Idaho was pretty much the middle of the pack all season long. I give him credit though - he tries hard. He makes a lot of moves. Some work, some don't. But he tries. When it became pretty clear that he wasn't going to be able to finish in the money - he traded Carlos Boozer for an injured Ricky Rubio. At the keeper deadline he moved all his big time assets to get his hands on Andrew Bynum. In all, Tuna made 17 trades with 9 different teams. That's awesome.
Who had more fun this season with their JBL team? Idaho has to be right up there with all the moves. And now, Idaho will be able to bring back 3 players for next season. He'll get to chose between these 5 players:
Andrew Bynum, DeAndre Jordan, James Harden, Ricky Rubio, and Klay Thompson. He can only keep 3 and Tuna will have some hard decisions to make. You have to believe that Bynum, Harden, and Rubio are the leading contenders to be back in Idaho next year.
Yuma had to have one of the quietest 6th place finishes in the history of the JBL. The team finished with 762 points and was actually 4th in scoring. This was a team with Kobe, Al Jefferson, Paul Pierce, Pau Gasol, Brandon Jennings, Kris Humphries, and others. Pat's squad really flew under the radar and was quite competitive throughout the season. Pat made 9 free agents moves but only 1 trade (and that deal was on the trade deadline day). With a little more 'roster management' who knows where Pat could have ended up.
Yuma has 3 keeper spots for next season and has some potential talent to bring back...
Kris Humphries had a monster year as Kris Kardashian and averaged 14ppg and 11reb and had 50 steals and 74 blocks. He could come back for just $20 bucks. Brandon Jennings could come back for $22 after averaging 19ppg and 5ast with 105 steals. Three wild card keeper options would be JJ Barea $1, Danny Green $4 and Kawhi Leonard $5. Green and Leonard both have great upside but play in the very rigid San Antonio environment. Meanwhile, JJ has to share time with Rubio. No matter who Yuma brings back - you know this team is going to be one of those bubble contending teams. Pat seems to be locked in around the 8th spot every year with very few roster moves. What if Pat actually worked on his JBL team? Could he become a contender? We'll find out next season...
5th place went to the Seoul Brothers this year. Read that sentence again. Are you smiling? The team finished with just 808 points. This team was devastated by age and injuries down the stretch. Just look at the man games lost in the last few weeks - Ray Allen, Jose Calderon, Darren Collison, Nene, Ridnour and others all missed time. Crazy. Looking back on this Seoul team the weirdest stat I could see was that 9 of the players on Seoul's roster at the end of the year were actually guys that Phil drafted at Auction. He stuck with his old guys and unfortunately the plan just didn't pay off. Woo only made 5 trades this year and some of those cost him guys like Duncan and Marcus Thornton. And his Andray Blacthe experiment? That one didn't work.
Nevertheless, Seoul proved once again that you don't have to load up on scorers to contend for a JBL title. Seoul was in the title hunt and was 12th in scoring for most of the season. Woo could bring back as many as 3 players for next season but I'm not seeing super cheap talent on the roster. I could see Woo coming back with a clean slate in 2012/13. Despite this 5th place finish and the lack of keeper talent on the roster - I think Seoul has done enough over the past 5 years to warrant a pretty high off season ranking.
That's all for tonight...only 4 teams left to review....
Also, we'll have a new NBA champion this year - the Mavs are officially out.
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