- Academics studied international rugby referees and found evidence of national bias. Javier Espinoza of The Wall Street Journal: "In the Super 14 rugby union competition, for example, the study found that the home team would win only in 38% of the cases when the referee is from the nationality of the opposition, while it would win in 91% of the cases when the referee was from their own nationality."
- There's something really messed up about sports journalism if somebody as hardworking, smart and classy as Ross Siler can't carve out a career for himself. Holy cow is that guy a pro. I'm honored that he wrote for TrueHoop for a little while last summer, and more honored to know him. I wish him the best of luck in his new chosen career as ... a judge on one of those daytime afternoon court shows.
- Mike Krzyzewski does not see LeBron James' move to Miami as a sign James is unwilling to lead.
- Losing Chris Paul in 2012 may not be the worst-case scenario for the Hornets.
- Like every year, but even more: One of the Lakers' biggest concerns next season will be health.
- Defining different levels of anger in Cleveland sports fan history.
- Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm just read John Feinstein's semi-classic "The Punch" about when Kermit Washington leveled Rudy Tomjanovich: "It’s a sad book. You feel bad for everyone. The players that were there that night sound haunted by the events, especially Calvin Murphy, one of Tomjanovich’s best friends. The book ends, in ironic fashion, talking about how both players can’t stand how often it’s brought up. I feel guilty for even writing this review."
- A video-fueled assessment of Bulls prospect Omer Asik.
- John Salley on vinegar vs. STDs, or whatever it is you might get from kissing a coked up stripper on the mouth.
- On players making decisions together: Lou Williams tells FreeDarko that Williams, Monta Ellis, C.J. Miles, Andrew Bynum and Gerald Green all decided together to declare for the draft.
- The Pacers have stood by Mike Dunleavy Jr. for a long time, but word is that's changing.
- What position should Kirk Hinrich play? A numbers-based analyis.
- New owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber have been discussing how they'll run the Warriors.
- Wow. How did I only now learn that Mike James and his family had a visit from the Super Nanny? Suddenly I'm keenly aware that I'd never want to have my parenting dissected on television.
The Googlization of basketball information
July, 30, 2010
Jul 30
12:13
PM ET
I just happened across a two-year-old Wired article by Chris Anderson. It's not about sports, but you might want to read it anyway, because I think it tells us a lot about the future of, well, everything, including basketball analysis:
We're all worried about that amazing team player, who really helps his team but doesn't do things that are easily recognized and counted.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that statistics can't measure heart!
But here's what I think we have to understand: Old statistics screwed those guys. When most people say they hate statistics, they mean they hate old statistics, which had almost no regard at all for things central to basketball like setting killer screens, playing good post defense, scooping up loose balls, closing out shooters, crisp defensive rotations, hitting the open man even if he does not shoot, inspiring teammates or playing through injuries.
As a case in point we could look at the Celtics in recent years. Old statistics had no way of knowing they'd be the most cohesive and tenacious defensive unit in years, which is why just about nobody predicted, as Kevin Garnett's trade to Boston was announced three years ago, that the Celtics were about to win 72 percent of their regular season games over three seasons, and an amazing eight of their next 10 playoff series.
A lot of that team's magic was in things we have not normally measured. But there were two groups of people who were not as surprised: A subset of real-deal basketball experts who understood the merits of what the Celtics were doing, and proponents of adjusted plus/minus.
And here's where hoops stats are getting to be a bit like Google in the article above. All those things I listed above that matter to winning but aren't easily measured? If they matter to winning, they may be mired in a lot of noise, but they're in plus/minus somewhere. In other words, you kind of can measure heart, if it leads to winning.
There's almost nothing on the Internet that Google can't index, measure, value and test in some way. It's not perfect, and it may not come with the know-how, soul and wisdom of earlier forms of advertising. Those things matter, and need to come from somewhere. But it's not either/or. You need both. It's hard to point to another system that knows more about what people are up to. If someone does something that matters on the web, Google's computers are among those most likely to value it accurately.
A similar thing can be said for players in NBA games. If they're doing things, besides scoring, that matter, it used to be that their only hope of being properly valued was for some well-placed expert -- a Jerry West here, a Pat Riley there -- to notice. But West and Riley have finite time and can watch only so many games. Stats, meanwhile, can watch every game every night, and from all that data they can find an increasingly useful bunch of data. Some of the very best of it says, basically: We may not know why, but this guy is making his team far better. If the Wests and Rileys of the world are short of time, wouldn't it make sense for them to focus their efforts on players like that?
There's a ton of work left to be done. There is not really any single system that knows anything close to all there is to know about basketball. I'm not here to tell you that cutting edge basketball statistics are ready to replace those basketball experts, and they probably never will.
However, if you're looking for the best available analysis of which players help their teams the most, no executive in 2010 can afford to ignore the vast and growing new trove of data. Math is changing basketball just as it changed the Internet and advertising, and for similar reasons: Huge amounts of data, cleverly analyzed, can tell you things that small amounts of data (for instance, as can be gathered in the mind of one human) never can.
Google conquered the advertising world with nothing more than applied mathematics. It didn't pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right.
Google's founding philosophy is that we don't know why this page is better than that one: If the statistics of incoming links say it is, that's good enough. No semantic or causal analysis is required. That's why Google can translate languages without actually "knowing" them (given equal corpus data, Google can translate Klingon into Farsi as easily as it can translate French into German). And why it can match ads to content without any knowledge or assumptions about the ads or the content.
Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google's research director, offered an update to George Box's maxim: "All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."
This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.
We're all worried about that amazing team player, who really helps his team but doesn't do things that are easily recognized and counted.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that statistics can't measure heart!
But here's what I think we have to understand: Old statistics screwed those guys. When most people say they hate statistics, they mean they hate old statistics, which had almost no regard at all for things central to basketball like setting killer screens, playing good post defense, scooping up loose balls, closing out shooters, crisp defensive rotations, hitting the open man even if he does not shoot, inspiring teammates or playing through injuries.
As a case in point we could look at the Celtics in recent years. Old statistics had no way of knowing they'd be the most cohesive and tenacious defensive unit in years, which is why just about nobody predicted, as Kevin Garnett's trade to Boston was announced three years ago, that the Celtics were about to win 72 percent of their regular season games over three seasons, and an amazing eight of their next 10 playoff series.
A lot of that team's magic was in things we have not normally measured. But there were two groups of people who were not as surprised: A subset of real-deal basketball experts who understood the merits of what the Celtics were doing, and proponents of adjusted plus/minus.
And here's where hoops stats are getting to be a bit like Google in the article above. All those things I listed above that matter to winning but aren't easily measured? If they matter to winning, they may be mired in a lot of noise, but they're in plus/minus somewhere. In other words, you kind of can measure heart, if it leads to winning.
There's almost nothing on the Internet that Google can't index, measure, value and test in some way. It's not perfect, and it may not come with the know-how, soul and wisdom of earlier forms of advertising. Those things matter, and need to come from somewhere. But it's not either/or. You need both. It's hard to point to another system that knows more about what people are up to. If someone does something that matters on the web, Google's computers are among those most likely to value it accurately.
A similar thing can be said for players in NBA games. If they're doing things, besides scoring, that matter, it used to be that their only hope of being properly valued was for some well-placed expert -- a Jerry West here, a Pat Riley there -- to notice. But West and Riley have finite time and can watch only so many games. Stats, meanwhile, can watch every game every night, and from all that data they can find an increasingly useful bunch of data. Some of the very best of it says, basically: We may not know why, but this guy is making his team far better. If the Wests and Rileys of the world are short of time, wouldn't it make sense for them to focus their efforts on players like that?
There's a ton of work left to be done. There is not really any single system that knows anything close to all there is to know about basketball. I'm not here to tell you that cutting edge basketball statistics are ready to replace those basketball experts, and they probably never will.
However, if you're looking for the best available analysis of which players help their teams the most, no executive in 2010 can afford to ignore the vast and growing new trove of data. Math is changing basketball just as it changed the Internet and advertising, and for similar reasons: Huge amounts of data, cleverly analyzed, can tell you things that small amounts of data (for instance, as can be gathered in the mind of one human) never can.
