Urijah Faber Fights Jens Pulver on Sunday

The "California Kid," and pride of Lincoln, California, Urijah Faber fights Jens "Lil Evil" Pulver on Sunday night to defend his WEC World Championship.

Here is my interview with Faber from last spring. When I interviewed him, I asked him about fighting Pulver. He said Pulver would have to win a fight or two first, as he was just moving down to the division after a loss to BJ Penn at 155, but he welcomed the opportunity.

I didn't ask, and haven't spoken to Faber in months, but I read an article which said Faber would move up or down in weightclass for a great fight. Faber would be a small 155, as he walks around at his fighting weight now, but I know he wants a re-match with Tyson Griffen. If Faber beats Pulver decisively, I think Faber moves up to 155 and gets a fight with Griffen, the only person to beat Faber, probably on the main card of a UFC PPV event. Roger Huerta against Kenny Florian in August will be a great fight at 155, but Faber vs. Griffen would be huge, especially if they could arrange a September or October date in Sacramento so Griffin and Faber could fight in their hometown.

Here is an article about Faber's gym in midtown Sacramento.

Mock Draft 1.0

My first look at the 2008 NBA Draft.

Cal's Ryan Anderson

In 2006, I wrote an article titled "Potential is a Dangerous Word as NBA Draft Approaches." Every spring, the media and NBA General Managers fall for length, upside and potential. All-Stars like Gilbert Arenas and Carlos Boozer last to the second round while players like Sene, Ndubi Ebi and others receive guaranteed first round money.

If college basketball success plays no part in a player's draft status, why does the NBA insist players attend college?

In almost every mock draft, Arizona's Jerryd Bayless and USC' O.J. Mayo are top five picks while UCLA's Russell Westbrook is at the end of the lottery. However, head-to-head, Westbrook outplayed Bayless and Mayo.

UCLA's Kevin Love is all over draft boards because people believe he is "unathletic" even though he is as accomplished as any player in the draft.

The most egregious example, however, is Cal's Ryan Anderson who led the Pac-10 in scoring in a conference featuring lottery picks Mayo, Bayless, Stanford's Brook Lopez and Love. Somehow, most mock drafts have Anderson's teammate Devon Hardin picked ahead of Anderson despite Hardin's inability to stay healthy and illustrate any type of offensive fundamentals.

If Anderson was from Serbia, he would be a lottery pick for sure. He is everything NBA executives crave: a 6'10 power forward with some back to the basket game, mobility and three-point range. Sure, he needs to add some strength, but potential lottery picks Brook Lopez, Donte Greene, Anthony Randolph and DeAndre Jordan need strength as well. However, they possess "upside" and "length" while all Anderson possesses is offensive fundamentals and demonstrated ability in the NCAA's best conference.

NBA execs travel to Europe every year to find the next Nowitski. However, the next Nowitski might be from El Dorado Hills playing his college ball in Berkeley (ironically, had Nowitski attended college rumors had him headed to Cal). Before falling in love with the length and upside of some other players, NBA execs should travel west to check-out the accomplished Anderson. In the right system (Orlando, Houston), Anderson will be a very good professional player, while some of the players with "upside" and "potential" will never realize their potential or utilize their upside.

Karma

How much does Mike D'Antoni wish he had given the Chicago Bulls a chance to make an official offer? While he's beating his head against the wall with Eddie Curry, Zach Randolph and Stephon Marbury, he could have been in Chicago with Derrick Rose as the PG of his present and future and Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah and Drew Gooden as his posts that can run and run the pick-and-roll.

If D'Antoni envisions Rose as a Steve Nash-like player, except bigger and more explosive, imagine running a pick-and-roll with Tyrus Thomas, once described as a Shawn Marion-like player.

Man, gotta love the what ifs...

For the record, if I am Chicago, I am drafting Rose and hiring a coach committed to an uptempo style who will let Rose develop into a play maker, much like Byron Scott has allowed Chris Paul to develop in New Orleans. Could that guy be Marc Jackson?

