跟去年一样，该作者根据球员在交易市场中的价值对NBA前四十名球员作了分类。
科比属于A级“不可触及的”，即非卖品，排行第一位居然是詹姆斯，然后是邓肯
，KG，姚明，科比

B级为“只要他们提出”，球队即可以考虑交易他们，包括三
人：沙克，疯狗（？），麦迪

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By Bill Simmons
Page 2

If only we still used telegrams. My editors
would have sent me a good one this weekend:

"Code Red! Code Red! All
hell breaking loose! Shaq, T-Mac AND Kobe possibly on the block! Code
Red! Must break out annual "Trade Value Column" ASAP! Code Red!"

That's right. There couldn't be a better week to break out America's
favorite annual column gimmick, "Which NBA player has the highest
trade value?" How often do you get a chance to break out a 4,000-word,
two-part column that appeals to a limited audience? Gentleman, start
your printers!


Anyway, here's a quick recap of the rules:


Wade's game and his contract make him a hot commodity.
A. Salaries matter ...
would you rather pay Dwyane Wade $9.7 million for the next three
years or Paul Pierce $58 million for the next four?


B. Age matters ...
would you rather have Chris Webber for the next five years or Andrei
Kirilenko for the next 15?


C. Pretend the league passed the
following rule: Any player can be traded straight up for any other
player without cap ramifications. So if Team A tells Team B, "We'll
trade you Player X for Player Y straight-up," does Team B make the
deal or not?


D. Concentrate on degrees. For instance, I don't think
the Rockets or T-Wolves would trade KG for Yao. But the Rockets would at
least say, "Wow, KG is available?" while the T-Wolves would say,
"There's no effing way we're trading KG." That counts in the big
scheme of things.


E. Make the list in reverse order, Nos. 40 to 1.
So if Paul Pierce comes in at No. 16, players 1 through 15 are all
players about whom Boston would probably say, "We hate giving up The
Truth, but there's no way we can pass up that deal." And they wouldn't
trade him for any player listed between Nos. 17 and 40.


A number of
guys failed to make the cut from last year's Top 40, for the following
reasons: Gilbert Arenas (No. 40 last year) is one more 22-win season
away from officially turning into a "Great stats on a bad team" guy ...
Antoine Walker (39) is Antoine Walker ... Antawn Jamison (38) and
Michael Finley (31) are a little too available ... Jamal Mashburn (36)
has become the NBA's equivalent of Frankie from "The Real World" ... Ray
Allen (34) is heading into the "Mitch Richmond on the Wizards" stage of
his career ... as much as I like Caron Butler (33), he seems awfully
expendable in Miami ... and as far as tag-teams go, Eddy Curry (27)
and Tyson Chandler (26) slipped faster than Shannon Tweed and Andrew
Stevens.


The toughest omissions from this year's list:


Rasheed Wallace (last year: 32) -- He gets a championship ring and a
multi-year contract ... so now what happens? Does anyone else keep
hearing the chorus to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy"? Remember, we're still
only eight months away from the infamous "CTC" speech. I don't trust him
at all.


Manu Ginobili -- Turns 27 in July. Didn't you think he
would be further along by now?


Marquis Daniels -- Only because he's
cracking the Top 40 next season. Mark my words. Since he went
undrafted last year -- which seems impossible in the same draft that
gave us Reece Gaines at No. 15 -- he's actually a free agent this
summer. Not that "The Benefactor" wouldn't match any offer, but still.



(Speaking of dreadful-yet-absorbing ABC reality-TV shows, did you see
that Jesse Palmer and his Bachelor pick broke up already? Do you
realize the Bachelor is 0-for-5 now? That show is more contrived than
one of Tom Tolbert's suits. Is there a reason they haven't tried to
change their luck with "Black Bachelor" yet? Just reverse the process
- a black bachelor, 23 black bachelorettes, and then two token white
chicks that get voted off by Round 2. And instead of Palmer, they
could have a real catch -- someone making big bucks, like Lamar Odom
or Michael Vick. Let the groupies fight it out. This would be
unbelievable.)


Kwame Brown -- I'm sticking with the same thing I wrote
about him last year: "I have absolutely no idea where his career is
headed over the next 10 years. None."