Latest buzz: Shaq, T-Mac, more
July, 30, 2010
Jul 30
9:33
AM ET
Some fresh dribbles of chatter from the front-office grapevine as we near the end of the first full month of free agency, culled from conversations with various executives, coaches and insiders around the league:
Boston's inside job opening
Shaquille O’Neal and Kwame Brown.
Those two haven’t shown up in the same sentence too often over the years, but they’re linked on this occasion because they both remain on the radar of the Boston Celtics.
The East champs, even after the recent signing of Jermaine O’Neal, still want one more big man after inching to the brink of a full roster with Thursday’s signing of guard Von Wafer.
The problem? The Celtics only have minimum money left. Sources say they’re having trouble getting Brown to accept those wages, so you can imagine where Shaq stands on the idea.
Word persists that Shaq still hopes to be sign-and-traded somewhere by Cleveland that will allow him to secure a salary next season above the $5.8 million mid-level exception. Our old friend Howard Beck of the New York Times did a comprehensive piece last weekend spelling out just how unlikely landing that sort of contract would appear to be.
Shaq struggling to find good fit
I’ve heard that Shaq, earlier this summer, was telling friends that the Spurs were the only team he'd consider playing for on a low-dollar contract.
But San Antonio, as covered previously in this cyberspace, doesn’t have the available minutes -- and really hasn’t shown the inclination -- to try to wedge the former local high school star into a world that still revolves around Shaq’s old rival Tim Duncan.
Atlanta? Sensible as it sounds for the Hawks to be the one team out there aggressively pursuing the 38-year-old -- given Shaq’s presumed ability to both stand up to Hawks killer Dwight Howard and sell tickets in Atlanta -- they just signed Jason Collins to be their No. 3 center and signed Josh Powell before Collins.
Which brings us back to Boston. I struggle to envision Shaq signing for a mere $1.35 million for next season, but the idea can’t be completely dismissed if O’Neal is serious about only signing with a team that can contend for a championship, since the Celts are still on that short list.
Tim Povtak of AOL FanHouse, who covered Shaq closely in Orlando when he broke into the NBA, reported recently that O’Neal has been lobbying Boston to come get him. Celts president of basketball operations Danny Ainge told the Boston Globe earlier this week than he didn’t want to comment on Shaq but acknowledged that “we’ve had some discussions.” And with Kendrick Perkins sure to miss the start of the season after knee surgery and with Jermaine O’Neal’s injury history, there is a legit need for another center.
The safer move for the Celtics is clearly signing Kwame, but I don’t think we need to remind you that Ainge -- who was willing to gamble on Stephon Marbury in the second half of the 2008-09 season when so many outsiders thought he wouldn’t dare -- is not afraid to take risks.
Bulls haven't ruled out T-Mac
As of Friday morning, Chicago had not completely ruled out the signing of Tracy McGrady.
Miami’s signing of Eddie House extinguished one of the Bulls’ other prime options and thus helped keep alive the possibility of McGrady scoring the deal from the Bulls that he so badly wants, as chronicled here. Chicago, though, continues to look at other options such as Keith Bogans and Roger Mason.
Sources close to the process, as they did Monday after McGrady’s workout and sit-down with team officials, continue to describe the prospect of a T-Mac signing as “unlikely” after he spoke at length -- to the media and apparently those officials as well -- of his intent to try to force his way into a prominent role with the Bulls when they were looking for him to show a blanket willingness to accept a limited role.
If the Bulls ultimately do relent and commit to a T-Mac experiment, since they do need another scoring threat on the perimeter, it’s believed that they will insist on McGrady accepting a non-guaranteed deal for next season so they can let him go at any time without financial hesitation if they deem the experiment to be failing.
'Blueprint' billboard removed
Remember that 127-foot billboard of Mikhail Prokhorov and Jay-Z, adorned with a Nets logo, that went up on a building facing Madison Square Garden to taunt the Knicks at the start of free agency?
It’s being painted over this week, but not because James Dolan called the league office to complain that the likenesses of the Nets’ owners were peering straight into the Knicks offices.
The Nets apparently leased that billboard space only for one month.
Amare's trip to the Holy Land
For those of you (like me) guilty of getting carried away by the news that Amare Stoudemire made a special trip to Israel to investigate the possibility of Jewish roots in his family -- and immediately started dreaming of Amare switching national-team allegiances someday to join Sacramento’s Omri Casspi in Israel’s frontcourt -- we are forced to issue a couple of reality checks.
In addition to this detailed clarification of the motivations behind Amare’s long-planned trip to the Holy Land from his Jewish agent, Happy Walters, to FanHouse, let’s not forget the small matter of FIBA regulations.
Even if Stoudemire did get to the point someday that he wanted to represent Israel, which qualifies as a premature discussion even for Twitter dwellers, there is no free agency in international basketball.
Once players represent one senior national team, as Amare did with Team USA at the 2004 Olympics, they are ineligible to play for another country.
Hakeem Olajuwon was allowed to join Team USA for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 because he had only represented Nigeria at the junior level. The only exceptions FIBA has allowed at the senior level occurred when countries such as the former Yugoslavia dissolved into individual republics, sending the likes of Vlade Divac from Team Yugoslavia to Team Serbia and Toni Kukoc from Yugoslavia to Croatia.
But let me also say that any suggestion that all this is becoming public now because Amare is trying to win over New York’s significant Jewish population is badly misplaced. He’s been talking about going to Israel for years. I know that because I’ve discussed it with him several times. Amare’s interest in Judaism is so real that he recently had a Star of David tattooed on his left hand.
Stoudemire was accompanied on the trip by highly regarded NBA skills/footwork guru Idan Ravin, who has been working with the Knicks’ marquee signing all summer and has roots in Israel himself.
Remember the Titans
On the subject of players whose allegiances merit special attention here at Stein Line HQ, Cal State Fullerton alumnus Bobby Brown continues to draw interest from the Raptors, who had Brown in summer league and are believed to be the team most likely to sign him for next season.
Brown not only played well in Las Vegas but has a special bond with a few California-reared Raptors (DeMar DeRozan and Amir Johnson) to enhance his chances. The Raptors, though, still have two point guards on the roster that they’ve unsuccessfully tried to move: Jose Calderon and Marcus Banks.
Meanwhile …
Lefty swingman Frank Robinson, Fullerton’s other NBA aspirant and a member of the Lakers’ summer-league squad, has elected to sign a guaranteed deal with Israel’s Maccabi Haifa -- which will be playing the Nets in an October exhibition game in New Jersey -- instead of trying to make an NBA roster in training camp as he attempted the past two Octobers with Atlanta.
Brown's price tag
Question: Why did all the rumblings about Larry Brown wanting to leave the Bobcats to coach the Sixers or Clippers instead, so prevalent in May and June, quietly fade away?
One answer: NBA coaching sources say that Bobcats owner Michael Jordan made it clear to Brown and any interested team that the Bobcats would insist on compensation -- presumably draft considerations -- to let Brown out of his contract.
Boston's inside job opening
Shaquille O’Neal and Kwame Brown.
Those two haven’t shown up in the same sentence too often over the years, but they’re linked on this occasion because they both remain on the radar of the Boston Celtics.
The East champs, even after the recent signing of Jermaine O’Neal, still want one more big man after inching to the brink of a full roster with Thursday’s signing of guard Von Wafer.
The problem? The Celtics only have minimum money left. Sources say they’re having trouble getting Brown to accept those wages, so you can imagine where Shaq stands on the idea.
Word persists that Shaq still hopes to be sign-and-traded somewhere by Cleveland that will allow him to secure a salary next season above the $5.8 million mid-level exception. Our old friend Howard Beck of the New York Times did a comprehensive piece last weekend spelling out just how unlikely landing that sort of contract would appear to be.
Shaq struggling to find good fit
I’ve heard that Shaq, earlier this summer, was telling friends that the Spurs were the only team he'd consider playing for on a low-dollar contract.
