Deadline

It wasn't too long ago that the NBA trading deadline was almost as boring as the NFL's annually uneventful deadline. In the last few years though, the NBA deadline has blasted right past the NHL and is quickly approaching baseball's level of deadline interest. On top of that, they've successfully paired their all-star weekend with the deadline, allowing a double dose of NBA excitement. Or, in the case of this season, allowing them to clean up the disaster that was the all-star weekend with some hot new trade stories. I'd like to personally thank the NBA for giving me something to sort of care about this last week without having to talk myself into snowboarding as a sport. Let's take a closer look at all-star weekend and some of the deals we saw leading up to 3PM today, and let's see if I'm getting a little nervous about my pre-season NBA picks.

There's nothing original in saying the slam dunk contest sucked, but I'll say it anyway. Boy did that slam dunk contest suck. Do you think they talked about ending it after the second round of dunks? They had to at least consider it, right? If I were NBA supercommish David Stern, here's what I would have done. Right after the first round of dunks, I would have pulled Dwight Howard off the sideline and offered him $500,000 to save my crappy dunk contest. Then, after the crappy finals, right as they were getting ready to announce the champ, all the lights go out. Cue the superman music and out runs Dwight. He spends five or ten minutes doing all the insanely athletic things no human should be able to do, but that he can do while also smiling and looking like he's not really trying. The crowd leaves totally satisfied, and Dwight gets his money and a nice trophy.

I, David Stern, can either tell the truth and be a genius for saving an event that was dying right in front of us, or, I say we had it planned all along and I'm the diabolical genius who tricked everybody into thinking we were putting on such an awful event and then surprised everyone with a great finish. Either way, the NBA looks great and all anyone talks about the next day is the awesome ending.

As for the rest of all-star Saturday; the shooting stars thing with the WNBA players and the TNT staff is a joke. The 3-point contest is usually something I enjoy, but this year's felt strangely unfulfilling and even a little awkward. The point guard thing is just ridiculous. The HORSE competition continues to be a solid idea, but they're going to need to start Durant-proofing the course, and it also appeared to be happening in a high school gymnasium, which I thought was weird.

The all-star game itself was perfectly adequate. For everyone whining about the lack of defense; boohoo, it's an all-star game, it's supposed to be fun, and defense is tiring. The one thing I always find interesting about games like that is the alpha dog factor. Who jumps out at you as a star among stars? You know who jumped out at me? Carmelo Anthony. And I remember thinking the same thing about the 2008 olympic team. I've never been too high on Carmelo, I've always seen him as a notch below your real NBA stars. I've changed my mind. Carmelo can carry a team through the playoffs. This completely changes my view of the Denver Nuggets. I never considered them a real contender, because you need an alpha dog to get past Kobe and LeBron, and I didn't think Denver had one. Now? I'm convinced Denver has one.

By the way, I also noticed that Chris Kaman was an all-star. It's a tragedy how that plane full of all the other western conference big men went down over the rocky mountains. I hope we find those guys soon.

On to the trades, starting with the Knicks, since I'm from New York and I still get to see all their games. They traded Nate Robinson to the Celtics for Eddie House. I can't complain about this from the Knicks' side. Just by showing up, Eddie doubles the number of Knicks who can shoot. For the Celtics, who I root for, the value is a little less clear. You can be crazy and still be valuable in the NBA, like Gilbert Arenas was. But Nate isn't as good as Gilbert, or Artest, or even Rasheed Wallace from five years ago. To be valuable, I think you need to be at least as good as you are crazy, and I'm not sure Nate's there.

The Knicks also traded Darko Milicic for a guy they're immediately releasing, they literally gave him away for nothing. I have some ice cream in my freezer, and if I was an NBA owner, I could have traded it to the Knicks for Darko. Is Darko the worst draft pick in sports history? Who can give us an official ruling on this?

The main trade for the Knicks was the T-Mac thing. Sports radio in New York has been buzzing about this for weeks, which tells you how awful basketball in New York is right now. The idea of adding a guy who was great six years ago and might get you to 35 wins gets everyone all worked up. The Knicks gave up Jordan Hill (8th pick in last year's draft, which is handy, because he'll never be anything better than the 8th man on a winning team) and some draft picks, in exchange for which they got McGrady and they got someone to take on the ridiculous Jared Jeffries contract. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Along with the usual salary cap related flotsam and jetsam, the Rockets got Kevin Martin and the Kings got Carl Landry. Boring names aside, I like both of those guys for their new respective teams. The ball belongs to Tyreke Evans in Sacramento now, so Martin kind of had to go, but a legit power forward fits in well. The Rockets desperately need a scorer, and Martin fills that role. The rare good trade all around. Also, the Kings got Larry Hughes, which is good because last time I saw the Kings play I was thinking they needed someone to miss ridiculous jump shots.

The Hype King and his Cavs picked up Antawn Jamison. This really doesn't change my opinion about them at all. My favorite part of this trade was Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The Cavs traded big Z to Washington, where he'll take 30 days off and then come back to the Cavs. NBA trades aren't always the most interesting, but the NBA definitely has the goofiest trades. It may be time to re-think the salary cap structure a little.

Sidenote, here's my thing about Lebron. Two things really. First, I never like players who get the hype before they get the wins, at least not until they actually get the wins. More importantly though, it's this: MJ, Kobe, guys like that, they need to win. I'm honestly not sure if MJ would have survived an NBA career without titles. I'm not sure yet if Lebron needs to win, or if he just wants to win.

I think I'm more interested in all the things that didn't happen. The Suns, after weeks of trying to trade him, didn't trade Amare Stoudemire. Um...awkward. Especially since this is the second year in a row that happened. So now Amare has to play the rest of the season on a team that can't possibly win a title and couldn't possibly be less interested in still having him around. Sounds like fun.

Lots of teams just did nothing. I don't mind the Magic doing nothing, I'm not sure they needed to add anyone. I don't mind the Heat doing nothing, they weren't going anywhere this year either way, so why bother. But if I'm a fan of a non-Lakers western conference team, I'm a little punchy right now. Kobe won't still be limping around come playoff time. In fact, he'll be even more well rested for destroying you. The Jazz even gave away one of their better players, Ronnie Brewer, for nothing. Is there something in the NBA rulebook that would allow western conference teams to just surrender to L.A. instead of playing them? Probably not. Too bad, because I think the Jazz are ready and that would be pretty fun to watch.

I picked the Magic to win the east, and the title. I'm still fine with that, at least the east part. I don't like the Cavs, the Heat didn't get any better, the Hawks are still the Hawks and I just don't see the Celtics making it through the playoffs. The team I picked to lose to the Magic, the Spurs, has me pretty nervous. Even if the Lakers stumble, my new found belief in Carmelo Anthony makes the Nuggets very scary. Plus, to be honest, I hate rooting for the Spurs. Something about them has always really annoyed me. I feel the same way about Tim Duncan as I used to feel about John Stockton. I respect his game and he seems like a really nice guy, but sometimes I just wish one of the NBA's crazy people would tackle him on the court for no reason.

That's pretty much it. Truth is, I was 10 times more interested in pitchers and catchers reporting to Yankee camp than I was in anything that happened in the NBA. I'm trying to get back into basketball this year, but once April comes and baseball really starts, I can't promise anything.