Loading ...Frank Isola of The New York Daily News: “Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni lashed out at his critics Friday, including his former boss with the Phoenix Suns, for questioning his ability - and what he considered D’Antoni’s unwillingness - to coach defense. “I get a little down because the first thing out of everybody’s mouth is, ‘They don’t play defense,’” D’Antoni said before last night’s preseason game against the Sixers. “First of all we won (55) games last year, (61 the year before). Sixty-(one) times we played better defense than the other team did, that’s for sure, because we scored more points.”"
Steve Adamek of The Record: “Lord, does D’Antoni love Nate Robinson. Loves his energy, his enthusiasm, his athleticism, his skill-set. “I”m trying to temper my enthusiasm,” he said Friday, “but I love the guy.” So, of course, did Isiah Thomas. The difference this season? D’Antoni’s system will make better use of everything N8 has, particularly defensively, where Thomas almost never seemed to use him as the kind of fullcourt ballhawk he can be.”
Peter Vecsey of The New York Times: “If that’s not weird enough, Sterling had given serious thought to letting Baylor go before that season. I’m uncertain why he changed his mind. Two years later, a few weeks ago, to be almost exact, Baylor was asked to surrender his title, vacate his brand new office at the team’s beautiful new practice facility and become a consultant, at a pay cut, of course. Baylor angrily refused. A week or so later, said a source, Sterling relented, telling Baylor he could remain on the job, if you will. His answer was not to attend training camp. After a week of being a no-show, Baylor was told he had to resign within a day or the club would file the necessary separation papers and make the subsequent announcement that included Dunleavy’s official promotion to GM.” [Via SLAM]
ClipperBlog: Would Elgin Baylor Have a Case?
Mark J. Spears of The Boston Globe: “And while talk is cheap right now, expect the reigning NBA champs to listen since the new James-Williams tandem is definitely talented enough to speak volumes come playoff time. “That’s all we talk about,” Williams said before the Celtics beat the Cavaliers, 96-94, in an exhibition game. “That’s all we talk about. You got to knock the king off the throne. And I’m playing with the king, so you can take that how you want.” Celtics nation might be asking: Who the heck is Mo Williams? Well, the Mississippi native who played in obscurity in Utah and Milwaukee is definitely someone the Celtics are very familiar with and respectful of.”
Bullets Forever: “With Haywood on the court, we’ve been about a league-average defensive team. With him off the court, we’re basically at the very bottom. Assuming, hypothetically, that Haywood played every minute of every game at that same level, our defensive rating would have been good enough for the following respective rankings: 13th, T13th, 15th and 25th. Without him? 30th, 26th, 30th and T27. When I speak of Haywood’s incredible on/off ratings, this is what I’m talking about. Of course, it’s not all about stats, but they prove the subjective conclusion. I say that Haywood, due mostly to his size and smarts and not necessarily his effort, is an incredibly underrated defender, particularly on a team with such awful perimeter defenders. The numbers support that.”
Third Quarter Collapse: “J.J. Redick had his first poor game of the preseason. He shot just 2-of-8 for 5 points, and his misses came mostly on bad shots. On one late-game possession, he tried to post-up (?) fellow Duke alum Trajan Langdon on the left block, then spun baseline and took a fadeaway jumper… which Langdon swatted out-of-bounds. It was that kind of night for J.J. If anything encouraging came out of this game, it’s that he showed he can put the ball on the floor. His lone two-point field goal came on an impressive drive to his right in which he shook his defender by faking a pass to Keith Bogans (once again lurking in the right corner) as he drove, only to bring the ball back to his body, go up with it, lay it in, draw the foul, and earn a trip to the line. He missed the ensuing free-throw. I hope his willingness to drive the lane carries over into the regular season against NBA competition; I also hope I never have to see him post-up again. Gracious, it was bad.”
MVN Outsider: The Twelve Greatest Individual Basketball Seasons of All-Time
Alex Raskin of HOOPSWORLD: “When Josh Childress left the Atlanta Hawks for $20 million to play in Greece, many expected a mass exodus of NBA talent to Europe. But for those worried that Lebron James might leave Cleveland for Tel-Aviv, one former NBA player insists basketball’s premiere league will be just fine. “I don’t see elite players going over (to Europe),” said CSKA Moscow Guard Trajan Langdon prior to Friday’s exhibition against the Magic. “Obviously the best basketball league in the world is here in the NBA with the best players. Everything about the NBA is great.” Some have speculated that the strength of the euro could encourage top NBA players to head overseas, but Langdon sees this mostly as a bargaining technique.”
Ira Winderman of The Miami Sun-Sentinel: “Yes, Dwyane Wade still can get plenty done on his own. Yes, Michael Beasley, at the mid-post or from the elbow, has a knack for getting the ball in the basket. But one-on-one doesn’t get it done. And playing to the open-court skills of Wade, Beasley and Shawn Marion requires the type of defensive rebounding the current rotation at center does not appear qualified to produce.”
Michael Wallace of The Miami Herald: “Magloire returned to Miami on Friday and had a non-surgical procedure to reset the bone in place. Team officials said Saturday that Magloire, who is expected to be out six to eight weeks, would be reevaluated next week to determine if surgery is necessary. If so, Magloire could most of the season. The Heat has already been hampered by injuries just weeks into training camp. It’s an issue that plagued the team throughout last season, when the Heat went an NBA-worst 15-67 and lost seven top players to injuries. ”It’s one thing after another with us,” Riley said Saturday before the Heat’s practice at O2 Arena. “It’s a disappointment because we’re down a center and a roster spot. Hopefully, he heals quicker than anticipated.” The Heat has 16 players under contract and must reduce that number by one through a two-for-one trade or by cutting a player owed guaranteed money - before the Oct. 29 season opener a New York.”