But San Antonio, as covered previously in this cyberspace, doesn’t have the available minutes -- and really hasn’t shown the inclination -- to try to wedge the former local high school star into a world that still revolves around Shaq’s old rival Tim Duncan.
Atlanta? Sensible as it sounds for the Hawks to be the one team out there aggressively pursuing the 38-year-old -- given Shaq’s presumed ability to both stand up to Hawks killer Dwight Howard and sell tickets in Atlanta -- they just signed Jason Collins to be their No. 3 center and signed Josh Powell before Collins.
Which brings us back to Boston. I struggle to envision Shaq signing for a mere $1.35 million for next season, but the idea can’t be completely dismissed if O’Neal is serious about only signing with a team that can contend for a championship, since the Celts are still on that short list.
Tim Povtak of AOL FanHouse, who covered Shaq closely in Orlando when he broke into the NBA, reported recently that O’Neal has been lobbying Boston to come get him. Celts president of basketball operations Danny Ainge told the Boston Globe earlier this week than he didn’t want to comment on Shaq but acknowledged that “we’ve had some discussions.” And with Kendrick Perkins sure to miss the start of the season after knee surgery and with Jermaine O’Neal’s injury history, there is a legit need for another center.
The safer move for the Celtics is clearly signing Kwame, but I don’t think we need to remind you that Ainge -- who was willing to gamble on Stephon Marbury in the second half of the 2008-09 season when so many outsiders thought he wouldn’t dare -- is not afraid to take risks.
Bulls haven't ruled out T-Mac
As of Friday morning, Chicago had not completely ruled out the signing of Tracy McGrady.
Miami’s signing of Eddie House extinguished one of the Bulls’ other prime options and thus helped keep alive the possibility of McGrady scoring the deal from the Bulls that he so badly wants, as chronicled here. Chicago, though, continues to look at other options such as Keith Bogans and Roger Mason.
Sources close to the process, as they did Monday after McGrady’s workout and sit-down with team officials, continue to describe the prospect of a T-Mac signing as “unlikely” after he spoke at length -- to the media and apparently those officials as well -- of his intent to try to force his way into a prominent role with the Bulls when they were looking for him to show a blanket willingness to accept a limited role.
If the Bulls ultimately do relent and commit to a T-Mac experiment, since they do need another scoring threat on the perimeter, it’s believed that they will insist on McGrady accepting a non-guaranteed deal for next season so they can let him go at any time without financial hesitation if they deem the experiment to be failing.
'Blueprint' billboard removed
Remember that 127-foot billboard of Mikhail Prokhorov and Jay-Z, adorned with a Nets logo, that went up on a building facing Madison Square Garden to taunt the Knicks at the start of free agency?
It’s being painted over this week, but not because James Dolan called the league office to complain that the likenesses of the Nets’ owners were peering straight into the Knicks offices.
The Nets apparently leased that billboard space only for one month.
Amare's trip to the Holy Land
For those of you (like me) guilty of getting carried away by the news that Amare Stoudemire made a special trip to Israel to investigate the possibility of Jewish roots in his family -- and immediately started dreaming of Amare switching national-team allegiances someday to join Sacramento’s Omri Casspi in Israel’s frontcourt -- we are forced to issue a couple of reality checks.
In addition to this detailed clarification of the motivations behind Amare’s long-planned trip to the Holy Land from his Jewish agent, Happy Walters, to FanHouse, let’s not forget the small matter of FIBA regulations.
Even if Stoudemire did get to the point someday that he wanted to represent Israel, which qualifies as a premature discussion even for Twitter dwellers, there is no free agency in international basketball.
Once players represent one senior national team, as Amare did with Team USA at the 2004 Olympics, they are ineligible to play for another country.
Hakeem Olajuwon was allowed to join Team USA for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 because he had only represented Nigeria at the junior level. The only exceptions FIBA has allowed at the senior level occurred when countries such as the former Yugoslavia dissolved into individual republics, sending the likes of Vlade Divac from Team Yugoslavia to Team Serbia and Toni Kukoc from Yugoslavia to Croatia.
But let me also say that any suggestion that all this is becoming public now because Amare is trying to win over New York’s significant Jewish population is badly misplaced. He’s been talking about going to Israel for years. I know that because I’ve discussed it with him several times. Amare’s interest in Judaism is so real that he recently had a Star of David tattooed on his left hand.
Stoudemire was accompanied on the trip by highly regarded NBA skills/footwork guru Idan Ravin, who has been working with the Knicks’ marquee signing all summer and has roots in Israel himself.
Remember the Titans
On the subject of players whose allegiances merit special attention here at Stein Line HQ, Cal State Fullerton alumnus Bobby Brown continues to draw interest from the Raptors, who had Brown in summer league and are believed to be the team most likely to sign him for next season.
Brown not only played well in Las Vegas but has a special bond with a few California-reared Raptors (DeMar DeRozan and Amir Johnson) to enhance his chances. The Raptors, though, still have two point guards on the roster that they’ve unsuccessfully tried to move: Jose Calderon and Marcus Banks.
Meanwhile …
Lefty swingman Frank Robinson, Fullerton’s other NBA aspirant and a member of the Lakers’ summer-league squad, has elected to sign a guaranteed deal with Israel’s Maccabi Haifa -- which will be playing the Nets in an October exhibition game in New Jersey -- instead of trying to make an NBA roster in training camp as he attempted the past two Octobers with Atlanta.
Brown's price tag
Question: Why did all the rumblings about Larry Brown wanting to leave the Bobcats to coach the Sixers or Clippers instead, so prevalent in May and June, quietly fade away?
One answer: NBA coaching sources say that Bobcats owner Michael Jordan made it clear to Brown and any interested team that the Bobcats would insist on compensation -- presumably draft considerations -- to let Brown out of his contract.
- Jason Smith of The Commercial-Appeal: "Although it had been nearly 24 hours since they learned of the untimely death of Lorenzen Wright, Memphis Grizzlies head coach Lionel Hollins and Griz director of player personnel Tony Barone Sr. were still in a state of shock Thursday. Hollins had been an assistant with the Grizzlies under former coaches Hubie Brown and Mike Fratello during Wright's final four seasons with Memphis in 2002-06. 'It's just a sad moment, not just for the Grizzlies and not just for basketball, but for his family and his kids and the community that he grew up in,' Hollins told a group of reporters gathered Thursday at FedExForum. 'Nobody knows all the details. It's just unfortunate. It's just sad and it is a tragedy.' ... 'He would bring his (children) to practice a lot and Hubie always embraced that' Barone said. 'You always saw 'Ren's kids with his jerseys. They never had anybody else's jersey on. It was quite obvious how much he cared for his family.' ... Former Grizzlies forward Shane Battier, one of the team's original players in Memphis with Wright, said Wright embodied the team's competitiveness."
- Ken Sugiura of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "It was not easy to keep Lorenzen Wright down. Pete Babcock saw Wright, the former Hawk found dead Wednesday in a wooded area in Memphis, on some of his lowest days as a professional. In 2008-2009, the last year of his career, Wright was a bench player for the Cleveland Cavaliers who played little on the rare occasions he dressed out. 'Even when he was in street clothes on the bench and I happened to be there at the game, he was still upbeat and positive,' said Babcock, the former Hawks general manager who now scouts for Cleveland. Wright provided similar memories to many who encountered him in a 13-year NBA career and a life that ended violently after 34 years. On Thursday, Memphis police confirmed that Wright was a homicide victim killed by gunshot wound. He was found nine days after he had gone missing. 'The news as to how he died, it's killing us all, to say the least,' Hawks spokesman Arthur Triche said."
