(Akiit.com) If you understand just one thing about the uniting of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh in Miami, know that it’s not something you are going to see every summer, not by a long shot.

Hope you enjoyed all of the suspense of “The Decision,” the hour-long prime-time show concocted by James’ management and ESPN, in which the title-less, seven-year vet announced that he has decided to take his talents to South Beach, because there isn’t going to be anything remotely close to this any time soon.

For starters, look for the NBA owners to lock out the players next summer after the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and in all likelihood expect a long and protracted delay to the upcoming season.

Say what you want to about the appalling, petulant behavior of Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert after he directed his inexcusable vitriol at James after he opted to earn his money income-tax free in South Florida — what good, tax-hating Republican wouldn’t have made the same decision?

But if you think the owners won’t be twice as gangster as they go after things like guaranteed contracts and reduced payouts even to superstars, well, you just don’t understand the engine that drives the NBA.

Carmelo Anthony will be the most coveted free agent next summer, but after that there is a precipitous falloff in talent. Injury prone Yao Ming has to show that he’s healthy after sitting out all of last season, and Jamal Crawford and Tony Parker, well, you get the picture.

This is why Chris Paul’s wanting to cut ties in New Orleans despite having two years left on his contract will be the hottest story to follow in the off-season.

At Anthony’s recent wedding, Paul reportedly joked about the possibility of joining Anthony and new Knick Amar’e Stoudemire in New York to form another Big Three to battle Miami over the coming years. Along with New York, it has been reported that Paul would be interested in playing for Dallas, Orlando and the Los Angeles Lakers because he does not feel New Orleans is committed to building a championship team.

Paul should do everything in his power to make this happen, especially if it means winding up in Los Angeles or Orlando. Paul, taken with the fourth overall pick in 2005, has been an exemplary citizen in the Big Easy. But unlike James, he can’t be portrayed as a native son turning his back on his hometown which, in reality, is a huge croc anyway.

Paul doesn’t have any true ties to New Orleans. James, from Akron, was vilified for leaving his “hometown” of Cleveland. But really, only a true sucker buys into this way of thinking. How many successful people have left their hometown and gone on to achieve magnanimously in other places? The same will happen for James, a hall-of-famer even if he never plays another game in the NBA.

James gave Cleveland every opportunity to build a team around him and the Cavs went out and put together teams that were built for the regular season but unable to give James the support he needed to win the Eastern Conference.

Paul, arguably the best point guard in the league, no doubt feels the same way. He envisions himself perhaps dishing off to Kobe Bryant on the break or feeding Dwight Howard perfectly in the post. And playing alongside Anthony and Stoudemire in NYC wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.
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(Akiit.com) LeBron James will get paid what he deserves, but a lot of teams will end up spending too much on free agents who won’t help them win titles…

We’re witnessing one of the most ballyhooed off-seasons in pro-sports history. Often referred to as “the Summer of LeBron,” this NBA off-season will feature competitive bidding on three of the NBA’s four best players: Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade and Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh. In addition, another top 10 player, Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, and four other top-tier talents–Atlanta guard Joe Johnson, Phoenix forward Amare Stoudemire, New York Knick pivotman David Lee and Utah Jazz forward Carlos Boozer–are available as consolation prizes.

For nearly three years now, teams have carefully sculpted their payrolls to ensure that they could be players in the free-agent bonanza of 2010. The ballyhoo over the summer auction reached such a crescendo that it nearly drowned out an exciting regular season and an NBA Finals between the league’s most storied franchises–the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers–that went to Game 7.

Something with this much overheated expectation can’t help but be a letdown, and this summer almost certainly will disappoint. While all the attention has been focused on the players, it’s important to look at the other side of the table: NBA general managers, vice presidents and other decision-making personnel. These aren’t superstars of Human Resource Management; the NBA has a “soft” salary cap governing its payroll, which means teams can–and often do–exceed the cap limit to re-sign their own players. And, for the most part, those contracts are guaranteed.

So, despite the fact that Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas was suspended for the season for bringing guns into the locker room–and he ultimately pled guilty to a related felony charge–the team is stuck with paying the balance of his contract, just over $80 million for the next four seasons.

