» August 11, 2009 3:51 PM | By Brandon Hoffman
- Scott Howard-Cooper of SI.com: “If Rambis was definitely their guy, the Lakers would have looked after their interests and told him. He would have loved hearing it, probably would have gotten a pay bump for turning down the Timberwolves, and waited while knowing his future. But none of that happened. While Mitch Kupchak undoubtedly has a mental list of potential replacements — all good general managers do, and Kupchak is a good general manager — the Lakers are not committing themselves to anyone. No one knows if Jackson is staying eight months or two seasons, no one knows if the roster will still be title worthy whenever he does leave, and so declaring undying love to anyone in August 2009 is both impossible and foolish. The certainty is that anyone outside the front office who claims to know the next move is working with a blindfold and a dart board. The coaching hire will be a Buss call and there is no pattern to read.”
- Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press: “Kevin McHale is out of the basketball business for now, he said this morning, so he’s offering no opinion on the hiring of his Minnesota Timberwolves coaching successor (and former Los Angeles Lakers playing rival) Kurt Rambis. ‘I’m just ‘Joe Citizen’ now,’ McHale said. ‘I don’t want to comment.’ McHale also declined comment about a 1-percent ownership in the Timberwolves that owner Glen Taylor has been said to offer him as a severance deal. That would have a value of about $3 million. McHale did say he’s been talking with several networks about a TV analyst job. A month ago, word was that he and Charles Barkley would team up on TNT for the coming season. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.”
- Alan Hahn: “Eddy Curry has been in Ocean City, N.J. since Aug. 1 to continue his offseason regimen with his trainers, Jerry Powell and Tommy Weatherspoon. According to multiple sources, the Knicks will find that Curry is down another 10 pounds since they saw him in Las Vegas last month, when the embattled center spent two days working out with the summer league team. Knicks president Donnie Walsh made the trip to Ocean City on Tuesday to check up on Curry. It is the third time Walsh has seen Curry since the end of the season. Curry, 26, who appeared in just two games this past season because of knee and conditioning issues, weighed about 328 in July, which, according to Weatherspoon, was 30 pounds lighter than he was at the end of the NBA season. As of Tuesday, Curry is said to be at about 318 pounds, which is near the ideal weight range that Weatherspoon has set as Curry’s playing weight.”
- Ben Golliver of Blazers Edge: “Roy’s personal improvement plan extends past getting acclimated to a new backcourt mate, though, and he has spent time since the team’s season ended studying the league’s elite players. ’A big thing I’m focusing on is trying to continue to improve my mid-range game. I’ve watched a lot of tape on Kobe, I listened to a lot of things they say about LeBron, I think that mid-range game is really, really where championships are won. They can double you from the wing, but it’s harder to double guys from that pinch post area. I’m really trying to improve my mid-range game, going right, going left,’ Roy momentarily stopped the basketball lecture to smile devilishly, ‘I don’t want people saying I go left all the time. I want them to see that I’m strong going right too.’ But Roy acknowledged that his role this season will not only change on the court. For starters, Greg Oden can expect a new-look teammate. ‘Last season I just wanted Greg to be comfortable. Whenever you sit out a full season and then [during] your second year you have so much expectations on you, I didn’t want to push him too much. I just wanted to let him get out there and get a feel, get his feet wet.’ But this season? ’It will be different. I think we’ll be much harder on each on another just because we know how much we are capable of doing…. Now, I think my approach is to push him, to motivate him. He has to understand that he’s a huge part of this team. We need him to understand that and motivate himself to get to the level we need to be a championship team.’”
Category: Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Points in the Paint, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz
Tags: Brandon Roy, Carlos Boozer, Charles Barkley, Dwyane Wade, Eddy Curry, Greg Oden, Jerry Buss, Kevin McHale, Kevin Pritchard, Kurt Rambis, LeBron James, Mitch Kupchak, Nike, Pau Gasol
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