ESPN

Mavericks rookie guard Gal Mekel made professionalism a higher priority than patriotism this summer, and his Israel coach seems rather irate about it.

Mekel opted to train at the Mavs’ facility instead of playing for Israel in September’s EuroBasket tournament, prompting Israel coach Arik Shivek to criticize Mavs management in an interview with the Jerusalem Post earlier this week.

“Mekel told me that he was put in a room with general manager Donnie Nelson and all the coaches and they told him that as a rookie he would have a better chance of playing more minutes at the start of the season if he takes part in the preliminary training camp as well as the final camp,” Shivek told the newspaper.

“I was very surprised and so was Gal. Mekel then put Donnie Nelson on the phone, who I know from his time in Europe, and I told him what I thought of what they are doing to Gal. I think they are not being fair and are putting him in an impossible situation.”

Mekel, who signed a three-year guaranteed minimum contract with the Mavs, doesn’t see it that way.

“I understood that in order to have a good rookie season I need to get to Dallas early and work according to the team’s program,” Mekel told the newspaper. “I really love the national team, but I came to the conclusion that if I want to remain an NBA player for many years, then my rookie season is very important.

“I think that in the long run this will also benefit Israeli basketball. I’m only 25 and I’ve got 10 more years to play for Israel.”

It was a wise decision by the point guard whose intelligence is one of his best attributes. If the Israel coach can’t understand that, he clearly doesn’t have Mekel’s best interests in mind.

• Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: The strange summer saga of Brandon Jennings finally was resolved Tuesday. The Milwaukee Bucks agreed to a sign-and-trade deal with the Detroit Pistons, inking Jennings to a three-year, $24 million contract and sending him to Detroit in exchange for point guard Brandon Knight, small forward Khris Middleton and center Viacheslav Kravtsov. … The move signaled the Bucks’ determination to start anew after a sour ending to last season, culminating in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Miami Heat in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Gone are Jennings and Monta Ellis, the starters in the Bucks backcourt all of last season and the team’s two leading scorers. In their places are the 21-year-old Knight and 25-year-old shooting guard O.J. Mayo, who signed a three-year, $24 million free-agent deal earlier this summer. … The Bucks have only five holdovers from the roster at the end of the season: Larry Sanders, John Henson, Ersan Ilyasova, Ekpe Udoh and Ish Smith. Instead of committing to a long-term deal with Jennings, the Bucks obtained a player in the third year of his rookie-scale contract. Knight will make $2.8 million next season and $3.5 million in 2014-’15.
• Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: The Pistons weren’t done wheeling and dealing, as Pistons president and Louisiana native Joe Dumars returned to his riverboat gambler ways, acquiring point guard Brandon Jennings in a sign-and-trade from the Milwaukee Bucks. The Pistons traded Brandon Knight, Khris Middleton and Slava Kravtsov for Jennings and will have him for the next three years at $24 million total. Mind you, this was not too far removed from Dumars demonstratively denying any talks with the Bucks, run by good friend and former Pistons executive John Hammond. Meaning he plays poker, too. In acquiring Jennings and Josh Smith, there’s two talented but mercurial players who could be termed as “wild cards.” Chemistry is indeed a fair question, but considering the Pistons got two players for far less than they felt they’d command on the open market — Smith wanted a max contract and Jennings wanted $12 million per season — they should have two players with things to prove to the NBA at large. A willingness to silence critics should make potential sacrifices a lot easier in what’s an interesting mix of talent, youth and experience in the Pistons’ locker room. The last time the Pistons changed three starters so dramatically in one offseason was in 2002 when they signed Chauncey Billups as a free agent, traded mainstay Jerry Stackhouse for some unknown guard named Richard Hamilton and plucked Tayshaun Prince late in the first round for what was a bad 2002 draft.
• Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald: After the spinal tap incident sidelined Luol Deng for the final seven games of the playoffs, he mostly stayed silent, other than a few health updates on Twitter. Deng finally addressed the incident in an interview posted on nba.com. He’s currently in Ghana for one of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders events. “The end of the season was disappointing,” Deng said. “I worked hard all season, played in the All-Star (Game), and wanted to take the team as far as possible in the playoffs. But then, when I got sick, I think that we could have handled the situation better. “Obviously there are some things that you can’t handle. You can’t really handle getting sick, being taken to the ER or going to the hospital. I got the spinal tap and that’s where it went all wrong. My body didn’t react well to the spinal tap. I had some serious side effects that not only didn’t allow me to play basketball, but really put my life in danger.” No matter how you slice it, Deng’s hospital visit on the afternoon of Game 6 vs. Brooklyn didn’t go well. Due to concerns he could have meningitis, Deng was given a spinal tap. As it turned out, he didn’t have meningitis. His body began to leak spinal fluid after the procedure, leaving him in no shape to move around, let alone play basketball. After a few rough days, there was nothing to do but wait for his body to replenish the fluid. The Bulls say Deng is doing fine now.
• Chris Herrington of the Memphis Flyer: The Mike Miller introduction felt like the peak of the late-summer momentum that seems to have firmly re-entrenched the Grizzlies as a legitimate Western Conference contender. And Joerger went into a bit of detail about how Miller can factor on the floor, not only in spacing the court for the team's power players but also using his versatility to give the team more playmaking and more small lineup options. Perhaps most intriguing was the suggestion that this second go-round could last a little while. Joerger emphasized that Miller, in Memphis, would not be seen as merely a “hired gun,” but rather as a more meaningful part of the team and community. But the suggestion went further than that. Miller talked about “being a part of this for a long time to come.” Levien followed up by mentioning a “long relationship in Memphis going forward.” Miller signed a two-year deal with the Grizzlies with a player option in the second season, the idea being that Miller thinks he's got one more significant contract left in him. Based on the team's current salary projection, Miller might need to play out both years of his current contract to get a longer-term deal for above the vet minimum in Memphis. This will make next summer interesting. But that's next summer.
• Michael Pointer of The Indianapolis Star: Q: Despite having an outstanding season, there’s been a lot of speculation you may go back to coming off the bench this season, especially if Danny Granger is healthy and ready. Would you be OK with that? Lance Stephenson: “I’m just coming in to play hard. Whatever coach (Frank Vogel) decides to do, I think it’s a great decision. Me coming off the bench, Danny coming off the bench, either way, we’re deep. Whatever helps the team, that’s what I want to do.”