NBA Coaching Search

I read an article last week that said either Chicago or Phoenix planned to go "outside the box" with its coaching search. However, all the names linked to the jobs appear very conventional (I hope the rumors are true and Rick Adelman assistant coach Elston Turner is a legitimate candidate in Phoenix).

My outside the box suggestion is Al Skinner from Boston College. He played in the NBA and has been successful in Chestnut Hill with less talent than most BCS teams, taking a bunch of kids who were underrated out of high school - like Craig Smith and Jared Dudley - and competing against the big boys of the ACC.

One writer suggested the Bulls need a "system" coach to do something like what Jerry Sloan does in Utah. Like Sloan, Skinner uses a lot of Flex motion in his offense.

Not many people consider Skinner for NBA jobs. When college names appear on lists, it is usually Bill Self, Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, etc. But, Skinner appears to be the type of coach who would do well in the NBA and would be a very interesting choice for the Bulls.

The NBA and its Minor League System

On True Hoop, Henry Abbott writes about the OJ Mayo fiasco and says one solution is for the NBA to have a minor league. Of course, the NBA already has a minor league, the NBDL, it just does not use it properly.

Why should the NBA change its current system? Right now, the NBA is set-up to maximize owner profit. It pays almost no money for research and development, which is a huge expenditure for almost every other business. It relies on the NCAA to develop its product.

Think about this: when an NBA team drafts a European club player, it pays a buyout to the club to get the player out of his contract, meaning the club which signs and develops the player makes a good pay day when it loses the player. When an NBA team drafts an NCAA kid, the kid's college does not get a dime.

Of course, college programs are rich from their own tv contract. They don't really need the money and kids don't really stay long enough for the college to have much impact anyway. However, think the actual educational institutions could use a 500,000dollar contract buy out to put toward educational scholarships, its endownment or research?

What if scholarships became a four-year contract and NCAA institutions forced the NBA to buy out players' contracts just like European clubs? After all, the NCAA is the de facto minor league for the NBA.

Of course, the NCAA also gets its product for free, too, and profits handsomely through its rich television contracts. Top NCAA coaches are millionaires, while many of the coaches who do the real development work with kids at the pivotal stages of their development are basically volunteers. Look at the up coming NBA Draft: how much of an effect did college have on likely top 10 picks Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, OJ Mayo, Eric Gordon and Kevin Love? They were considered by most the top 5 seniors in high school last spring and now are the top 5 freshman entering the draft on most boards. If the age limit had not been in effect, all five likely would have been 1st Round picks last summer. So, how much of an effect did college really have on their development?

So, in this wild and crazy scenario, what if colleges paid a kid's high school and aau club for the player's rights when he signed a scholarship? Rather than reaping giant profits for universities without any real expenditures, now the money which basketball generates would start to make its way to the level where the development occurs. As more and more high schools struggle with budget cuts, would they benefit from some cash donations when a college superstar leaves their campus?

Of course, this would open up a pandora's box of other problems. It also illustrates how many people make money off these players. I spoke to an NBA guy the other day and he said "it's amazing how many people make money off these kids without doing anything." That's basically the Mayo saga. People identify a talented basketball player and try to get their piece like they are buying stock in an Internet start-up. However, rather than investing money or research into the business (i.e. the star player), they try to forge a relationship and siphon off money for various services, namely delivering the player to a certain agent.

Could the NBA clean up this situation? I don't see why not. They don't have many of these problems in Europe - they have other problems of course - because evrything is transparent. There isn't this ridiculous attempt to convince people that these players are student-athletes, that 6 months of college is good for them and that they are really amateur players even though many have been getting benefits of some kind since junior high school - even if it just the free gear and travel associated with the top AAU programs.

