July 1, 2010: Welcome to Earth

Now I know I have not done a single one of my 32 for 32 posts yet. It’s bad. There’s no excuse for it, but I’ve been busy with work...and I was in Australia... And plus I’m not excited about football right now. At all. So deal with it.

This post is about summertime. We’re hitting that time of the year, at least in Portland, where we get glimpses of good weather. Maybe it’s a few 60 degree days in a row, maybe it’s a lone 70 degree-er. Regardless, one of the common phrases around these parts is “Man, I can’t wait for summer to get here.” Well, you can count me as a member of that bandwagon. Hot weather, barbeques, swimming, lemonade, beaches, camping, LeBron James…?

The upcoming NBA offseason has been covered (just a bit), but I want to throw my two cents in. There was Gene Wojciechowski who mulled over the idea of LeBron, Bosh, and Wade settin’ up shop together . There’s every Knick fan who is praying for LeBron to New York. There’s Rick Reilly who thinks…about…nothing important. Anyway, it’s my turn:

What I think will happen:

Dwyane Wade to the Miami Heat. He’s staying. Miami wants him back. He doesn’t ACTUALLY want to leave. Sometimes he hints at the possibility of leaving if he doesn’t get help, but he’ll stay. The Heat will bring in another star to help him. Someone like…

Amare Stoudemire to the Miami Heat. There were some whispers about Amare to the Heat at the deadline, but it didn’t happen. This summer could be another story. For such a dominant post player, Amare has never seemed to want to be “the man.” Well Miami already has “the man,” so he can just quietly dunk his way through South Beach.

LeBron James to the…Cleveland Cavaliers. The one is getting weaker for me. A few weeks ago, I would’ve definitely said the Cavs, but now I’m not so sure. He was at Madison Square Garden for the Jay-Z concert on Tuesday , luckily made possible by the fact the Cavs were off at New Jersey. Would’ve been easier if he were just a Knick, right? Somehow, I still see him staying. The Cavs have a solid team (I’m still not a huge fan of their pieces), he’s at home, etc…

Chris Bosh to the New York Knicks. Bosh is done in Toronto. He wants to be relevant. New York is certainly somewhere to be relevant. They’ll max him out and he’ll go, as long as he talks to some of his free agent friends and gets somebody else to come with him so that they can win some games here and there.

Joe Johnson to the New York Knicks. Hard to believe it, but there’d be some Knick fans that would call the 2010 offseason a disappointment if the Knicks “only” ended up with Bosh and Johnson. Johnson and Bosh would be a very solid duo and could make some noise with some decent Knick pieces around them.

Carlos Boozer to the Chicago Bulls. Utah has a lot of money tied up in Paul Millsap already, so paying another power forward isn’t a great option. Boozer likes the Bulls and they’ve got some money. If they can’t get another top tier free agent, I don't think they'd mind settling for Boozer.

What I want to happen:

LeBron James to the New Jersey Nets. Let’s say the Nets win the lottery. They take John Wall. That’s two really nice pieces in Wall and Brook Lopez (plus whoever they get when they trade Devin Harris). They add LeBron to that, who gets to kick it with Hova all da time and (eventually) play in Brooklyn? Too easy, mate! I love the Nets for LeBron.

Chris Bosh to the Portland Trailblazers. Nearly impossibly unlikely. It would have to be a sign and trade since the Blazers won’t have cap room, meaning they’ll really have to woo Bosh and then work it out with the Raptors. Toronto would be interested, especially with the fear of Bosh just walking and getting nothing in return. A nice package of LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Fernandez may be pretty enticing to them. Aldridge is talented but overpaid while Fernandez is a good value and an exciting fan favorite. They could do worse. Would Bosh be interested? Eh. But that’s why this is under “what I want to happen.”

"Uhh, yeah... LaMarcus? I'm just gonna scoot over here so your, um, "soft" doesn't rub off on me. We cool, right? Oh, and Greg? Well, you know."

Amare and Wade to the Heat. This is where what I think will happen and what I want to happen align nicely. What a fun duo this would be to watch. Bienvenido a Miami!

