After the trades for Garnett and Allen, which seemed to be fairly one-sided last summer, I had to question these moves. There were so many teams in the running for both of these guys, yet the Celts packages for both were the best available? That is hard to believe. (Boston ties with Minnesota - McHale)

Then earlier this year, another trade goes down with the Lakers trading for Gasol without giving up Andrew Bynum. Again, there seemed to be several teams in the mix, and the Lakers offer was the best. (Lakers ties with Memphis - Jerry West before he left)

What these trades did is set the stage for an epic matchup between the Celts and Lakers in the 2008 Finals, the NBA's dream come true. No more boring Spurs or Pistons to deal with. The ratings would be their highest in years, and would seem to revitalize the sport. Last year's Finals ratings were the lowest ever with 4 out of the last 5 years dipping below a 10.0 rating, the first time it has been that low since 1981.

Now I know most people do not like to question the integrity of the sport, but there is so much money involved nowadays that it is hard to ignore. It could be just a coincidence and great personnel moves by both clubs, but no team in history had a bigger turnaround than the Celtics (+42 wins), which makes it even more questionable.

Just throwing that out there before the Finals get started. Then on to the most important day in Bulls history in quite some time.

So there it is, Celtics vs Lakers, how convenient.

And the Bulls, definitely a team a lot of people like cause of Jordan, get the first pick. David Stern is up to something!

Speaking of the Bulls. We offered more for Gasol and Memphis still made the trade to the Lakers:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AsJr...o&type=lgns

"And yeah, we'll throw in this year's first rounder too. It'll probably come out around #9, that won't hurt us at all."

Haha, you're right, we would have thrown in this year's 1st, though it may have been protected... Regardless, thank god we didn't make that trade.

But yeah, Memphis fans are still furious about that trade. If they had gotten our 1st rounder, they would have had a very impressive young team. Look at this lineup:
PG- Mike Conley Jr/Lowry/Crittendon
SG- Mike Miller/Thabo
SF- Rudy Gay/Noc
PF- Michael Beasley/TT
C- Noah/Lopez

That's a pretty damn good team.

Of course the counter-point to that is would we have still had the #9 slot if we had traded for Gasol? I suppose it kind of depends on if we had still made the Cleveland deal. I'd tend to say no, we'd have probably stuck with Wallace and Smith, which is a bit better for a win-now approach. I know it's not the same thing, but the Lakers were something like 21-6 with Gasol in their lineup, I have to think that we'd have easily won 3-5 more games, and considering we only finished one game behind the Nets that changes things quite a bit.

Good point. On 2nd thought, the Grizz would have gotten like the #12 pick. Regardless, it still would have been a much better trade for them. I'm just glad they didn't take it b/c I really don't like what we supposedly would have given up for Gasol (and Warrick).