Instead, we have thousands of rules governing the process and everyone tries to work around the rules, which creates a black-market like environment which pervades the system. If everything was open and transparent, maybe nothing would change, but everyone would know. Kids would know who the runners were and what they were trying to do - heck, agents wouldn't need runners because they could talk to the players because there would be no effort to protect the public amateurism of these professionalized college basketball players.

Cavaliers are Boring

I have a hard time watching the Cavaliers vs Celtics series, so some of my points may be off, as I have not been able to sit through an entire game yet, as it is one of the most boring and poorly played series I remember. I watched UFC fights I had already seen the other night because they were more exciting than the Cavs game.

This morning, my friend Oscar said that the Cavs play every offensive possession like they are holding for the last shot of the game. And, they do. It's awful to watch.

I like like Mike Brown. I think he does a good job and has handled the pressure of being LeBron James' coach very well. That being said, their offense is atrocious.

There are two common excuses and I don't buy either: (1) the supporting cast isn't very good and (2) Boston's defense is too good.

When the Cavs play Delonte West, Wally Sczerbiak, Joe Smith and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, they have 4 capable shooters on the floor. These aren't great players and I agree that the Lakers and Hornets have better weapons surrounding Kobe and Paul, but these guys can make open shots.

The defense is good because the Cavs put LeBron in positions to fail. He gets the ball 30 feet from the basket, nobody moves and the entire defense plays him. They run down the shot clock so he is forced to take terrible shots.

Now, LeBron is not perfect. He can only shoot jump shots going to his left. If he dribbles right and has to shoot a jumper, he puts it behind his back to his left hand and steps back for the shot.

Why are the Cavs afraid to shoot in the first 14 seconds of the shot clock? Why doesn't James post-up? When he does get the ball near the post, however, he always reverse pivots to the baseline side, rather than to the middle, which takes away space and makes for a tougher shot or move. Now, he did make a great move off this in Game 6, but he makes it so he has to make near spectacular plays to score.

I played a little pick-up today. I had two players who just stood in the same spot the whole time. It made it very difficult to penetrate. We usually ended up with flat-footed jumpers or forced penetration through traffic. However, when someone cut, we got open shots. Just forcing the defense to honor someone other than the player with the ball created open shots.

People still wonder how Team USA lost to Greece and others in 2006. For the answer, watch the Cavs. The Cavs play offense like Team USA with four guys standing and watching one guy go. The Celtics play defense like the Greeks, playing 5-on-1. I counted a couple times in the 4th quarter; on one possession James dribbled the ball 17 times and on the next possession 14. Meanwhile, his teammates stood and watched and the defense played the ball. That is horrible offense and incredibly boring to watch.

I love watching the Jazz because they have constant motion. They run basic options off the Flex, which I hated when we ran it when I was in 7th and 8th grade. But, I find them very enjoyable to watch. When Kobe plays unselfishly, I like watching the Lakers because they move the ball and all five players can pass. I love watching Chris Paul run the pick and roll and the Spurs set the standard for ball movement.

The Cavaliers, however, are boring. I would love to see James start off the ball and the Cavs run their offense through him, like the Kings used to do with Webber. Use some Triangle principles and some Flex options and make the defense guard all five players, not just James. Get James the ball in positions where he can be effective and where the help has more difficulty.

Watching James continually receive the ball 30 feet from the basket and asking him to create 1v5 with less than 8 seconds on the shot clock makes him work too hard and it makes watching the games too painful. No team in my lifetime has relied so heavily on one player. The Cavs simply ask him to do too much, which is why the Celts' D looks great (although, it is very good regardless) and why his shooting percentage is so low. Make the game easier for him and he'll look more like Kobe, who manages to make everything look pretty easy right now.

Rasheed Wallace

In the last week, I heard an analyst call Kevin Garnett a future Hall of Famer and Rick Carlisle refer to Dirk Nowitski as a Hall of Fame player.

I have not heard anyone refer to Rasheed Wallace as a Hall of Fame player, though I would argue Wallace is the second best power forward in the league since Karl Malone retired.