• Jody Genessy of the Deseret News: Derrick Favors knows he’ll need to more than hold his own, mentally and physically, now that Paul Millsap has headed to his backup’s childhood home to play for the Hawks and Al Jefferson has signed with Charlotte. That was the message they each had for Favors on their way out of Utah: “They both just told me, ‘It’s (your) team now; it’s time to take over; do your thing out there. You’ve been learning from us the past two or three years; now it’s time to play.’” To sum up Favors’ reaction to that sentiment: FINALLY! … More than ever, Favors realizes that devotion and continual self-motivation are critical to his long-term goals. Now that he’s a few months from the golden opportunity that he’s waited for so long, Favors realizes it’s on him to be a hard worker, a defensive beast, a reliable offensive presence and a solid leader for his teammates to get that chance someday to hold the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. And Favors believes he will.
• Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com: USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo has left the door open for Portland Trail Blazers All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge to represent his country if he has interest in doing so. However, Colangelo reiterates that he is not reaching out to players. He only wants players who are willing to make the necessary commitment to going through the entire process. When asked about Aldridge's chances of being added to the USA Basketball program, Colangelo's response was basically that he needed to hear from Aldridge, himself. “I am always interested in players who seek to compete,” Colangelo told CSNNW.com Tuesday night. “My phone is always available. Unless one is hungry and passionate about USA Basketball, there is little chance. “Certainly we won't solicit.” In mid-April, Aldridge informed CSNNW.com that he would participate if requested. It is unknown at this time if Aldridge will contact Colangelo.
• Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman: Sorry, I can’t get excited about Ryan Gomes, who apparently is signing with the Thunder. Mike Miller? Absolutely. Dorrell Wright? OK. Derek Fisher? Fine. Ryan Gomes? Nope. A 6-foot-7 small forward who is a career 35 percent 3-pointer doesn’t fit the Thunder needs. Gomes always has been a good defender, but does the Thunder need a wing defender who’s not a great offensive threat? Let’s see. Thabo Sefolosha. DeAndre Liggins. Andre Roberson. I love defense as much as the next guy — OK, I love defense way more than most next guys — but the Thunder doesn’t need four wingmen whose forte is defense. It’s not that Gomes is a bad player. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you, but it’s true.
• Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: The team is on the verge of signing Spurs free agent forward DeJuan Blair to a one-year deal. Blair would be an immediate upgrade over Elton Brand, who signed this offseason with the Atlanta Hawks. He is 6-foot-7, 265 pounds but has a big frame and can beat up people. Phsyically, he would remind you of David West, without his touch around the rim or jumper from 15 feet. When Blair was a rookie out of Pittsburgh, he looked like he had the makings of becoming a nice, bruising power forward. A guy who scored eight points and grabbed eight rebounds off the bench. As a rookie in 2009-'10, Blair played in all 82 games with the San Antonio Spurs and averaged 7.8 points and 6.4 rebounds. Since then, it's been a straight ride down the bench. Last season, he averaged 5.4 points, 3.8 boards and a career-low 14.0 minutes per game. When he's "good", he can push people around, defend the low block, and grab some boards and score junk buckets. He should be in the Mavs rotation, and be better than Brand.
• Shannon J. Owens of the Orlando Sentinel: So, a top 10 NBA draft pick, a former Orlando Magic guard, a Houston Rockets forward and a Euro Cup MVP walked into an Orlando recreation center gym the other night. I promise this isn't the start of a joke. How is this for a pick-up ball lineup? Austin Rivers, Courtney Lee, Chandler Parsons and Nick Calathes. All four gathered at the Downtown recreation center Monday night, competing together for the first time this summer in the Orlando Pro-Am league. With the exception of Calathes, who flew to Memphis to meet with theGrizzlies about potentially playing for the team, the rest of the NBA ballers came back for more rec hoops action Tuesday. "This is the best competition and best league in Orlando, so it's definitely fun coming out here," Parsons said. "The crowd gets into it, people are talking trash, so it's fun." And some of you thought all NBA players are spoiled millionaires with no love for the game. Clearly, you're not looking in the right places. Seriously, I've seen high school gyms pack with better crowds than what I witnessed Monday night as Parsons' 3 Stripes team beat 800-Trial-Pro — headlined by former UCF star Keith Clanton — 105-93 before a crowd of about 150 people.
• Ryan Lillis of The Sacramento Bee: What began as a small group of neighborhood activists scraping for donations at a picnic in a midtown Sacramento garden has developed into a volatile political clash over whether to hold a public vote on the city's plan to subsidize a new Kings arena downtown. The debate has escalated in recent days. There have been allegations that paid signature gatherers are lying to voters, charges of doctored press releases and outrage on Twitter about claims made by both sides. In an indication of how intense the campaign has become, more than 56,000 city voters received an automated "robocall" Sunday evening extolling the virtues of a downtown arena and attacking the campaign under way to place the city's financing plan before the voters in June. Those kinds of robocalls are not unusual during campaign season. But a vote on the arena – if it comes at all – won't be held for another 10 months.
• Richard Goldstein of The New York Times: Ossie Schectman, a Knicks guard and a onetime all-American at Long Island University in Brooklyn, played when the two-handed set shot ruled and a 6-foot-8 center was a giant. When Schectman died on Tuesday at 94, he was remembered as a central figure in the National Basketball Association’s creation tale. He scored the first 2 points in the league’s history and became something of a celebrity when the distinction was uncovered, 42 years and 5 million points later. On the night of Nov. 1, 1946, the Knicks faced the Toronto Huskies at Maple Leaf Gardens, the home of the National Hockey League’s Maple Leafs, before 7,090 fans more familiar with face-offs than jump balls. The court covered the ice surface. It was the inaugural game of the Basketball Association of America, which became the N.B.A. three years later.

