things kevin hates

The rumor mill has been going full blast lately, with pundits around the country suggesting that Chris Paul will soon be headed out of New Orleans. And you know what? I don’t blame him. A few seasons ago this team seemed to have a lot of promise: a 56-win season in 2007-2008, followed by a Game 7 conference semifinal loss to the Spurs. The core of the team was CP3, West, and Chandler. All of them were young and seemed to have tons of upside: Chandler a dominant shot-blocker and alley-oop man; West a power forward with great range on his jump shot and the ability to score inside, and CP3 the best point guard in the game, a virtual lock for 20 points and 10 assists every night. And the supporting cast was solid: Peja Stojakovic a three-point assassin, Jannero Pargo a solid backup 1 who could also pair with Paul in the backcourt, Julian Wright a youngster with incredible (albeit unpolished) athleticism. Things were looking up. I don’t think anyone expected that the next two seasons would be completely downhill from there.

Now, some of the problems have been basketball-related. Peja’s huge contract started to surpass his productivity as age took its toll. A number of young players didn’t pan out, especially Hilton Armstrong and Julian Wright. This stuff happens. But what really sucked is seeing George Shinn be a total cheapskate, with salary dumping becoming the number one priority. In December 2008 they tried and failed to dump Tyson Chandler’s contract. After the 2008-09 season they did in fact deal Chandler, picking up Emeka Okafor, who was making slightly less but had a longer contract. In basketball terms it seemed like a reasonable move: a more polished offensive player instead of Chandler’s raw athleticism. Unfortunately, the trade didn’t seem to work out for either side: Chandler played in just 51 games for Charlotte and Okafor’s production dropped to 10 points and 9 boards a game—hardly dreadful, but not much for someone making $10.5 million a year.

Then the Hornets dumped Rasual Butler—one of the bright spots in the 08-09 season—for a 2016 second-round draft pick. What the fuck is that shit? I realize we had just gotten some young guards in the draft (Thornton and Collison), but this was a blatant salary dump, pure and simple. They did almost nothing to improve the roster. They tried to bolster their backup frontcourt—the biggest shortcoming in the 2008 playoffs—by picking up Darius Songaila and Ike Diogu. Songaila proved a useful addition, but Diogu missed the whole season with injuries. They dumped Hilton Armstrong—not that I blame them—for another 2016 draft pick. Then they dealt Bobby Brown for yet another draft pick. The number one concern was obviously with avoiding the luxury tax, with little regard for improving the basketball team.

Now, at this point you may be confused if you don’t know about the byzantine workings of the NBA’s salary cap. It’s complicated. If you’re an NFL fan, things are simple (well, they were simple until this year became an uncapped year due to the failure of the owners and players to agree to an extension of the collective bargaining agreement…but that’s beside the point). The NFL has a hard cap. There’s no going over. There’s also a floor to keep teams from sitting on their money (the floor was roughly 85-90% of the cap). So there’s really not a lot of chances to separate the cheap NFL owners from the Dan Snyders and Jerry Joneses.

In the NBA, however, things are a lot different. They wanted to avoid a situation where a team might have to give up a superstar simply because they have no cap space left. Hence the so-called “Bird exception.” It lets a team go over the salary cap to retain one of their own free agents. (It also lets a team sign a player who is traded to them, which is one of the reasons why sign-and-trades are so popular.) There are also a number of exceptions to the NBA’s salary cap; you can read about them (and everything else you could possibly want to know about the NBA salary cap) at Larry Coon’s mind-blowingly awesome NBA Salary Cap FAQ.

The point is that a sufficiently motivated team has a lot of wiggle room to spend a lot of money. But if they do that, they are punished with a dollar-for-dollar tax for the money they spend over the luxury tax threshold (which is higher than the salary cap itself). Now, things certainly aren’t as bad as they are in Major League Baseball, where the Yankees can spend more than $200 million while the Pirates and Padres spend less than $40 million. But there are clearly haves and have-nots. Actually, fuck that. We’re talking about billionaires, so we’re not taling about haves and have-nots, we’re talking about “people who go all-out to win” and “notorious fucking cheapskates who would rather dump salary than try to build a winner.” George Shinn is in the latter category.

And can I blame CP3 for not wanting to play for this guy? Nope. He was probably upset to see Byron Scott go, but that’s a defensible basketball move after the team’s disappointing first round trouncing in the 2009 playoffs. He was probably upset to see Tyson Chandler go; the two seemed to get along well and their alley-oops—the so-called Crescent City Connection—were always highlight reel material. But again, another defensible basketball move.

What isn’t defensible is not giving a shit. There were tons of big-name free agents on the market this offseason, but the Hornets made no efforts whatsoever at getting any good players. As I’ve said already, I realize the Hornets weren’t going to nab LeBron, but they didn’t do anything. (Okay, they signed Luther Head. Who the fuck is Luther Head? A 2 guard with a career average of 8.5 points per game. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.)

Shit like this is what makes me glad I’m a NFL fan, where you have to be mentally ill (Al Davis) or totally incompetent (Matt Millen) to run a franchise into the ground. You can’t do it by being cheap. (Also, I pray that the NFL owners and players get their shit together and sign a CBA to head off any strike or lockout in 2011. Seriously, you should be praying too about this. They better not fuck this up.)

To be perfectly honest, if CP3 leaves, I really don’t give a shit what happens to the Hornets. I can’t see them on TV, I usually get slammed by ticketmaster fees if I want to see their games, and now one of the most thrilling athletes of his generation is set to pack his bags because his owner can’t be bothered to put together a winning team. Fuck it. If CP3 is gone, I may very well buy a jersey of him on his new team and get NBA League Pass so that I can watch him. But will I call myself a Hornets fan anymore? I doubt it. Maybe if Gary Chouest takes over the team and spends some money I’ll change my mind. But if he wants to spend money, wouldn’t he have worked out the deal by now? I’m growing more and more concerned. Oh well.