Gold decided to visit each team in their home city to watch them in their respective practice sessions. He stayed in Boston for a night and made the personal decison that, “This city is far too busy and populated. Although the baked beans are great, I could never live here.”

After Boston, he flew over to Oklahoma City. OKC wasn’t Mr. Locks’ cup of tea either. “This city is far too dull. I can’t believe that when I asked the hotel concierge for night-life ideas she simply had the horse and buggy take me to the local IHOP. No way I could live here.”

Gold next spent a weekend in Indianapolis. He felt at home. “You know, this city is just right. Not too crowded, not too dull. I could really see myself raising a family here.”

I’m not quite sure how Gold’s living preferences made it into this article, but more importantly, I was able to get a copy of the notes he took from his scouting report. Since Mr. Locks is such a great basketball mind, I thought that I might share a few of the points he made regarding three teams that Pacers fans have recently become familiar with.

Age

Celtics: “This team is far too old. A few of their players seem too elderly to even run the fast break. This is supposed to be a basketball team, not a retirement home.”

Thunder: “This team is far too young. Young teams can make poor decisons late in games. That James Harden guy might fool some people with his beard, but apparently he is only 22 years old. This is supposed to be a basketball team, not a daycare center.”

Pacers: ”This team’s age is just right. Most of its core is pretty young, but the roster has some great veterans like David West and Danny Granger. Age shoudn’t be a problem for them.”

Superstar’s Personality

Celtics: “This Kevin Garnett guy is far too mean. He’s got a lot of intensity, but I think he takes it too far. He kept screaming incoherent things at practice, and he made Brandon Bass cry four times. I really don’t think this sort of thing helps the team.”

Thunder: “Kevin Durant is a great kid. I think he might be a little too nice though. He could use a little bit more intensity. He wore a Dora the Explorer backpack to practice. Plus, he kept saying, ‘Keep your heads up, guys. Win or lose, when we get back to OKC, IHOP’s on me.’”

Pacers: “Danny Granger still has some room to grow as a player, but I think his personality is just right. He works hard and encourages his teammates, but also has a little tough-guy streek. And he was all business when it came to the most important parts of practice.”

Point Guard’s Shooting

Celtics: “Rajon Rondo definitely doesn’t shoot enough. He seems to have no confidence in his jump shot or his free throws. Teams can play five feet off of him in the fourth quarter because they know he won’t shoot the three. His fear of missing free throws might also effect his willingness to drive to the basket. Plus, I don’t know how he is going to get any better with Kevin Garnett screaming at him while he practices.”

Thunder: “Russell Westbrook shoots far too much. He has a great shot, and he’s a freak athlete, but sometimes he seems to forget that it’s not against the rules to pass the ball. It shouldn’t be too hard to defend Kevin Durant in the fourth quarter if Westbrook refuses to pass him the ball.”

Pacers: “You know, I’m not sure that Darren Collinson is nearly as talented as the other two teams’ point guards, but he might have the best shot selection. He has a better three-point shot than both of them and he can make a pull-up jumper off of a screen. He also doesn’t force up too many shots when there is a better option.”

Xs & Os

Celtics: “This team is far too reliant on perfect execution. Age prevents most of their best players from creating anything off of the isolation. They run great plays and set great picks that often lead to open three-point shots for Ray Allen, but the problem is that if the play isn’t executed perfectly then they aren’t very likely to get any points out of the possession.”

Thunder: “To be honest, this team doesn’t really run a lot of plays. They run your basic pick and rolls, but they also just rely on the one-on-one skills of their best players. They seem to be able to get away with it for the most part because Durant and Westbrook (and sometimes Harden) are so good, but when the defense is really locking down you need to be able to draw up some plays to create a few easy buckets.”

Pacers: “The Pacers’ play-running skills are just right. They run a number of simple plays that the team executes well. They spread the scoring around to a number of different players. When plays break down they have a couple of scorers who can make something out of nothing late in the shot clock.”

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. Gold E. Locks is usually pretty spot on with his game analysis. The Thunder and the Celtics are going to get a lot of hype going into the playoffs. But sometimes it can hurt to be too far in one direction for certain aspects of basketball.

With a just a handful of games left to polish their execution, it’s starting to seem like the Pacers are “just right.”

After his speculative comments regarding David West’s motivation for signing with Indiana instead of Boston, a lot of Pacers fans think Ray Allen should maybe just stop talking for awhile. And a lot of those people now may be happy to hear what Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated is saying about the Celtics.

