Today in a deal with the Denver Nuggets, Joe Dumars sent Aaron Afflalo and Walter Sharpe packing to free up salary cap money in search of signing a big man.

Sharpe had hardly played at all and Aaron Afflalo played a little bit more, but not even enough for us to remember how to spell his name. Afflalo came to the Pistons and surprised everyone with his strong defense, but strong defense does not get you on the court when you have offensive liabilities and Rip Hamilton is ahead of you.

So who is Joe D after?

The team is reportedly interested in Celtics restricted free agent Glen Davis, a second-year power forward who is coming off a breakout postseason run when he replaced an injured Kevin Garnett.

Davis, who is listed at 6-foot-9 and 289 pounds, is considered a little short for the power forward but is able to compensate with his size and bulk. He has a good midrange jumper and is a good rebounder.

If the Pistons make Davis an offer, the Celtics would have seven days to match.

Other free agents that could fit the bill are Knicks center Chris Wilcox, Spurs power forward Drew Gooden and Cavs power forward Joe Smith.

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This begs the question, will the Pistons try to make a move on Carlos Boozer or is there something wrong with him? It has been rumored that Rip Hamilton or Tayshaun Prince would have to be involved in the deal and the Pistons were not ready to go that route.

Tayshaun Prince for Carlos Boozer?

Hmm, why not? Boozer is a career double double man and by the time the Pistons can go for the NBA title Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince will be all used up.

Hamilton is going into his 11th year and Prince is going into his 8th year, just like Boozer.

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Chase Budinger went 44th in the 2009 NBA Draft to the Detroit Pistons. Hey, things are looking good. They need some outside shooting. In the flash of an eye, Chase Budinger was a Houston Rocket. Hey, things…hey, there are not any starting spots on this team. But wait, maybe there are, at least for a while, because Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming are nursing the usual injuries and that might just open the door.

Chase put on an exhibition in the art of shooting in his second game in the summer league.

“I think the up and down pace of the game helped me,” Budinger told HOOPSWORLD after pouring in a team-high 25 points on 9-10 shooting in a 98-95 win. “That’s been my style all my life, so any time we’re running it’s to my advantage.”

It wasn’t unheard of for Budinger to fill the nets at Arizona, where he averaged 15.6 points as a freshman, 17.1 as a sophomore and 18.0 as a junior. His weakness was always the defensive end of the floor, which is what the Rockets want to see him improve on while competing in the Las Vegas Summer League.

“The biggest thing the coaches have told me to do is to play hard, play tight on my man defensively all the way up the floor, and value every minute I get out on the court.”
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Ok, that was summer league and the defense is usually sparse and loaded with mismatches as coaches try to put young players into situations.

The real problem for Chase Budinger will be at the other end of the floor. Late in the game my Grandmother drove past Chase for a slam dunk and she was using a walker. No, really it was my grandmother.

Rick Adelman coaches the Rockets and preaches a complete game by every player. No D and no playing time. Better hunker down, Chase, or it will be a long regular season.

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You have Chris Bosh. He is an excellent player and almost nobody in the USA realizes it. Chris will be a free agent next year and may want to belong to a different NBA team. Is he that good? What do you do?

He played on the Olympic team, you know.

During the tournament itself, Bosh operated as the main backup to center Dwight Howard as Team USA went unbeaten in all eight games en route to the gold medal, defeating Spain in the final.[54] He averaged 9.1 points per game, and led the team in rebounds with 6.1 a game.[55]
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Now Toronto is trying to build a team to put around him, because next year Chris is a free agent and may want to leave. The biggest off season move was to land Hedo Turkoglu. Hedo is a definite mismatch player that becomes so valuable if you make the playoffs. He not only has the outside shot, but also stands 6′ 10″ tall. Hedo averaged over 16 a game this year.

Will Hedo Turkoglu convince Chris Bosh to stay?

Toronto also made some other smart moves in order to convince Bosh that the Raptors will remain competitive.

