Loading ...Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports: “With O’Neal’s salary no longer clogging their salary cap, the Lakers set about building the league’s deepest roster. They missed the playoffs their first season without Shaq, but that netted them the lottery pick to use on Andrew Bynum. Give credit to Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak and his front-office staff. Kupchak made one mistake, trading Caron Butler to the Washington Wizards for Kwame Brown, and he cleaned that up last season when Brown helped land Pau Gasol. After Bryant chafed at the length of the rebuilding process, Kupchak brought back Fisher – who had left in the summer of 2004 for a lucrative contract with the Golden State Warriors – to give the team another veteran guide. ‘We were all at different places in our careers and it’s very difficult to try and keep that together,’ Fisher said. ‘Think about where we are now compared to then… ‘The three years I was away from the Lakers just gave me a greater appreciation for where we are now and the value that you feel as an athlete when you are a winner. Nothing replaces that. There’s no contract, no amount of money that replaces the feeling of being the best.’”
Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: “Nash tried his best to spin it back positively and talked up the defensive improvement and where they could end up if the offense progresses the same. But his desire to change offensively to get that improvement came through. ‘If we just stay the same way we’re playing right now, we probably won’t get major differences offensively,’ Nash said. And then the big whammy of the night, thanks to Smith, a part-time Valley resident who nearly knows the Suns as well as the Bulls team he now works for as a bulls.com writer. ‘Do you ever feel marginalized?’ Smith asked, drawing an affirming Nash chuckle. ‘A little bit,’ he said. ‘I just don’t necessarily have the opportunities I used to have but we have other weapons. We can go inside now, something we couldn’t do in the past. I’m trying to just fill my role the best I can.’ ‘Role,’ said the two-time MVP?”
Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times: “O’Neal said Bynum is playing like a 7-footer should. ‘He does what he’s supposed to do,’ O’Neal said. ‘He catches it, keeps it up high and throws it down. He’s bigger, a lot stronger. He’s not really the first, second or third option. He just gets lobs, gets rebounds. He does what he’s supposed to do as a 7-footer.’ O’Neal is 36 now and now longer is as athletic. He still can power to the basket, but he doesn’t get off the floor as high as he once did. He was asked to explain how his game has changed now that he is in his 17th season. ‘Lesser shots, that’s about it,’ O’Neal said. ‘I’m still going to be the power guy, shoot the high-percentage shot. I’m still shooting a high percentage, but I’m not really the first option on this team.’”
Steve Bulpett for the Boston Herald: “The Celtics know they’re going to get a maximum effort out of Kevin Garnett every night, but they are a tad concerned his emotion-meter could red-line tonight in Minneapolis. It will be Garnett’s second visit to his old arena with the Celts, but he didn’t play last February because of the abdominal strain that cost him nine games. ‘You don’t know until you get there,’ said coach Doc Rivers of Garnett’s hyper forecast before the Celtics’ 98-80 win over the Pistons last night. ‘With Kevin, he walks that line every night. Usually it’s a gut feel. Sometimes I’ve been wrong. I’ve called him in the office and he’s completely calm even though he looks . . . well, calm in Kevin’s world. But then there’s times that he needs to be talked down some. You just don’t know until you get there and read it. I think it’s nice that he’s been there once. He didn’t play, but he’s been there.’ The coach will be on guard because of how intense Garnett was last year.”
Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “The curious case of Michael Beasley deserves further inspection, especially after his 16 minutes Tuesday in Washington were followed by 12 Wednesday against visiting Toronto. Yes, foul trouble was a factor in each case. But he finished with just four against the Wizards, three against the Raptors. As a matter of perspective, No. 1 overall pick Derrick Rose has not played fewer than 28 minutes, and that was in a blowout loss to the Celtics. No. 3 pick O.J. Mayo has not played fewer than 27 in a game, and that was in a blowout victory over Sacramento. Even Nos. 4 and 5 picks Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love, who each have been utilized as reserves, have never been limited to as few as 12 minutes. Credit Spoelstra for making Beasley earn his minutes. Credit the first-year coach for opening Beasley’s eyes to the realities of the NBA. But this is still the No. 2 overall draft choice.”
John DeShazier of The Times-Picayune: “The Hornets are .500, but they aren’t playing .500 ball. Instead, they’re playing with the kind of inconsistency that you simply wouldn’t have expected in your wildest dreams. They’re playing as if they sporadically can switch on the urgency, as if five or 10 hard minutes here and there is going to be enough. Scott chastised his team during a recent film session because of the lack of fast-break opportunities. New Orleans wasn’t trying hard enough to get cheap points, he said. Basically, players were in a “home run” trot, putting more pressure on the half-court offense because precious seconds were being wasted as the Hornets constantly were running half-court offensive sets. Indeed, there’s too much trotting going on, not enough play-like-this-is-your-last-game. Opponents aren’t folding the way they used to; they’re using the Hornets as a measuring stick and so far, they’re finding that they measure up pretty well against a team that some forecast to reach the NBA Finals.”
At The Hive: Evaluates the New Orleans Hornets defense
Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: “What is more meaningful over the long haul is how Williams is taking over the responsibility of running the Cavs’ offense. Much of it goes on without most fans seeing it, especially his play-calling. That contribution has helped the Cavs become a more efficient and potent offense, with their stats up across the board. ‘Mo has been doing a great job of calling the game, I don’ t have to worry about calling all the plays,’ Cavs coach Mike Brown said. ‘It makes us less predictable and harder to guard, especially on the road when you have to battle the crowd.’ Advance scouts are usually able to steal signs and play calls and give a report to their teams before the game, which opposing coaches and some players memorize. So when Brown signals in or calls out a play, it is fair game to steal. Williams calling them himself makes that process harder and also allows him to get a better feel and control of the game.”