- Mike Tokito of The Oregonian: "Lauren Forman remembers the day she and Brian Grant were sitting in Cafe DuBerry, discussing plans
for an event to raise money to battle Parkinson's disease. Grant wanted one of his former NBA coaches, Pat Riley, to be the event's keynote speaker. So they called Riley. 'Within seconds he's like, 'Brian, whatever you need, I'm there -- send me the info,' ' said Forman, executive director of the Brian Grant Foundation. That sort of personal response to Grant, the highly-respected former Trail Blazers forward who is one of an estimated 1 million people in the United States with Parkinson's, explains the impressive guest list for 'Shake It Till We Make It.' The two-day event starts Sunday with a dinner, meet-and-greet and auction at the Rose Garden, and concludes Monday with a golf event at Pumpkin Ridge. The two celebrities most linked to Parkinson's will be there -- boxing great Muhammad Ali, and actor Michael J. Fox, whose foundation will be the beneficiary. Also slated to appear are Bill Russell, Bill Walton, Brandon Roy, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Greg Oden, Steve Nash, Terry Porter and Rasheed Wallace. 'These guys are all flying in on their own dime,' Forman said. 'They're coming in because they care about him.' " - Satff for Rogers Sportsnet: "During an exclusive interview with Rogers Sportsnet on Thursday, former Raptors forward Chris Bosh responded to criticism from general manager Bryan Colangelo, refuting claims that he 'checked out' during the closing stretch of his final season in Toronto. Bosh, who decided to join the Miami Heat this off-season and will play alongside Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, said that his impending free agency had no effect on his play with the Raptors and he never gave up on the team as it slid out of playoff contention in the Eastern Conference. 'No, at any time, did I ever give up,' Bosh told Sportsnet. 'You know, I take that very seriously. I work hard every time I step on the court -- practice, games, shoot-around, whatever you want to say -- I take this job seriously and I take my effort on the court seriously. I play this game as hard as I can every time I step on the court. On the back of my jersey, it says Bosh,' the 26-year-old forward continued. 'The Bosh's are hard workers. We have a lot of pride in what we do in our jobs and in life. There was no time, at any time, that I ever stepped on the court -- in my NBA career, in my life -- and stop playing hard or give up.' "
- Marc Berman of the New York Post: "Two weeks ago, new Knicks power forward Amar'e Stoudemire arrived in Vegas for Knicks summer league with a tattoo of the 'Star of David' on his arm. 'What's that?,' he was asked by The Post. 'What does it look like?' Stoudemire replied. When asked if that means he is Jewish, Stoudemire replied flatly: 'Yes.' Stoudemire may not have been joking. Stoudemire, who last week was forbidden by the Knicks to play for Team USA in the World Championships, is in Israel this week to learn more about Judaism and learn Hebrew. He arrived Wednesday. ... Stoudemire posted on his Twitter account yesterday: 'To clear everything up: I'm studying history & want to learn about all religions. I think I might have some Hebrew Roots and I'm researching it.' "
- Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald: The Oregonian mentioned the Bulls as a potential destination for Portland shooting guard Rudy Fernandez. League insiders wonder if the Blazers are really serious about moving Fernandez. The Bulls’ inquiries earlier this summer were rebuffed. At this point, if Fernandez is unhappy with his limited role in Portland, the Bulls may not be his best option, considering they’ve already added Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer at two guard. According to reports, the Blazers are willing to accommodate Fernandez'trade request and are looking for a first-round draft pick in return. I've seen rumors of the Bulls offering Taj Gibson for Fernandez, but cannot imagine that happening. You don't trade a competent big man for an unproven guard."
- Brian T. Smith of The Columbian: "When Portland coach Nate McMillan put his ideal first and second teams together last season at the start of training camp, Fernandez was viewed as the perfect backup to Brandon Roy. Where Roy thrives in a methodical, half-court offense, Fernandez excels in the fast break. This gave McMillan two top-tier, diverse but complimentary guards. And before injuries set in, the rotation became scattered and the championship picture shattered, there was no question that Fernandez was an essential piece of Portland’s future. Now, a little more than two months before the start of training camp for the 2010-11 campaign, the Blazers’ window of opportunity appears smaller and feels tighter. Fernandez will never be the man who brings another ring to Rip City. But the two-year teammate of Roy’s could help keep that window open. It’s Fernandez’s call to make. And it could easily become the Blazers’ loss if he icily glides away."
- Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune: "One day, when Derrick Rose's children play sports and possibly win a championship, he wants to be able to go home, point at his wall and say, 'Yeah, but do you have this?' That thing would be a gold medal. 'I really want it,' Rose said. 'That's something I can brag about to my kids if they play sports. Like if they win a championship, it doesn't matter, I won a gold medal. Until you win one of them, that's when you can come talk to me.' Rose, who had his second annual basketball camp in Deerfield on Thursday, said it's an honor to be one of 15 finalists vying for a spot on the Team USA roster that will compete in the FIBA World Championships next month. And he hopes to be with the team for the 2012 Olympics in London -- no matter what he has to do to get there. 'I told them, some way, somehow, let me get on the team,' Rose said. "''ll be the towel boy, whatever-boy, doesn't matter. Just let me be on it."
- Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "Now, real questions confront the Heat. No longer is it about which end-of-bench types will battle in training camp for longshot roster spots. No, with Thursday’s addition of Eddie House, the Heat now is confronted with legitimate decisions, namely which 12 players to dress on game nights. Suddenly, someone you have heard of is going to have to wear a suit on game nights. ... With someone of the ilk of Jamaal Magloire or Juwan Howard or James Jones sitting out on game nights, it would appear unlikely the Heat could attract an additional proven veteran, with uniform time (let alone playing time) now at issue."
- Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press: "Last season was a nightmare of injuries for Arnie Kander and the Pistons. The Pistons had a full contingent of players for just 11 games (winning seven). Richard Hamilton was injured in the season opener against Memphis and played in only 46 games. Tayshaun Prince had his games-played streak snapped at 497. New Pistons Ben Gordon (ankle and groin) and Charlie Villanueva (plantar fasciitis) also were hobbled. In all, the team lost 155 man-games to injury. In 2008-09, it was 57. The year before that, 45. The year before that, 46. And in 2005-06, it was 65. 'The number of injuries we saw last year is definitely something that we have not been accustomed to seeing,' Kander said. 'I give our players credit because they have been dedicated to our summer programs, and everybody is progressing well.' Gordon was scheduled to play with the Great Britain national team this summer but opted not to while recovering from left ankle in April. Gordon wants to be at full strength this season. 'Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva have been in town most of the summer, putting in a lot of work,' Kander said. 'Given the fact that our veteran players have been working hard, as well as our young guys, we should be in a good position as we get closer to training camp.' "
- Jerome Solomon of the Houston Chronicle: "So the Rockets found a team to take David Andersen off their hands. Toronto might give up a second-round pick and, according to my sources, some nets (that's singular, as in the nets for one goal, which is just the way many of us describe them, and I don't know why) for Andersen. Oh, and actually, the Rockets had to pay the Raptors to take Andersen, so they could end up paying $1 million bucks for those $10 nets. (Thank goodness they aren't chain nets.) Don't you love the fancy, government-type math where deals like these are described as 'saving' a team money? Hilarious. Pay, oh, $4 million or so for a car. A car that doesn't run. (Or defend, or rebound.) Then a year later you pay, oh, $1 million more for somebody else to put said car in their name so you won't have to pay the $2.5 million insurance tab. Yep, you saved money all right."
- Benjamin Hochman of The Denver Post: "For all the grooming he does with his players, Nuggets coach George Karl takes as much pride in coaching coaches, notably his young assistants, of which he has a stable. On Thursday, one of his favorite pupils, Jamahl Mosley, said he's leaving to take a job as an assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mosley said he wouldn't have had the opportunity for advancement without the tutelage of Karl and Tim Grgurich, the Denver assistant who mentors young coaches and players alike. 'With my loyalty to the Nuggets and George and Grg,' Mosley said, 'I definitely wouldn't have touched this job if I didn't think it was a chance for me to take everything they gave me and see if everything they taught could be used.' "
- Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov writes a letter to USA Today about the Miami SuperFriends team: "What surprises me is the amount of negative commentary directed at the three top free agents (especially LeBron James) who decided to play on the same team and to create a great franchise together. Of course, any club owner dreams of having those players, including me, but all questions of how the announcements were made aside, I respect their choice, and no one has the right to judge them. I want to say that I support LeBron, the best athlete in the NBA. He had a truly difficult choice to make. Any move he made was sure to be viewed as wrong, and to leave many unhappy fans. Basing his decision on achieving results on the basketball court shows that the sportsman won the day, not the showman or the businessman. What is wrong with that?" (Via Nets are Scorching)
- Check out the tone of this basketball coverage of the Stankovic Cup, going on now featuring several countries' national teams, in China, warming up for the World Championships. This is a tom.com story by "junjun" about Slovenian Sun Goran Dragic: "Dragic can be an ingenious player, but he is no hero. In face of Australia's pressing, it didn't occured to him that he could pass the ball and pick for his teammates. He should be mainly responsible for the team's loss. If he is to become team leader and core player, Dragic needs to further improve himself and learn to play more selflessly." All I'm saying is, if you're writing that emphatically, you better be right!
