First of all, because why not:
ALTO ⛔️ No, tu @LylLuke8 no. @Victor_Claver pic.twitter.com/EstAizKew4
— Ricky Rubio (@rickyrubio9) February 16, 2015
It really annoys Russian Bee that Ricky is hanging with Vic Claver for some reason.
The Knicks waived Amare Stoudemire, and he plans to sign with the Mavericks as soon as he clears waivers. That should be on Wednesday, so he could be available when the Mavs get back to action on Thursday. Stoudemire is a shell of his former self, but still can score reasonably well on cuts and pick and roll situations.
Other names that are being bandied about include Goran Dragic, who the Suns will have to decide on whether to move him now or allow him to become a free agent this summer and Doug David West (There's a mistake I've made more than once), but it sounds like the Pacers would prefer to keep him. Denver has been mentioned as a team that might be active, with several players that other teams might be interested in.
The Boogie Cousins chatter has started, but I can't imagine they would move him until at least this summer.
I actually think it will be a relatively quiet deadline, as several teams have made trades already. This includes the Wolves, who shuffled the deck a bit last week. I'm really not expecting anything further from them.
The more I think about that Payne trade, the less i like it. Payne failed not only to crack the rotation in Atlanta, his failure to dominate the D-League is a bad sign for someone who is truly NBA caliber. All contortions aside, the Hawks would not have made this deal if they saw something in Payne. It's clear they were happy to get a reset on that draft pick. Certainly, guys lose value once they are converted from pick to actual player, and eight months with no production later, Payne should not have cost full price like this.
In the meantime, the Wolves paid out a future first rounder for a guy who seems unlikely to provide more value over the next three years than say, Jeff Adrien, or any number of other free agents that would not have cost a draft pick.
The further problem here is that it really ties up assets for the Wolves, who now have very little flexibility to include a pick in a larger trade until the required pick is conveyed to Atlanta. Overall just a poor value play in my view.
Meanwhile, a decision will have to be made about Gary Neal. He pretty clearly wants a buyout so he can sign elsewhere at his choosing, and it might make sense for the Wolves to go ahead and do that since Neal clearly isn't part of the future. On the other hand, the Wolves need bodies and at some point you can't let yourself get bullied. We'll see.
Lorenzo Brown's 2nd 10 day contract expired, so the Wolves have a decision to make, though they don't need to act right away with no game until Friday. My assumption is they will wait until the trade deadline in case they need the roster flexibility if something comes up, but likely Brown will be signed for the remainder of the year, perhaps with a non-guaranteed contract for next season as well.
Today in History
1621: Miles Standish is elected 1st Commander of Plymouth Colony
1776: First volume of Gibbons' Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire is published
1801: Thomas Jefferson chosen president over Aaron Burr by Congress after electoral college deadlock
1865: Columbia, SC burns
1904: Puccini's Madame Butterfly premieres in Milan
1913: Famous New York Armory art show features Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp
1933: Prohibition ends with passage of Blaine Act
1949: Chaim Weitzman elected first president of Israel
1972: Nixon embarks on his famous trip to China
Today's musical birthday is Green Day founder and front man Billie Joe Armstrong, born in 1972.
Have a Tuesday.