<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> You hear a lot of dumb things in my line of work. Ridiculous conspiracy theories. Unworkable trades. But among the dumbest came last week, when a radio guy suggested to me that the rules in the NBA make it impossible for a team to improve. Not bad trades or insipid coaching hires. The rules. Something about how teams are so hamstrung by contracts, and can't make deals because of the cap, and boo, hoo, hoo. That's stupid. Is the NBA's collective-bargaining agreement written in Sanskrit? This isn't brain surgery. Smart drafting, signing the right free agents, and managing the cap leads to championships. No one is perfect; the last four teams standing in the playoffs have each made a number of mistakes when it comes to personnel. But they've made so many right calls they've overcome their errors. Take Utah, which faced down obstacles of history of culture and of finances to get back to the Western Conference finals. Instead of making excuses when the John Stockton-Karl Malone era ended, general manager Kevin O'Connor and coach Jerry Sloan went back to work.</div> <div align="center">Source: David Aldridge, The Philadelphia Inquirer</div>
