Ah, life was so much simpler back in the day ... about two weeks ago ... when it was a good thing to be known around the NBA as a "max guy."

Now? It's not as onerous as some other labels associated with the association, like "'tweener," "project" or "coach killer." But being known as a "max guy" -- a player whose contract pays him the maximum salary allowed by the collective bargaining agreement for his years of service -- has a new whiff about it after the initial flurry of free-agent signings in the Summer of 2010.

Used to be, everyone wanted to be a max guy. Max guys were considered to be essential to the construction of a championship contender, and the term was synonymous with "cornerstone," "franchise face," "marquee player" and even "superstar." Oh, there were random exceptions, occasionally glaring ones, undeserving players who snuck into the elite club without proper credentials, then lurked in the corner while the true max guys went about their business of dominating games, leading teams, entertaining fans and sometimes even winning.

But by and large, the best got the most and "max guy" became a shorthand way of counting the type of talent needed on a roster for any team to be taken seriously in its pursuit of a Finals appearance. As in: One max guy isn't enough. You've got to have two max guys. Or at least one max guy and one near-max guy. Now, three max guys might be difficult ...

I remember having a discussion similar to that with the folks running the Minnesota Timberwolves 11 ½ years ago. The whole concept of max guys was in its infancy, born in the nasty 1998-99 lockout that wiped out hundreds of games and millions of dollars for folks on all sides of that NBA labor dispute. You might not recall it now -- commissioner David Stern's lockout beard and some silly quotes attributed to Patrick Ewing and Kenny Anderson seem to be the most indelible images of that owners vs. union schism -- but the Wolves were in the middle of the lockout, both before and after.

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