- One more theory to consider: Are referees biased against people fouling to the left? One of the strangest things I have ever seen.
- Everybody knows that D.J. Steve Porter Allen Iverson "Press Hop" practice remix video. Here's the sequel.
- LeBron James being cited as an icon of lacking PR savvy.
- A day in the life of DeMarcus Cousins.
- MC Bias notices that a lot of Miami's non-superstars are old! Mike Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Juwan Howard and Eddie House aren't going to out-athlete anybody -- even though that has the potential to be an up-tempo team.
- "Bohemian" writing about two decades of playing pickup: "Play pickup long enough, and the ball will change you. That sliver of doubt that pulls you down, that fear in the back of your mind in the face of a difficult moment, it’ll just be gone. And you’ll stand there in that moment, in the face of your job, or your relationships, or the world, and you’ll find the moment won’t own you. You won’t be worried about winning or losing, or looking foolish, or failing -- you won’t be worried at all. The moment will try to stare you down. And, in that instant, instead of wilting, you’ll find yourself starting right back at it, and answering: 'Let’s Ball.'"
- Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell on the D-League: "In some respects, the [Austin] Toros program has been an overwhelming success. In a vacuum, the Toros are the model D-League franchise. But, as most fans know, it’s also necessary to qualify the Toros’ success. The Toros’ talent -- Ian Mahinmi, Marcus Williams, Malik Hairston, Quin Snyder, Dell Demps -- has mostly left Texas for better digs. This, without mention of folks like Roy Rogers, DeMarcus Nelson, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, and Dwayne Jones. Again, in a vacuum, good on the Toros. But the Spurs are yet to develop a player in Austin who went on to make a significant impact in San Antonio."
- Should the Magic be retiring jerseys? Eddy Rivera of Magic Basketball asks broadcaster David Steele: "If you’re going to start retiring jerseys, if you make that decision, then Nick [Anderson] is right there. He has to be at the head of the conversation. There’s also some talk about Shaq and Penny, and did they play long enough with the Magic. They left under circumstances that were touchy at the time and still some bad feelings about both those guys. That makes it difficult to consider them. So Nick would have to be at the top of the list. I think it should be reserved, personally, for very exclusive situations. I think championships should be involved."
Insects blended in frozen drinks
July, 29, 2010
Jul 29
11:53
AM ET
This impressive list of the various and sundry nastiness inspectors found at various stadium food vendors -- coffin flies in your cognac, "53 mouse excreta" at a Knicks game -- has rightly prompted a round of promises to keep things cleaner.
But what strikes me about it is that if these were actual restaurants (as opposed to corporate food service organizations with exclusive contracts) with these kinds of unhealthy practices -- some stadiums with critical violations at 100 percent of the vendors -- some of them would go out of business.
If you open a mom-and-pop restaurant out there in the real world, and you treat your customers so shoddily, you'll lose money and eventually go out of business. It's almost guaranteed. With that idea simmering around the clock, day in and day out, as the owner you'd hire very carefully, obsess about things like hand washing procedures and pitch a fit if you found employees blending insects into the frozen drinks (as allegedly happened at the football stadium in Miami). If you get those things wrong, a good portion of your customers will choose to eat down the street, which will cost you.
In a stadium, however, there's no such competitive pressure. If the food stand at the top of aisle 22 is all nasty, your choices are to go hungry, or to head over to the stand at the top of aisle 27, which might or might not have the exact same stuff, but almost certainly has the exact same corporate daddies. If you eat, your dollars are essentially telling the world "I'm fine with this food" even if in fact you're not.
What's certain is that no other upstart restaurant is going to swoop in and steal that business next week, because this is a closed business environment, without free-market pressures.
If I found a mouse turd in my tater tots, I'd sure be missing those free-market pressures!
But instead of that kind of thing leading to a stand being replaced by one with different, more hygienic owners, instead the same ol' vendors get to keep trying again and again.
That's because they paid a pretty penny to the stadium owners for the exclusive right to sell bad food at crazy prices to captive rich people. (More or less.)
All that makes the stadium owners -- sometimes also the team owners -- poor candidates to really crack the whip. The people who are leaving the sushi out at room temperature (that one was in L.A.) are the exact ones who are cutting the fat checks from now until the end of the contract. It's hard to get too mad at people who flood you with cash.
I know this is crazy talk, asking a stadium to forego the revenue they get from auctioning the exclusive right to profit from selling you hot dogs, but my thought would be that it would be a tremendous service to fans to charge food vendors rent, but without any stadium-wide exclusivity. If there were real competition in the arena, there would be real market pressure for every vendor to have better food, better prices and less excrata. Would it cost the stadium owners? Maybe. But on the other hand, wouldn't you pay a little more for a ticket to go to a stadium with an ever-evolving set of good, clean, reasonably priced options?
But what strikes me about it is that if these were actual restaurants (as opposed to corporate food service organizations with exclusive contracts) with these kinds of unhealthy practices -- some stadiums with critical violations at 100 percent of the vendors -- some of them would go out of business.
If you open a mom-and-pop restaurant out there in the real world, and you treat your customers so shoddily, you'll lose money and eventually go out of business. It's almost guaranteed. With that idea simmering around the clock, day in and day out, as the owner you'd hire very carefully, obsess about things like hand washing procedures and pitch a fit if you found employees blending insects into the frozen drinks (as allegedly happened at the football stadium in Miami). If you get those things wrong, a good portion of your customers will choose to eat down the street, which will cost you.
In a stadium, however, there's no such competitive pressure. If the food stand at the top of aisle 22 is all nasty, your choices are to go hungry, or to head over to the stand at the top of aisle 27, which might or might not have the exact same stuff, but almost certainly has the exact same corporate daddies. If you eat, your dollars are essentially telling the world "I'm fine with this food" even if in fact you're not.
What's certain is that no other upstart restaurant is going to swoop in and steal that business next week, because this is a closed business environment, without free-market pressures.
If I found a mouse turd in my tater tots, I'd sure be missing those free-market pressures!
But instead of that kind of thing leading to a stand being replaced by one with different, more hygienic owners, instead the same ol' vendors get to keep trying again and again.
That's because they paid a pretty penny to the stadium owners for the exclusive right to sell bad food at crazy prices to captive rich people. (More or less.)
All that makes the stadium owners -- sometimes also the team owners -- poor candidates to really crack the whip. The people who are leaving the sushi out at room temperature (that one was in L.A.) are the exact ones who are cutting the fat checks from now until the end of the contract. It's hard to get too mad at people who flood you with cash.
I know this is crazy talk, asking a stadium to forego the revenue they get from auctioning the exclusive right to profit from selling you hot dogs, but my thought would be that it would be a tremendous service to fans to charge food vendors rent, but without any stadium-wide exclusivity. If there were real competition in the arena, there would be real market pressure for every vendor to have better food, better prices and less excrata. Would it cost the stadium owners? Maybe. But on the other hand, wouldn't you pay a little more for a ticket to go to a stadium with an ever-evolving set of good, clean, reasonably priced options?