ClipperBlog: “The quality of Marcus Camby’s defense will always be great fodder for statistical debate — he’s like the Adam Dunn of basketball. There’s no denying the value of Marcus Camby’s presence in the paint against teams that attack with dribble-penetration. But we’ve also seen that more active PFs with outside games — guys like Luis Scola — can present problems for the Clippers, because Marcus tends to play off his guy. He’s also a bit passive as a P/R defender. But enough perception. What do the stats show? Thus far, 82games.com likes what it sees from Marcus Camby. Their ratings don’t include last night’s game in Oklahoma City, but show that the Clippers give up 102.7 points per 100 possessions while Marcus in on the floor, but a whopping 117.2 points/100 possessions when he’s not.”
Lisa Dillman of the Los Angeles Times: “Man hugs, real hugs and mutual admiration take place between opponents just before an NBA tipoff. All this male bonding and all that’s missing are the cigars. Which brings us to the Clippers’ Baron Davis and the 76ers’ Elton Brand. So will they hug, exchange pleasantries or even lock eyes before tonight’s game? ‘I’ve got nothing to say to him,’ Davis said on Wednesday. This was in the visitors’ locker room at Oklahoma City, not long after the Clippers beat the Thunder by 20 points. The mention of Brand quickly wiped away Davis’ smile, especially because he just had been talking about Oklahoma City’s Earl Watson, saying he regards Watson like ‘a brother.’ Davis hasn’t spoken to Brand, and said he doesn’t plan to do so, because the former Clipper recruited Davis to come join him in Los Angeles and then Brand did a quick cut and run, heading East for a bigger bag of money, a five-year deal worth almost $80 million.”
Christopher Reina of RealGM: What Can Make The Blazers Truly Special And Unique
Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star: “While Calderon came to the league three seasons ago as a 24-year-old rookie, Solomon, an afterthought in Memphis in 2001-02, has come back to the NBA at age 30 after spending six seasons on the Euroleague marquee. ‘Will was a star over there, a true star,’ said Maurizio Gherardini, the Raptors executive. ‘So right now, as strange as it sounds to (North Americans), he has to cut the star’s bad habits that he had over there.’ Eurostars, said Gherardini, are often excused, or sometimes even encouraged, to relax on defence ‘because, as a star, you cannot pick up fouls’ (witness Jameer Nelson driving to the hoop unharassed on Tuesday). They make casual one-handed passes because interlopers don’t lurk in the passing lanes so stealthily. And if a Eurostar jumps into the air without solid intentions, ‘somehow, he can find a solution,’ said Gherardini, because the typical European defender isn’t Howard-big or Howard-quick.”
Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee: “That’s another thing about Hawes. He remembers everything. While he will say that fate delivered him to his ideal destination, that he wanted to be a King, this is an intensely competitive individual. His response is to engage his skeptics, swat away the critics and prove what he has always believed. That Spencer knows best. And Spencer knows that he doesn’t know it all. ‘I thought I had everything figured out from Day One,’ he said. ‘But you have to be willing to listen. Last year when I wasn’t playing as much as I wanted, I was like, ‘You got to do more than scoring to stay on the court.’ My focus had always been on scoring. Now my point of emphasis is to be a more rounded player. That’s my agenda.”‘Hawes has changed. Even he won’t debate the point. Within a matter of months, the once brash, argumentative rookie has recovered from a knee injury and morphed into a maturing 20-year-old. This is an old soul in a young man’s body, the change as dramatic physically as it is intellectually.”
Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee: “The Kings will add a piece to their front office next month, when attorney and agent Jason Levien is expected to join the team as assistant general manager. The move, which sources within the organization and close to the team say should be official in the coming weeks, marks a rare addition to the Kings’ management team that Geoff Petrie has headed for 15 years. And with an on-court rebuilding and youth movement already in effect, the franchise also is taking the same approach upstairs. Levien, 37, has earned a reputation as a versatile talent, having negotiated hundreds of millions of dollars in NBA contracts while showing an ability to find little-known players who come up big.”
Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference.com: “Let’s classify the ‘leading scorer’ of a team as the player who consumed the most possessions — this is preferable to taking the leading scorer because straight-up points account for both usage and efficiency, and here we’re interested in identifying the team’s offensive ‘alpha dog’ regardless of how well he actually produced points. Then let’s calculate the cumulative offensive rating for his teammates, which should give us a rough estimate of his supporting cast’s offensive ability. This season, the Thunder have scored 1076 points on 1141 possessions (through Nov. 20, according to the indispensable Dougstats); Durant has produced approximately 211 of those points and has used roughly 224 of those possessions by himself. That means his teammates have combined for an offensive rating of 94.2, which is really bad by the way. Last year, Durant’s Seattle teammates produced an ORtg of 101.3 — better, but still not good at all. So, the question is, which ‘alpha dogs’ have had to put up with similarly inept teammates in the past? Have they been as inefficient as Durant? And has anyone so young (KD is 20 this season) had to carry such a terrible supporting cast?”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo plans to meet with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in the near future to offer him the chance to return to the bench for the 2012 London Olympic Games, several sources said. ‘We’ve yet to talk about how much of a level of interest he has in doing it again, if at all,’ Colangelo said by phone Thursday night. ‘We’ve saved that conversation. There’s no need to push that envelope so soon. I wanted him to get back to Duke and get ready for his college year. But I do believe a great deal in continuity.’ Together, Colangelo and Krzyzewski were the architects of the United States’ gold medal at the Beijing Games in August. Sources say that while USA Basketball officials aren’t convinced that Krzyzewski will take the job again, it’s his if he wants it.”