He said the following after being asked whether New York had improved enough to become better than Boston. (Red’s Army)

Meter: You throw them over the Knicks this year

Mannix: Yes, if Baron Davis is healthy. If Baron Davis is three-quarters the Baron Davis we saw with the Clippers, I think they are better. Tyson Chandler changes them a lot, especially on defensive end. This is going to sound crazy, right now, Miami, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Indiana are better than Boston.

I’m skeptical that this whole “Philadelphia and Indiana are better than Boston” thing will hold any water. But I’m sure plenty of Pacers fans are hoping it does.

Many teams are upset about NBA Commissioner David Stern’s decision to not trade Chris Paul to the Lakers. But the nixed deal didn’t just alter the fates of the two teams in Los Angeles and the Houston Rockets. Several other franchises were affected less directly, but still affected enough that they had to alter their plans.

Boston, for example, was in the process of trying to get the Hornets to sign-and-trade them free agent power forward David West. Now, just because the CP3 saga was going on, it doesn’t mean New Orleans were necessarily unable to get involved in a different deal involving West. But team GM Dell Demps seemed hand-cuffed, and it’s quite possible that West and his agent saw the ensuing turmoil and began thinking that relying on the Hornets to facilitate an agreement with the Celtics was more trouble than it was worth.

I don’t know that any of that occurred, mind you, but it seems reasonable that it could have.

Regardless, West, as you know, ended up signing a two-year deal with Indiana rather than going to Boston. And Celtics starting shooting guard Ray Allen doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it. [Emphasis added by me.] (via I Am a GM)

[Ray] Allen first heard of West’s potential interest in Boston last month when Allen was playing golf in Augusta with his private banker, who coincidentally also handled West’s financial affairs.

“He told me how much I would love [West], that he and I were the same kind of guy — cognitive thinkers,” Allen said. “He said West was interested in coming to the Celtics and would be willing to come for less.”

So why does Allen think West had a change of heart?

“Once it got down to the end, I think his ego kicked back in,” Allen said. “He wanted the dollars. I guess it comes down to ‘What is a championship worth to you?’

“Think of all the guys who have made $20 million and could be considered one of the best ever, but they get chided because they never won. We [the Big Three] all had to do less when we won. We’re still taking less to make it work. But it’s worth it. No one can ever say to KG, Paul or me, ‘You guys never got your ring.’”

Theories abound on why West chose the Pacers over the Celtics. Included among them is the notion that since West opted out of a contract that would have paid him $8.5 million, he needed to “save face” among other players (and agents) by not accepting a Celtics contract that included a first year of just under $8 million, even though the average value over the life of the contract would have been higher.

The other factor could be that West preferred a two-year deal so he could re-establish himself as the two-time All-Star he was before he was injured, rather than commit for three years to a team with an uncertain future.

It’s one thing to lose a free agent to Los Angeles. It’s quite another to lose him to Indiana, a franchise that won just 37 games last season and is a small Midwest market that has always struggled to draw high-caliber free agents.

This whole Jackie MacMullen article is worth reading, particularly since it states that West could have made $29 million over three years in Boston — a significantly larger sum than the offer that had been previously reported: a $24-million-over-three-year contract. [Ed note: this sentence was altered cause it initially was written even more poorly than it reads now.]

Because of salary cap restraints, the Celtics could not offer a two-year deal. They were required to acquire West in a sign-and-trade, which means the contract had to be a minimum of three years. In what team and league sources described as a creative but complicated package, the Celtics were prepared to offer West a four-year contract with a buyout that, in the end, amounted to three years and $29 million. In other words, the average of their offer was just under $10 million (about $9.6 million)

This is good news for Pacers fans.

If the 31-year-old David West was significantly concerned about how he would bounce back from his offseason ACL surgery, it stands to reason that he would want to get as much guaranteed money as he could on the open market. If his knee might never fully recover, it would be fiscally prudent for him to try to get that one last, big contract before the wheels fell off. Especially if doing so meant playing next to KG, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen for arguably the most successful franchise in pro sports history.

But he didn’t do that.

He opted to sign only a two-year deal for $10 million per season as opposed to getting a guaranteed third year at almost the same annual salary. To me, this seems like a decision that would only be made by a guy who thinks he will be so productive and healthy for the next two years that, even as a 33-year-old NBA veteran, he will be able to sign another contract to make up for the $9 million he left on the table by not signing with Boston.

His own confidence in the stability of his knee doesn’t mean there is nothing to worry about. But if West did turn down a $29 million deal, he essentially just bet $9 million that his leg is structurally sound. That has to be at least somewhat reassuring for Pacers fans.