Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “Jameer Nelson essentially is using the largest event in the NBA as his minicamp. The controversial Nelson experiment in the Finals hasn’t gone the way the Magic had hoped. They haven’t caught lightning in a bottle, much less a firefly. He’ll remain Rafer Alston’s backup at point guard for Game 4 tonight against the Los Angeles Lakers, although Anthony Johnson might want to begin light stretching in the bullpen, just in case. Coach Stan Van Gundy seemed to turn from optimist to realist on Wednesday when asked how much longer he can stick with Nelson if he continues to struggle in his comeback. ‘Right now, I mean … we’re sort of down that road,’ Van Gundy said. One more game? Two? ‘It all depends,’ Van Gundy said. ‘We’ll just have to read it as it goes.’ There are four games, max, to go on this title run, and the Magic trail 2-1 in the series. Van Gundy’s hope is still this: ‘What you hope, as it goes along, is Jameer gets in a little better comfort zone. I’m hoping we see that going into Game 4 and Game 5 and on,’ he said.”
Zach McCann of Orlando Magic Daily: “The Magic played their best offensive game of the season on Tuesday night, scoring 108 points on 84 possessions and setting an NBA Finals record for field-goal percentage. But it still took a last-minute surge to close out the Lakers. Is there any hope for Orlando’s defense in this series? The Magic had the NBA’s best defense in the regular season, but it’s clear the Lakers are giving Orlando problems without any clear-cut solutions. The Lakers are shooting 47.7 percent for the series and they’ve scored 305 points on 277 possessions — that’s 110.1 points per 100 offensive possessions, against a Magic team that allowed 101.9 during the season. I know the offensive fireworks got the Magic fans excited in Game 3, but if the Magic are going to win this series, it’s going to be because of their defense.”
Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times: “Kobe or not Kobe . . . I’ve covered Kobe Bryant for 13 years and I may have used that line for 10 of them. I only hope I thought it up — or, actually, adapted it from “Hamlet” — as opposed to copping it from someone who got it from “Hamlet.”With Kobe, that always was the question, too, and it hasn’t been answered to this day: Is this his time, and if it isn’t, will it ever come? Actually, it came in Game 3 of the Lakers-Magic NBA Finals, like a bolt of lightning . . . and went away before anyone knew what happened. If Michael Jordan was the best ever, it was because of his consistency at a level no one had ever reached. Bryant goes to Jordan’s level all the time — and beyond, where no one ever went before — between dips. If Jordan was a straight line across the top of the graph, Bryant is a wavy line, with the highs going off the chart, as in Tuesday’s first quarter, in one of the great 12-minute bursts anyone has ever played.”
Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register: “Lamar Odom, who couldn’t sleep the night before Game 3 because his mind kept peppering him with daydreams of winning plays, tried not to be too disappointed. Odom deflected the criticism of Bryant, saying: ‘He’s one guy I want to be in a foxhole with every time.’ On Thursday afternoon after practice, Derek Fisher described the stress this way: ‘It’s high, but it’s manageable.’ Yet Fisher’s more telling quote was what he said he’s doing during these NBA Finals: ‘Constantly, constantly, constantly thinking about what I can do to prepare for the game and help us win.’ Sensing something even more oppressive than the humidity in the air, Phil Jackson told his players upon returning to the hotel after practice that everyone would reconvene downstairs to catch the team bus again at 7:30 p.m. Attendance was mandatory. And come nightfall, Jackson lifted his team out of this foxhole, freed them from the constant, constant, constant stress … and took them to the movies.”
Tim Povtak of FanHouse: “Shortly after the season ends, the Orlando Magic are preparing to offer coach Stan Van Gundy a contract extension as a reward for reaching the NBA Finals. Van Gundy is just finishing the second year of his original four-year contract that began in the summer before the 2007-08 season. The fourth year of the contract, paying him an estimated $4 million annually, currently is a team option that will be guaranteed as part of the extension. General manager Otis Smith, who has two years remaining on his contract, also will be offered an extension as a reward for crafting the roster that looks like it will allow the Magic to be championship contenders for at least the next few years. ‘They both have done a great job,’ said a Magic front office executive who confirmed the upcoming, contract-extension talks. ‘We want to make sure they will be here to continue what they’ve started.’”
Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News: “A rumor surfaced this month that the Wizards called the Spurs with an offer for him, and maybe all of this made Ginobili wonder if the ground had shifted. Asked by the Argentine press this week whether he thought he could be traded, he said ‘impossible’ had lost a few letters. ‘Today I believe there is a chance it could happen,’ he said. There’s always a chance. Popovich said that. ‘People get in trouble when they say never,’ Popovich said Wednesday. If somebody makes what Popovich calls ‘a stupid offer,’ then who knows? ‘But Manu Ginobili is someone I cannot envision trading,’ Popovich continued. ‘He has been such a huge part of our heart and soul; people like that are hard to come by. You don’t even think about trading somebody like that. I can’t imagine a scenario where he would be traded.’ As Popovich put it, ‘He fits us.’ He closes games as few can, and a moment in the Spike Lee documentary, ‘Kobe Doin’ Work,’ underlines that. Then, the Lakers are about to play the Spurs, and the camera focuses on Ginobili, who was unable to play that night because of an injury. ‘That’s a bad boy, right there,’ Bryant said in the film. ‘I have so much respect for his game.’”
