Wednesday, July 16, 2008

NBA trades continue to baffle me

Marcus Camby has made NBA All-Defensive First Team the last two seasons, after being Second Team the two seasons before that. He won NBA Defensive Player of the Year the year before last, and was second in the NBA in rebounding last year with 13.1 per game. He's signed for two more seasons at a very reasonable $10 million per, so his contract expires when Lebron, Wade, et al will be free agents. So how come he has zero trade value? (The right to swap second round picks in 23 months can be approximated as zero.)

NBA trades baffle me. I came to the conclusion in February that Portland did a great job getting Channing Frye for Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, Fred Jones, and $30 million. But this one takes the cake. Do you mean to tell me that no team could offer anything for Marcus Camby? Or is it that nothing is more valuable than something. It's not like the Nuggets traded Camby to a team in the East either; the Nuggets and Clippers have been within five spots of each other in the Western Conference the last four years.

I keep having to remind myself that the Clippers aren't the team dumping salary here. The fact that they're the team making a killing plants a seed of doubt in my mind that it's a wise move. The best apart about this trade is that the Nuggets will be even more entertaining to watch - they were 29th in the league in points allowed last year at 107.0 (also the second most since 1997) and could challenge 110 this year.

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