Points in the Paint

» March 3, 2009 7:37 PM | By Brandon Hoffman

Former Piston Bill Laimbeer is asked whether he thinks Detroit can turn things around before the playoffs: “No,” said Bill Laimbeer, as blunt as one of those elbows he threw in the 1980s as part of the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys. “Their team is structured incorrectly. (Allen Iverson) is not the best defending guard, and guards got to be defenders these days. He’s small. He’s got a big heart, he still can score, but come playoff time, it’s tough. It’s the Eastern Conference, grind it out, and it’s physical. It’s going to be a hard road.”

Charley Rosen on Phil Jackson’s driving skills during their days in the CBA: “Despite our mutual ignorance and confusion, however, nighttime van rides were safer than daylight rides for one reason: Phil was addicted to the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. As long as there was sufficient natural light for him to read, he’d spread the magazine page containing the puzzle across the width of the steering wheel and seemed to spend as much time and attention looking at the puzzle than he did on the road ahead. ‘Charley, what’s a four-letter word for medieval beer? Look here … if I can get fifty-one across, then thirty-nine down will … .’ ‘Phil! The road!’ Even though I and the players behind us would occasionally cringe with fear, the van never swerved, never went through a red light or stop sign, never precipitously changed lanes, and never slowed down.”

Brett Pollakoff of FanHouse: “Any MVP discussion is highly subjective, and before you start choosing sides, you have to define what the award is going to be. Most of the time — and with few exceptions — the voters have decided that the trophy goes to the best player on one of the top two teams in the league during the regular season. That’s the way it’s been for some time, and things aren’t likely to change this year. But by looking at it that way, we’re really taking the ‘value’ part out of the equation, aren’t we? What really should define an MVP is a player’s value to his team. As in, take a look at the player’s all-around performance, look at his supporting cast to see how much help he’s getting, then see where the team is in the standings and then determine how different things would be if the player we’re talking about wasn’t a piece of that puzzle. If you look at it that way, Dwyane Wade has to be your clear-cut choice.”

Chris Perkins of the Palm Beach Post: “Dwyane Wade confirmed it after Tuesday’s practice: the seven-game run tear he’s been on since the All-Star break is the best regular-season stretch of his career. ‘It’s the best I’ve played for a stretch,’ he said. ‘It’s good on one point because it shows I’m getting stronger as the season goes on, but it’s bad on one point because when you’re playing this well you want to be winning.’”

Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Times are tough, so Wolves owner Glen Taylor announced just now at Target Center that his team is lowering prices on 95 percent of its season tickets bought by July 1 for 2009-2010 and will guarantee a refund for unused tickets for any season-ticket holders who lose their jobs by Jan. 1, 2010. Prime courtside seats will remain the same, but most other season tickets will decrease from between $4 to $15 each per game. You can buy a season ticket for as little as $5 a game — $215 for the season — next season. About 4,700 of those tickets will be available for the upper-deck corner sections. Lower level tickets — corner ‘Player Section’ areas — will be available for as little as $15 a game. Tickets behind the baskets that sold for $25 this season will be $20 under ‘Early Bird’ pricing, which requires purchase by July 1.”

Matthew Futterman of the Wall Street Journal: “NBA commissioner David Stern insists the league is still enjoying one of its most competitive seasons. He says he’s encouraged by the addition of the Orlando Magic to the NBA’s group of elite teams and by the improvement of the young and talented Portland Trail Blazers. Still, he acknowledges that owners are rightfully hesitant to make ‘moves whose outcome is uncertain, other than that it costs them a lot more.’ In the last two decades, the NBA has exploded in size, popularity and profitability. Revenues have risen to $4 billion from about $400 million in 1989. The value of a top-end NBA franchise grew over that span from less than $100 million to more than $400 million. The average player salary also jumped from $275,000 in 1982-83 to $5.6 million today.” [Via Sactown Royalty]

Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio-News Express: “If you’re the obsessive-compulsive type who routinely scans the list of NBA statistical leaders, you might have noticed a glaring omission among recent manifests of the league’s top scorers. No Tony Parker. On the surface, it seems odd. Parker, after all, is averaging 20.5 points per game. Same as David West, Ben Gordon, Al Harrington and San Antonio’s own Tim Duncan — all of whom are on the list, tied for 18th. So whither Tony? The answer lies in the formula the league uses to determine eligibility for the scoring leaders list. At the end of the season, a player must have amassed 1,400 points to earn inclusion among the league leaders. In season, eligibilty is calculated with that final number in mind. The formula multiplies the number of games played by that player’s team (not the player himself) by 17.073.”

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