The league Bill Simmons famously called the “No Balls Association” because of its teams’ reluctance to make bold trades has been fairly popping lately, with seemingly few blocks left to bust after Pau Gasol-to-the-Lakers, Shaquille O’Neal-to-the-Suns, and now, it seems, Jason Kidd-to-the-Mavs.

Really, other than Harry Reid’s ongoing disastrous reign as Senate Majority Leader, can you think of a better example of panic button shot-calling than today’s NBA execs? Shaquille O’Neal (Emeritus) is a decent offensive player who can’t guard anybody, and the same holds for today’s Jason Kidd. Meanwhile, the players for whom they were traded (Shawn Marion, Devin Harris) were among the best defenders at their positions. Do O’Neal and Kidd come with time machines? At this point, teams are trading merely for reputations.

Sure, this Laker lineup looks like a Dynasty:

Kobe Bryant (offensive virtuoso, lockdown defender)
Pau Gasol (high & low post master, rebounder)
Lamar Odom (jack of all trades & 6′11″)
Andrew Bynum (along with Dwight Howard, the best young center in the game)
Jordan Farmar (highly underrated PG–quick, good defender, accurate 3 pt shooter)
Ronny Turiaf (Bo Outlaw with braids)
Trevor Ariza (defends like a young Michael Cooper; dunks like a young Vince Carter)
Sasha Vujacic (big guard, shoots threes, can handle point)
Vlad Radmanovic (dresses well, seven feet tall?)

But it’s looking even more dynastic now that teams with relatively young cores (such as Dallas, with Harris, Nowitzki, and Howard) are throwing it all away for the dudes whose posters populated the childhood bedroom walls of today’s better players. Perhaps Portland, New Orleans, or Utah (or, in fantasy-land, the young Supes) can piece together enough of a squad to keep this team from winning three or four titles before it’s done–and of course there are tons of variables that could derail the Lakers–but right now, it looks like the Lake Show for a long time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 4:09 am and is filed under Dumb Ideas, Roundball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.