NBA Stupidity, Parts IV and V

And you thought that the story surrounding the stalled Nets-Mavs deal that would send Jason Kidd to Dallas already had enough silliness to this.

Well, it gets better. (Or worse, depending upon your vantage point).

Why? Because now the Mavs might have to sign the retired Keith Van Horn and trade him to the Nets in order to make the deal work. Why does that make any sense? Probably because of the arcane NBA salary-cap and trading rules that fly in the face of common sense and make David Stern's entertainment empire resemble the U.S. House of Representatives Governmental Affairs' Committee on a good day.

Atop that, you had Jerry Stackhouse, reportedly part of the deal, telling people that the trade was okay with him because the way he figured it, he'd get waived by the Nets and then wait out the mandatory thirty-day waiting period and rejoin Dallas in time for a good playoff run. Say what? Yes, Stackhouse said it, although the Nets deny that they cut a side deal with Dallas in which they assured the Mavs that they'd cut Stackhouse, thereby paving the way for his return to the Mavs. Still, the whole thing is a bad circus.

Yikes! I write this stuff because I used to love the NBA, the teamwork, the athleticism, the passing, the pureness of the game. Today, it's all about money -- for the owners and the players -- and the quality of the product gets lost in the translation. Case in point -- the Philadelphia 76ers at this moment. When they had Allen Iverson, they drew, but they weren't more than a .500 team (except for the year they went to the NBA Finals) because AI cared only about himself. Now they have a team that's won 5 straight, involves everyone on the offense and is playing good team ball, and they're not drawing. Go figure.

There's no glitz in true beautiful basketball. There's bling in basketball that's played for the value of a Top-10 Highlight on ESPN's Sports Center.

I challenge the Lords of Basketball to straighten out this madness and forever prevent the type of goofiness that surrounds this proposed trade.