What can Garnett do that Wallace cannot? What can Nowitski do that Wallace cannot? Which player has a championship ring?

When Wallace played with Ben Wallace, at the time a three-time Defensive Player of the Year Award winner (I, however, still do not buy it and believe he is an overrated defender), Rasheed Wallace drew the assignment of Tim Duncan, the league's best power forward. While Rasheed Wallace has never won a DPOY award, and KG has, Wallace is as good a defensive player as any post player in the NBA, and has been for some time, as evidenced by his domination of Dwight Howard in the 4th Quarter last night.

Offensively, Wallace can make the three like Nowitski. However, he also has better moves on the low block than KG or Dirk.

The biggest knock on Wallace has been that he doesn't want to be "the guy." However, don't people question Nowitski and KG for the same thing? Won't KG pass the ball late in a game if he thinks a teammate has a better shot? Doesn't Jason Terry take as many big shots for Dallas as Nowitski?

This is not meant to knock KG or Dirk. I like both players. However, I think Wallace has been one of the most talented players in the league for a long time and few people notice, even though he has played on play-off teams for almost his entire career.

So, if Wallace is not a Hall of Fame candidate, why not?

The O.J. Mayo Saga Continues

In 2006, I wrote an article about O.J. Mayo. The article was not so much about the person as it was about the phenomenon. It was about the system which creates celebrities out of high school kids.

At the type, my article criticized Reebok's involvement with Mayo, his high school and his AAU team.

According to a recent article, “Reebok grassroots director Sonny Vaccaro confirmed to The Enquirer last May that Reebok funded the D-I Greyhounds with about $100,000 annually.” That money, of course, cannot be paid directly to O.J. Mayo or his family, especially since the new NBA Age Limit means it is likely he will need to spend one year at a college. However, as Forde wrote in his column, “his dimes will come. And the first ones will come from Reebok. Vaccaro, who says he first heard about Mayo when he was in sixth grade, will make sure of that.”

According to the latest allegations, shoe company money and improprieties are the least of Mayo's concerns and according to the allegations, someone beat Reebok to Mayo to get Mayo his "first dimes."

According to the ESPN OTL story:

Clothing isn't the only thing Guillory, now 43, bought for Mayo during the course of their friendship, according to Johnson. Guillory also paid for Mayo's flat-screen television, meals and airline tickets for friends and a family member.

Guillory, of course, is a runner for an agent, the guys that most in the basketball world despise because they leach onto young, precocious basketball stars and make money delivering these stars to certain agents. According to the OTL article:

Johnson said Guillory once tallied the cash and property that BDA had provided him, which totaled between $200,000 and $250,000. About $30,000 of that made its way to Mayo and others close to him, he said.

Guillory's involvement with Mayo started at the Reebok sponsored ABCD Tournament, run by Sonny Vaccarro, and included paying Mayo's Reebok-sponsored high school team:

The week before Christmas in 2005, Guillory began to leverage that relationship. He co-sponsored a tournament in Southern California with Reebok that featured Mayo's North College Hill team. Guillory paid the school $16,000, plus all travel expenses, for the chance to showcase Mayo for two games in California, according to the contract between Guillory and the school, which "Outside the Lines" obtained through a public records request.

Now, everyone, including Dick Vitale is blaming the NBA's Age Limit Rule for such conduct. While I wrote in 2005 that the NBA does not need an age limit and still believe it was a bad decision, most of the issues occurred when Mayo was in high school, not college. Sure, it means USC allegedly had a "non-amateur" player on its team last season, but I long ago gave up this silly notion that men's basketball is a pure, amateur sport. I don't believe the issue is necessarily with the NBA rule or USC, but with the ability of runners to get to high school kids, though stopping that will be far more difficult than reversing a silly rule (I remember a quote by Al Jefferson saying something like: "How am I going to get an education in one year at college? If I'm in the lottery, I'm gone").

