The Fundamentals

Basketball Prospectus:  “With O’Neal in the game, particularly without Stoudemire, the Suns do in fact tend to play a somewhat slower style and spend more time playing out of the post. At the same time, while watching I found O’Neal’s effect on Stoudemire to be exaggerated. Stoudemire was involved in plays about as often when playing alongside O’Neal as when paired with Louis Amundson. One thing I noticed that seems counterintuitive at first is that Stoudemire was almost never a finisher in transition, when O’Neal was on the bench. This makes sense to the extent that Stoudemire has greater rebounding responsibility in these situations and can’t release to start upcourt. Here’s the funny thing about the notion that O’Neal is cramping Stoudemire’s style: When you look for it in the numbers, it simply can’t be found. 82games.com tracks production by player pairs, and these numbers show Stoudemire to be nearly equally as effective with and without O’Neal. Alongside O’Neal, Stoudemire averages 22.0 points and 8.6 rebounds per 40 minutes and shoots 53.9 percent from the field. When O’Neal is on the bench, the corresponding numbers are 23.6 points and 9.0 rebounds on 53.7 percent shooting. If O’Neal isn’t the problem, then why are Stoudemire’s offensive numbers down?”

Joe Freeman of The Oregonian:  “Although they have won six of their last eight games — a drastic improvement over their pre-All-Star break record of a year ago (3-7) — the Blazers’ focus has been tested. They’ve trailed by at least 13 points in each of their last four games and have played some of their poorest defense of the season over the last week. The Blazers, like every team in the league, are facing a mix of mental and physical fatigue. LaMarcus Aldridge (1,826 minutes) and Sergio Rodriguez (834 minutes) have logged more playing time than at any point in their brief careers through the first 50 games of the season. If not for a four-game absence because of a hamstring injury, so too would Brandon Roy (1,719 minutes). And that doesn’t include the contributions of rookies Greg Oden, Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum and Jerryd Bayless, who have played more basketball the past seven months than at any other time in their lives.”

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News:  “As the Feb. 19 trade deadline approaches, league execs are noting that Warriors’ assistant GM Larry Riley is the one making the calls and that Robert Rowell is, of course, the declared high-potentate of the franchise. And if you didn’t know that just ask and RR will tell you. But the firm belief from the execs I’ve talked to, and from my understanding of what’s going on with the Warriors’ very clear desire to make a big trade, is that everybody presumes that Don Nelson is the guy behind every piece of team trade strategy. Of course he is. Nelson wasn’t part of Rowell’s lunkheaded decision to give Stephen Jackson that crazy three-year extension over the summer and he was only a bit player in the Al Harrington-for-Jamal Crawford trade (finalized by Riley after Chris Mullin put the framework together). But it’s Nelson now, at deadline time.”

Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle:  “These Rockets also have not had a leader who has been able set a tone, lay down the law, take ownership and staunch the bleeding a la Michael Jordan with the old Chicago Bulls, Magic Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s and Kevin Garnett with the defending champion Boston Celtics. ‘We’ve got a bunch of guys who do it in different ways,’ Tracy McGrady said. ‘We’ve got guys who do it vocally and guys who do it out on the basketball court and in practice. There are just different ways that different guys lead our team.’ ‘We have a lot of voices,’ Battier said. ‘We have guys who want to do the right thing. We have a lot of guys spouting their opinions. As far as one singular voice, no, we don’t have one.’ Artest believes every team needs that one voice barking out commands and encouragement.”

Marc J. Spears of The Boston Globe:  “The fans in what is now an often-filled New Orleans Arena exclaim his trademark, ‘Woo,’ every time Chris Paul makes a big shot. Hornets games have become as much a place to be as Bourbon Street, primarily because of the All-Star guard. A Central Business District billboard shows ‘CP3’ smiling brightly while showcasing his Olympic gold medal. And from the West Bank to the French Quarter to Lake Pontchartrain to Slidell, No. 3 Hornets jerseys are proudly worn in large numbers by young and old. Paul helped the Hornets take some of the depressing post-Hurricane Katrina spotlight off New Orleans by leading the franchise to a surprising division title last season. Now, with the growing Hornets faithful thirsty for a championship that the NFL Saints have never been able to produce, the pressure for success in The Big Easy is far from easy to live up to for Paul and the Hornets. ‘I don’t look at it as pressure,’ said Paul. ‘I just look at it as a challenge. Every game I go into, every practice, every day, I’m thinking about how I can mold my team into a championship contender.’”

Frank Isola of the Daily News:  “Eddy Curry believes the best way to salvage his season and return some sense of normalcy to his troubled life is by playing basketball again. To that end, Curry is planning to practice, perhaps as early as Monday, and claims that he will play again this season. Of course, a case could be made that basketball has caused some of the problems in Curry’s life. Speaking publicly Tuesday for the first time since his former girlfriend and their nine-month-old daughter were shot and killed in Chicago last month, Curry said that being back at work and around his teammates is therapeutic. ‘This is the time where I really am looking forward to it,’ Curry said. ‘I wish I could take a magic pill or something and make my legs feel better and make me able to go out there and do what I need to do. Honestly, I enjoy all my time that I have around these guys and around this organization, because it’s really almost like a safehouse for me.’”