Kirk Hinrich -- Wow, an
underrated white guy! You see this happen maybe once a decade. Maybe
it's hard to take him seriously when he looks like everyone in the
cast of "Miracle."


Chauncey Billups -- The latest beneficiary of L.A.
's spring-time policy of turning opposing point guards into Hall of
Famers. Bottom line: He's a 40-percent shooter playing for the perfect
team. Good defender, decent ballhander, clutch shooter if he's open. But
if you think they wouldn't have won the same title with Mike Bibby in
Billups's place, you're crazy.


Some GM will dream that C-Webb can be
the man he used to be.
Chris Webber (13) -- On the books for $79
million through 2008. And he's been limping like Ken Reeves for the past
two years. And yet ... he's still C-Webb. And this is a league that
gainfully employs Elgin Baylor, Isiah Thomas, Danny Ainge and the Paxson
Brothers as GMs. So you never know.


Mike Dunleavy -- A year away from
making a splash and being the odds-on favorite as the Token White Guy
on the 2006 World Championships team. With that said, somebody could pry
him from the Warriors this summer. They're that dumb.


Without further
ado, here's this year's list of 40 players, in reverse order:


Group I: "Either way, the phone ain't ringing"
40. Darko Milicic -- By trading
him now, Joe Dumars would basically be admitting, "Yeah, we won the
title, but I screwed up with that pick." And that's not happening.



Then again, out of the next 39 guys on this list, none of them
would ever, ever, EVER be offered straight-up for Darko, who capped
off a memorable playoff run by getting infected earlobes from a
bizarre piercing accident, then breaking his hand in garbage time of the
clinching game. In the Pantheon of Unfortunate Playoff Performances,
this was right up there with Curtis Jackson getting shot in the liquor
store before Carver High won the city title. So I don't know. Let's
stick him here to be safe.


(And yes, that's two "White Shadow"
references in one column! Memo to ESPN Classic: Start running the old
episodes again. I'm getting the shakes.)


Group H: "Available for the
right price"
39. Steve Nash -- Some idiot once wrote that Nash was one
of the best 10 point guards of the past 25 years. Oh, wait, that was me.
Defensively, he's atrocious. He didn't break a sweat in the Kings
series until Game 5 ... by then, it was too late. He's also about to
be wildly overpaid by someone -- probably Dallas -- for something like
six years and $60 million. And he's 31 next February. With a history
of back problems to boot. I wouldn't go near him for that amount of
money. But that's just me.


38. Carlos Boozer -- Quality banger. Always
plays hard. Owns the best chest hair in the league. Yet another shining
example of "Guys Who Produced in College Who Were Inexplicably
Screwed by the NBA Draft Process." With that said, when I saw the
headline "Boozer named to Olympic Hoops Team," I thought Vin Baker was
headed to Athens.


(Where's my rimshot? I need a drummer for these
columns. By the way, I didn't come up with that joke -- about 30
different readers e-mailed it to me. Maybe that should have been a sign.
I feel like Jay Leno right now. Let's just move on.)


37. Nene --
Another young banger who displayed a sizable nasty streak in the
playoffs, when he was shoving around KG and even throwing a few elbows.
I liked that. Most of these young guys look like they're just happy
to get a paycheck every week.


(More importantly, he finally took my
advice and went with the single-name gimmick. I know this is a Brazilian
thing, but why couldn't this catch on in the states? For instance,
couldn't Brian Cardinal do this? We could just call him "Cardinal."
Would anyone be against this? And how many times am I writing the phrase
"Would anyone be against this?" in this column? The Vegas over-under
has to be around 5.5.)


36. Joe Johnson -- I will happily admit that
I was wrong about him. A future All-Star. And if he blows it ... well,
then I'll happily admit that I was right about him.


35. Tony Parker --
Hey, he'd certainly be higher on the list of "NBA players who must
get an insane amount of, um, female companionship." The NBA thing
mixed with the French thing? That reminds me, somebody needs to round up
some groupies for a "One Night Stand Fantasy Draft" -- I'd love to
see who would go in the first round. Make it one of those $4.95
DirecTV pay-per-views. There's not nearly enough done with NBA
groupies on TV. They should at least have their own MTV reality show
or something.


Let's just put it this way -- Zach is perfect in Portland.
34. Zach Randolph -- I just don't trust him yet. Would you
feel comfortable giving a seven-year, $80 million extension next
summer to someone who may or may not be crazy?