The Mavericks envision DeJuan Blair as a better-fitting version of Elton Brand.

Like Brand last season, the Mavs will count on the 6-foot-7, 265-pound Blair to provide a healthy dose of toughness as a vertically-challenged, wide-bodied banger who will play the vast majority of his minutes at center. They believe Blair, who averaged 7.8 points and 5.8 rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game during his four seasons in San Antonio, addresses a glaring need for some nastiness on the roster.

They also think the 24-year-old Blair, who is on the verge of signing with Dallas, fits better with the Mavs’ personnel on the offensive end than the 34-year-old Brand did. The reasoning: Blair is a roller; Brand is a popper.

That’s particularly important when playing with Dirk Nowitzki, the premier jump-shooting power forward in NBA history. The threat of Nowitzki knocking down midrange jumpers creates a lot of opportunities to score with hard rolls to the basket, and some easy buckets off those rolls help give Dirk a little more room to work.

See the Mavs’ success with Brandan Wright and Nowitzki on the floor together as evidence. Dallas averaged 108.8 points per 48 minutes with that pair last season.

The Mavs also think Blair can be compatible with Wright, who would be the power forward in that pairing, and even in certain situations as a power forward with Samuel Dalembert playing center or as a center with Shawn Marion as a power forward.

Blair isn’t nearly as good of a shot-blocker as the long-armed Brand. However, Blair is a savvy defender who takes a lot of charges and is willing to throw his weight around on the block.

Blair is also an upgrade as a rebounder. He has a career average of 11.1 rebounds per 36 minutes, which is better than Brand’s best season on the boards.

Brand was a bargain addition for Dallas last season, when the Mavs paid him $2.1 million after acquiring him via amnesty waivers. With a veteran-minimum salary, Blair would be even better value.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us ..."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

It all started with a little green light.

On the first night of the NBA's summer league in Las Vegas, the San Antonio Spurs played the Charlotte Bobcats. As Spurs center Aron Baynes prepared to inbound the ball from the baseline, a small green light was visible, blinking steadily through the white mesh of his jersey.

First question: Is he a cyborg?

Second, more sensible question: Is that the biometric monitoring the Spurs have used in the D-League?

A stroll behind the bench confirmed every Spur had a small bulge, just between the shoulder blades, blinking green.

Fascinating. Mysterious. And as it turns out, loaded with potential: It's part of a system that has led to a huge reductions in injury, and dramatic improvements in performance, in a professional league half a world away.

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After the game, the Spurs communications staff opted to "politely decline" the opportunity to talk about the green light.

We learned from 48 Minutes of Hell’s Andrew McNeill that the Austin Toros -- the Spurs’ D-League affiliate -- were trying out some technology made by Catapult Sports.

"It’s a load meter and it’s a new sports science thing," Toros coach Brad Jones explained to McNeill. "It's like a vest you put on underneath [your clothes] and you wear it in practice and it keeps track of the energy you’re burning."

The key term here is "load," the aggregate energy put into and stress placed upon the body during athletic activity. In basketball terms, this may mean -- according to the Catapult Sports site, which confirms the Spurs as clients -- measuring "the speed of a shooting guard coming off a down-screen, the impact force of a center banging on the low block, or the total distance covered by a point guard over the course of a game, week or season."

Was this what the Spurs were wearing? An article on the company by Forbes’ Alex Konrad noted that "[w]earable sensors are still banned in the U.S. during official game play."

Konrad put us in touch with Catapult's Gary McCoy who, it turned out, was in Las Vegas, ready and willing to sit down to talk about what Catapult Sports does.

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An Australian company, Catapult Sports first began working with Australian Rules Football, and McCoy makes some impressive claims about the company’s effectiveness there. “Where we’re at with sports science in Australia," he told Lynch, "is that we’ve reduced injury by almost 30 percent, and we’ve increased outputs by almost 25 percent." These numbers come from the extensive injury research the Australian Football League conducts (see, for example, this 2012 report) and from the company’s own measurements of an increase in fourth-quarter speeds and accelerations. The net effect for these athletes has been to "extend and enrich a player’s career. That window is always closing on you, whether you’re a team or a player.”

The way McCoy talks about the company reflects Catapult Sports’ core mission: to maximize athlete effectiveness by minimizing injury and the deleterious effects of exhaustion. “We’re getting questions from one of the biggest profile [NBA] teams that has an aging athlete,” McCoy said. “And one of the questions coming from their training staff was, ‘Can we look at his physiological matrix and what makes up his exertion level and know that we might have to pull him every six minutes or so to sustain his output in the fourth quarter?’”

How to extend an aging athlete’s career is a vital question as teams work with players like Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant, but it can be just as important for younger players to start making the most of their bodies now.

The directions players move have a surprising amount to do with injury prevention. McCoy refers to this as asymmetry, and it’s something most basketball fans know: athletes often move better in one direction than the other. When someone says, “Force him left” or, “Don’t let him catch it on the right block,” this is what they’re talking about.

“It’s just like wheel alignment in a car,” McCoy said. “It impacts return to play [from injury]. We had a very prominent NBA player’s ACL rehabilitation we measured last year. Phenomenal athlete. Left ACL was the rupture." Catapult is constrained from discussing its clients, but a survey of injury reports shows Derrick Rose, Danilo Gallinari, Ricky Rubio, Iman Shumpert, Nerlens Noel and Leandro Barbosa to be among those who have torn left ACLs in recent years. Rajon Rondo also suffered a partial tear. "And [the training staff] said 'Based upon strength, we think he’s close to being ready.’ When they actually measured him with a Catapult device, they could see his accelerations to his right were at about a 60 percent deficit off of his left leg compared to what they were to the other side. And you can’t see this stuff with the naked eye.”

