Ridiculous Transactions 10/19-10/25

So last week was a bloodbath.  Today is the deadline for NBA teams to submit their regular season rosters, and most of them knew who they were keeping awhile ago.  So did pretty much everyone, really.  But you'll notice I'm not talking about guys who have been waived, and that's because, well, today is the deadline, and some teams still have some decisions to making.  Whether to keep Derrick Byars or Paul Davis, for instance, or Malik Hairston vs. Marcus Williams.  So don't worry, I'll be breaking all of that down through the rest of the week.  Today, though, I thought I'd devote the regular transactions space to looking at moves that didn't involve waiving a really solid third point guard because you love Brian Cook for some reason.  Ridiculous.

October 21: Dallas Mavericks - traded Nathan Jawai and cash to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a second round pick.

With Kevin Love out 6-8 weeks the Timberwolves found themselves in need ot some frontcourt depth, and as much as Oleksiy Pecherov gets buckets, son (and is actually a pretty terrific rebounder), he's not really capable of contributing on a consistent casis.  I mean basis.  Not that Jawai necessarily is, either, but he cost what, a protected second-rounder?  And Minnesota picked up some cash on top of it?  It's a decent low-cost move for the Timberwoves, and while they could've waited a few extra days and picked up a different big man who would potentially give them more than four points and four rebounds per 36 minutes (in fact I would hope so), or even Jawai's D-League numbers of 16 and 10 (again, per-36), Jawai definitely has talent.  He just needs to cuts down on the fouls and maybe improve his attitude.  Jawai didn't really fit on the Mavericks' roster anymore since their backup big men are more of the Drew Gooden/Tim Thomas variety.  They didn't really get anything back, and had to give the T-Wolves some money, but I assume this helped relieve their cap space a little, so...good?

October 24: Utah Flash - hired Mark Madsen as assistant coach

I already discussed this on Saturday (however briefly), but to flesh this out a little more, it's always hard to judge first-time coaching hires, but I could see this working out fairly well.  Madsen graduated (right?) from Stanford, so he's clearly a bright guy.  He's also Mormon, so he'll likely be embraced by the Flash fanbase.  And, whether it was because of team chemistry or other reasons, a nine-year NBA career is something that pretty much every D-League player aspires to, so he'll likely have their attention as an assistant.  He only played for two teams over his career, though, so he's not a typical journeyman who has experience learning new offensive systems quickly, but he can probably pick up enough of the Flash/Jazz system quickly enough to be able to say things other than "hey, Goran, rebound...better, I guess?"  I do wonder, though how long Madsen has been looking at coaching and how much of this desire arose when his internet domain name

October 25: Jack McClinton - signed with Aliağa Petkim (Turkey)

It's a bit disappointing to see that McClinton won't be playing in the NBA this year, since he certainly has the ability.  It's also somewhat of a shame that he won't be in the D-League, since he'd be at the top of the call-up candidate list pretty much from the start.  But this year I have a hard time holding it against guys for going to make money overseas.  Plus, the Turkish league has a decent enough reputation (as far as I know; Ball in Europe never answered my question about the various European leagues, although admittedly that was a different question than "how well-regarded are the various leagues," although it still would've helped to know and they still didn't answer it, but it's still a good blog and I'm sure they're good people; no, I'm not just trying to fill space) that he might get some honest looks from NBA teams next year.  McClinton joins Quinton Hosley, who signed with Petkim a few days earlier, on a team in its second year of existence.  I don't really know if that makes a difference, but it means there likely isn't the institutional structure and stability of, say, an Efes Pilsen (feel free to tell me I'm wrong, someone).  Izmir, where the team is located, is beautiful though, which I bring up mainly to brag that I've been to Turkey.