(This reminds me of
an old Adam Carolla idea, "Prove To Me You're Not Crazy," where he
wanted to walk around Hollywood Boulevard with a cameraman and have
the street people and tourists prove to him that they weren't crazy.
Great idea. Never ended up doing it on Jimmy's show for whatever reason.
Maybe we should have tried it with NBA players. "Zack Randolph, you
have 25 seconds ... prove to me you're not crazy!" This could easily
replace the "Budweiser Hot Seat" and "Hearsay," couldn't it?)


Group G: "You'll have to bowl us over"
33. Chris Bosh -- He'd be ranked even
higher if he didn't have those Keon Clark pegs.


32. Pau Gasol -- If we
learned anything from the 2004 NBA Playoffs, it was this: You can't win
an NBA title anymore with a defensive liability up front. You just
can't. Remember when the Lakers won back-to-back titles in the late-'80s
with a decomposing Kareem? The league is just too fast now. Poor Pau
needs to build a time machine and travel back to 1983. He could even
bring Casey Jacobsen and Brian Scalabrine with him.


31. Peja
Stojakovic -- This can't be emphasized strongly enough: He's been
dreadful in the playoffs. If you're looking for someone to drop 38 on
the Hawks in mid-February, he's your guy. If you're looking for
someone to make big shots in May and June, keep looking. If the Kings
were smart, they would trade him for ...


30. Ron Artest -- Think
about that one. Indiana gets a shooter to replace Reggie Miller.
Sacramento gets some much-needed toughness and swagger -- at least for a
couple of years, before Artest punches out a ballboy or trashes the old
"Real World: Vegas" suite at The Palms. Who doesn't make this
trade?


29. Mike Bibby -- I can't imagine the Kings dealing him. He's
just come through for them too many times. Plus, it's not every day
you can have a point guard who looks like Mini-Me.


28. Shawn Marion --
All right, I'll ask: Why are his numbers slowly dropping across the
board? Why did I like his game more three years ago? Why has his name
popped up in every possible mega-deal over the past week? Have you
ever noticed the disturbing parellels between his career and the
declining critical acclaim for the three "Matrix" movies?


Group F: "Building blocks"
27. Allen Iverson -- Let's stop comparing Iverson in
'04 with Barkley in '92: Barkley didn't have nearly this many miles on
him, and his contract wasn't nearly as daunting. (Iverson's deal goes
through 2010.) Two years ago, it would have taken Corey Maggette,
Chris Wilcox, the No. 4 pick and a future No. 1 for the Clippers to make
Philly seriously consider giving up Iverson. Now they couldn't get
him for Maggette, Wilcox and the No. 4 unless they agreed to throw in
this year's No. 7 pick. That's a big difference.


And besides, would
you rather have Iverson for five more years, at a whopping $67 million
...


26. Michael Redd -- ... Or this guy for $6 million over the
next two?

Bad teams don't necessarily make you a bad player.

25. Elton Brand -- Career record: 159-251. And no, that's not his fault. But
it's not not his fault, either. If that makes sense.


24. Rip Hamilton
-- Three months ago, he wouldn't have made the list. Now he's the
next Reggie Miller -- not someone who can carry an offense by himself,
but someone who makes big shots and wears out opponents. He lost the
name "Richard" for the much-tougher sounding "Rip." He's even
strange-looking like Reggie, one of the few guys who's actually better
off with the Broken Nose Mask. It's been a breakout season all around.



(By the way, don't we need to come up with a nickname for the
Broken Nose Mask? What about the Septumator? Or the Schnozzaroo? More
importantly, why are they such an afterthought? NBA players care so much
about hair, tattoos, shoes ... yet they happily slide on these ugly
plastic masks for two straight months, no questions asked. Wouldn't
you think they would paint them like hockey goalie masks, or even go
with the intimidating Hannibal Lecter-style mask for a big playoff game?
We need to spruce up the Schnozzaroos.)


23. Richard Jefferson --
Two years younger than Hamilton; same age as Redd. He gets bonus
points for playing with Kidd in his formative years -- that's like an
actor getting to make three straight years of movies with Scorcese in
his prime, or a kid in high school having a three-year affair with the
35 year-old nanny down the block. You're better just by osmosis.
--
FROM 202.118.97.*