Ray Felton’s objective should be obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to this summer of free agency: Sometime around January/February, Ray wants to be in the All-Star conversation, setting himself up lovely for a fatter contract in 2010, and as icing on the cake, making everyone wonder just why the hell it took so long for somebody to get him signed in the first place. Felton agreed to the Bobcats’ one-year qualifying offer yesterday ($5.5 million), setting Charlotte up for another run at getting that elusive first-ever playoff berth with Felton and D.J. Augustin at the point, Raja Bell/Gerald Henderson at the two, Gerald Wallace at the three, Boris Diaw at the four, Tyson Chandler in the middle and Alexis Ajinca getting cramps from sitting down for extended periods of time. Read More »

With the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony scheduled for this Friday, we wanted to give the true diehard fans of the Dime Magazine community an opportunity to write about the 2009 class. First up, Dime reader and Utah Jazz fan Amar (who maintains his own Utah Jazz blog) shares his thoughts on Jerry Sloan:

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What do you say about a man who has been involved with the NBA (as a player or coach) during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama Administrations that has not already been said before? Read More »

Knowing that teams are banking on spending bank next summer, there are certain players that help make everything fall into place, and those players are guys with expiring contracts. Teams that want cap space trade for them, and teams that have them know that they can trade them for pieces to fill out their roster. While this list could include every 2010 free agent, I’m sticking with guys that are more valuable as contracts than on the court. Realizing this, here are the top 15 expiring contracts this season: Read More »

Look at it this way: If the Rockets offered Ron Artest to the Lakers for Trevor Ariza straight-up and the money was even, wouldn’t L.A. jump on that in half-a-second? Of course. That’s basically what happened yesterday, when Artest agreed to a three-year, $18M deal with L.A., and an allegedly pissed-off Ariza turned right around and reached a deal with the Rockets. (Ariza was already believed to be upset that the Lakers hadn’t made him more of a priority in the beginning stages of free agency, so he might have left anyway.) The younger Ariza will get an estimated $33 million over five years … Read More »

Just when it looked like Jerry Sloan was at the end of his rope and about to suit up John Stockton for Game 4 — try to tell us Stock didn’t look like he could get 10 points, six dimes and a steal right now — the Jazz showed some heart and made this Utah/L.A. series interesting, knocking off the Lakers last night thanks to their Big Two … How much of a problem was Carlos Boozer? Deron Williams said it all in the post-game interview with Pimpin’ Craig: “He’s a beast, man.” Read More »