Loading ...Mike Bresnahan of Los Angeles Times: “Forget about that Lakers frontline of Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Odom has been shifted to ball-handling guard, part of an experiment conducted by Coach Phil Jackson in a monthlong petri dish called exhibition season.Odom, who has already clashed with Jackson in training camp, has brought the ball up court for the Lakers in their first two days of practice. Derek Fisher has shifted to a shooting-guard role on offense and Kobe Bryant has moved to small forward. The concept, if it sticks, has its pros and cons.”
Lakers.com: “A major focus of training camp will be integrating the low post presence of Bynum with fellow seven-footer Pau Gasol. So far the two have been finding it easy to co-exist down low. “I feel comfortable. I haven’t really gotten a chance to play too much with Pau but for the most part it’s pretty cool,” commented Bynum. “We just kind of flip-flop. If he gets the rebound then I’ll sprint out. If I get the rebound he sprints out.” Expectations for the 20-year old Center are high after last season’s breakout effort, but Bynum seems to be the one aiming the highest. “For me it’s just that I want to be the best player I can be. I want to be an All-Star. Try to be a 20 and 10 player. It’s kind of tough in the West, but I think I’ll be able to do it.””
Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports: Holy crap, Andrew Bynum got huge
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “Across all the coaches, across conversations with several great ex-champion players, Rivers was delivered a common thread of caution. Somehow, you’ve got to get your role players to return to the mindset of, well, role players. “They’re on trophy tours all summer,” Rivers said. “They’re going to dinners. They’re making appearances for $10,000. Now you’ve got to ask them to go set a pick and rebound. It’s easy to get out of that role. I thought the reason we were good last year was because our role guys played their roles as well as anyone’s in the league.””
Ryan McNeill of Hoops Addict: “After agreeing to cover the Idaho Stampede’s open tryouts this weekend and then reading Henry Abbott’s recent posts on TrueHoop, I started to question why I wasn’t trying out for the team. I’m 28 and play competitive basketball a couple times per week, so I figure taking part in this tryout would be much more beneficial then sitting in a chair watching what’s going down. To me, the idea is a win-win. So, I jumped on the phone Tuesday afternoon to talk with Joel from the Idaho Stampede about whether I could ditch my golf shirt and instead lace up my kicks Sunday afternoon. He loved the idea so Sunday I’ll have the pleasure of crossing “trying out for a professional basketball team” off of my Bucket List.”
Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: “Bobcats coach Larry Brown would love to get Dean Smith back into basketball. That’s not to suggest the retired North Carolina coach (and Brown mentor) needs or wants a job. It’s more that Brown sees Smith as an exceptional resource. Smith visited training camp at UNC Wilmington this week, eating with the coaching staff Tuesday night, then watching practice Wednesday. Brown said he and managing partner Michael Jordan explored offering Smith a consulting role with the team, but Smith isn’t interested.”
Mike Monroe of The San Antonio Express-News: “What Horry can still see is a call, perhaps in February or March, from a title contender in need of a savvy veteran for the stretch run. The Celtics signed 38-year-old P.J. Brown out of retirement last season on Feb. 28. He helped them win the 2008 title. Horry’s playoff savvy and proven ability to make a big shot should make him every bit as valuable an addition next February as Brown was then. He promises to stay in good enough shape to come out of retirement if the call comes. “I won’t be filing official retirement papers any time soon, that’s for sure,” Horry said. “You’ll probably see me on somebody’s roster before the season is over.””
Sean Meagher of OregonLive.com: Day 2 of Blazers practice [Video]
Brian Windhorst of The Akron Beacon Journal: “Though he seemed to find a new wind in the second half of the season and ended up leading the Cavs to the Eastern Conference title, his overall numbers dipped across the board. At the end of the season, even though the Cavs won 50 games and claimed the No. 2 seed in the East, he was left off the All-NBA first team. Though there was never one obvious reason, a hangover from a demanding summer with Team USA was a likely culprit. Several of his USA teammates also struggled with injuries and slow starts after the team’s third-place finish at the World Championships in Japan. Now James might be facing the same circumstance.”
