Fandom Free Agency - #16 Indiana Pacers

Starting to get into the really tough decisions in this process. I look at every team I have remaining and see some redeemable quality that would make me want to be a fan of theirs. I couldn't say that for a lot of the earlier teams.

So now, as the playoffs loom closely it's time to really start putting the non-playoff teams under the microscope. Any team that's in the playoffs I will still have a few more weeks to evaluate and really see how I feel about the team in the playoffs. But for the teams that are still remaining and aren't eliminated, it's time to take a real close look. Those teams are:

New Orleans and Houston - Solid chances of surviving to the offseason

Minnesota - The original culprit, but they'll survive

Chicago - Interesting capabilities this offseason

Philadelphia - Surviving merely on 2k10 playing ability

And then there's Indiana. There are certainly some things I like about Indiana. Danny Granger is very solid and of course Brandon Rush will always have a certain value for me, but when I compare the Pacers to the other teams left on the list they just don't have the same appeal.

First off, as much as I love me some B Rush, I can't exactly look past what he did last Sunday. If I'm going to throw Matt Barnes under the bus then Brandon deserves some criticism as well for his 0 point output in a game where he played 19 minutes and his team scored 133.

Also, Brandon is dangerously close to earning a distinction that he doesn't really want. Brandon is about to become (according to John Hollinger's rankings) the worst player in NBA history to lead his team in minutes played. Now, that sounds really bad, but it's not really Brandon's fault that the other main players on his team have all been injured and missed significant time.

That's been a big problem for the Pacers, a ton of injuries. They're currently playing very good basketball to close out the season with a healthy roster so it could be said that they're unlucky. However, it could also be said that they are full of injuries because they continue to sign and draft high risk players.

T.J. Ford has spent of of his career on the injured list. Troy Murphy is injured just about every season. Roy Hibbert is going to miss some time every year and his knees will probably just give up and some point and even Rush has had injury problems in college and in the pros.

I want to feel sorry for the Pacers and give them the benefit of the doubt, but I also root for a MLB team in the Royals that is plagued by injuries mainly because of the people they sign and not just luck. At some point you create your own luck.

Intentionally left out of the discussion...

Fandom Free Agency - #17 Orlando Magic

Big mistake Orlando. You should have never signed Matt Barnes.

Sure, at the time it seemed innocent enough. He's a solid defender and 3-point shooter, and as Kobe Bryant can attest, he gives the Magic a little bit of a needed edge. I respect Dwight Howard put he doesn't exactly have a tough guy persona.

I actually liked Matt Barnes enough to add him to my fantasy team during my championship game. I was especially impressed with his ability to go a clean looking UCLA bruin to someone who covered his upper body in tattoos. I remember the first time I saw Barnes resurface in the NBA after a few non-distinct years, I had to do a double-take and a "Wait? That's the same guy."

Ultimately though, Barnes and the Magic played 4 games last week and that's why Barnes warranted a spot on my team for the most important week of the season.

That's when it all started going terribly wrong. Barnes averaged just over 3 points a game during the week and struggled shooting the ball. Then Sunday I think the frustration set in over his terrible week and Barnes decided it was a good idea to get tossed from the game.

What you have to understand is that our league includes ejections as a category and this ejection put what was once a blowout matchup into some serious question. It's a silly category, but one that was included in anticipation of something like this. The incredible amount of frustration that comes when one of your players gets tossed at an important time. I never considered that it would happen to me, and with a player who had only been on my team for a week.

In a way I probably deserved it for trying to force 4 worthless games out of a journeyman NBA player. And thankfully for Mr. Barnes I did end up winning the championship after all was said and done.

But I put that ejection as the 2nd worst moment in Orlando Magic history. Normally I'd say worst, but even I'll admit that this doesn't surpass Nick Anderson inexplicably losing the ability to shoot a free throw.

I recognize that Matt Barnes may not even be playing for Orlando after this season, but I just can't root for the team after Barnes caused me so much frustration last Sunday. I blame the Magic for putting him in.

The first man to single-handedly eliminate a team.

Fandom Free Agency - #18 Sacramento Kings

Prior to last night the Kings were teetering on the edge. As much as I liked and cheered for the Kings of the early 2000s the lasting memory of that team for me is Shaq continuously, and I mean continuously putting them in their place.

Then after spending this past weekend surrounded by happy K-State and Northern Iowa fans I wanted to punch out anything purple. I couldn't root for the Kings after a weekend like that.

Then last night happened. On the very same night that I wrote of the Nets for being a pathetic excuse for a basketball team, they went out and beat the Kings for their 8th win of the season.

The Kings started off this season as one of the league's surprise teams. Since then, they've dismantled the team, started looking like a team that will have a Top 5 pick again next year and then topped it off by losing to the Nets last night.

I've watched the Kings play a number of times this year in both the real world and the video game world and no matter where they're playing they really only have player who teams have to plan around.