“Everything kind of falls into place,” explained Triano. “We have (Hedo) Turkoglu for five years, Bargnani for five, Calderon for the next four, (DeMar) DeRozan’s going to be in that mix giving us athleticism that maybe some of those players don’t have. We’ve got this year to figure out what Chris Bosh is going to do. That’s a great nucleus moving forward for the next five years and one that might not be super successful next year but we’re definitely going to be a better basketball team. As these guys get to spend more time playing with each other I think the ceiling is very, very high for this group.”
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People are having fun with this. Xavier’s Jordan Crawford dunked on LeBron in a scrimmage in Akron. Then the most stupid thing happened. Nike confiscated all tapes of the event. What? Yeah, that is right; they took them all and claim they always do that. What? Yeah, that is right, they claimed they always do that and always have. What? No way! What about this exclusive from YouTube?

By the way, LeBron just went back on defense as if it was no big deal. Maybe someone should tell that to Nike. Hey, and isn’t the guy’s name being Jordan just perfect?

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Shawn aka ‘The Matrix’ Marion is going to be a Maverick and the odd thing about the whole trade, which involved four teams, is nobody can figure out if the Mavericks will be better or not. The plan is to play Shawn at the four spot, but that will involve moving a lot of players around even during the game.

Now maybe that won’t be a problem, because Rick Carlisle is a master at setting up plays and getting players in a position to do their thing, but just what is Shawn’s thing? Will he be over achieving as a rebounder or racing up the court to finish Jason Kidd fast breaks or stealing shots that Jason Terry would have shot or maybe just be the new out of control Jerry Stackhouse? Jerry ended up in Memphis for the time being. Yes, it was a bizarre trade.

Whether the Matrix produces for Dallas or not, this strange trade also accomplished some other odd things.

Dallas, Toronto, Orlando and Memphis came together to complete a deal that also allowed Toronto to receive Hedo Turkoglu in a sign-and-trade transaction. The rest of the complicated trade, which changed several times over the last day, includes fairly inconsequential parts.

The Grizzlies received Jerry Stackhouse from Dallas, a future second-round pick from Toronto plus cash considerations. Most of that cash will be used to buy out Stackhouse, who has $2 million guaranteed on his contract and doesn’t fit into the Grizzlies’ plans.
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Turkoglu ends up in Toronto

So Dallas ends up with Marion, Toronto with Turkoglu, and Jerry Stackhouse ends up.

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There will be many that will disagree with the Ron Artest move to L.A., but you will not find me to be one of them. The Lakers just won the title and that is no time to sit still. Those of you out there that have won a title in anything will understand that statement. Those of you that have not will be mystified.

It works like this. You fight hard, get lucky, work hard, play D, hit some big shots, get hot, come together, get a break or two and the next thing you know, your team owns the NBA Championship trophy. Now comes the hard part. You have convinced yourself that you are great and you may be, but there was also the get lucky, hit big shots, come together, etc. stuff that helped you get there.

Changes will be needed and Ron Artest will be a big change for the Lakers.

Ron Artest will soon help Kobe to seek another NBA title

Still some will disagree.

The Lakers have all the shots they need, Kemo Sabe, and they don’t need Ron Artest taking them out of their offense, shooting shots he that should not, making it possible that more efficient players are unable to do their thing. Yes, Ron Artest shot 40 percent from behind the arc last season. But he also shot 40 percent inside of it, and that’s … awful. That’s just not good. While taking fewer than four free throws a game.

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What is going on with Joe Dumars? He announces he wants a coach by Tuesday and pursues Avery Johnson, but was unable to come to terms with Johnson on a contract. No matter, the coach that brought quick offense to Dallas and seems to know a lot about point guard play will not be the Pistons coach, because he wants too many years and too much money.

So now Joe D is pursuing John Kuester and lo and behold we find out Kuester was a Piston assistant to Larry Brown when they won the NBA title. Why didn’t we know that? We should have.

He earned a lot of respect within the franchise during that stint for two reasons.
One: More than any other assistant, he stood up to Larry Brown. Kuester and Mike Woodson were considered Brown’s two best assistants, but Kuester was more likely to disagree with the head man. This was especially impressive because Kuester is a North Carolina alum, like Brown, and Carolina guys form the tightest fraternity in basketball.

And two: After one season in Detroit, Kuester left to be an assistant for the New Jersey Nets. That was partly because Kuester’s family stayed in Philadelphia when Kuester followed Brown from the 76ers to the Pistons. But it was largely because Kuester knew that in order to be an NBA head coach, he had to work for somebody besides Larry Brown.

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Antonio McDyess to the Spurs

Oh, and one more Piston related morsel. Antonio McDyess is ready to sign with the San Antonio Spurs.

Joe D has gotten rid of Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Allen Iverson, Amir Johnson, and now Antonio McDyess. Can Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince be considered anything but trade bait at this point? It is a Piston garage sale.

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Twitter has taken over. Forget about MySpace, Facebook, I-tunes, or any of that other old fashioned stuff. We all tweet now. Yeah, what are you doing right now?

Charlie Villanueva has used twitter to spill the beans. He is now a Piston. The negotiating is done and Wednesday the contracts will be signed. He will be joining Ben Gordon as one of the new high priced free agents.

Charlie Villenueva tweets and rebounds

Villanueva is already a famous tweeter. This happened while he played with the Chicago Bulls.

Villanueva created a stir last season when he posted a message during halftime of a game with the Bucks on Twitter and got a stern lecture from Bucks coach Scott Skiles, who thought it gave the impression that Villanueva wasn’t focused.

Thanks to the publicity, the list of followers who subscribed to Villanueva’s Twitter feed quadrupled in just over 24 hours, going from about 1,600 subscribers to nearly 7,000. On Monday night, he had nearly 40,000 followers.
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Ahh, the modern world. You can’t beat it.

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Just how many old guys can the Celtics stock up on? Let’s see they have Grandpa Kevin Garnett, age 33 with 14 years in the league. Then there is Grandpa Paul Pierce, age 32 with 11 years in the league. Then there is Grandpa Ray Allen, whom they shopped around this winter, but nobody wanted a 3 point shooter that used a walker, soon to be age 34 with 13 years in the league. (Stats from NBA.com)

Now they reach for the geritol and sign Rasheed ‘Technical waiting to happen’ Wallace, age 35 in September with 14 years in the league.

Sure the Celtics won a title two years ago, because for some unknown reason nobody got injured. Last year was more reality than fantasy as Kevin Garnett was injured.

Unfortunately it is a fact of life for Hoop Stars in the NBA that age limits your jumping ability, your quickness, your hops (ability to jump fast), and leaves you more injury prone. Good Luck Boston on picking up an aging brooding Rasheed Wallace.

How will Rasheed Wallace get along in Boston?

Rasheed will always be remembered affectionately in Detroit for being a great teammate and delivering the 2004 title. Thank You, Rasheed.

And with Rasheed Wallace severing ties with the Pistons on Sunday by giving an oral commitment to sign with Eastern Conference rival Boston, the soul has left the building as well.
Multiple media outlets reported that Wallace, 35, agreed to the mid-level exception for $5.8 million per season, and it’s believed to be for two seasons.
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The word out of Chicago is that Allen Iverson will go to the Bulls in an NBA sign and trade deal with Detroit for shooting guard Ben Gordon. The deal would put high scoring Alan Iverson on the Bulls for probably the end of his career in a pretty good basketball market. This way the Bulls get something for Ben Gordon.

Allen Iverson to the Bulls?

What do the Pistons get out of this deal and didn’t they already sign Ben Gordon? Right now no one can figure out how this helps the Pistons, because they would be seeking salary cap relief. The deal was made in principal, but the free agent market is not officially open for signings until July 8.

The key for the Bulls is if Iverson would come off the bench as a happy camper.

The Bulls also would want to know that Iverson, 34, would be totally committed despite not making the $20 million he’s accustomed to and without playing the primary role he enjoyed for his entire career until he was traded to the Pistons for Chauncey Billups last season. Iverson did not adapt well to diminished minutes with the Pistons, and late in the season vowed to retire before he would come off another team’s bench.

But Iverson apparently is invigorated by the prospect of getting past the Detroit experience. He wrote on his Twitter account Thursday, “For those of you who thought that I was done, think again! … My only preference will be to play for a coach that knows what I bring to the table and that I am going to bring it every night.”
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Ben Gordon would actually get a bigger contract in a sign and trade deal, but his agent did not even talk to the Bulls before agreeing to sign with the Pistons.

This whole deal seems crazy for Detroit and Joe Dumars takes risk, but does not do crazy.
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