Tyson Chandler: “I’m taking pictures and all of a sudden, I hear somebody start cursing at me. I’m looking through my camera lens at the time, so I can’t see anything but the pictures I’m taking. I come from up under, and this dude walks up to me, cursing me out. I put my camera down and I’m like, “Am I not supposed to be taking pictures here?” He starts yelling in Spanish and I can’t understand him obviously. He looked homeless to me, and I’m saying, ‘Oh, I’m not supposed to be taking pictures here. I’m sorry.’ He’s just screaming at me and I put the camera away and walk away. But then he’s still going off and I see like 10 more homeless people up against the wall with dogs and stuff. It looked to me like the other 10 people were asking him what he was doing, but they were speaking Spanish, so I don’t know what they were saying. The guy’s walking toward me and I’m putting my hand out like, ‘Stay back I walk backwards and start to turn around, but then, in the corner of my eye, I see him reach back to throw something. I kinda ducked and all these coins hit me.”
Alan Hahn of New York Newsday: “If Jamal Crawford keeps up this deer-in-headlights look in this offense, the Knicks are going to have a major dilemma to figure out with a week to go before the real games begin. Meanwhile, five games into the seven-game preseason, Stephon Marbury has slowly started to figure out how to make himself most effective in the D’Antoni system. In fact, D’Antoni went out of his way to point out that Marbury’s play in tonight’s win over the Nets was ‘really good’ . . . OK, usually 9 points and 6 assists (and two turnovers) isn’t a typical Marbury statline, but he did it in 16:23. And he did it with a bounce in his step we haven’t seen much of in the preseason thus far. And earlier in training camp D’Antoni seemed uncomfortable to discuss Marbury in public. Now it seems he’s allowing himself to believe….maybe, just maybe….”
Marc Berman of The New York Post: “It would make the most sense to start Marbury at shooting guard, replacing the struggling Jamal Crawford, who was 1 of 6 for four points. Or he could conceivably replace Quentin Richardson in a three-guard offense. D’Antoni has started a Chris Duhon-Crawford backcourt through the first five preseason games and feels it may be time to experiment with just two exhibition games left. Marbury helped the Knicks seize momentum in his 16 minutes off the bench, scoring nine points with six assists, making all three of his shots on hard drives. ‘He looks great, he looks as quick as ever,’ one NBA scout said. If Marbury does not start tonight, he won’t be complaining. He’s past griping about a bench role. ‘I come in and do what I’m told,’ Marbury said. “It’s starting to be a good adjustment.’”
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Hornets247.com: “As a talent evaluator, things have been a mixed bag for Bower. It was Allen Bristow, not Jeff Bower, who drafted David West 18th and Chris Paul 4th. Bower landed Peja Stojakovic, but probably overpaid for him. Bower sold his Draft Pick for cash this season, a fairly questionable strategy that hasn’t worked out well for other teams. His trade of Bobby Jackson for Bonzi Wells and Mike James last year can’t really be considered a win for the Hornets - especially since Bobby has since been turned into Ron Artest by the Rockets and we remain on the hook for 2 years of questionable Mike James production. To balance the good trade of PJ Brown and JR Smith for Tyson Chandler and the drafting of Julian Wright, Bower brought in busts Arvydas Macijauskas, Marcus Vinicius and Cedric Simmons. Morris Peterson was a decent signing, but the extension Rasual Butler was given and is still playing out was clearly excessive for his production.”
Mike Monroe of The San Antonio Express-News: “In a Saturday night interview session that lasted precisely 5 minutes, 4 seconds, Dirk Nowitzki uttered the word ‘fun’ five times. ‘We’re having fun’ … ‘he’s having fun’ … ‘it’s been fun.’ This is a guess, but in one brief analysis of his team’s mind-set this preseason, the Mavericks’ All-Star forward may have vocalized about basketball as a glee-inducing experience more often than he did during all of last season. These are the post-Avery Johnson Mavericks, and if laughter is any gauge, they will be back near the top of the Western Conference next spring.”
Janny Hu of The San Francisco Chronicle: “So different are the tones set by Dunleavy and Warriors counterpart Don Nelson that Corey Maggette - who made the reverse journey to the Warriors this summer - proclaimed that Davis was in for a ‘rude awakening’ in Los Angeles. Davis, having known Maggette since the two were in sixth grade, took the words with a grain of salt - but Maggette had a point. ‘It’s definitely different,’ Davis said. ‘I mean, with Golden State, you know how it is. The energy there was more relaxed. More free. It’s more fun. I would say here, it’s more serious. More attention to detail. Long film session, at least 30 minutes, maybe 40. Then walk-through. Then practice. So we’re in there for almost three hours, sometimes. Nellie was like an hour, hour-fifteen.’ In many ways, Dunleavy is the antithesis of Nelson.”