Realizar of Raptors Republic: “Taking a quick survey of the league’s current talent pool, the present NBA reality is that there are only, arguably, 5 superstar players and approximately 15 perennial all-star players (established and soon-to-be). Given the fact that there are 30 teams in the league, these top-20 players are all categorized as being ‘franchise players’ since any one team would be fortunate to have one of them under contract. (Observing the Los Angeles Lakers who have two of these top-20 players, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, it’s no surprise that they are making their second consecutive appearance in the NBA Finals and are two wins away from being crowned this season’s league champions). With only 20 franchise players in a 30 team league, simple economics dictates that the market value to acquire any one of these players is a maximum salary, regardless of the observed and accepted talent disparity between the league’s few all-stars and fewer superstars. Since Bosh is indeed a top-20 player it’s easy to understand why he expects to be offered a maximum-salary contact by a number of teams who’ll be capable of doing so, since nearly all of them are expected to aggressively recruit him.”
Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: “One of the biggest fears for Mavericks fans this off-season is seeing a repeat of 2004. That was the summer of major reconstruction in which Steve Nash walked out the door for nothing in return. To quell your concern that Jason Kidd is heading to a similar fate, we are here to provide some literary Xanax for your stress. It’s not going to happen. This time around, one of the NBA’s top point guards is not going to leave the organization without some compensation. More likely, he won’t move at all. … Kidd will be the top priority, even beyond the draft, which is two weeks away. Free agency opens July 1. Cuban will forever contend that losing Nash when Phoenix signed him to a huge free-agent deal was not a bad basketball decision. Judge that on your own. Still, Cuban maintains that getting something in return for a free agent is in the eye of the beholder. ‘I’m not big on ‘Do you get compensation?’ ‘ Cuban says. ‘The reality is that having money available to spend on someone else is compensation.’”
Tom Ziller of FanHouse: “Before naming Paul Westphal the new coach of the Kings, Sacramento GM Geoff Petrie asked all three candidates (including Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis) if the team’s set salary structure (two years at $1.5 million, a third year team option at $2 million) would work for them. If not, you know, see ya. According to the team, Rambis — mired in the Finals — refused to answer if the salary structure would work. On Tuesday, Petrie pushed forth with the question. Rambis’ agent Warren LeGarie said his client couldn’t be bothered to think about it right now … so Petrie hired Westphal. Now accusations that LeGarie had been ripping Westphal behind the scenes have come out, while Rambis claims he actually turned down the job. It’s a lot of drama for a job almost no one outside of Sacramento cares about. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! reported Wednesday that Westphal nearly pulled his candidacy over the weekend because of ‘relentless and nasty attacks‘ made against him behind the scenes. Woj didn’t indicate who those attacks came from, but I’m told it was the agent LeGarie trying to convince the Maloof brothers that Westphal was a bad choice.”
Jason Friedman of Rockets.com: “The team is keeping its cards carefully hidden, so don’t even ask for the players’ names – the Rockets aren’t sharing. Knowledge is power and Houston’s brain trust has no desire to divulge even the tiniest of secrets which might tip their hand in any way. That there would be such mystery and intrigue seems appropriate given the draft position the Rockets currently occupy; which is to say, they don’t – not in the traditional sense, anyway. With selection day approximately two weeks away, Houston is preparing for a draft in which it owns exactly zero picks, putting the Rockets in the perhaps enviable position of a lurker at a garage sale, free to examine all the possibilities until they find a deal upon which they want to pounce. ‘People say, ‘You don’t have any draft picks, so you don’t have as much to do. It’s going to be a slow offseason,’’ laughs Gersson Rosas, the Rockets’ Director of Player Personnel. ‘But it’s actually going to be the exact opposite for us because you just don’t know if you’re going to get in the draft and you have to be prepared for any and every scenario that might present itself.’”
Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post: “If the NBA Finals have taught us anything, it’s that attending college to learn how to play basketball is somewhere between vastly overrated and downright stupid. Exhibit A: Dwight Howard. Exhibit B: Kobe Bryant. ‘I don’t think going to college would have helped me,’ Howard said Wednesday. At age 23, Howard is convinced learning on the job in the NBA turned him into Superman quicker than eating pizza in a college dorm room. Maybe he has a point. Howard owns an Olympic gold medal, drives a Rolls-Royce and takes home an annual salary of $13.8 million to his 11,000-square-foot mansion. ‘Well,’ I suggested, ‘you’re obviously richer for being here . . .’ Faster than a speeding bullet, Superman cut off my argument before the debate could start. ‘It’s not about money,’ insisted Howard, a proud graduate of Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, Class of 2004. It’s about basketball.”
Antonio Gonzalez of the Associated Press: “A new study shows that 43 percent of the professional positions in the NBA’s league offices are held by women, giving the league its highest grade for gender. The report issued Wednesday by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport showed an increase of 2 percent of women from last year in the league office. That’s higher than any other men’s pro league in any previous study. The annual study was first issued in 1998. The highest marks came with 31 women in vice presidential positions during the 2008-09 season, an increase of eight from a year ago. The NBA slipped slightly from its highest grade for race (96.2 to 94.9), although it again received men’s pro sports’ only ‘A’ for a combined grade for race and gender. Richard Lapchick, the director of the university’s study, said the league has led on the diversity issue in large part because NBA commissioner David Stern has made race and gender a major priority since he entered office in 1984.”
Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: “Two Internet reports surfaced late Wednesday that suggested Cavaliers coach Mike Brown’s job is in danger after the Cavs’ loss to the Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals. According to multiple team sources, those reports are false. The current NBA Coach of the Year of course will return for his fifth season with the team. Brown, who has a career record of 211-117 in the regular season and has won seven of 11 playoff series, has been the most successful coach in team history. Both the New York Daily News and the Pro Basketball News, an Ohio-based website, reported there was ‘infighting’ and ‘disarray’ within the Cavs’ front office over Brown’s future. The Cavs are indeed in a period of evaluation right now and conducting meetings in which there is sometimes intense discussions. But Brown continues to have the backing of the organization’s leaders and decision makers.”