NBA.com: “Question: Who is your all-time starting five? Shaq: Hakeem Olajuwon at the center; Barkley at the small forward; Karl Malone at the power forward; Pistol Pete and Mike Jordan at guards. Question: And your starting five today? Shaq: Kobe, D-Wade, LeBron, Amare and me at the five.”
Tim Kawakami of The San Jose Mercury News: “Finally, a decision: Warriors president Robert Rowell announced in a press release that the team has suspended injured guard Monta Ellis for 30 games for violating his contract in the Scooter Incident. Since Ellis is hurt and almost certainly would’ve missed these games (through Dec. 17), anyway, the penalty basically turns out to be a $2.99M loss of salary.”
Bill Dwyre for The Los Angeles Times: “Mobley is a Philadelphia kid whose father, Donald, started teaching him to be a boxer when he was very young and whose mother, Jackie, put a quick stop to that. “She didn’t want that happening,” Mobley says. He played some high school quarterback and was good enough to attract the attention of Penn State and Miami. But he eventually caught basketball fever, went after high school to a prep school in Pittsfield, Maine, Maine Central Institute, and ended up playing against other elite prep school teams such as Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.”
Jerry Zgoda of The Minneapolis Star Tribune: “They became the frontcourt of the future when the Wolves dealt O.J. Mayo for Love and Mike Miller in an eight-player trade on draft night. Friday, Love looked every bit the rookie in the first half on a night when second-year forward Corey Brewer oozed offensive confidence after halftime. Love couldn’t keep Denver’s Kenyon Martin from scoring eight points in the game’s first seven minutes. He found his famed outlet passes might not always work in this league when J.R. Smith intercepted a long one. He was smacked in the mouth in the fourth quarter but stayed in the game.”
Tom Moore of PhillyBlurbs.com: “Brand, who signed a five-year, $82 million contract with the Sixers on July 9, also played 12 minutes in the second half, finishing with 24 points on 10-for-13 shooting. He said he wanted to make a memorable first impression for the Philly fans. “Even though it’s the preseason, it’s the first home game,” said Brand, a two-time all-star power forward with the Clippers. “I definitely wanted to show them who I was and play well, personally and as a team. The first unit really stepped up and did well.””
Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus: “It’s extremely rare for teams as successful as the Mavericks and Pistons to change coaches, but even more uncommon for them to do so by choice. When the moves first went down, I asked Basketball-Reference.com’s Justin Kubatko to pull the historical data for me. According to Kubatko’s research, going back to 1983, just 22 50-win teams had changed coaches before the following season. However, a number of those changes involved coaches retiring, voluntarily resigning or jumping ship for another team. Narrow it down to situations where the coach was forced out, and Johnson and Saunders are just the seventh and eighth such coaches in the last quarter-century. Overall, the 50-win teams that changed coaches did not do nearly so well the following season.”
Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: “Frankly, the Kings were late to comprehend the enormity of their task. Their record-breaking Arco sellout streak of 354 games ended with last season’s home opener, with only the Lakers and Celtics attracting capacity crowds. The team’s business and marketing executives appeared to suffer from an acute case of paralysis – or maybe just simple arrogance – by failing to recognize that fans of teams in transition have to be wooed, coddled, contacted, convinced. These are not those Kings, nor those days. It was only after a visit last season by a furious Colleen Maloof that the business model was restructured, with changes including: the hiring of Germann and two research analysts to renovate the data resources base; the doubling of the sales staff; and an organization-wide emphasis on engaging and reconnecting with the community, with greater demands placed on players, coaches and executives.”
Bob Raissman of The New York Daily News: “(Kenny) Smith, who was brought in with much MSG fanfare in 2005 to back up Walt (Clyde) Frazier, was now looking at a major pay cut. Garden Weasels say Smith was getting paid $10,000 per game to yack. He worked about 20 games per season. Going into the 2008-09 season, Smith was offered $3,000 per game. That ain’t no trim. That’s a shaved head. Mr. Smith just chuckled when asked if “local” economics played a part in him leaving MSG. Yet, he did say at TNT “everything that surrounds the production” has a “national” feel.”
Michael Grange of The Globe and Mail: “And as good a player as Agent Zero is, he might be a better blogger. Honest, opinionated and voluminous, there’s no athlete even close to him. He is the Michael Jordan of blogging. In fact, he’s better at blogging, relatively, than MJ was at playing. He’s that dominant, blog wise.” [Via Gilbertology]
Marc Stein of ESPN.com: “He’s been consistent with the restraint so far, rejecting every chance to do what he usually does and loudly guarantee a title run. (Throughout his final season as a King, many of Artest’s e-mails ended with the sign-off: “2008 NBA Champions.”) If you’re looking for Artest’s wildest Houston act to date, it’s probably his choice of jersey number, which he justifies by explaining that the 9 and the 6 are the digits that look most like a lower-case Q and lower-case B — qb — so he can pay tribute to his Queensbridge roots in Queens, New York.”
Ross Siler of The Salt Lake Tribune: “There’s just no comparison between spring training and the NBA preseason, which is the problem. A couple of you wrote back in March to say summer league was the NBA’s answer to spring training, but I still believe the entire October experience can be improved. Start with location: Spring training has the benefit of being in two places - - Arizona and Florida - - where fans want to vacation. I proposed having the NBA gather all its Western Conference teams in Las Vegas and Eastern Conference teams in Miami for a tournament.”