As Michael Wilbon writes:

That said, the primary villains here are the scumbags who have been preying on Mayo from age 12 or 13 or whenever it became apparent he had a talent that could make him a star. They always are the villains, the hustlers in the 'hood whispering in a kid's ear, waving a fistful of dollars and buying not only future access but often exclusivity: "Lemme give you this car now, so in turn you'll feel obligated to let me get close to you before the big payday down the road."

Mayo is portrayed as the bad guy because he should have known better or because he's getting free stuff or because he's going to put USC on probation if the allegations are proved correct. However, Mayo the person is not a bad guy, I imagine. Mayo, the product, is the problem. The system from the runners to the shoe agents to the NBA rule turned Mayo into a commodity. He became a meal ticket for more than just himself or his family, but for numerous other hangers-ons. The problem is not Mayo or players like him, though they are not completely innocent. The problem is a society that allows elite talents to become commodities whose talent supports a growing entourage as the player achieves more and more success. As Wilbon writes:

I realized instantly I was wrong for attacking Mayo the way I had. While Mayo isn't an innocent, he's absolutely the product of a subculture in which the ability to play basketball at an elite level is valued more than being a good father, more than formal education, more than almost anything that appears to be within his grasp. Mayo, like so many who've come before him, simply is doing the only thing he knows to negotiate the road before him. Why would he know any better than to call Floyd, full of presumption, and tell him, "I'm coming," when it has been reinforced since he was 12 years old that talent rules the day and when the coach is too spineless to tell him who's in charge?

Kobe and Back Injuries

As the Utah/Lakers Series returns to Los Angeles, the big question is Kobe's back and his ability to play at 100%.

In my Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter from last week (Volume 2, Issue #19), I wrote about protecting one's feet and back. In it, I quoted a Men's Health article which interviewed Dr. Stuart McGill, the foremost spine authority in the world:

The importance of having a tight spine – that is, a spine well supported by muscles and ligaments – has made McGill not only weary of excessive stretching but also more inclined to warn athletes of the risk of sitting for a lengthy period and then springing up to do something arduous. “Your spinal ligaments can stay lax for an additional 20 minutes after you stand up,” says McGill. You know all those NBA players with balky backs? Think about the toll placed on benchwarmers required to sit ‘with their knees in their ears’ and then told to go box out Dwight Howard.

If sitting in the low seats and then returning quickly to action is bad for the back, why doesn't the NBA make an effort to change this? What about using chairs with higher seats, like Phil Jackson, for all players so they sit taller with less hip flexion? Of course, the answer is that seven-footers sitting on higher seats would block a few rows of high-priced seats. If higher seats is not the answer, what is?

In soccer/football, when a coach intends to use a substitute, the substitute warms-up again on the side. Of course, there is no room on a basketball sideline. However, most teams use a fairly standard rotation. Why not send players to the tunnel a couple minutes before they re-enter the game to loosen up again?

If this impacts as many players as McGill suggests, shouldn't the NBA do something to help its product? If there was some way to prevent Kobe's back injury, wouldn't it be worth it financially to the NBA to do almost anything to prevent a post-season injury to one of its most precious superstars?

The Problem with Continuation

At the end of the Magic/Pistons game, Keyon Dooling was whistled for a foul and a technical foul for the same play. A Pistons player drove to the basket and Dooling fouled him about 10-feet from the basket. The player kept going to the rim and jumped for a shot, so Dooling hit him again, which earned a technical foul.

I thought it was a horrible call. Sure, players should not be hit in the chest when the play is "over," which at every other level of basketball is when the whistle blows.

However, in the NBA, you never know when the official will call continuation and allow the basket. I have seen players fouled one step inside the three-point line still get a lay-up counted with the foul. Some of the calls are outrageous.

So, in a one-point game, Dooling took no chances. When the Piston attempted to continue his shot, he fouled the player again. Since, apparently you cannot have two fouls on the same play, the second was called a technical.

