Insider: MidSeason Report - The Bad

[Weez]

Admitting defeat by trading Arroyo?

By Chad Ford

ESPN Insider

The Good, the Bad, the Upside

Insider's Chad Ford rounds up the state of the NBA every Monday, looking at The Good and The Bad and offering a little dose of optimism in The Upside.

The Good

Adding Jackson the key for the Suns?

The only thing the Mavs need is. ...

The Upside

The Pistons make another mid-season steal.

Watch out for the Griz and Wiz.

The Bad

Jazz: A week into the season, it looked like the ghosts of Stockton and Malone had been quickly exorcised in Utah.

With the addition of Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur and rookies Kirk Snyder and Kris Humphries to an already solid core of Andrei Kirilenko, Matt Harpring and Carlos Arroyo, the Jazz looked like they could do anything under the guidance of Jerry Sloan.

Three months later, the Jazz are essentially chalking this season up as a rebuilding year. GM Kevin O'Connor's decision to trade Arroyo for a late first-round pick and some cap flexibility next summer (see Insider's Friday conversation with Arroyo for the scoop) shocked just about everyone around the league.

The Jazz' problems go beyond losing Kirilenko (left) for much of the season.

It was an uncharacteristic admission by the Jazz that the season might be lost. According to O'Connor, the loss of Kirilenko for two months wasn't the team's only problem.

"We're really young," O'Connor told Insider this weekend. "I think we understand that we're probably a couple of players away. Obviously, we could use some help at the point guard position and we also could use a long, athletic big to bring off the bench."

With Arroyo gone, the Jazz are left with three point guards who are backups, at best, in the NBA. None of them are as good as Arroyo, even with his problems.

So why give up on him now, especially when the team got back so little in return?

The Jazz are hoping that they get a high enough draft pick to pursue one of the elite point guards in this year's draft. However, only one of them, Wake Forest's Chris Paul, is really ready to step in and play at the level Sloan expects from his point guards. Unfortunately for the Jazz, Paul is considered a top-three pick in this year's draft. They are going to have to lose a lot more games – or get incredibly lucky in the lottery – to have any shot at him.

The trade also gives the Jazz enough cap flexibility to use their mid-level exception next summer. But again, is there really a quality point guard or athletic four or five out there willing to sign for that?

Either scenario is a risky proposition for the Jazz who, for the first time since Stockton and Malone retired, suddenly find themselves in crisis mode. After convincing owner Larry Miller to break the bank to sign Kirilenko, Boozer and Okur to huge contracts this summer, O'Connor and Sloan better hope they were right about Arroyo. If he helps the Pistons win it all while the Jazz flounder through the summer, there could be hell to pay in Utah.

Thomas

Knicks: A $103 million payroll should be able to buy the Knicks more than 17 victories. They should not be capable of 10 of 11 games. With the Atlantic Division title (and a No. 3 playoff seed) ripe for the picking, the Knicks have slipped to fourth place in a circuit where no one is over .500.

Lenny Wilkens paid the price over the weekend, "resigning" as head coach after Isiah Thomas and owner James Dolan showed him the door. No one believes that Wilkens was the Knicks' biggest problem.

If Isiah believes that Phil Jackson or Larry Brown is going to come in and save the franchise, he's dreaming. For starters, both Jackson and Brown would want a level of personnel control that Isiah does not want to give up. If the coach is going to be the GM, then Isiah is going to pick up a clipboard and sit courtside himself.

The other problem that Isiah would have with either coach is that neither would be fond of Thomas' crown jewel, Stephon Marbury. Remember, Wilkens was brought in, in part, because of his previous great relationships with point guards and his easy-going manner. Jackson believes point guards are irrelevant, especially ones like Marbury who jack up 15 shots per game. Brown might be the hardest coach in the league on point guards, and he wants them to run the offense while keeping the safety on the trigger finger.

Isiah isn't going to admit that bringing in Marbury was a mistake. If he hires either Brown or Jackson this summer (the first time either guy would be available to coach the team), Thomas would probably have to trade Marbury.

While interim head coach Herb Williams should add a much-needed defensive edge to this team, it probably won't be enough to make a difference for the Knicks in the short term.

Isiah's long-term goals are less clear. He'll likely make another big trade or two before the trade deadline, swapping bad contracts for worse ones. While the names on the back of the jerseys will continue to change, the team's record probably won't. Isn't it just a time before New Yorkers figure out the con?

Trail Blazers: Qyntel Woods paid the ultimate price on Friday for Blazers' ghosts past and present. Portland's decision to waive Woods and void his contract for pleading guilty to misdemeanor animal abuse is the ultimate in hypocrisy on a team that just can't seem to get things right.

WoodsThat Woods would be singled out for his mistake and used as scapegoat for all that has gone wrong in Portland the past few years is ludicrous.

Don't get me wrong. Woods has blown it and deserved to be kicked to the curb. But players like Ruben Patterson and Damon Stoudamire have done far worse and still kept their jobs and their cash.