Tyreke Evans has the ability to turn any game into his own personal lay-up line at any time but the players who usually surround him are Beno Udrih, Francisco Garcia, Andres Nocioni, Spencer Hawes and Carl Landry. If you looked at that list and wondered why you didn't recognize those name, it's because you shouldn't.

Carl Landry is a nice player, but he went from being a potential 6th man of the year in Sacramento to being the #2 option in Sacramento. The rest of the guys are nice role players, but hardly anybody that you have to game plan around.

And then there's the fact that Sacramento took the team away from Kansas City. Now, I'm not really bitter about that. I wasn't alive during any of the Kings years in Kansas City and I have no attachment to the team. But out of respect for my city I have to stand up for this sort of heist.

The name Kings still lingers as a Kansas City team name, along with the Royals and Chiefs, and the team does still choose to taunt KC by occasionally wearing throwbacks like these.

In the end, the Kings have just insulted me in two many ways. They wear purple, the left Kansas City and they made Scot Pollard go all the way to Boston to win an NBA title.

Just imagine what Pollard would do with his Kings ring.

Fandom Free Agency - #19 New Jersey Nets

It really shouldn't have ever gone this far. This is one of those deals where I looked at the remaining teams and then immedeatly said, "Wait a minute? How did New Jersey make it this far."

I of course remember that the New Jersey Nets won a dramatic game of NBA 2k10 to keep them alive not long ago. But that win has apparently given the real life Nets absolutely no momentum at all.

The Nets are currently sitting at a historically bad 7-63 record and have already set an NBA record for most consecutive losses to start a season.

They're bad. Really bad. Historically bad. And for that there is really no reason for me to keep them around any longer.

I've been a Kansas City Royals fan all my life, and because of that I've seem some really bad sports teams. But a winning percentage of .100 is just beyond belief. Even more so, I see no redeemable qualities with this Nets team.

Former all-star Devin Harris is now a shell of his former self and a constant reminder that the Nets got way to little in return for Jason Kidd, who is now in Dallas making every player on their team better.

The teams best player right now is probably Brook Lopez, but have you ever heard Brook Lopez talk? Is there any way that you can take someone who wore a storm-trooper mask and said, "I feel like a 3-year old right now," and then trust that person to win in late game situations?

The answer is no, you can't, and that's why the Nets have won 7 games and have lost an unacceptably large amount of close games this season.

(This isn't even mentioning Chris Douglas-Roberts whose late game heroics I'm very familiar with.)

The Nets aren't completely hopeless though. They're getting a new owner who has been described as "The Russian Mark Cuban" and if nothing else they're young. Of their top 6 scorers the oldest one is Devin Harris who is only 27 and each of their top 10 scorers are all under the age of 30.

There's also hope for the future because they're terrible record makes them a strong favorite to win the John Wall lottery at about 25%. Add to that number that the NBA lottery is rigged and I'll go ahead and bump that number up to about 60%.

But if you think I'm hitching my fandom wagon to a team that only wins 10% of it's games, then you're about as crazy as Brook Lopez.

Confused Brook? I thought you might be.

Fandom Free Agency - #20 Detroit Pistons

I've rooted for the Detroit Pistons one time in my life. The 2004 NBA Finals against the team listed right below them in this post.

As you can imagine I'm not a big fan of veteran players going to title bound teams just so they can win a ring late in their career. So as much as I (and unexplainably every other teenager) of the early 2000s loved Gary Payton and his Los Angeles Laker running mate Karl Malone. I could not root for them to find their way onto the 3-time champion Lakers just to win a championship.

So, in 2004 I became a Detroit Pistons fan for about a month a rooted hard for Mr. Big Shot, Rip Hamilton and Mr. Ball Don't Lie.

With those players the Pistons could have been a very attractive team for my fandom free agency. But sadly those players are all either gone or beyond their prime. Really the only redeemable quality from those Pistons that still remains is their P.A. announcer Mason.

I respect Mason for almost single-handedly changing the game for NBA P.A. announcers, but he will not be able to single-handedly make me a fan of the Pistons.

The real kicker for Detroit Basketball is that Joe Dumars apparently doesn't know what year it is, and that's a real problem for a man who's in charge of a sports franchise.

For almost 2 1/2 years now everyone has been talking about the 2010 free agent class. I'm convinced that Joe Dumars misheard and thought that everyone was talking about the 2009 free agent class.

So then when last offseason came Dumars frantically tried to sign the two top free agents on the market and didn't realize until after it was all said and done that he had signed Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva instead of LeBron James and Chris Bosh. In all reality, a simple mistake to make.

I also wanted to again give Dumars the benefit of the doubt (I mean he did assemble a championship at one point in time) and say that maybe his plan was just to assemble an All-NBA team of UConn Huskies. He brought in Gordon and Villanueva to join Rip Hamilton but unfortunately I knew this wasn't his plan when after the trade deadline he failed to trade Tayshaun Prince for either Ray Allen or Caron Butler.