- Geoff Calkins of The Commercial-Appeal: "Memphis Tiger, Lorenzen Wright. Irrepressible Lorenzen. Relentless Lorenzen. Somehow, impossibly, dead at 34. His body was found in a wooded area off Hacks Cross. Fans gathered by the dozens just beyond the yellow police tape. 'It’s difficult to fathom,' said Elliot Perry. 'It’s a tragedy. This is a guy who lived out his dream to play in the NBA.' All too often, we read about murders in this city. All too often, we read about men who died too young. Some of them have been Tigers, like Taylor Bradford and Baskerville Holmes. Antonio Burks survived a gunshot wound not long ago. Hardaway was shot in the foot when he was a kid. But Wright was one of those who made it out, who played in the NBA and earned tens of millions of dollars and wore big diamond earrings just because he could. He represented the very best of Memphis. He didn’t want to live or play anywhere else."
- Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: "Mike Krzyzewski doesn't particularly value traditional positions in basketball, and I suspect that approach will come in handy coaching this version of Team USA at the World Championships next month. Krzyzewski was asked continuously during a media conference call Wednesday about the lack of height on this team. They had some bad luck: David Lee's hand injury, Amare Stoudemire's insurance complication and the after-effect of Brook Lopez's mononucleosis. That means ex-Charlotte Bobcat Tyson Chandler is the only healthy true center and most everyone might have to play out of position. But when has that bothered Duke's Hall of Fame coach? I did a magazine article with Krzyzewski years ago, and I asked him why he cares so little for conventional position labels. Krzyzewski answered that if his small forward fouls out, he'd rather put in his next-best player than his next-best small forward, because that next-best small forward might be his fifth-best player not already in the game. Fast-forward to Wednesday, and Krzyzewski made it clear he won't fret over what he lacks. Instead, he'll put in his best five and hope the other teams have to match up with his odd-ball combinations."
- Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: "The NBA is a league of stars, and while one set shines brightly, another quietly fades into the background. Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady were arguably the premier players in the NBA for the early part of the decade. Not in 2010. All three are looking for a job, and trying to cope with the fact they are no longer what they once were. McGrady, the youngest scoring champion in history, worked out for the Bulls this week, but believes he's ready to be a starter on a championship-caliber team, as opposed to being a valuable contributor off the bench. ... O'Neal, who played relatively well for Cleveland last season, still considers himself a top-tier big man and prefers to be paid as such. Never mind the 38-year-old has made nearly $300 million since 1992 or that his 2009-10 averages of 12 points and six rebounds are half his career numbers. O'Neal is balking at the midlevel exception, believing there's a team willing to pay him based on box-office sales and past glory. Iverson's case is different, yet more concrete. After insisting he would do whatever it took for the sake of "team" in Detroit, Memphis and Philadelphia, his ego made his promises null and void. There's no doubt Iverson still can help, if he agrees to come off the bench. Those three are painful reminders careers are not only fragile but finite, and the twilights of great careers often don't bring happy endings. Particularly if the player doesn't know his star has long since faded."
- Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press: "The Minnesota Timberwolves plan to keep on trying until they get it right. Last season was to be an evaluation season, to determine which players could play in new coach Kurt Rambis' system. It turned out not many could, and the team won just 15 games. Rambis had no problem with the players' effort. But he needed players who played his style, which is passing and defense. So immediately after the season, he went to president of basketball operations David Kahn and requested a different type of player. Kahn obliged and continues to do so. Team owner Glen Taylor got involved, too, after seeking reasons for Rambis' request for more athletic players. 'Kurt said they were really good kids, but that he just couldn't get them to play the defense he wanted,' Taylor said. So Kahn and Rambis and Taylor are trying something else. 'We talked about what I would call taking some risks,' Taylor said. 'The idea is, you bring in these young guys and some of them probably have the potential. We've just got to coach them better, or differently, or maybe give them a second chance. I think what we have to do as a team to get up there faster is take some risks.' That means getting more out of some players than other coaches could. For instance: 6-foot-10 forward Michael Beasley and 7-foot center Darko Milicic."
- Michael Lee of The Washington Post: "Josh Howard agreed on Wednesday to a one-year deal with the Wizards, according to his agent Derek Lafayette. Lafayette said the details within the contract have not been finalized, but a league source said it is expected to be worth close to $4 million with incentives based on games played, minutes played and minutes averaged. The deal was confirmed by a team source. Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld was unavailable for comment. 'He has made a decision to return to the Wizards,' Lafayette said. 'We're just happy that he's happy.' ... Lafayette said Howard is 'ahead of schedule' and doing 'very well' with his rehablitation. Howard visited with doctors this week, is expecting to soon start running and is scheduled to be back going full speed by late October. 'They are really satisfied with the way that he is healing,' Lafayette said of the doctors. 'All the reports are coming back good and that he is ahead of schedule post-surgery.' "
- Bud Shaw of The Plain Dealer: "This deal sent Delonte West and his bag of hot sauce to Minnesota along with Sebastian Telfair. The Cavs received versatile guard Ramon Sessions and 7-0 center Ryan Hollins. Nothing against Sessions, the central figure in the trade. He should fit in well. It's just that in an off-season highlighted by LeBron James' departure and followed by the exits of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, West and Shaquille O'Neal to come, the Cavs' next move was almost certain to fall short on the excitement meter. I mean, no matter how much resentment there is toward James, we had the Cirque du Soleil in town for the last several years. Guaranteed contention. A top seeding. Wins that came with the price of admission. Every show started with a talc-heavy cloud of abracadabra. There was magic in the air. Ramon Sessions and Ryan Hollins? They make perfect sense for the Cavs at this point in what surely will become a rebuilding. But for now it's like replacing the flying trapeze with a poetry reading."
- Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times: "A growing number of executives running N.B.A. franchises incorporate knowledge about what happens on the basketball court and in the courtroom, while others bring advanced college degrees to their work. Together, they have created what the Portland Trail Blazers’ owner, Paul Allen, termed 'the new generation of N.B.A. executives.' Allen hired Rich Cho as his general manager earlier this month. A day later, the Phoenix Suns introduced Lon Babby, a prominent agent, as their president of basketball operations. Both Cho and Babby pursued law degrees before delving into basketball full time. Cho started as an intern with the Seattle SuperSonics 15 years ago. Neither Cho, 44, nor Babby, 59, claims to have all the answers for success in the league. But their legal backgrounds could serve them well in those moments when the basketball court and the courtroom intersect, particularly in arbitration cases. They should certainly come in handy when the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which expires after next season, is renegotiated, requiring a new encyclopedia of details, many of them highly nuanced. With some N.B.A. teams staggering economically, there is a heightened emphasis on an executive’s ability to allocate resources properly. 'You use that background and knowledge to help you make trades, in contract negotiations,' Cho said. 'That’s one thing where it helps me and Lon.' "
- George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel: "I had a nice conversation with Magic Bob Vander Weide -- now the chief executive officer and vice chairman of the franchise -- following Wednesday’s press conference. Glib and insightful as always, Vander Weide addressed the team’s style of play last season. Not surprisingly, Magic fans can expect some changes. As many people have barked about in columns, blogs and casual conversations, expect to see Brandon Bass get a lot more playing time at power forward [four slot], a switch that will allow Rashard Lewis to shift to the small forward [three] slot in the lineup. The organization -- including coach Stan Van Gundy -- seems to have a twinge of regret that Bass didn’t get enough playing time in the regular season to be effective in the playoffs, especially since teammates didn’t have a feel for that particular lineup. It hurt them against a physical and bigger Boston team."
- Harvey Araton of The New York Times: "With his hopes of playing in the world championships dashed because of the Knicks’ inability to insure his nearly $100 million contract, Amar’e Stoudemire has apparently embarked on another intriguing international adventure. Several reports out of Israel along with messages on Stoudemire’s Twitter account said he was visiting the country. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Stoudemire, the Knicks’ new power forward, decided to go after recently learning that he had Jewish roots on his mother’s side. An Israeli Army report said Stoudemire was learning Hebrew, and Stoudemire said on Twitter: 'This is going to be a great trip. The holy land. Learn about it. This ze ha’halom sheli,' using the Hebrew for 'this is my dream.' "
- Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "In many ways, a fifth, swing guard makes the most sense behind Wade, Miller, Chalmers and Arroyo. And that is exactly what Hasbrouck is. A bit undersized to be an NBA shooting guard. Not enough of a playmaker to be considered a point guard. But if you watched Hasbrouck during summer league, he was the closest thing the Heat had to an NBA presence. Yes, even more so than Randolph, the league veteran. When healthy, Hasbrouck continually has impressed the Heat staff, outplaying Chalmers in many summer workouts. The developmental commitment with Hasbrouck is now into its second year. He could be the type of find the team was producing before the developmental well ran dry in recent seasons. Yes, Hasbrouck remains somewhat of a longshot to make the opening-night roster. But he is far more than mere camp fodder."
