FanHouse

ESPN.com's Bill Simmons published his annual NBA trade value column this morning. It's a heady task, leaving yourself open to endless criticism, pulling cohesive narrative value out of a glorified list of players. And hey, it's 7,000 words long, which has to count for something. All in all, a perennial must-read and wholly commendable.

But Bill misses the pictures on a couple of big points, most notably his supposed forte -- contracts. He has a few facts on some contracts (Monta Ellis, for example) wrong, and he generally ignores the fact many of these players are due for new contracts in the next year or two (Rasheed Wallace, Luol Deng, Josh Smith). Actually, he addresses Deng's contract status... but ranks him incredibly higher than comparable players who have signed for smaller contracts than what Deng will command this summer. How do you spend all this time considering contracts and ignore the obvious contracts which are coming this summer?

There's also the concern of homerism which will always haunt writers who have publicly known geographic preferences. Simmons' lashing comes on placing Paul Pierce at #19 while Tracy McGrady rides at... #28. McGrady is two years younger, a slight notch more productive currently, is only owed a small margin more per year, and is off the books a year earlier than Pierce. And somehow Pierce's situation -- talent, contract, age -- is not only better than T-Mac's, but a large degree better? That's called shamrock-colored glasses, my friend.