This SI.com overview by Kelly Dwyer of the past six NBA offseasons illustrates something that I’ve been arguing for years: Cap space, in the NBA, is highly overrated. Yes, it’s good to have it, and it makes things easier. But cap space by itself is completely worthless, and isn’t anywhere close to as important as smart leadership and sound decision-making on the player personnel side. Every off-season, there are three or four teams (the Clippers and Hawks are ALWAYS two of them) with a losing record and large amounts of cap space, and every off-season the teams expect to use the space to sign one or more major free agent to lead them back to the promised land. But what they forget is, no free agent wants to sign with a bad team, cap space or not. So free agents desert the Clippers, Hawks, Raptors, etc., in droves, and more likely, the teams end up turning to Ron Mercer (who has signed with teams in that situation at least three times in his career). No NBA team has ever ridden cap space alone to a championship. Yes, the Lakers cleared space to sign Shaquille O’Neal in 1996, but that was four collective bargaining agreements ago, and his first title was four years later. The Spurs had a ton of space after the ‘02-’03 season- but they used it to sign no players that contributed significantly to their championship this year. And the Suns and Nuggets have both rapidly improved in recent years by using their cap space wisely- but even then, neither team has come close to a title. Your team has cap space this year? Great! But if their GM doesn’t know what to do with it, you may be better off capped out.–7/7/05