Pick and Scroll: Gold Medal Game Edition
Nathan Begley | Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 12:32PM Your daily (Mon-Fri) roundup of links from around the blogosphere, typically Trail Blazers related.
• The Oregonian’s Jason Quick reports that Danny Ferry, former GM of the Spurs and Cavaliers, gets the first interview in Portland’s search for a General Manager.
• Dave Deckard of BlazersEdge and Dwight Jaynes weigh in on Ferry and his track record in San Antonio and Cleveland.
• Speaking of GMs, Nicolas Batum would have taken Evan Turner #1. The article is in French, so here is the Google Translation. Douglas Adams would be proud.
• Few things are worse than journalists who make up facts, don’t back up assertions, use terrible sources, don’t get their facts right and then refuse to correct them when called out, and in general don’t let reality get in the way of a story or a flashy headline. Mike Kurylo of TrueHoop Network sister site KnickerBlogger shares my frustration and butchers a particularly egregious offender.
• In a fanshot over at BlazersEdge, local salary cap expert “Storyteller” of Storyteller’s Contracts breaks down Portland’s cap situation. After reading that, it should be clearer why Ryan Gomes was waived yesterday. See, the luxury tax is an important factor because all the money that gets paid into the luxury tax fund is divided among the fiscally responsible teams that did not pay the luxury tax. So basically, by going over the luxury tax, a team is not only giving money to its competitors, but by being over the tax by even a single dollar means that the taxpaying team does not get a slice of the luxury tax fund pie. Now, I’m not sure how much the luxury tax pie will end up being, however, in the past, being over the tax has meant losing out on around four million dollars or so. If you’re an NBA team, and Isiah Thomas is not involved in your organization, you want to avoid paying the luxury tax for any team that isn’t in immediate contention for a title.
Waiving Gomes gives Portland more flexibility to structure deals and avoid going over the luxury tax. For instance, if Portland were to trade Joel Przybilla and Rudy Fernandez for a player or package of players that make 10 million or so, Portland can now possibly absorb the difference* without going over the luxury tax. They couldn’t do that if Gomes were under contract.
Likewise, if Portland wants to use all or part of the Mid Level Exception or the Bi-Annual Exception, they have more flexibility to do so while possibly not paying the luxury tax.
*NOTE: The difference absorbed is due to the CBA rule that a team over the cap must match salaries within 125% + $100,000, not because of cap room. Portland doesn’t have any cap room and is not currently projected to.
• Austin Rivers put on a shooting clinic last night at the FIBA Americas tournament hitting nine (!) threes in a row on his way to a game high 35 points. It’s not as if Team Canada wasn’t trying to defend Rivers, it’s just that he was hitting everything he threw at the rim. Off a screen, open, facing up his man at the top of the arc and crossing him up for a step-back jumper, it didn’t matter, it went in. To be honest, Rivers took several contested jumpers where normally a team would be better served with more ball movement; however, it is difficult to argue with the results.
After trouncing Team Canada and future Texas Longhorn Myck Kabongo (32 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds), Team USA will face the long and athletic Brazilian big man Lucas Nogueira and Team Brazil for the Gold Medal. Nogueira is a legit seven footer with long arms who has twice blocked eight shots in the tournament thus far. Nogueira can block shots with either hand and has the presence of mind to block those shots to himself, retaining possession for his team. Nogueira’s soft hands and ability to run the floor make him a great target in transition and he positively must be boxed out or he will use his length and quickness to worm his way in for rebounds and tip-outs.
I talked with Josh Hairston about his strategy for playing Nogueira and his philosophy was to attack his hips, get him in the air, get him in foul trouble early and box him out when the shot goes up. If you’d like to see for yourself how Hairston’s strategy plays out, you can watch the game here by clicking play on the live stream there at 7:00 pm central time.
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