I agree with protecting players. However, as long as the officials will call the continuation in such cases, the defender has to have the right to continue fouling to stop the shot. Why should the offensive player get to absorb a foul, take two more steps and make a shot without allowing another player, or the same player, to contest the shot? That is effectively what the call tonight accomplishes.

If the NBA wants to protect players, stop allowing ridiculous continuation baskets and then penalize the defense in instances like this evening. However, if the offense continues the play with the intent to score after the whistle, why should the defense be forced to stop playing when the whistle blows?

On another official's note, the call I would like to see eliminated, more than anything, is rewarding the offensive player for pump faking and then hurling himself into the defender. I am tired of announcers commenting on how smart an offensive player is because he can jump three feet forward to draw contact against a defender who jumped straight up and down. There are times when the offensive player does draw contact and does deserve the call. But, it certainly isn't automatic. I don't understand how an offensive player can jump three-feet forward with the clear intent of drawing contact and get rewarded with the foul on the defense.

Oh The Humanity

I find a lot of problems with the NCAA. However, I just read this article about Abar Rouse and it again points out flaws in the system. Rouse is the assistant coach who taped Dave Bliss' phone calls when he decided he wanted to portray Patrick Dennehy as a drug dealer after his murder.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard Dennehy had been shot. I was working the University of San Francisco basketball camp. Dennehy was a recognizable name from the Bay Area. We were walking through the rec center after a game and saw the news flash across the espn screen.

I never met Dennehy. However, Bliss trying to disparage his name after his death is one of the greates wrongs I have ever heard a college coach accused of doing. I am glad Rouse taped the conversation and outed his boss. It was the just thing to do as a human being.

Somehow, while Rouse cannot get a job, Bliss has been able to find work in the CB and with Athletes in Action. What a great role model for a Christian group! This really is unbelievable.

Kelvin Sampson gets caught cheating - AGAIN! - and he gets an NBA assistant job. Bliss lies to police and tries to portray a dead player as a drug dealer and he moves to a minor league coaching job. But, the guy who tapes the conversation gets screwed.

On July 26, Dennehy's body was discovered.

Desperate to save his own hide, Bliss told his assistant coaches he wanted to float the story that Dennehy was a drug dealer, thereby explaining away the money Bliss had given to him.

Fearful that he would be fired if he didn't go along with the plan, Rouse recorded a conversation with Bliss. According to one newspaper account, Bliss had put a copy of Rouse's contract, highlighting the portion that showed he could hire and fire assistant coaches, on his desk after Rouse told Bliss he wasn't comfortable with the plan. On the tape, Bliss is heard saying, "Our whole thing right now, we can get out of this. Reasonable doubt is there's nobody right now that can say we paid Pat Dennehy because he's dead. So what we need to do is create reasonable doubt."

Let's look at that. One person attempts to lie to the public about his player and portray him unfavorably to make his program look less bad. Another person tapes this conversation. And, the pariah in the coaching community is the guy who taped the conversation. I think that says enough about the coaching community that favors unwavering loyalty to doing the right thing. I don't think I can have any less respect for a coach than I do for Dave Bliss.

Many coaches, including Hall of Famers Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski, have said that Rouse had crossed the line. "If one of my assistants would tape every one of my conversations with me not knowing it, there's no way he would be on my staff," Krzyzewski told "Outside the Lines" in 2003. The rank and file has fallen in step.

Really? Coach K and Boeheim believed Rouse, not Bliss had crossed the line? Wow, did I just lose a lot of respect for them (well, I lost a lot of respect for Coach K when he refused to comment on the lacrosse scandal and back his friend, the Head Coach).

I can't imagine working for a person who values loyalty over a right or wrong. Isn't that why we have all these stunning documentaries on gang life on A&E and the History Channel? To show what happens when you value loyalty over right and wrong?

Is that the lesson these coaches teach their players: right or wrong, protect each other?