Tim MacMahon of The Dallas Morning News: “Of course, we’d been lobbying on this here blog for J-Ho to fall out of love with his jumper for some time. As we pointed out last winter, his percentage of field goal attempts inside the charge circle had steadily dropped during his career, from 51.7 percent of shots attempted in 2003-04 to 28.7 percent last season. Just in case Rick Carlisle needed any more help convincing Howard to turn back into a rack attacker, here’s an eye-popping stat: He shot 61.5 percent inside the charge circle and 39 percent outside it last season, when he clanked way too many stepback jumpers.”
Sam Adams of The Rocky Mountain News: “Nuggets guard J.R. Smith told me two words caught his attention during the summer. Not “shoot less” or “play defense” or “new contract.” Try these two: grow up. Those are harsh words of reality for a 23-year-old millionaire athlete to digest when spoken from the mouths of Mom and Dad. “I sat down with my parents this summer and they told me it’s time for me to grow up. It’s time to be mature as a man,” Smith said.”
Detroit Bad Boys: “There may have been a little bit more to it — looking back at my post on this incident, it Rip was yanked after turning the ball over twice and was apparently frustrated he wasn’t being given a longer leash to find his rhythm. Either way, by the time all was said and done, Rip averaged 33.7 minutes last year, his fewest in five years. I don’t want to read too much into this — there are countless things that happen behind closed locker room doors that fans will never hear about, so the frustration he spoke of could have stemmed from any number of things — but if his playing time is still a concern, he’s due for another frustrating year. There’s been a lot of talk about Rodney Stuckey averaging 30 minutes a game this year, and those minutes have to come from somewhere.”
Johnathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle: “Rick Adelman made himself a promise. The season ended and before all the analysis that would come, before the trade for Ron Artest or free agent pick up of Brent Barry, before the Rockets left Salt Lake City and another promising but also disappointing season behind, Adelman knew the change he wanted. In his second season as Rockets coach, the Rockets would run his offense.”
Jason Friedman of Rockets.com interviews Shane Battier: “Alright, so in this dream world, what would be the first change you’d institute? “Shorter seasons. The NBA season only needs to be fifty games. I think the fans would love it because every game would mean so much more, like in college where every game is so important. Players would love it because it saves wear and tear on their bodies. I think TV people would like it because more people would watch. I just think it would be a great thing.”"
DallasBasketball.com: Rick Carlisle is looking for a few players with an “edge” [PG-13]
Jerry Brown of The East Valley Tribune: “As a longtime point guard in the NBA, Terry Porter has mastered hundreds of plays and seen them work successfully in the league. But as a coach, he wants to keep the Suns’ playbook fairly simple, and prefers quality over quantity. “I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.””
Mike Barrett of Blazers.com: “Another guy who shot the ball very well on Wednesday was Rudy Fernandez. He continues to get more and more comfortable with everything, and appears to have picked up the offensive sets very quickly. His English is good enough that the coaches haven’t had to spend extra time explaining things to him. That can be a challenge for foreign players, but it hasn’t been an issue for Rudy.”
Howard Beck of The New York Times: “The more pressing issue will be who is running the offense. In two days of scrimmages, D’Antoni has consistently paired Chris Duhon with Jamal Crawford as the first-team backcourt, while using Stephon Marbury on the second team with Nate Robinson. D’Antoni said he had not committed to a starting lineup, but every indication is that Duhon will start. Asked directly about the point-guard competition, and whether Marbury was the better player, D’Antoni said: “Boy, that’s a loaded question. I don’t know how to answer that one. That’s a tough one.”"
20 Second Timeout: “”Stats gurus” plainly do not want to discuss or consider the fact that some of their most precious numbers–the raw data that they plug into their formulas, stats like assists, steals, blocked shots and turnovers–are subjectively recorded. During last season’s playoffs, I did a detailed post demonstrating that Chris Paul’s supposedly record setting playoff assist totals were in fact inflated by generous scorekeeping. Shouldn’t that be of interest to the “stats gurus”? Isn’t that claim something that they seriously need to investigate on their own to either confirm or reject? I provided very specific information so that anyone could watch a tape of the game and find the exact plays that I described and thus judge for themselves whether or not each of those assists should have been awarded. Yet I see no indication that the “stats gurus” are the slightest bit concerned about the fact that a lot of their basic data is seriously flawed.”