So, as is, Dumars seems to be just a very confused GM. He traded an All-Star player, and more importantly a winner, in Chauncey Billups for one half season of Allen Iverson. And has now spent well over 100 million dollars for a sixth-man type guard who does nothing away from the ball in Gordon and a big man who refuses to play down low in Villanueva.

I'm sorry Piston fans, but I can't be a part of this upcoming disaster.

UCONN TEAM, ASSEMBLE!!

Fandom Free Agency - #21 Los Angeles Lakers

Ah heck, while I'm at it I might as well just eliminate an entire city.

I think anyone who knows me knew that I wasn't going to end up picking the Lakers as my team when this was all said and done. However, the least I could do was give the Lakers the respect of letting them survive past the Clippers. So now that the Clippers are gone, I feel free to eliminate the team that shares the Staples Center with them.

The reason I knew I wouldn't end up a Laker fan? I hate frontrunners.

I think the worst thing about sports are people who just cheer for the teams that win championships. Sure I don't get nearly the joy out of winning all the time, but trust me, the victory is oh so much sweeter when you have to wait and you can claim you've been cheering for a while.

During All-Star weekend I heard an interview with LeBron talking about how he was honored to play in Cowboy Stadium because "he loved" the Cowboys while growing up. The interview made me sick. We already know that LeBron is a Yankee fan so he's frontrunning in baseball and we now know that he did it for football as well.

Really LeBron? Were the Browns and the Indians just not on TV in Cleveland growing up?

I'll make a leap here and say this has something to do with why LeBron hasn't won a championship yet. The guy doesn't know how rare championship opportunities really are. All of his championships came often and he never really had to wait for them. So while I respect the heck out of LeBron, I can't respect his choices for sports teams.

So therefore, you will not find me rooting for the Lakers. In fact, in almost any situation I end up rooting against teams like the Lakers, Yankees and Cowboys. It's not really a knock on their teams, I really respect any players and team management that can continuously win championships. It's the fans of these teams that make me root against them.

From my experience fans of teams like this seem to think they are entitled to things. I don't know any Laker fans, but I've heard stories and I think I can easily compare them to teams like the Yankees and even St. Louis Cardinals who's fans can never fathom rooting for a team like the Royals.

Losing sucks. Anyone will tell you that, but it also makes you stronger and often a better fan for it. I can appreciate a good struggle. I can appreciate a good underdog. I can't appreciate bandwagoners.

Be a Laker fan! Everyone's doing it!

Fandom Free Agency - #22 Los Angeles Clippers

Almost a week late on my trade deadline reaction but if this year's trade deadline proved anything to me it's that there is no possible way to root for the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Clippers made 2 different trades in the week leading up to the trade deadline and both gave me the obvious impression that the team has quit and as usual is just trying to save money for their owner Donald Sterling (a noted cheapskate and racist.)

The first trade, swapping Marcus Camby for Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw. On the face of it, it's not a terrible deal... Camby is an expiring contract and Steve "The Eliminator" Blake and Outlaw aren't terrible players. But Outlaw has been hurt most of the season and will likely never play a minute for the Clippers.

Because of that the trade brought out some serious emotion from the Clippers players. Camby was actually upset to leave LA, presumably because of the town not his team, and one Clipper rightfully pointed out, "All the guys are upset because our best defensive player got traded for basically a backup point guard and some money."

The Clippers then completed the trade deadline by moving Bassy Telfair (a former favorite T-Wolf of mine) and Al Thornton for Drew Gooden. Drew is one of my all-time favorite Jayhawks, but even I can't see him having any positive impact for the Clip Show and the got rid of two young pieces to get him.

The team did make one good move prior to the deadline though when GM Mike Dunleavy relieved himself of his coaching duties. I won't get into Dunleavy's coaching downfalls, they're well documented. But when Mike Dunleavy showed up at Allen Fieldhouse on Monday I wasn't happy to see an NBA executive in the building, I was just hoping to God he would stay away from the Jayhawks.

I understand what the Clippers are doing. They've cleared cap space and now have an open coaching position that they can use to lure new players for next season. But if the Clippers think the likes of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh are coming to play for them they're dreaming. I'll throw out the prediction right now that during this upcoming offseason the Clippers will give out a max contract to Rudy Gay after their turned down by everyone else. Just way too predictable.

The Clippers have some good young talent, but honestly what team that has been in the lottery the last 4 years doesn't have talent. I actually hope that the likes of Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon can turn them into contenders in the near future. A good Clippers team is always an intriguing story.

However, if this past trade deadline has proven anything to me it's that there is no reason you can ever root for the Clippers. Year after year they continue to make moves that infuriate both their fans and their own players.

Maybe someday he'll even wear the jersey!