The Basement View

Fresh Start_311: Phil Jackson no more Phil Jackson is now a free agent. Most likely a retired coach and front office executive at this point in his career, with the train wreck of running the New York Knicks. Put aside his incredible coaching career; coaching Michael Jordan to six championships and Kobe Bryant to five championships—Jackson is now the face of the dumpster fire that was his 3-year career as the head of the Knicks. Why James Dolan thought Phil Jackson would be a good front office guy in the first place; especially after Jackson declined the job when Dolan confronted him in the first place. Jackson had no previous experience in the front office setting, and wanted to run the old-fashioned “Triangle Offense.” Every move that Jackson spent as the head of the Knicks was to try and make the Knicks a carbon copy version of the ’96 Bulls or the ’00 Lakers. He picked Porzingis because he thought that “the unicorn” would be a perfect fit for the triangle. He signed pla

Fresh Start_310: Chris Paul to Houston Yet again another “Woj Bomb” bombshell. I wanted to talk about the relief that the Phil Jackson firing is for Knicks fans, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. Chris Paul is now a Houston Rocket. After I sat here two days ago and said he was most likely going to sign the max $200 Million plus extension with the Clippers, Doc trades him to Houston. The trade has CP3 going to Houston for: Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, Sam Dekker, DeAndre Liggins, Darrun Hillard, Montrezl Harrell, Kyle Wiltjer, and Paul’s trade bonus which was trimmed from $3.6 Million to $661K. This trade guts the Rockets for Paul and rebuilds the Clippers for the now inviable exist of Blake Griffin. This trade has shades of similarity to the Carmelo Anthony trade to the Knicks. The Rockets will also take a $24.6 Million cap hit with the trade for Paul. Carmelo Anthony has also been linked to Houston following the firing of Phil Jackson. As just reported by The

Fresh Strart_309: The NBA Award show With the pathetic excuse for an awards show over, the NBA FINALLY has the answer to “who is the MVP.” With Russell Westbrook’s win last night, the answer that us NBA fans have wanted has been answered about a month after the last game of the regular season. The Finals MVP is more prevalent then Russell’s win of the MVP. As I said throughout the final days of the regular season—Westbrook’s case for MVP was the most impressive, and was properly rewarded. James Harden will get his MVP award eventually, he just has to coordinate it with the rest of the league. If Westbrook doesn’t lead the league in triple doubles, average a triple double, and take basically the Dallas Mavericks to the playoffs by himself—Harden is your MVP. I am happy for Westbrook, but I am also excited to see what he does. Now that he has the respect from the league, what is the next chapter in his book? He is a LONG ways away from a chance for a title, and once he has th

Fresh Start_308: These are the Yankees after all With the bombers on the down slop as the month of June ends—questions arise whether this current roster can be the roster to play in a playoff game at the end of September. As I noted yesterday, the possibility of going after some bullpen help could be one of the many trades that Brian Cashman makes in July, but he could also trade for a starter. Jose Quintana has been linked to the Bronx for months now, and doesn’t seem to still be on the table from the rebuilding Chicago White Sox. The White Sox traded away their ace Chris Sale for the best prospect in all of baseball {Yoan Moncada} this offseason to Boston, and even with 3 rd worse record in the Majors the Chi-sox don’t look they are blinking on the offers for Quintana. Quintana was 13-12 last year with a 3.20 ERA in 208 innings. He also recorded 181 strike outs in those 208 innings. In the second half of the year last year, Quintana was 6-4 with a 3.19 ERA in 90.1 innings an

Fresh Start_307: Carter out; but the Bombers still have problems With the exist of Chris Carter following his designation on Friday after the 2-1 walk-off win against the Rangers, Tyler Austin gets his call up, and Tyler Clippard gets the “Most Hated Yankee” award from the bomber fan base. The 32-year-old right hander has had about the worst of months that you can have coming out of the pen. In the month of June, Clippard has a 14.09 ERA in 7.2 innings giving up 4 homers and allowing 12 hits. Clippard also has only stroke out six batters and walked five in 7.2 innings. The boo’s that Clippard will hear as he comes into his next game are well deserved for the poor performance and may garner Clippard to lose his 7 th inning role to another reliever. Clippard’s June numbers have to come as a shock to almost all Yankee fans because of how good he was in the months of April and May this year—on top of his seemingly lights out performance last year after coming over from Arizona.

Fresh Start_306: Where to for Blake Griffin? This is the beginning of the end for the Los Angeles Clippers. With Blake Griffin and Chris Paul opting out of their current contracts to become free agents—starts to show the writing on the wall for Doc Rivers and the front office for the Clippers. Paul is most likely looking for the maximum amount of money he can get; which is with the Clippers and it is a shade over $200 Million. Chris Paul is the president of the Players Association and helped lead the change in the salary cap, so why wouldn’t he reap the benefits of something that he helped lead the charge on? Blake Griffin on the other hand is looking to move on. Griffin has had a roller coaster over the past couple of years which is heighted with a fight between Griffin and a Clipper equipment manager. It is time for Griffin to step away from the Clippers and try to win somewhere else. A trade to Boston has flirted around at the trade deadline, before Miami drafted Edrice A