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Michael Lee of The Washington Post: “Jamison’s knee may not be a problem, but the Wizards still have several kinks to work out before the season opener against New Jersey on Oct. 29. And with preseason games remaining against San Antonio and Cleveland, Coach Eddie Jordan is focusing on the team’s most glaring weaknesses — defense and conditioning. The Wizards implemented assistant Randy Ayers’s new defensive system last season and it resulted in some drastic improvements. But despite the relative continuity of the roster, Jordan said there has been little carryover. That has resulted in blown assignments, communication breakdowns and easy scoring opportunities for opponents.”
Marcus Thompson II of InsideBayArea.com: “Warriors coach Don Nelson said he is approaching tonight’s game against Lietuvos Rytas at Oracle Arena like a dress rehearsal for the season opener Oct. 29. Then, reluctantly, he named his starters for tonight, the final exhibition game. Stephen Jackson will start at shooting guard and Corey Maggette at small forward. Al Harrington will be at power forward and Andris Biedrins at center. And, at point guard, DeMarcus Nelson. Not Marcus Williams, the former understudy of NBA star Jason Kidd. Not C.J. Watson, the returning backup who knows and fits the system best. But, if the season started today, Don Nelson said he’s going with the undrafted rookie, a training-camp invitee who wasn’t even the point guard at Duke.”
Sekou K Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “This team is better than the one we saw at the end of last season, the one that battled the Celtics to Game 7. Barring major injury, these cats appear to have a chance to really make some noise this year. I wanted to wait a day to make sure it wasn’t just fatigue, bad fast food and a the emotional hangover of another embarrassing performance by my Wolverines working on me. It wasn’t. This is by far the most dynamic, balanced and potentially high-scoring team I’ve seen entrusted to Hawks coach Mike Woodson. And he’s shown a willingness to tinker with and explore the possibilities with crew at his disposal.”
Ross Siler of The Salt Lake Tribune: “As many changes as will have to take place as long as Deron Williams is out with a sprained left ankle, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said Monday he isn’t reconsidering his decision to start C.J. Miles and use Andrei Kirilenko as a sixth man. The Jazz have only one preseason game remaining and Sloan has brought Kirilenko off the bench in five of six preseason games so far. Kirilenko is averaging 9.3 points, 3.2 assists and 3.0 rebounds in 22.7 minutes. Asked about moving Kirilenko back to the starting lineup, Sloan said: ‘Probably not. Not at this stage. I hope that works out. Andrei’s played awfully well coming off the bench.’”
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Jason Quick of The Oregonian: “Rudy, by the way, continues to impress. You constantly notice him on both ends of the court. On Monday he had 16 points, four rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block. He was 6-of-13 from the field and 4-of-10 from three-point range. He also had a beautiful reverse dunk of a lob from Rodriguez. I love what Rudy does on the floor, and I think he has to play around 30 minutes a game. But I really like him with that second unit. In fact, I think this second unit has the chance to be so good, and so special, that it would be dangerous to mess with it. I asked Nate if he thought the second unit was so impressive together that he had to start Batum, but he said he hadn’t reached that point yet. He said he is toying with the idea of starting Rudy for about 6 minutes, then subbing him for a guard, then putting Rudy back at the start of the second quarter. It’s an interesting decision, and one that McMillan admits is taking up most of his mental energy.”
Greg Patton of The Press-Enterprise: “One week to go before the season opener and the Lakers are in turmoil. Whoops. That was last year’s story, and the year before and the year before, and so on and so forth. Sorry, my typing fingers just went there. This year, new angle: The Lakers have the kind of problems that only bless a franchise once every 20 years or so. The rest of the NBA’s franchises can only dream they had two highly skilled, 7-foot post players learning to mesh. Every team in the league wishes it had a player as versatile and experienced as Lamar Odom coming off the bench, even if he was a little grumpy about it at first. In Laker Land, the Grambling State marching band couldn’t drum up an issue worth fretting over. The defending Western Conference champions swat away trouble like, well, two 7-footers in the lane.”
Mike Cranston of The Associated Press: “Bob Johnson said Monday he remains committed to the Charlotte Bobcats, who have struggled to win and attract fans since he paid $300 million for the expansion franchise four years ago. Johnson laid off nearly 40 employees in the past month to save money, and three top executives have left the organization. But in an interview with The Associated Press, Johnson said he has no intention of unloading the team, and will spend what it takes to get the Bobcats to the playoffs for the first time.”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “So far, Johnson, pro sports’ first African-American majority owner, has done little to validate the enthusiasm that met his $300 million purchase of the expansion Bobcats in 2003. He’s the self-made man who built the Black Entertainment Television empire that made him $3 billion in a sale to Viacom. Two years ago, he turned his basketball decisions over to an absentee partial owner, Michael Jordan, who appears to be following the same sloppy script that doomed him with the Washington Wizards. Several Bobcats employees are so skeptical of Jordan’s priorities, a source says there’s a running joke that the greatest player ever had something to do with the league office scheduling the Bobcats in the Super Bowl cities of Miami and Phoenix the day after the 2007 and 2008 games. No one is ever sure when and where they’ll find Jordan around the team – never mind scouting the colleges or overseas – but they know Jordan never misses that Super Bowl week party.”
