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As fond as I am of delving into statistical analysis to explain why a particular signing or trade is good or bad, you might have noticed that I don't go into in-depth explanations of the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement on this blog. And the reason I tend to avoid that topic is simple.
The CBA is really fucking complicated and I like to try to avoid making a public fool of myself whenever possible.
I'm bringing this up now because of the rumor that Toronto might sign-and-trade Shawn Marion to Dallas in return for Jerry Stackhouse. As I understand it, this move would be made before the Turkoglu signing and might help the Raptors sign Turkoglu without having to renounce both Anthony Parker and Carlos Delfino. Jerry Stackhouse's 2009-10 expiring contract is apparently for $7.2 million but only $2 million of that is guaranteed, so Colangelo would likely buy out Stackhouse for that $2 million. The non-guaranteed part of the contract may or may not count against the cap. The Raptors and Mavericks might have to involve a third team to make all this work.
Are you dizzy yet? If there is one contact I would like to develop in my progression as a "wannabe journalist", it would be somebody who can, with absolute confidence, explain scenarios like this to me so I can at least pretend I know what I'm talking about when it comes to CBA matters. There is an online CBA resource I'm consistently grateful for, and that's Larry Coon's NBA Salary Cap FAQ. If you have any interest at all in CBA matters, this page is a "must-bookmark" for you. Heck, maybe one of the intelligent, enterprising people reading this will dive into that page and explain how this Marion-Stackhouse thing might work.
There are wrinkles that make this situation almost impossible to fully wrap our heads around right now: We don't know the exact amount of the contract Turkoglu's about to (supposedly) sign with Toronto, we don't know how much Marion would sign for in this scenario, and according to Mr. Coon, we won't know the actual salary cap figure for the 2009-10 season until tomorrow, anyway. All of these are pretty important details in trying to solve this riddle.
So you know what? I'm not even gonna try to figure this out yet. Hey, it's just a rumor, right? I'm sure if this Marion-Stackhouse thing goes down, Colangelo knows what he's doing. In B.C. we trust!
In the meantime, here's a fun fact about Jerry Stackhouse. He's one of only six active players to average 29.8 points per game or more in a season. The other five are Allen Iverson (four times), Kobe Bryant (three times), LeBron James (twice), Tracy McGrady and Dwyane Wade (once each). Of course, Stackhouse's big scoring season came on the 2000-01 Detroit Pistons who finished 32-50. The Pistons had the 24th-best offence in the NBA that season and their second-highest scorer was Corliss Williamson.
Whenever somebody tries to make a case that a player is better than I think he is because he averages X number of points per game, I think of Jerry putting up ridiculous numbers that season while shooting 40 percent from the field. Remember, lots of players can score in bunches if they're on a crappy enough team. 
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