Is that why the Palace Brawl escalated because other players ran to defend Artest rather than stepping in and bring him back to the court and doing what was right? At the time, everyone said the players were a bunch of "thugs" and "too street." Maybe, they were just well-coached.

The Hornets

I expected the Hornets to be in the play-offs this year, but I had no idea they would be this good (partially because they are never on television).

As I watched the game tonight, I realized that nobody mentions Jeff Bower among those who deserve the Executive of the Year Award. Instead, Danny Ainge and Mitch Kupchak's names are mentioned.

I see this as a problem with professional sports. We glamourize the big deal, but do not reward the true art of building a team.

Bower did not make any big moves in the off-season, though drafting Julian Wright at #13 appears to be a steal now. During the season, he did not make a blockbuster move, choosing instead to add Bonzi Wells in a swap of former Sacramento Kings for Bobby Jackson.

However, last year, his big deals went unnoticed because the Hornets suffered so many injuries that knocked them out of the play-offs.

Trading for KG and Gasol were no-brainers. No GMs would have messed up those deals. I'm not sure acquiring KG or Gasol illustrate a GM's acumen. Sure, they changed the face of their franchises, but they were no-brainer deals. I actually thought Ainge's most savvy move was signing James Posey and Kupchak's best move has been to resist Kobe's pleas and not trade Andrew Bynum, as well as a series of unheralded draft picks like Sasha Vujicic and Jordan Farmar who now contribute.

Similarly, Bower did not make any one astounding move. Paul fell in his lap, which shows as much about Atlanta and Milwaukee as it does about his skill as a GM. However, look at the Tyson Chandler deal. J.R. Smith and P.J. Brown for Chandler. When the deal was completed, which led to Chicago signing Ben Wallace, everyone annointed Chicago the front runners in the Eastern Conference. Nobody said that the Hornets got the better end of the deal. Chicago is in ruins, having dealt Wallace and Smith and watching Brown walk as a free agent, and Chandler is defending Tim Duncan better than anyone in the league while running the pick-and-roll alley-oop with Paul like Nash-to-Stoudamire circa 2006. In retrospect, that deal looks almost as lop-sided as the Gasol for Kwame Brown trade, but nobody thought that at the time. That's the type of deal that makes a GM.

The Chandler trade was not the only move. Acquiring Peja Stojakovic was not a huge move and many people were skeptical, feeling Peja had peaked as a player and did not have much to offer. Morris Peterson lost playing time and fell out of favor in Toronto. Jannero Pargo. Melvin Ely. Bobby Jackson.

No big piece, beyond the drafting of David West (a steal) and Chris Paul (ditto). But, he fit the perfect complementary pieces around West and Paul through a series of trades and signings. He built a championship contender the old fashioned way, like the Spurs.

The Spurs had a bit of luck (Duncan) and used some great evaluation skills to find two hifdden gems in the draft (Ginobili and Parker). Then, Buford and Popvich fit pieces around the stars: Oberto, Barry, Finley, Bowen, Vaughn, etc. No big pieces, just pieces that fit and help the Spurs win. Joe Dumars built Detroit in a similar fashion, acquiring players when their value has dipped (Billups, Hamilton, Wallace) and allowing them to leave when their price is too high (Okur, Ben Wallace) and drafting very well for their draft position (Prince, Stuckey, Maxiell).

Bower never did anything noteworthy enough to win an award. However, he built a franchise which has a chance to compete for the NBA championship for the next five years, as Paul and Wright have yet to reach their prime, West and Chandler have just hit theirs and Peja is still at the end of his. If he continues to make savvy moves and stays true to his method, the Hornets are poised to be one of the top organizations into the next decade.

