The moves so far: West
When I was 19 I turned down the an evening with a pretty girl (with a car) in order to stay up overnight, on the internet and by myself, through the July 31-to-August 1 crossover in 1999, writing about all the NBA contract agreements piling up on Yahoo's AP wire for OnHoops dot com. The 1999 free agency season was delayed by the previous year's owners' lockout, but those of us who stayed up alone and by themselves were the first to note Philadelphia re-signing George Lynch and Eric Snow, or Jamie Feick getting six years guaranteed from the Nets, or Seattle renouncing Detlef Schrempf's free agency rights.
The next afternoon was even better: Steve Smith and Ed Gray to Portland for Jim Jackson and Isaiah Rider – some thought it was Rider for Lorenzen Wright, some guessed Wright could be a Bull or Jermaine O'Neal might be a Bull, how would Jermaine O'Neal's career have run had Lorenzen Wright been added to the Blazers in 2000 instead of Dale Davis and Shawn Kemp? The girl didn't care about any of this, then or now.
The third day of the offseason was up at work at 7 AM doing "maintenance" for a Big Ten student housing, done at 3 PM, learned about Ron Mercer's move to Denver from Yahoo at 3:30, wrote about it for OnHoops, still got to my second shift bagging groceries at Kroger on time, employee of the month that summer. That girl worked in the same shopping complex, telemarketing for nearly twice my hourly rate.
The 2000 free agency turn was also fun, over a dozen middle-class (!!) free agent signings at midnight launch and listen, later on I married the pretty telemarketing girl, don't worry, let's get it out of the way so we can return to basketball, she still has a Subaru and doesn't bother people on the phone for money anymore, and also the Eddie Jones-to-Miami sign-and-trade for Anthony Mason. A day later, resolution on Tim Duncan's dalliance with Orlando. A day after this, Grant Hill and T-Mac turned Magic. We blogged about it at NBAtalk dot com, they didn't call it "blogging" back then.
We don't set up at midnight anymore. Rather, end of business. Eastern.
Tampering is whatever, salary cap avoidance might be legal if you're really, really rich and plant a documented number of trees. It's all stupid and fun, lets talk about the dozens of transactions that took place this week during the NBA's trade moratorium.
PORTLAND
Traded Jerami Grant and Kris Murray for Ja Morant, making four capable (Ja, Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday, Scoot Henderson) point guards on the Trail Blazers' first call.
The new Blazers owner comes from an NHL background, and all I can think about is playing NES Hockey and choosing all the skinny guys.