Injury rehabilitation has long been a dark art in professional sports, with players assigning whole number percentages to how ready they are based on feeling. Adding a level of precision to the measurement of strength and stress under different conditions isn’t the entire answer, but it’s still a step toward a clearer understanding of each athlete’s unique timetable for recovery. A player might feel 85 percent ready, but with what degree of confidence can that number be trusted?

Catapult can also help indicate when an athlete’s movements simply aren’t that efficient. There are players who expend a lot of energy on the court -- the “hustle guys” -- even if they’re not scoring. But what if they could do their job more efficiently? “I often refer to the Catapult monitor that we place on the athlete as ‘the little orange jockey,’” McCoy wrote in an email. “Take him for a nice ride,” he tells the athletes. “The more that unit is bouncing around -- the less efficient the athlete’s movements are -- the more it’s increasing their individual load.”

McCoy has worked with Toronto Raptors trainer Alex McKechnie and a player like Rudy Gay, whom McCoy cites as one who “appears to glide effortlessly,” gives the monitor a smoother ride. As a result, his total load might be less than another player, but it doesn’t mean he’s working less. He’s just doing his job with greater economy of movement. Of course, the Catapult monitor can’t tell you anything about Gay’s shot selection, but just as analytics confirmed strategies about the value of the 3-pointer or free throws, the system can help bring evidence to what trainers like McKechnie often sense intuitively.

Maximum fitness is the product of interlinked systems: the neurological and the physiological, the metabolic, musculoskeletal and nervous systems. So Catapult is gathering everything, from simple measurements like heart rate to more intricate ones like acceleration, direction of movement, stops and starts, and the associated force -- more than 100 data points per second. It's more than most teams can put to use -- for now -- and one of the key tricks is figuring out what, out of all that, matters most.

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There are hurdles to this kind of monitoring coming to regular season NBA games. For instance, the players and their agents may have good reason to resist. Although McCoy stresses the data should always be applied to compare a player to himself, it’s not hard to envision teams wielding their findings during contract negotiations or when reducing a player’s minutes when it confirms the perception that he’s dogging it on the court. “It’s CARFAX for the athlete,” he said. A consequence of this system being fully implemented would be teams simply knowing a lot more when it comes to signing players or trading them to other teams.

So the Spurs have more than just their usual Spurs-ian reasons for keeping quiet on this. While four NBA teams are Catapult Sports clients (the Rockets, Knicks and Mavericks being the others), the monitors have generally been used only in practices and scrimmages. The Spurs’ use of the monitors at the Las Vegas Summer League is perhaps the closest the devices have come to actual league competition so far.

This kind of technology -- especially when it’s not well understood -- can be scary, even threatening to the established order of things. It can also dehumanize athletes, on a spreadsheet, a human appears to be an asset to be monitored and controlled from afar. A certain amount of skepticism, a concern for best practices, is well-founded.

But the information, new perspectives and, eventually, results this kind of monitoring can produce can break down resistance. The edge teams constantly look for doesn't always come from the most likely sources. Biometric monitoring isn’t a cure-all, but it’s a logical next step, particularly when it comes to the most human of pursuits: keeping people healthy and functioning at their best. As McCoy said, “What we can measure, we can manage. If you can’t or aren’t measuring it, you can’t manage it. It seems really, really simple.”

Gatsby believed in the green light even though it was something he could never reach, maybe because it was something he could never reach. But that green light on Baynes’ back signals something different: that we can stretch out our arms farther and grasp a better understanding. That tomorrow, we will run faster.

The Mavericks announced Monday that first-round pick Shane Larkin has signed his contract.

As the 18th overall pick, Larkin is slotted to make $1.28 million in the first season of his rookie deal.

Larkin, a point guard who was the ACC player of the year and tournament MVP as a Miami sophomore, is recovering from a broken ankle suffered the day the Mavs' summer league team left for Las Vegas. He underwent surgery July 16. His recovery time is estimated to be three months, putting his status for the beginning of training camp in question.

With Larkin's signing official, the Mavs have 13 players on the roster. They also intend to sign Devin Harris after the veteran guard recovers from surgery to repair a dislocated toe. That leaves one open roster spot for the Mavs, who are among the teams pursuing injury-prone former No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden.