We Will Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Wanking

Did you have NBA Trade Deadline Fever? I know I did, having spent most of the last 72 hours in a cocaine-fueled tizzy while digging into the contract details of every player in the Association, then moving them all around in ways that only my fantastic mind could comprehend. After that work was done, I then went on to a lot of NBA blogs and posted my latest research, just to see how much groundswell I could get. How else could you explain rumors like:

> Shaquille O'Neal to the Cavs, because he worked so well for the Suns in their stretch drive last year, and the Cavs are completely convinced that they need to blow up the team, considering how gosh-darn awful they've looked as the best team in the East this year

> Vince Carter to Toronto, just to teach him a valuable lesson about being a piece of crap

> Kirk Hinrich to a team that's convinced that oft-injured and unathletic point guards always age well (surprisingly, Hinrich is still a Bull)

> Stephon Marbury to the Celtics, because the Celtics always get a guy for pennies on the dollar, and the Knicks want nothing more than to put him in the same division and on a playoff team, for all that he's done for them

> Raptors sending Chris Bosh to the Bulls, because you want to move a guy to a franchise that, if they offered their entire team for him, still doesn't have enough

> My left nut for my right one, just to give both a fresh start

What actually happened? Squadouche, as Norm Chad might say, and I'm probably impugning the good name of nothing by associating it with Larry Hughes and Rafer Alston (but probably not Brad Miller). By the end of the afternoon, the Lemur had already pivoted to the Tiger Comeback, having sensed that the biggest annual non-story, behind only Dog Show Coverage and the ESPYs for sheer Public Naked Pud Pulling, had faded.

Why do the Association's fans and writers fall for this every year? Maybe it's just that it's February and we're all out of other things to write about. Maybe it's because the writers are all hopeless nerds who would rather play Fake GM than Real Fan.

Or maybe -- and this is the stunning thing, the unthinkable thing, the dare not speak its name thing -- the Association's front offices are actually, you know, a little bit smart about their jobs.

Trades in the NBA, unless they are absolute theft (see Gasol to the Lakers and Garnett to the Celtics), are rarely a great way to improve your lineup. That's because trades are almost always about the salary cap, rather than the on-court product, and because it takes a long time -- years, really -- for players to truly adapt their games to each other and be successful, especially on the defensive end. Most mid-season trades are just shuffling chairs on the Titanic; by the time you've played 50 games, barring injury, you are what you are. Unlike baseball, a bubble team does not go to the Finals with the right move; unlike football, trades actually exist.

Anyway, now that that's over, it's time to... watch the games? Hell no. Let's write some more about the 2010 free agent class!