Bower's job in New Orleans reminds me of Geoff Petrie making Sacramento relevant. He drafted Peja and left in Europe. Then, he drafted Jason Williams and Hedo Turkuglo. He trade Mitch Richmond, possibly the most popular Sacramento King, for Chris Webber and then signed Vlade Divac, away from the Hornets, no less. In a couple moves, Petrie built one of the best teams in the NBA for a 5-6 year stretch. New Orleans drafted West, then Paul and Wright; traded Brown, one of the most popular Hornets for Chandler, and signed Peja and now the Hornets should be one of the top teams for the next 5-6 years.

I think it is unfortunate that these moves, which really show a GMs true skill go unnoticed and overlooked in favor of the splashy moves or the superstar deals. Hopefully some voters will appreciate the craftsmanship Bower showed in building the Hornets into a contender, even if it did not happen overnight.

Women's College Basketball

Athletic Directors really don't care about women's college basketball. They don't even pay attention. I saw this column today on ESPN, but have heard similar stories (though not the chain) about several programs that gave a coach an extension and within the year wanted to fire her for behavior toward the student-athletes. Shouldn't the AD be aware of the treatment of the players? Shouldn't he or she be able to notice if things aren't right? Are won-loss records the only determining factor for extensions and raises?

A coaching cautionary tale

Well, I'll say this for the coaching staff at Southern Illinois: It introduced the term "jackass-less" to my cursing lexicon.

This spring, reporters from The Southern Illinoisan newspaper in Carbondale, Ill., have been chronicling problems in coach Dana Eikenberg's program, with the acrimonious departures of several players. A particularly detailed story was done by Pete Spitler in late March.

It described that this year's senior class learned of a sign on Eikenberg's door that read, "Conference & Jackass-less Countdown" that had a paper chain with the seniors' names connected to it.

That sort of thing puts a damper on Senior Night, doesn't it?

Eikenberg later apologized to the team for it … but then wasn't on the floor for the seniors' send-off. She provided a bizarre explanation for that to the newspaper, saying there was a "miscommunication" with the assistant athletic director for marketing about the specifics of the senior ceremony, thus she didn't know when it was going to be held. She said an e-mail about it was sent on a Friday night to an assistant who was out recruiting and couldn't access her e-mail that late.

OK … does this mean Eikenberg didn't know -- let alone set -- her own team's pregame schedule? That an assistant AD decided ceremony details on a Friday night? And then informed only one staff member, who was out of town and might be the only Division I assistant left in the country without 24-hour access to e-mail?

It's goofy that Eikenberg even bothered to offer such a preposterous reason for her absence -- considering she admitted to the newspaper that the sign was on her door. It's clear why she missed the ceremony.

Eikenberg, who played at Penn State, used to coach at UMKC. The disappointment of going 10-20 this season and no longer having "good-cop" assistant Jody Adams -- who had a very successful 2007-08 season as Murray State's head coach and just took over at Wichita State -- might have been a toxic combination for Eikenberg.

SIU athletic director Mario Moccia conducted an "extensive review" of the program and in a release basically said he felt everything would be fine. Which is pretty much absurd, but …

He might not have much choice, from a practical perspective. The newspaper reported that Eikenberg -- who signed a five-year extension after winning the Missouri Valley title in 2007-- is guaranteed her full salary through the end of the contract if she's dismissed.

SIU appears to be over a barrel. What school, especially in this economic climate, can possibly afford to pay someone more than half a million dollars to not coach the women's basketball team?

Without discussing actual X's and O's, recruiting, etc., there are several hires over the last couple years that leave me scrathing my head based on how the coach relates to players and treats people in general. However, it just seems like AD's do not care enough to investigate choices and make an inspired hire. There are problems in men's basketball, for sure, but I do not think those arise due to an AD's apathy. It is a shame that many problems, at least on the surface, could be averted if AD's paid more attention to the women's programs.

I can't imagine anyone, in any field admitting to the chain and keeping his or her job. What's the practice environment like? If she treats the players so poorly behind closed doors, what does she do to their face? It is a shame that so many players, men and women, have less than satisfactory college experiences strictly because of the way their coach treats them.