What about Joe Johnson? No real preference, as long as he's still doing things like this. All in all, I'm excited for new faces to be in new places. And for John Wall. Get some baby.

Finally, to leave you with this. You know I love me some NBA on TNT. Well with the Oscars coming up, they wanted to make sure Chuck got some recognition for his leading roles. Who wins?

Poison Pill 2.0

At the risk of flooding the fegos with yet another Lost reference (after Dream's Lost sexplosion this will be a mere blip on the Last Naked Warrior's gaydar) I'm proud to release Poison Pill v1.5.3

It's a stir-fry concept that we can all try

Naturally, the Poison Pill has a progenitor. And no, it's not the naked warrior despite his radical claims that he is the progenitor of all mankind.

The poison pill concept was the brainchild of desperate times and desperate measures. As was well catalogued in The Many Fachays of Brad Childress, the 2006 Vikings were a team in need of change. While the obvious change was from Tice to Childress, the ownership takeover of Zygi Wilf from Red McCombs forced people to realize in the Minnesota organization that there was both a need to change and pressure to change fast. So the alchemists in Minneapolis decided to cook up a poison pill to prey on the unsuspecting.

And who more unsuspecting than the shell-shocked, referee exploited, superbowl losing OPI victims: The Seattle Seahawks. Lest we forget, while Tim Ruskell was the nominal GM at the time, a certain walrus was at the helm of most major personnel decisions for the Hawks.

At least you won with the Packers!

Too proud to accept that his team was aging, Holmgren would take an "ain't broke don't fix it" approach to his team in the 2006 offseason. After franchising a 31 year old Walter Jones, the Seahawks placed a transition tag on emerging stud guard Steve Hutchinson.

WHOOPSIE!!!!

The transition tag is just another wrinkle in the technicality-rich NFL free agency rulebook. Basically it allows for the right to match any offer if the player receives a contract offer from another team. It also simultaneously guarantees the player is among the top 10 paid at his position. Essentially it is another franchise tag with no compensation associated. The final wrinkle is that if the player under the transition tag signs a contract, the team may not use the transition tag until that player's contract is finished or terminated.

But those tricksy Vikings hobitsssissss...

The Vikings pounced on a chance to bolster their offensive line which would help support Chicken Taylor and their new run-centered gameplan. They signed Steve Hutchinson to a 7 year 49 million dollar contract with 16 mil guaranteed money. Included in the deal was some fancy language -- the poison pill of the contract. It stipulated that if Hutchinson wasn't the highest paid offensive lineman on the team, the entirety of the contract would be guaranteed. Because Walter Jones was their franchise player, the Seahawks would be unable to match the offer sheet (which actually was an option due to the transition tag) without activating the poison pill and thus destroying their salary cap for the next 7 years.

In effect, the lowly Vikings had just made the Seahawks --who were coming of an NFL rushing title by Steve Hutchinson, Walter Jones and Pork Chop Womack as well as a superbowl appearance-- their muppet bitch.

That was poison pill version 1.0. Version 1.1 would soon follow with a retaliatory poison pill against the Vikings. In a not so subtle contract offer of 49 million over seven years, the Seahawks signed then Vikings restricted free agent WR Nate Burleson. Analysis by gas chromatography of the poison pill shows several key components:

1) If Burleson played more than 5 games in the state of Minnesota in one year the entire contract would become guaranteed.

2) If his average salary per year (7 million) exceeded the total paid to the team's running backs the contract would be guaranteed.

The first component is an obvious poison pill against Minnesota, but the second component possibly ended up hurting the Seahawks more than they initially anticipated. Because the Seahawks were paying over 7 million to the ghost of Shaun Alexander alone, they didn't have to worry about this kicking in. The Vikings at the time were paying maybe 3.5 million total to a slew of wizzinators, track stars and TD Vultures of seasons past. Maybe Seattle included this condition in the trade because they feared arbitration might void the Minnesota part of the deal, but was there ulterior motive here? Was someone in the Seahawks front office trying to force a pay raise for those underappreciated Vikings runners?