Due to his high-profile legal trouble, it’s easy to make Arenas the poster boy for bad NBA contracts, but look closely at a list of NBA contracts and you will double over in derision. Rashard Lewis of the Orlando Magic, Michael Redd of the Milwaukee Bucks, Andrei Kirilenko of the Utah Jazz and Zach Randolph of the Memphis Grizzlies are in the top 10. All are good, but none of them belongs on a list of best players in the NBA.

What’s more, all of these contracts were signed during a notably uncompetitive market in which few teams had the salary cap space to make these players a competing offer. Although outrageous, this is business as usual in the league, where player-personnel decision makers seem to have little grasp of player value or the impact of a long-term contract on the payroll flexibility of the franchise. This is why so many NBA trades amount to “our contractual mistake” for “your contractual mistake.”

But on July 1, we entered a period when these men began bidding on players in a competitive market. This won’t mean much for James, Wade or Bosh, who are certain to receive maximum contracts. They deserve it. Using John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating, which tallies a player’s production on a per-minute basis, James (31.19), Wade (28.10) and Bosh (25.11) are three of the four best players in the NBA (the fourth is Kevin Durant, 26.23, who rates a shade ahead of Bosh).
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(Akiit.com) D-Train was going to be the fresh African-American face of Major League Baseball. Instead, the former pitching star has plummeted right out of the game…

The saddest sports story of the summer so far happened last weekend. It wasn’t captured in big headlines, and it had nothing to do with the World Cup, the NFL or the NBA. Instead, Dontrelle Willis was ”designated for assignment” by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Five years ago, Willis looked like the best African-American pitcher in a generation, and the heir to a long, glorious history of great pitchers that includes Satchel Paige, Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins and Dave Stewart. Now he’s 10 days from being out of baseball.

His pending release from the Diamondbacks comes after being designated for assignment by the Detroit Tigers earlier this season. In general, when a star is kicked to the curb once, he gets another chance. When he gets kicked to the curb twice in a short period of time, it’s a sure sign that his career is essentially over. It might have been different if Willis’ coaches had heeded some basic country wisdom.

The question is, what happened? Willis had a meteoric rise. In 2003, his rookie season, he helped pitch the Florida Marlins to a World Series title, one of the least likely championships in baseball history. (From 1998 to 2002, the Marlins suffered through five straight losing seasons, and 38 games into the 2003 campaign, they fired the manager.) Willis won Rookie of the Year for that season.

By 2005, Willis was one of the best starting pitchers in the game. He won 22 games, sported a remarkable earned run average of 2.63, was named to the All-Star team and finished second in the Cy Young voting. He was charming and charismatic; he appeared in public service announcements for Major League Baseball. His unusual pitching windup, which featured a very high leg kick, made him a favorite of sports telecasts. He was 23 and, it seemed, in the early stages of a long career as one of the game’s superstars.

Then came the downturn. In 2006 he won 12 and lost 12 with a respectable earned run average of 3.87. In 2007 he was mediocre, winning 10 and losing 15 with an E.R.A. of 5.17. He was traded to Detroit, where, during two injury-plagued seasons, he struggled mightily, posting E.R.A.’s of more than seven runs per nine innings in limited action. This year, with both Detroit and Arizona, the nightmare continued. He was better but still not good; his combined E.R.A. for the season is 5.62, well above the average, and eye-popping for a man five years removed from baseball’s elite. Willis has had a drunk-driving arrest and has been diagnosed with anxiety problems in recent years. The only thing missing in this spiral was the tearful confession on Oprah.

What happened is detectable by looking at his statistics. From 2003 to 2005, he rarely walked opposing hitters. His walks per nine inning rates ranged from 3.2 in his rookie campaign to 2.1 in his best season, 2005. Then it spiked; during his brief stint with Arizona, he was walking 11 men per nine innings. No pitcher can allow that many men on base and be successful. Willis had lost his command, the ability to control where his pitches went when they left his hand. It’s as if sometime after 2005 he gradually forgot how to pitch.
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(Akiit.com) The “Big Three” is now officially the “Big Four” in Boston.

What was labeled the “Big Three,” in Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen officially has a fourth member in Rajon Rondo.

