job is on the line, how his team is underachieving when they're in the running to finish with 50 wins for the third consecutive season, Cleveland's Mike Brown cut loose.
"A guy like Anderson Varejao, he's a guy that led the league in charges last year and played 28-29 minutes a game if not less, he should get mentioned for an All-Defensive team," Brown said. "LeBron James put up some fantastic numbers last year. He should've been the MVP. Not taking anything away from Dirk Nowitzki, but everybody kept telling me, LeBron's numbers, there's only one person in the history of the game, not the last 10 years, the history of the game, who put up these numbers and our team won 50 games. Our guys don't get enough credit.
"We have more talent, better players than what people say or think. I don't know, maybe people just assume that because we have LeBron, we should win x amount of games and he should get 30-10-10 every night. I don't know. We're just worried about the guys in our locker room and we can't appease people. We have to go about and do our job and if we continue to we'll be there at the end just like we were last season."
That's the mantra most of the Cavaliers are buying into. Despite a week that began with a discouraging loss to Denver and an odyssey trying to get to Orlando that featured a plane malfunction, Brown has his team believing that it's more than capable of overcoming Detroit and Boston and returning to the championship round once it gets everyone healthy.
"People are always looking for something negative. I think our team stays out of the newspaper for negative things, so they're trying to find a reason to talk bad about us," Donyell Marshall said. "Even last year, we get to the championship, and teams say we're one of the worst teams ever to play there and people still don't give us credit and yet, we're still right there. We're holding the fort down til Andy and Sasha get back."
If the Cavaliers do break through again, no one will be able to say they wouldn't have earned it. Cleveland would host Toronto in the first round if the Eastern Conference playoffs started today and would presumably have to go through Boston and Detroit in the next two rounds.
Bucks stuck?
Despite being stuck in the murky mix of teams looking to find a way into the postseason, Milwaukee seems to be taking their misfortune a little harder than other these days.
After home losses to the Knicks and Clippers to open a stretch of 14 of 18 at the Bradley Center, head coach Larry Krystkowiak went to the media to try and work some life into his struggling team.
"It's really easy right now to start separating. And it's happening. It's happening and we need to put an end to it and we need to figure out which guys want to be a part of it, which guys are in, and we're going to go down swinging with guys that are going to play hard," Krystkowiak told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "Because at this point of the season, it's not about individuals. It's about us surviving. We've got a nucleus of guys in that room that are interested in doing that and some others I'm not so sure about.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We've got some agendas creeping in and good teams don't have that."
According to a poll ran in the Journal-Sentinel, 80.5 percent of over 1,100 respondents believe Krystkowiak won't be around next season, so maybe his own agenda is to save his job since the man who brought him in, GM Larry Harris, is under heavy scrutiny since his contract expires at season's end.
Krystkowiak has done a fairly good job in his season-and-a-half at the helm of the Bucks, learning to communicate with pro players on the run after an excellent stint at his alma mater, the University of Montana. He doesn't deserve to be under the microscope this early in his tenure, but has to realize the heat has been turned up and is trying to do the same to his team and get a positive response over the season's final 30 games.
Quote of the week
"Him being disrespectful towards me is like me being disrespectful towards Bill Russell. See, Bill (Walton) only has one and a half, maybe two, championships. I have four. I've been there six times. And he criticized me for being injured. Uh, I didn't notice until I looked it up on the Internet, (but) he's only had two full seasons out of his whole career. So, you know, one thing I hate in life is a hypocrite. Hate 'em. Despise 'em. So, I would like a little respect when it comes to the dominant-big-man club. I'm in that club. I'm in, what, third or fourth place in that club?
"Bill Russell is the president and CEO. He'll be there. Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) is second. Me and Tim Duncan, we're third, because we have four each. The great Wilt Chamberlain, because of what he's done, is second. So everybody else is under me when it comes to pecking order. Him talking about me is like the owner of Atari talking about Bill Gates. Can't do it. Pecking order rules." -- Shaquille O'Neal went off on ESPN commentator Bill Walton in chatting with reporters who cover his new team. His venom came in response to Walton's insinuation that O'Neal was milking his injuries in Miami and should be ashamed about arriving in Phoenix talking about winning championships.
Forget about all the wise cracks at his introductory press conference. Without doubt, these are O'Neal's best quotes to this point in the season, proof he's feeling spry and pumped about chasing a fifth ring. Before this tirade, his wittiest remarks had come in copping to taking performance enhancing cocoa puffs or whatever cereal he said.
For the record, I believe O'Neal was injured, but could be convinced he probably felt at liberty to take additional time to ensure a return to health due to his former team's position in the standings.