Fresh Start_305: The 2017 NBA Draft Well, the NBA draft has come and gone once again, and the annual reminder that the actual draft is a dumb idea because we should just let all the players flood into the Barclays Center as they watch the jumbotron as Adrian Wojnarowski tweets out the selections. Woj was at least ten minutes ahead of the actual draft with the “sources” tipping picks. With this draft being one of the best of the last fifteen years; it was exciting to watch teams implode on live TV. The Chicago Bulls made probably the second worst trade of the decade (behind the Harden to Houston trade), and followed it up with the worst pick in the draft. Hats off to Minnesota for fleecing the Bulls, and making D-Wade reconsider his decision to come back home. For the most part the draft went as projected, but of course there are teams that miss picks, players that fall, and just craziness happening in the green room in Brooklyn. The NBA offseason has officially started if yo

Fresh Start_304: How is Phil Jackson still employed If you have followed my podcast or this blog for some time now; you’d know that I have given up talking about the Mets for the 2017 baseball season. Everything that went on with the medical staff misdiagnosing stars Yoenis Cespedes and Noah Syndergaard, not forcing Syndergaard to get an MRI, allowing Harvey to do anything that he feels like doing up until not coming to the ballpark because of a “migraine,” and on and on. The team that is flying right alongside the Mets in the loon bin are the New York Knicks. The Phil Jackson experiment has not worked out like James Dolan wanted. Jackson has single handedly torched any hope that the Knick fans had. With the way Phil Jackson has treated the star of the team; Carmelo Anthony—even actively shopping him seemingly forgetting that Melo has a no-trade clause. Phil even trashed Melo in one of his last interviews at the end of the season. Working out current draft prospects—doing n

Fresh Start_303: The Brooklyn Nets or the New York Jets? The Brooklyn Nets are trading Brook Lopez and the 27 th overall pick in this years’ draft to the Lakers in exchange for D’Angelo Russell and Tim Mozgov. As a fan of the Nets I don’t really have many words seeing this trade. I don’t like the haul that we get back for Lopez, I hate the fact that we won’t have a draft pick in this years’ draft, and we now have a $54 Million contract eating away at the books from Mozgov. Everything about this trade from a Brooklyn perspective is just awful. You don’t get a high draft pick for Lopez, you don’t keep the books clear in case you hit lighting in a bottle and get good, and you don’t keep draft picks to help build through the draft. I just don’t get how this trade makes ANY sense from a Brooklyn perspective. Lopez had three years left on his deal, and while trading him this summer would have been a good idea, getting a draft pick or picks back for him would be the ideal way to r

Fresh Start_302: Paul George to Cleveland? In the wake of the Celtic and 76’ers trade, news of Paul George started to murmur around Indiana and the NBA. With that, the NBA offseason has officially started. George has been vocal about wanting to play for the Lakers, and informed his current team the Indiana Pacers that he plans on leaving following this upcoming season in free agency. With that news, the Pacers have begun shopping George around for a possible return on the All-Star forward. Cleveland, Boston, and of course the Lakers have been rumored as possible destinations for George. This isn’t unusual and is a smart move by Indiana to try and get a positive return on George’s services to the Pacers. The haul that George garners in return will be interesting with the news now that he would be leaving Indy regardless of what happens. The possible trade to a Cleveland or Boston or somewhere that isn’t the Lakers will be an interesting short term move at a title that won

Fresh Start_301: They are human What a West Coast disaster that road trip was. After a 5-game winning streak the bombers have showed their first sight as a team of being morale. After a comeback win thanks to an Aaron Judge home run to win 5-3 in the series opener against the Angels, the Yankees would lose 5 straight including being swept by the A’s in a weekend four game set. The pitching has been suspect and the lineup has stopped putting crocked numbers on the scoreboard. One of the most glaring problems for the Yankees is their ace Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka has struggled for almost the entire 2017 season, and nobody seems what the problem is for Tanaka or the solution to that problem. The bullpen has also been awful throughout this losing streak well that cannot happen. Chapman is back and he needs to be one of the guardian angels for this team if they want to continue to be on pace to win the AL East. The great start in April can only help so much throughout the seas

Fresh Start_300: Boston trades No. 1 Woken up by a chatty bird and an overwhelming case of cotton mouth, I look at my phone at 4:52 AM GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) I see a cluster of tweets that where like an instant shot of espresso. The one that really did it; “Sixers needed Fultz workout/meeting to complete deal w/ Celtics and, as expected sides have deal for No.1 pick. Trade call planned Monday.” This tweet from The Vertical’s Adrian “Woj” Wojnarowski just sent me into a tailspin trying to find out all I could. After about a half hour of letting the mushroom cloud settle over NBA Twitter; the clarification from TNT’s David Aldridge and Wojnarowski unveiled the block buster trade. Boston sends the first overall pick in the 2017 draft (via Brooklyn) in exchange for: Philadelphia’s 2017 first round pick {#3}, and the 6’ers send their 2018 first round selection (via the Lakers) with protections. If that Lakers pick ends up between 2-5 in next years’ lottery the Celtics get the pic

Fresh Start_299: The Brooklyn Net Summer 2017 manifesto If you haven’t forgotten, I am a Brooklyn Nets fan, and the Nets weren’t the best of teams in 2016. In fact, they were the worst team in the NBA with a 20-62 record. The Nets will also not have a the first overall pick this year because of the trade that sent Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry in 2013. The Nets do have $23.8 Million in cap space this offseason, and if you have seen the current Nets roster, well it needs some fine tuning. Now, the Nets will not be being going after guys like Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, or Kyle Lowry who are unrestricted free agents, but they could bring up the asking price of some key restricted free agents. Tyler Johnson and Allen Crabbe were Brooklyn Nets for a short period of time last summer, before the Miami Heat and Portland Trail Blazers matched the respective off sheets for the two players. This offseason, players like: Otto Porter Jr, Nerlens Noel, Kelly Olynyk, Joe Ing