WFNY:  “LeBron is trusting his teammates less and less as the season goes on. In fact, LeBron is pretty much back to playing PG. Mo Williams frequently looks to receive the outlet pass from LeBron whenever LeBron gets the rebound, only to stand there and watch LeBron dribble right past him as he takes the ball up himself. And even when Mo does bring the ball up the court, LeBron runs right up to him at the top of the key to get the ball. LeBron is no longer working off the ball to get easy baskets, and he’s spending more and more time with the ball in his hands. In a game like this one, it’s easy to see why LeBron wanted the ball so much, when nobody else was stepping up at all, and it’s unfair of the Cavs to rely so heavily on LeBron to win games like these, but sometimes LeBron brings it on himself a bit by demanding to run the offense himself. Hopefully the All-Star break can provide some a much needed reset for this team.”

Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee:  “We sniff around. We talk to the same people. We know the parasites from San Jose and Anaheim are salivating as the Maloofs lose millions and sweetening their respective arena deals in an attempt to lure an NBA franchise to their city. To lure OUR franchise to their city. Like people need more grief? Like Seattle deserved to lose the SuperSonics? But Joe and Gavin, this is on them. They can end the angst simply by standing and shouting, by slamming the door, by reassuring a community that has hugged its professional franchise for the better part of three decades. The Kings. Sacramento. The Kings belong to Sacramento. Say it out loud, again and again. The best owners in professional sports don’t savor the good times and then split when the team hits its downward cycle and the economy slumps, not even under cover of needing an arena to replace the outdated, barely functioning Arco Arena.”

Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star:  “The NBA has never been beset by any kind of scandal involving PEDs, but it would be the height of naivete to believe the steroid culture hasn’t, at some level, touched professional basketball, along with almost every other sport. Don’t basketball players want to be bigger, faster and stronger? Don’t they want the same kind of edge that helped baseball’s most prominent dopers distort all of the game’s most sacred numbers? In ‘Bases Loaded,” the recent tell-all book by former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, the author wrote that he also sold performance-enhancing drugs to an NBA player, and that the player told him several other players were also using. ‘I’ve never heard them (performance-enhancing drugs) mentioned around basketball, and hopefully, it’ll never be mentioned,’ James said. ‘We don’t want that cloud over our sport. We don’t want that cloud over any sport.’”

Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register:  “Jackson, for one, is clear on the spring landscape. That’s why the Lakers’ coach is already offering up propaganda with regard to Boston’s illegal screens and LeBron James’ benefit of the whistles in Cleveland. When referring to the challenge of getting around screens, Jackson added: ‘Especially ones that move as much as Boston’s do.’ And Jackson flat-out concluded that the unique love in the air conveyed by Cavaliers fans toward Ohio native James creates a bias for the previously undefeated home Cavs: ‘Those things will alter the decisions of referees. I don’t see how they can avoid it.’ But what is the honest answer to ‘Which team would the Lakers rather face?’ My sense is that they think Boston is better than Cleveland. The Cavaliers’ tepid road record (16-10) supports that, and Cleveland’s offense sometimes is simply not versatile enough under duress. The Cavs are 20th in the NBA in assists per game – compared to the Lakers being second and the Celtics third).”

Ian Thomsen of CNNSI.com:  “Are the Cavs happy because they’re a 39-11 championship contender? Or are they nearly even in the East with the defending champion and top-seeded Celtics as a result of their happiness? Brown believes the latter question is more relevant than the former. ‘What [GM] Danny [Ferry] and I were beating our heads about this summer was, when you’re talking about a championship team, what do you need?” Brown said. ‘You need a good team, you need a superstar, you need a couple of stars around that superstar, you need consistency — all of the normal things. And the thing that everybody says you need is chemistry. But what is chemistry? I don’t know. Finally I came up with [the perspective that] chemistry is trust. At our precamp dinner that you have before the season opens, that’s all we talked about. I had a 10-minute speech on trust, how trust equals chemistry. I had it on the board, had the formula laid out just like an equation. That’s all I talked about. We ate, and that’s it. No X’s and O’s, no we’re going to do this here or win this many games or we’ve got to win the division or conference. We’ve just got to find chemistry. It means trust.’”

Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News:  “One of his kids attends the same pre-school, and Bowen says Duncan is going through what he is going through. ‘You have to look at when we get older, and become parents, we realize some things are here for us to enjoy,’ Bowen said. Such as Carter. Bowen switched to him in the second half and, just like old times, Carter scored only four points the rest of the way. But Bowen didn’t mean that. ‘Sometimes the business side gets so misconstrued for us that you forget the reason you were attracted to the game. I think, being that he has kids now, he can appreciate these times more. Because the next thing you know, it can be gone.’ Duncan understands all of this. Someone asked him how much longer he wants to play, and he said 10 years. ‘But my body won’t let me,’ he said. So he savors what he has now. The previous two nights, the Spurs stayed in Manhattan, where Duncan won his first title. Then they bussed to New Jersey, the team Duncan had to beat to win his second. He said the memories don’t overwhelm him. ‘I don’t shed any tears,’ he said, with a smile. But he admits he goes through these arenas now with a sense of how much has happened before and how little time is left.”