Big and Ugly

"But wait, I hear big footsteps
Thud, thumbing out of the past
Sure enough, that big dumb guy is here at last
That big dumb guy is here at last"
--Big Dumb Guy, Carly Simon

There's a lot about the NBA off-season that I love. With nothing officially allowed to happen until July 12, there's still been a crazy amount of activity, starting with draft day, and most of it makes sense--max deals for D-Wade and 'Melo, a pending max deal for LeBron, extension for Dirk, big money for Jason Terry (he earned it with a great post-season), new destinations for Radman, Tim Thomas and others, and trades involving T.J. Ford, Charlie Villanueva, Shane Battier, Shane Battier's wrinkled dome, and various draft picks. However, there are still a few moves that leave me scratching my head. So scratch along with me:
- The Bulls sign Ben Wallace to a four-year, $60-million deal. On the surface, this would seem to be an amazing coup for the Bulls. It was a foregone conclusion that Big Ben would re-sign with Detroit, allowing the league's most consistent starting five to remain intact for another couple years, but alas poor Dumars, 'twas not to be. Here's why the deal isn't actually such a great thing. Wallace will be 32 when the '06-'07 season starts, his rebounding averages have decreased in each of the last four seasons (15.4 down to 11.3), his blocked shots have declined in each of the last five seasons (3.48 to 2.21), and his scoring, never wonderful to begin with, fell to 7.3 last season (after 9.5 and 9.7 the previous two years). He still can't shoot free throws (career .418--for comparison, Shaq's career mark is .528) and even though he was the NBA's defensive player of the year this year, the consensus is that the award was based much more on reputation than actual execution. Meanwhile, the Bulls led the league in field goal percentage defense and were right in the middle of the pack offensively. They certainly don't get any better at putting the ball in the hoop with this deal (and isn't that the ultimate goal?), and they might be better on D for a year or two, but with Miami, Cleveland and New Jersey still above them in the Eastern Conference pecking order, will it be worth it? Pretty soon, Ben's going to be 34-35-36, getting paid $15 million to average 5 points and 10 rebounds a game, and to miss free throws down the stretch. The Bulls were already unbearable to watch (they've been exactly that since June of 1998), and this just makes it worse. This hurts Detroit a great deal more than it helps Chicago, I'm afraid, and I still have no desire to watch either team play.
- Teams were battling to sign Joel Pryzbilla. Seriously, am I missing something here? He's played in the league six years and has yet to average double figures in points. In fact, his career high was 6.4 per game, back in '04-'05. He doesn't really rebound that well for a seven-footer either (5.6 per game for his career, 7.0 last season), and though he's a pretty good shot-blocker (2.32 per game last season, 7th in the league), he's another terrible free throw shooter (.492 career).
- Similar battles are underway for Nazr Mohammed, Jackie Butler (?) and Darius Songaila. I'm not an NBA GM, and for good reason, but just having a guy who's tall doesn't make your team better--just ask Isiah how that Jerome James deal is working out for him...