In the end however, Seattle would come to the realization that they ultimately wanted to keep Burleson and release Alexander. But without Alexander, their own poison pill would turn against them! You may be thinking "Hehn!?" right now, but remember that they were paying Alexander top dollar after he rushed for 28 TDs. The end result of the Burleson poison pill was certainly not anticipated by the Seahawks, but it's a perfect example of playing with fire--fire that burns you in a slow, painful, salary cap induced manner. To help douse the fire, they would have but one choice: Sign Orange Julius Jones for way too much money to bring them back over the 7 million per year.

The Orange Julius externality (read: cancer) coupled with the fact that Burleson received a 3rd round restricted free agent tender (meaning Seattle surrendered a 3rd rounder) meant that this was a truly awful acquisition which clearly was made purely in retaliation. Their additional stubborn refusual to pass on Walter Jones for the younger Hutch means this Seattle 2005 offseason was one of the worst and most poorly managed offseasons that was unaffected by Al Davis. Al Davis has certainly reserved a separate ledger for his botched offseasons.

From here on out, Seattle would struggle and struggle to get back on the horse. They thought they had a thoroughbred backfield and a stud O-line. Now Muppett-drunk and out of sorts, they found what they had was actually a big fat whale at running back, and staying on said whale would turn out to be quite slippery...
In the end, both poison pill contracts were approved by an NFL arbiter (second only to the NFL's title of "special master" in terms of nerdy job appeal) and the player movement would decidedly change the shape of the NFC North and West divisions.

So why am I bringing up the history of a topic you probably were already familiar with? Because history is about to repeat itself. Welcome to poison pill v2.0. Fresh off beta testing it's about to go live this Friday March 5 when NFL free agency begins.

Taking a look at the 2010 potential free agents, without a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in place, a TON of players who would be unrestricted free agents (UFA) will now be restricted free agents (RFA) which involves tenders and offer sheets. And with RFA comes poison pills.

Who will poison whom? Unclear, but with Brandon Marshall, Vincente Jackson, and Miles Austin all currently RFAs, some movement at WR is certainly possible considering the UFA counterparts are the T.O. show and Derilict my own balls Mason.

The QB market isn't as volatile, but Defense might be where most of the action takes place. If 2009 was the year of the cuck in the NFL, 2010 is the year of the Ruffie-Cuck. Teams will try to swindle their rivals out of productive players using ruffie laden offer sheets and cuck them in the following season. Here are a couple of pre-free agency poison pill predictions courtesy of the Sleazer:

The Pats will make a play for Ronnie Brown. Maybe this has been hashed out by 98.5 the sports hub for hours on end, I'm not sure, but Belichick likes to sign players that he has seen up close. And he likes to take Dolphins fringe players and make them producers. Brown-pants isn't a fringe player, but Bill knows what he can do: single-handedly beat the Pats.

Oakland will cuck the Broncos in the most surprising Al Davis move of the new millennium. He will seek out a WR who runs slower than a 4.5 40. Heck, he might be slower than an O-lineman after the Raiders draft physical freak Bruce Campbell in the first round. The Broncos will pretend they don't care, and Marshall and his attitude will fade into Bolivian after he punts a few balls during practice.

Owen Daniels to the Browns. Houston showed last season they have offensive power, defensive playmakers, and a lack of consistency in all aspects of the game. In an effort to resign guys like Demeco Ryans, the Texans might let their most consistent player slip away. The Browns could definitely use the soft hands of Daniels no matter who is under center. They will be one of few teams willing to go after a guy who tore his ACL late in the season.

If nothing else comes out of poison pills, hopefully we can create some new team rivalries. Division rivalries are always great, but poison pill rivalries are fresh and go all the way to the top of an organization.

If all this has you scratching your head saying, why should I care? Fine. Go watch physical specimens show off their bodies at the combine. Or read what LeCharles Bentley (yes the former Browns and Saints Center) has to say. Because bitch... today, ain't yo day ( probably NSFW)