- Mike Wells of The Indianapolis Star: "The seven-month mystery surrounding Tyler Hansbrough's health problems produced its first lead earlier this month when Indiana Pacers coach Jim O'Brien said the power forward is dealing with vertigo. ... Vertigo is an abnormal sense of movement or spinning when no movement is occurring. 'A normal response to vertigo would be if you put your head on a bat and began running around in circles with the bat on the ground,' Dr. Vincent Ostrowski of the Midwest Ear Institute said. 'Then you get up and start to run. ... Any problems with the eyes, the legs or the ears can ultimately cause a symptom of vertigo.' ... Hansbrough is back in the weight room and participating in full-speed, non-contact basketball drills. The Pacers are limiting contact because they want to avoid setbacks. 'He's out there working out very hard and practicing very hard to get back to playing full time,' Pacers president Larry Bird said. The highly-energized Hansbrough averaged 8.5 points and 4.8 rebounds in 29 games as a rookie last season."
- Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle: "New Warriors power forward David Lee spent much of Wednesday, his first full day in the Bay Area since being traded here last month, shaking hands despite the splint on his dislocated right middle finger. With each hand he properly and firmly shook, Lee sent a message to Warriors fans that he plans to be fully healthy in advance of training camp in September. More importantly, he made it clear that he's going to do all the right things for the entirety of his six-year, $80 million stay in Golden State. The 6-foot-9, 250-pounder visited El Dorado Elementary School, located on a hill above Visitacion Valley in San Francisco. Lee joined the Warriors and the Good Tidings Foundation in an agreement to refurbish the outdoor basketball court at the school, which has one dilapidated hoop and some metal scraps where the other should be standing. 'Part of what you play for is the franchise and your teammates, but you also play for the community and the city you live in,' said Lee, whose local blacktop had metal nets. 'What better way to start that off than to do something for the kids of the community?' "
What the Chicago Bulls can learn from the Utah Jazz
July, 28, 2010
Jul 28
6:38
PM ET
Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images
The Bulls would be smart to use these former Jazzmen to install the flex offense in Chicago.
The Utah Jazz feature one of the longest-tenured, most consistently successful offensive systems in the NBA. Jerry Sloan has been running the flex for a quarter of a century and despite the predictability of the scheme's early actions, the Jazz's tactical plan causes opponents fits. You know what's coming, but most nights you're powerless to stop it.
The effectiveness of the flex in Salt Lake City prompts the question: If it's so productive, why haven't more teams adopted it as their offensive blueprint?
The most common answer you get from coaches and scouts around the league goes something like this:
On paper, the system is artful and ingenious. But if you don't have the personnel to run the flex effectively, you're setting up your team for failure. You might be able to incorporate a few flex sets into your playbook, but installing the system as the foundation of the offense is trouble.
What kind of personnel are we talking about? What skills does a player need to have as part of his game to be an effective player in that system? The simplest way to define the qualities of a good flex player is the ability to multitask. In the flex, each player on the floor is a screener and a screenee, a passer and a cutter, a guy who can make plays in a variety of ways by instantaneously reading the defense. Ballstoppers and early-shot-clock freelancers need not apply.
This brings us to the 2010-11 Chicago Bulls.
Last season, the Bulls finished 28th in offensive efficiency. Over the past month, the Bulls have bolstered their roster with a collection of nice pieces, including Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer -- each of whom started the 2009-10 season as a veteran member of the Jazz. Whether it was their primary intention or a serendipitous unintended consequence of the frenetic free agent market, the Bulls have assembled a group that, with the exception of the point guard spot, is more Jazzy than anything Jerry Sloan will put on the court this fall.
In short, the Bulls have a tailor-made roster for a full-fledged flex attack:
- In Boozer and Joakim Noah, the Bulls' starting frontcourt tandem will feature two of the best passing big men in the game. Boozer is fluent in the flex, while Noah's game couldn't be more suited to achieving the same kind of expertise. The two big men in this system are tasked with passing the ball from the high post to cutters, but they're also required to set back picks, cross screens and baseline actions for shooters. Even more important, they should have the ability to come off pin-downs and drain those mid-range elbow jumpers Boozer has made a living off of in Utah. What about Noah, though? He's a better mid-range shooter than you think. His 43 percent clip from 16-23 feet puts him in the company of Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan and Brandon Roy.
- The Jazz incensed Deron Williams when they dealt Ronnie Brewer to Memphis in a cost-cutting deal at the trade deadline last February. Wesley Matthews and C.J. Miles assumed Brewer's role in Utah's offense on the wing. When the playoffs rolled around, Matthews and Miles each made huge plays down the stretch of crucial games in the Denver series -- mostly by reading the defense, making back door cuts and sealing the baseline. When Williams was asked about his young wings' smart plays, Williams responded on more than one occasion, "Those were Ronnie Brewer reads." Although Brewer isn't much of an outside shooter, he's a master at executing the counters that allow the flex to succeed even after the defense has taken away the first two or three options.
- Korver knows how to play the 3 in the flex, a position that requires knocking down shots from the wing, and working off the ball in the power swing sets. While many sharpshooting small forwards merely set up shop in the corner, the 3 in the flex is constantly in motion, looking to fill open space when the defense reacts to ball side and moving quickly to flare out along the arc when the opportunity presents itself. His sweet stroke aside, Korver doesn't get all that many shot attempts, but he more than compensates for that as an intelligent player who always seems to know where he's most useful.
- If ever there was an existing Bull who could benefit from the installation of the flex offense in Chicago, Luol Deng is the guy. Deng has never been a dynamic one-on-one perimeter player, something that's plagued him in the Bulls' stagnant offenses. Isolations simply aren't Deng's strength, but he's a selfless player, a very underrated passer and, most of all, money on the pin-down and the cut-and-seal. For the lithe, agile Deng, a flex system that maximizes his mobility and capacity to make reads could reinvent his floor game.
- What about Derrick Rose? Does asking him to orchestrate the flex offense at the point compromise his strengths? Not at all. As we've seen in Utah, there are more than enough opportunities to create early offense, both in transition and with the high screen-and-roll. Brewer, Deng and Noah can run the floor and fill the lanes with the best of them. And anyone who watched Williams and Boozer work up top early in the shot clock knows there are plenty of chances for Rose to get space and/or dish off the ball to his big men for easy jumpers, particularly the pick-and-pop with Boozer. When Mehmet Okur was healthy, Utah ran a set called "Double-C" -- similar to what Boston runs with Garnett and Perkins. Both big men set a high pick on either side of the point guard, giving Williams multiple options up top. Rose would flourish in this kind of scheme, especially since Boozer and Noah are master screeners, rollers and readers. Early offense aside, Rose's strength and power are two of his most underrated assets and can be exploited in the half court. Rose should take cues from Williams, another big guard who often makes his best plays coming off screens and brutalizing smaller guards in the post with Utah's "Power 1" set (similar to what Baron Davis does from the elbow when he's locked in). Defenses tend to be most successful against the flex when they're effectively denying high post entires. Rose's athleticism should allow him to execute counters to that denial by creating for himself (when necessary). And with the help of Brewer and Deng, he should also be able to find his wings as they cross beneath the hoop and put themselves in a position to go to work. Was Rose born for the flex? Maybe not. But with enough reps, Rose should be able to use his size and quickness off the ball to perform as both initiator and as an off-ball menace in a system that rewards versatility -- something Rose has in spades.
