FanHouse Darko Milicic

Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal emptied his notebook on the paper's Grizzlies blog. The most incredible (if not uncredible) rumor had Clippers owner Donald Sterling nixing a trade which would have sent troubled/troubling Zach Randolph to Memphis for Darko Milicic and Greg Buckner. Darko instead went to the Knicks for Quentin Richardson and cash. Z-Bo remains directly in Blake Griffin's path and peripheral vision.

I have absolutely no clue why Sterling would nix a deal like this. The Clippers had nearly a full season to realize Randolph isn't worth it. He scores frequently but inefficiently, which is spyspeak for "he takes way too many shots." He's a great rebounder ... but so are Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman and Griffin. Randolph will make more than $33 million over the next two seasons, while Darko (a far better defender than Z-Bo) has a $7.5-million contract which expires after 2009-10 and Buckner's contract can be bought out for about $2 million.

There was a lot of activity in the NBA this week, and we're not just talking about the draft. Some of the NBA's big names and better teams were in on it.

Here's a quick look at the trades that went down and what they mean:

The Deal: Phoenix sends Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland for Sasha Pavlovic, Ben Wallace, a second-round pick in 2010 and cash.

The Thinking: The Cavaliers get an aging O'Neal, with the hope that he can have a productive year playing alongside LeBron James. The only way this trade is a success is if the Cavaliers are the 2009-10 NBA champions. For the Suns, trading O'Neal means that they are beyond tinkering and are leaning toward turning over the personnel of a team that missed the playoffs last season.

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A potential trade sending Darko Milicic to New York in exchange for Quentin Richardson has been rumored for a couple days now. Adam Silver announced it has been consummated. The Darko Knicks jersey immediately becomes the greatest shirt in the history of synthetic garmentry.

One big takeaway from this deal is that Memphis will apparently take back $2 million in extra salary, unless New York is forking over some dough not yet reported. Darko's flight opens up the frontcourt for Hasheem Thabeet, who (I assume) will turn Marc Gasol into a power forward. We'll see how that works out -- Gasol isn't exactly fleet, and 7-foot-3 centers typically lack lane agility. Luckily, Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo are fantastic defenders on the perimeter. Oh, wait ...

Blake Griffin went first, of course. There was no drama about that -- Clippers VP Andy Roeser essentially let the cat out of the bag with his unbridled praise for Griffin minutes after winning the NBA lottery. The real question mystery started at No. 2, and the Grizzlies answered that question by going with Hasheem Thabeet from Connecticut.

Thabeet is a bit of a project offensively, but that's to be expected -- unlikely most prospects who practically grow up in a gym, Thabeet has only been playing the sport for seven years. Will he pan out? Or will he follow the path of another failed No. 2 pick who happens to be Thabeet's new teammate, Darko Milicic, who never found stardom before settling into the life of a role player?

Time will tell, just like time will tell if Thabeet and Darko will ever share a locker room -- with Marc Gasol already anchoring Memphis' frontcourt, Milicic is rumored to be on the block. Stay tuned. (Update: That didn't take long -- Darko was traded to the Knicks for Quentin Richardson and cash.)

So, you may or may not have seen the feature we did for the NFL Draft in which we took every single team and decided who the worst draft pick in the history of that franchise was. And it was so awesome and fun to do (and totally not time consuming at all) that I decided to roll it out for the NBA as well.

So, for every NBA team, we give you a horrible draft pick -- either a straight bust, or player picked ahead of another player who was far better, etc. -- and then a snarky reason as to why said pick was the worst in franchise history. Your suggestions in the comments, please. And happy draft day!

FanHouse fixes a decade of draft-day blunders in Revisiting the NBA Draft.

Well we are here, perhaps the deepest and most pivotal draft in recent NBA memory, filled with so many impact players at the top and some scattered in the middle. This will always be known as the LeBron draft, but its reputation was further enhanced by the stellar careers of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony.

This draft was loaded, even with second-round gems such as Luke Walton, Steve Blake, Kyle Korver, Mo Williams, James Jones and Willie Green. Even the international prospect proved worthy such as Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa and Mickael Pietrus.

On Tuesday night, fortune finally smiled on the Memphis Grizzlies. After constantly finding themselves on the wrong end of an errant heel from Lady Luck's rumba, they got their turned to dance with her and ended up with the No. 2 overall pick. Finally fortune smiles on the downtrodden. Or did it?

Mike Dunleavy doesn't appear to be bluffing regarding the Clippers "obviously" drafting Blake Griffin. Which means highly touted Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio would fall to Memphis. Their other option is UConn big man Hasheem Thabeet. On the surface, this looks like a win-win situation for the Grizzlies. But if we dig deeper, it may turn out to not be so great after all. Par for the course for the Memphis Grizzlies.

There was some questionable, low quality video floating around the other day of Darko Milicic ripping his jersey open in frustration during the Grizzlies' game against the Rockets. Thankfully, the team itself has provided us a better look at the clothing carnage, and has posted it at NBA.com for all to see. Or, you can just watch it right here.


I don't know how many other teams in the league would be willing to add video of something like this to their website, but there honestly isn't much else worth talking about in Memphis these days, so why not? The team is auctioning off the now famous jersey, with the proceeds going towards signing LeBron in 2010 the Memphis Grizzlies House at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

[via BDL, TrueHoop, and many other fine, fine NBA-themed websites.]

Is this Zach Randolph for Darko Milicic and Marko Jaric deal going to happen, or is it bouncing around the echo chamber simply because there's nothing else to talk about during the dog days of the offseason? Donnie Walsh confirmed talks have taken place a couple of days ago but refused to say much beyond that. If the players are to believed, though, it's just a matter of time before this thing goes down.

According to the New York Post, "Darko Milicic was quoted in a Serbian newspaper as saying he believes it's '99 percent' sure he'll become a Knick by the end of the week." Randolph is convinced as well; Newsday says he's "been telling friends he expects to wind up in Memphis before training camp opens Sept. 30."

As for Jaric, well, he's actually been in New York all summer and has been working out with Nate Robinson and David Lee. That's probably a lucky coincidence more than anything else -- the reason he's in the Big Apple is to be with his fiancee, supermodel Adrian Lima -- but still, if Robinson and Lee like what they see, it's probably safe to assume they're sharing it with Walsh. This is hardly a done deal, but where there's smoke, there's fire.

Is Zach Randolph suddenly a wanted man? After the Cavs reportedly showed interest in the big man last week, Ronald Tillery of the Commercial Appeal (via Knicks Fix) reports the Grizzlies have been talking about acquiring the pudgy power forward, as well.

Who would Memphis give up? Tillery says that Darko Milicic is available, and considering Darko's contract ($7 million this year, $7.5 million next) expires just in time for the summer of 2010, you have to figure the Knicks would be interested.

Even though Darko won't even make half as much as Randolph ($14.66 million) this year, an even one-for-one trade is actually be possible given how much room Memphis has under the salary cap. Given how frugal the Grizzlies tend to operate, though, you have to imagine they'd insist on New York taking at least one other bad contract -- Marko Jaric ( $6.6 million), perhaps?

Randolph is certainly a solid low-post scoring presence, but he also has an outsized personality that might not be the best influence in a young locker room. (And with Antoine Walker already on the roster, the role of "overpaid and perpetually grumpy veteran" is already filled.)

I could see Randolph falling into line on a veteran squad with an established pecking order where his production could put a contending team over the top (Cleveland, anyone?), but putting him on yet another losing team seems like a recipe for disaster.