Bad Signings

Kelly Dwyer of SI has the worst signings of the old CBA. It's a fun look back on the past signings that made you go "whaa? Derek Fisher just signed for how long and for how much with the Warriors?"

He didn't mention Raef LaFrentz and I wrote him an email about it (say what you will about SI.com vs ESPN.com, but on SI they let you contact the writers pretty easily. I disagreed with a Jason Stark column the other day and tried to send him an email, but I couldn't find where. Only the Sports Guy seems to have an easy contact form).

My email went something like this:

Question
How can a 'worst signings' list be made without
mention of Raef Lafrentz? The Webber and Hill deals
(and even the Finley and Houston deals) we necessary
for the teams to not lose them (or get them).  They
knew they were going to have to overpay to keep
Webber, Houston and Finley (and to sign Hill).  But
Lafrentz?  Talk about a deal no one thought was good
at the time.. sheesh.

Also, I think the recent moves by the Jazz concerning
Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur should recieve honorable
mention.  Yikes.

He took the time to email me back (which I always appreciate):

hi Ben,

LaFrentz was a late cut.  I get enough emails from
people telling me I rip off the Sports Guy, so I tried
to stay away from including Raef and Blount.  Some
would call that a breach of journalistic ethics, but
I'd remind them that I write about basketball for a
living, and then ask them to get off the high horse.
Either way, LaFrentz was a nasty deal, and I had a
paragraph ready, but it sounded a lot like what I
wrote about Finley, so I cut it.  Thanks for reading,
cheers,

KD

I think he makes a good point there, you could really write an entire column of bad money moves that Mark Cuban has made, so I understand the cut.

As for the Sports Guy reference, I think anytime someone will write a sports column (esp about basketball and the NBA) which has jokes or references to pop culture, for better or worse I think they will be compared to Simmons. I don't think he blazed the trail or anything with that format, I just think he was the first to really succeed and become popular. When he was tellin people to get off the high horse, I hope he didn't mean myself, I really enjoyed the column and thought he did a good job, I was just perplexed that there could be a 'bad moves of the NBA column' and the name Raef LaFrentz wasn't brought up.