If somebody tried to pull off this trade in a fantasy league, the other team owners would veto it so hard. The Oakland Raiders and the Cincinnati Bengals are close to a deal that would send Carson Palmer to Oakland for a first round pick in 2012 and a conditional pick in 2013.

It makes a lot of sense. Jason Campbell broke his collarbone and Andy Dalton has been better than Cam Newton, whether you’ve noticed it or not. Cincinnati is giving a new starting QB to a team it could be competing against for a playoff spot or in the postseason. The Raiders are giving up two high picks for a guy who’s been holding out, hasn’t been great for a while and has an arm that can go from John Elway to Steve Urkel in a heartbeat. ESPN notes that “both sides believed it to be a gamble worth taking”, which is funny, because I was hoping they’d made the trade ironically.

Palmer was willing to restructure his contract, which would pay him $6.9 million for the balance of this season, sources said. The Raiders have about $6 million left under the cap.

The next step for the Bengals should be for owner Mike Brown to hire a General Manager to make the picks for him. The next step for the Raiders should be printing up a few black and silver “quitter” jerseys. You know, just in case.

As bored as most people are with the NBA Playoffs by now, what with Oprah Winfrey dictating when games can be played, we should embrace as much NBA action as we possibly can in the remaining months of these playoffs, because the future of the 2011-12 season isn’t looking very bright.

The NBA Players’ Association is hoping to block a looming lockout by filing unfair labor charges against the league with the National Labor Relations Board last night. The players believe that the owners are making unfair demands regarding money and revenue while not offering anything back to the players in return. Basically, the owners won’t admit that they flooded the league with terrible mid-level and horrible max contracts over the past 5 years and now they would just like to call a do-over, what with that whole half-the-league’s-teams-are-hemorrhaging-money thing. You can guess the response of the guys who are on the other end of those terrible contracts. Here comes the Gilbert Arenas Amnesty Clause!

Also, the Los Angeles Lakers have hired Mike Brown as their new head coach in case the league ever has another season.

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UPDATE: ESPN is calling BS; Whose anonymous sources trump whose?

If you needed further evidence that coaches in the NBA do relatively little more than just roll the balls out at practice, here you are: reports are coming from “off-the-record” sources in Cleveland that NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown has less than the full confidence of the Cavs front office. From Pro Basketball News, via Game On:

Some key members of the organization feel Brown was badly out-coached by Orlando’s Stan Van Gundy, according to the sources. One source said Cavs management wasn’t only disappointed in the losses, “but equally disappointed in the (two) wins” in a series that went six games.

None of the sources would allow their names to be used, and only one agreed to be quoted.

The latter referred to Brown’s game plan as “junk,” and used that word several times to describe the offensive philosophy in Game 5 of the East finals — a 112-102 Cavs victory.

Another source who refused to be quoted implied Brown doesn’t know how or simply is not willing to open up his offense despite having weapons like James and Mo Williams, and to a lesser degree, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Delonte West.

I’ve said all along that the Lakers would match up with the Magic much like the Cavs did, which is why I liked the Magic in six games. But clearly, Phil Jackson has used his talent much better than Brown has (Dwight Howard’s soiling the bed notwithstanding). Will the Cavs find a guy that can outcoach Phil Jackson. I doubt it, but if the Cavs are looking for a more aggressive approach to their offense, why not bring in a new guy in a go-for-broke scenario during LeBron’s walk year. You can’t do any worse than “disappointing.”