The season is over and the Lakers are the champs, which means its time for every team in the league to participate in the obligatory summer reloading process.

The idea, of course, is that throughout the summer teams improve themselves and theoretically become contenders rather quickly if they make wise decisions. Unfortunately, like most theories, the idea works better on paper than in actual implementation. It wasn’t that long ago that you could basically build a dynasty with a number of smart decisions and or lucky breaks.

Think back on the masterful moves of Jerry West in the summer of ‘95. In a matter of weeks West traded Vlade Divac for the rights to Kobe Bryant to free up salary cap room so that he could sign a then unrestricted free agent, Shaquille O’Neal. Think back to luck of the Spurs in the summer of ‘97, where in the amazing luck of the lottery the Spurs ended up with the first pick and the rights to Tim Duncan, a player that Celtic fans (the worst team in the league that year) coveted so much that Bostonians were wearing mock Duncan jerseys before the season even ended.

What happened to those amazing summers where the entire scope of the league could be transformed overnight? The answer is actually simple and it comes down to two simple things: the CBA and what I like to call “Future Talent” NBA drafts.

Let me start by addressing the CBA. I have no intention at this point of starting the never-ending debate about whether the current CBA and a myriad of other current NBA rules and regulations are a good or bad thing. I think I’ve made it pretty clear at various times I’m not a fan of it, and in this article I’ll probably do it again. My only point is that the CBA signed in the strike shortened 98-99 season has ended a lot of the player movement that made for some truly exciting NBA summers in the 90’s. Don’t misunderstand me; players can still switch teams and some minimal movement still occurs, it just takes an act of God for any significant player movement to occur. The effect of the CBA, whether planned or not, is that NBA movement is completely constricted and players are locked into staying with their current team unless they hire a super-agent that can orchestrate a 5-team 12-player deal all for the purpose of moving one star to a different team. The free agent period each summer has now become an exercise in simply appeasing a player with certain promises and handing him the exact same contract as 10 other teams because the CBA constricts and restricts everything. So the Free Agent frenzy is gone . . . at least for now.

What ultimately makes the summers worse is that the Draft has even deteriorated. Gone are the days of the Magic Johnsons that can come in as rookies and lead their teams to the pinnacles of NBA success. The first picks in the draft are now long-term projects that are not expected to contribute for two or three years. Players are drafted with the hope that they may turn into great NBA players. So basically instead of the off season being a time like the NFL’s, inarguably the most well-guided sport from a management prospective, we are stuck in the middle between the rotting carcass that is baseball and the brilliance that is football, and to be honest I’d rather be at one end of the spectrum or the other. Baseball is wild and loose with anyone going anyplace anytime, with the draft being nothing but future hopeful prospects; and the NFL on the other hand has a solid and established system where players move freely but with a hard salary cap, and NFL draftees contribute immediately to help make a team a contender. To try and describe what the NBA has is to try and describe how Russia ran its communist system in the last years before its collapse; you could get a PHD on the topic and still not know everything.

So ultimately this is the weird atmosphere is what the Sonics are entering into, and it is pretty clear they plan to basically maintain their current status. For the Sonics the chances of signing any big- time free agent or pulling off a blockbuster deal are pretty negligible, and without a first-rounder the Sonics are basically just drafting a backup.

I expect the Sonics to resign Rashard, maybe try to trade Shammond and or Vin, and maybe play around with a few other things, but it certainly isn’t the kind of summer it could or should be if the NBA had a clue as to how to build a truly powerful and ultimately more profitable league. The fact is the NBA summer that used to be a time where GMs would essentially hatch a plan they thought could win them a championship within two years has become a time where GM’s hatch plans that may bring them some form of increased success within six years. What the hell is that about?

Next Time: NBA Playoffs . . . Flawed or Flawless???????

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All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of other columnists or staff of Sonicscentral.com