End the NBA Trade Rumor Madness

True knowledge is an illusion, and all of us are but grains of sand being forever ripped apart by that invisible particle accelerator called time. Which is why I’m really getting tired of reporting fall rumors, or at least speculating on trade rumors based on speculation about how the season might go based on the preseason. Or more importantly, just plain guessing in order to have something to write about. Like, isn’t the most important thing how things go when the season starts?↵
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↵The bustle really got bustlin’ when Chad Ford -- whom I believe has reformed and started pursuing credible scenarios -- dropped this feature on us. It had rumors of Odom for Marion, or Marion to everywhere, Vince to the Lakers, and Boozer to the already PF-laden Heat. Also, it included my favorite passage of the year:↵↵⇥Quick quiz: Which two players on the Memphis Grizzlies have the highest salaries? If you guessed Antoine Walker and Darko Milicic, you understand Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley’s pain. Memphis is in cost-cutting mode, and Milicic makes too much money for a terrible team . . . So, you may be wondering, why would anyone trade for Darko? The answer might surprise you. A number of GMs are still interested in him. No, he’s never going to be a star. But he is an excellent shot-blocker and has only two years left on his contract. The Knicks tried to pry him away as part of a Zach Randolph deal. I think you’ll see other GMs make a play this fall and winter.↵↵

But now you’ve got fans running around, trying to determine when Odom’s headed out, if that makes any sense, and off of that, whether Bynum’s already destroyed his career by failing to get his max extension. And don’t even get me started on this rehash of the Kobe-to-Europe rumors, Round Two. It was a thought experiment the first time around; now, it’s just bad math.↵
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↵So, as the person who had a panic attack yesterday when I heard that the Heat wasn’t planning to play 3,435 forwards at once, I’d say: PLEASE STOP AND GO DRINK. As Phil knows, the preseason is all about effing with people’s heads. Oh, and experimenting to see what does and doesn’t work, in ways not so obvious to us reading about it in the papers. Give me ten games, then the sky can start falling. But I really think we do blogs, and the Internet, and all our blue and white collar brethren, a great disservice by even trying to play Nostradamus here without any real data to go on.↵
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↵Just stop pretending you know anything, or pretend for a second you don’t know anything, and go ahead and get pumped for NBA 2008-09!!!!!!!!!!!!↵