The Celtics point guard has matured in front of our very own eyes during the 2010 NBA playoffs.

The 24-year-old Rondo will be the x-factor in the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. As Rondo goes, so does the Boston Celtics. His 16.7 points in the playoffs is third best on the Celtics behind Paul Pierce and Ray Allen and his 10.0 assists is tops for all players. If the Elias Sports Bureau kept track of the number of times a player out hustled their opponent, Rondo would be on the top of that list as well.

With a favorable matchup against the aging Derek Fisher, Rajon Rondo could be a household name and elevate himself as one of the league’s top guards if the Celtics win their 18th NBA Championship.

Coming into the playoffs, Rondo didn’t crack anyone’s list (outside of Boston, of course) of the top 5 point guards in the NBA.

Now?

Not only would Rondo crack the top 5 list, but you can make a strong argument that he’s the best point guard in the NBA behind Chris Paul and Deron Williams.

Rondo has improved leaps and bounds since he was the 21st overall pick from the University of Kentucky in 2006. During his rookie season, he split time off the bench with Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair, who the University of Louisville favored over Rondo in 2004. Rondo moved into the starting lineup in 2007-08 and hasn’t looked back. His 794 assists this past regular season set a new Boston single-season franchise record, breaking Bob Cousy’s 50-year mark.

“I’m just trying to become a better leader,” Rondo said. “My numbers are what they are, but that’s because we still go through the Big Three — they’re the main focal point. That’s why I’m able to get so many open looks and be so aggressive — because the defenses are trying to take something away from Paul, Kevin or Ray. I’m just able to capitalize on some of the mistakes they make.”

The last time Rondo was on the national stage during the 2008 NBA Finals, he averaged 9.3 points, 6.6 assists, and 3.8 rebounds against the Lakers. Outside of a 16-assist outburst in Game 2 and a 21-point performance in the decisive Game 6, Rondo was a non-factor in the series.

“He’s a point guard now that runs our team and has complete control of our team,” head coach Doc Rivers said. “When we won it (in 2008), he was still learning how to be a point guard. He was still trying to figure out how to help a team just win. Now we rely on him to win.”

Prior to the 2010 NBA Playoffs, the knock on Rondo was the lack of a jump shot. Let’s be honest, the guy playing pickup games at the YMCA probably has a better jumper than Rondo — that’s how bad it’s been at times.
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(Akiit.com) Nearly two weeks after the Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated from the NBA Playoffs, owner Danny Gilbert fired head coach Mike Brown Sunday evening.

The Cavaliers had until midnight on Sunday to fire Brown or pay his $4.5 million salary for next season.

With Brown out the door after a disappointing end to the Cavaliers season and LeBron James eligible for free agency, we could be looking at the demise of a Cleveland franchise that made great strides the last two years.

The uncertainty with the Cavaliers started the morning after the Boston Celtics knocked them out of the playoffs when a SI.com report claimed Cleveland head coach Mike Brown had been fired.

Owner Danny Gilbert refuted the story during a press conference. “That’s not true,” Gilbert said. “We are right now just going through the evaluation process.”

The evaluation process Gilbert is referring to probably went something like this:

Dan Gilbert: “Hey LeBron, do you still want Mike Brown as coach?”

LeBron James: “No.”

Dan Gilbert: “Done.”

James didn’t give any signs which way he was leaning following the 94-85 Game 6 loss on May 13.

“I’m going to approach this summer with the right mind-set,” James said. “Me and my team are going to figure out what’s the best possibility for me. I love the city of Cleveland, of course. It was a disappointing season, to say the least, but at the same time, we had a great time together. We’ll see what happens.”

“We’ll see what happens” is not exactly what you want to hear if you’re a Cavaliers fan.

If it comes down to money, Cleveland has the advantage, with the ability to offer James $30 million more than any other club.

But locking up James to a multi-year contract won’t be enough for this franchise to turn the corner and be a serious threat for the NBA Championship.

Heading into this season, Shaquille O’Neal was expected to be the final piece of the puzzle. Not only was O’Neal providing another decoy for James, he was expected to contain Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard. Instead, O’Neal continued to rapidly age before our very eyes and he missed the last two months of the regular season with an injured right thumb.
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