Is abusing a dog really worse than abusing women (Patterson pleaded guilty to sexual assault in 2001 and was arrested for domestic abuse in 2002) or drugs (Stoudamire was arrested three times for possession of marijuana)?

Woods is an easy target because he doesn't make much money and wasn't contributing to the team anyway. So what was the big loss or sacrifice?

The team is actually a bigger mess now than they were a year and a half ago when Paul Allen purged the front office. The team has lost six straight and 12 of their last 14. Injuries have played a part in the losses, as Darius Miles, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Zach Randolph have all missed significant time. But even before that, the Blazers looked like they were going nowhere fast.

With management's decision to re-up Randolph and Theo Ratliff this summer, their cap flexibility is gone. And with it the chance to seriously purge this team.

The Warriors made the right move with Murphy, but they're still hard to watch.

Warriors: After 10 straight seasons without a playoff appearance, the Warriors have earned a permanent spot here. Every year they put a collection of intriguing young players and veterans on the floor and every year ... well, it's ugly.

The good news is that the $130 million they forked out for Jason Richardson and Troy Murphy looks like it might be money well spent. Both are having career years and look like building blocks for the future.

The bad news is that the $105 million the team spent signing Adonal Foyle and Derek Fisher, and acquiring Eduardo Najera has been money thrown down the toilet.

Had the Warriors paid Richardson and Murphy but refrained from getting the other three guys, the team would be roughly $15 million under the cap this summer and poised to make a major play in the free-agent market. As it is, they are hopelessly capped out and must now wait on more draft picks or rookies to develop before we can get serious about talking about the playoffs.

Maybe this was the point Jerry Krause was trying to make when he claimed that franchises win championships. While the players have to do the work on the floor, a major mistake or two upstairs can suck the life out of the franchise. After 10 years worth of these mistakes, the hole seems almost endlessly deep.

Hornets: All might not be lost in New Orleans. The Hornets have been a mess all season but have shown a few signs of righting the ship lately. GM Allan Bristow has been in acquisition mode the past month, collecting a plethora of young assets (Casey Jacobsen, Dan Dickau, Bostjan Nachbar, Maciej Lampe and Jackson Vroman) for aging veterans (Darrell Armstrong, David Wesley, Jim Jackson) who didn't fit the Hornets' rebuilding plan.

BrownIf just one of them pans out, the purge has to be considered a success. Less successful has been the team's attempts to trade Baron Davis and Jamaal Magloire. Bristow's admission this weekend that he was taking the foot off the gas on Davis is the right move. Davis has enough health and attitude questions surrounding him to torpedo his stock. The fact that his injured back isn't insured has been a deal killer for a number of teams.

The Hornets are better off keeping Magloire and Davis, developing J.R. Smith, David West and recent acquisitions like Jacobsen and Lampe and then hoping for the top pick in the draft next year. If they could land a dominant forward in the draft, there's no reason this team couldn't be right back into contention next season.

What they should do is continue to shop P.J. Brown. Given his contract and age, he's not an essential piece anymore and several contenders would love to have his veteran leadership and rebounding for a title run. If they could get Brown and Jamal Mashburn (who's expected to retire) off the books next year, the Hornets would be far enough under the cap to also make a major free-agent run.

Hawks: The Hawks went into the season knowing they'd be bad. The plan was to develop their young players, save their cap room and make a big play in the 2005 free-agent market.

While their cap room remains preserved, the development of their young core hasn't been so hot. Rookie Josh Smith looks like he's the real deal, though, because of his age, he's still got a ways to go. Lottery pick Josh Childress occasionally turns in a great game, but they are few and far between.

Summer pickup Al Harrington has been good, but not great. It looks like the Pacers knew what they were doing when they swapped him last summer for Stephen Jackson. In the long run, Jackson may have had the most upside.

This summer they'll try to turn $25 million in cap space and a top lottery pick into a starting point guard and center, if they don't make a move before the trade deadline that gets them there first. They've talked with the Knicks, 76ers and Celtics about an Antoine Walker swap. If they can keep most of the cap relief they were going to get once his $14.6 million salary came off the book and can land a top prospect or pick in return, they'll pull the trigger.

Bobcats: The Bobcats have the same plan as the Hawks. They went into the season knowing they'd be bad. The plan was to develop their young players, save their cap room and make a big play in either the 2005 or 2006 free-agent market.

Things have been going better in Charlotte. First-round pick Emeka Okafor has the trappings of an All-Star big man. Center Primoz Brezec has been one of the better big men in the East. Players like Gerald Wallace, Jason Hart and Kareem Rush have also shown promise.

Expect the Bobcats to remain conservative. Unless an intriguing young player falls in their lap (they made a pitch for Darko Milicic over the weekend that the Pistons quickly turned down), the Bobcats are hoping to get a shot at Chris Paul in the draft, keep the payroll slim and then pounce on things during the summer of 2006 with another top pick and loads of cash. By then, several players in their young core will have developed, and the Bobcats should have an excellent shot at heading to the playoffs.

Chad Ford covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.