The Bulls' personnel offers Tom Thibodeau a unique opportunity to install and execute a dependable offensive system, one that takes full advantage of his roster's attributes. Three of his top six players know the flex inside and out from their days in Utah. Two others -- Noah and Deng -- embody the right instincts to blossom in the system. At first blush, Rose might not seem like a natural fit, but with some work, his versatile talents will transform him into a capable quarterback, especially when you consider the amount of help he'll have.
If the Bulls ultimately decide to adopt the flex as their primary game plan, some would call it an experiment. Given the confluence of talent and experience on their roster, they'd be crazy not to bank on it.
Observations on Team USA cuts
July, 28, 2010
Jul 28
4:45
PM ET
I tweeted this moments before checking out of my hotel room in Las Vegas last Sunday, and I'll say it again now that they've done it: Cutting JaVale McGee from Team USA was a mistake.
He brought a unique skill set to a team hurting for size, he was an insurance policy in case Tyson Chandler (who missed 68 games the past two seasons due to injuries) gets hurt or gets into foul trouble, and he was the perfect 12th man candidate in that he might be needed for only 5-6 important minutes during the entire World Championship, but those could be the very 5-6 minutes that make or break this team's fortunes.
USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo did seem to indicate that McGee would be on call for the rest of the summer.
"He's very raw, he's very young, he's a real babe in terms of game experience and he has a real future. So that's really how we left it with him: Keep working on your game and you may get a call sooner rather than later. You don't know. We're playing that by ear," Colangelo said.
Team USA may ultimately decide to put just one true center on the final 12-man roster that will be submitted Aug. 26.
"We don't have big guys, I mean a lot of them. We have a lot of perimeter guys, and we're not going to pick someone up on a trade or anything like that. These are our guys, and we feel good about them," coach Mike Krzyzewski said on a conference call announcing the cuts. "Maybe [Kevin] Durant and [Rudy] Gay will play a lot at the 4, which isn't bad. We had Carmelo [Anthony] and LeBron [James] play the 4 all the time, and [Chris] Bosh being our center for a lot of the Olympics when Dwight [Howard] wasn't in. So we're just trying to personalize the system to fit the strengths of this group, and we're going to have to rely on really good perimeter defense to make sure we don't get hurt inside."
Krzyzewski went on to say that Lamar Odom could emerge as the backup center, something that would happen if Brook Lopez fails to make the 12-man roster. Lopez recently lost 20 pounds from a bout with mononucleosis, and he was told to work on his conditioning before the team reports to New York on Aug. 9 for the start of training camp.
Colangelo said several players were specifically told they will be on the bubble in New York. (Click here to see the news story on the cuts).
"At this point we don't know how many bigs we'll end up with. Is it one? Is it two? We don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But we do want to see how Brook Lopez looks after two weeks of getting himself in shape. He's struggled, he's disappointed in his performance, but he wants this opportunity. And when someone has that kind of an attitude you're going to give them a little bit of rope."
Aside from Lopez, we can safely surmise that the bubble list begins with Jeff Green, who needs to mix it up inside the way Kevin Love has been doing (Krzyzewski went out of his way on the conference call to praise Love for being the team's best rebounder), and also includes Danny Granger, who was given the benefit of the doubt in the cut considerations because he suffered a slight calf injury at practice last Thursday.
Eric Gordon/Stephen Curry is another obvious bubble situation, with four of the five guard spots seemingly locked up by Derrick Rose, Chauncey Billups, Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo (Note to Rondo skeptics: For all his faults, he rebounds better than any guard in the NBA -- something that'll obviously be needed in Turkey.) Krzyzewski has said he wants to take no more than five guards to Turkey (six if you include Durant, who is listed at that position but will play at the 3 and 4 spots for Team USA).
So before squeezing in a little vacation, I'll leave you with my July 28 prediction of who will be on the 12-man roster when it is submitted in Turkey on the night of Aug. 26:
C: Chandler, Lopez.
F: Odom, Love, Andre Iguodala, Durant, Gay. (Green, Granger cut)
G: Billups, Rose, Westbrook, Rondo, Curry. (Gordon cut)
He brought a unique skill set to a team hurting for size, he was an insurance policy in case Tyson Chandler (who missed 68 games the past two seasons due to injuries) gets hurt or gets into foul trouble, and he was the perfect 12th man candidate in that he might be needed for only 5-6 important minutes during the entire World Championship, but those could be the very 5-6 minutes that make or break this team's fortunes.
USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo did seem to indicate that McGee would be on call for the rest of the summer.
"He's very raw, he's very young, he's a real babe in terms of game experience and he has a real future. So that's really how we left it with him: Keep working on your game and you may get a call sooner rather than later. You don't know. We're playing that by ear," Colangelo said.
Team USA may ultimately decide to put just one true center on the final 12-man roster that will be submitted Aug. 26.
"We don't have big guys, I mean a lot of them. We have a lot of perimeter guys, and we're not going to pick someone up on a trade or anything like that. These are our guys, and we feel good about them," coach Mike Krzyzewski said on a conference call announcing the cuts. "Maybe [Kevin] Durant and [Rudy] Gay will play a lot at the 4, which isn't bad. We had Carmelo [Anthony] and LeBron [James] play the 4 all the time, and [Chris] Bosh being our center for a lot of the Olympics when Dwight [Howard] wasn't in. So we're just trying to personalize the system to fit the strengths of this group, and we're going to have to rely on really good perimeter defense to make sure we don't get hurt inside."
Krzyzewski went on to say that Lamar Odom could emerge as the backup center, something that would happen if Brook Lopez fails to make the 12-man roster. Lopez recently lost 20 pounds from a bout with mononucleosis, and he was told to work on his conditioning before the team reports to New York on Aug. 9 for the start of training camp.
Colangelo said several players were specifically told they will be on the bubble in New York. (Click here to see the news story on the cuts).
"At this point we don't know how many bigs we'll end up with. Is it one? Is it two? We don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But we do want to see how Brook Lopez looks after two weeks of getting himself in shape. He's struggled, he's disappointed in his performance, but he wants this opportunity. And when someone has that kind of an attitude you're going to give them a little bit of rope."
Aside from Lopez, we can safely surmise that the bubble list begins with Jeff Green, who needs to mix it up inside the way Kevin Love has been doing (Krzyzewski went out of his way on the conference call to praise Love for being the team's best rebounder), and also includes Danny Granger, who was given the benefit of the doubt in the cut considerations because he suffered a slight calf injury at practice last Thursday.
Eric Gordon/Stephen Curry is another obvious bubble situation, with four of the five guard spots seemingly locked up by Derrick Rose, Chauncey Billups, Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo (Note to Rondo skeptics: For all his faults, he rebounds better than any guard in the NBA -- something that'll obviously be needed in Turkey.) Krzyzewski has said he wants to take no more than five guards to Turkey (six if you include Durant, who is listed at that position but will play at the 3 and 4 spots for Team USA).
So before squeezing in a little vacation, I'll leave you with my July 28 prediction of who will be on the 12-man roster when it is submitted in Turkey on the night of Aug. 26:
C: Chandler, Lopez.
F: Odom, Love, Andre Iguodala, Durant, Gay. (Green, Granger cut)
G: Billups, Rose, Westbrook, Rondo, Curry. (Gordon cut)
Revisiting Miami as a basketball town
July, 28, 2010
Jul 28
2:12
PM ET
Randy Belice/NBAE via Getty Images
Miami, Florida: A hoops mecca or a bandwagon?
What kind of basketball city is Miami?
Last week, Henry Abbott put out a call for submissions in an effort to answer this question. We wanted to hear from locals who have been season ticket holders since the Heat's inaugural season in 1988, from transplants who carried their love affair with the Knicks and Celtics down to south Florida and from anyone who has a sound theory about what ingredients go into the making of a basketball town.
We received dozens of emails that touched on the unique collection of demographic, economic and social factors that govern the sports landscape in Miami. Surya Fernandez of Hot Hot Hoops has delved into a lot of this.
Most agreed with Christian Santiago that loyalty isn't an intrinsic value to south Floridians. But, as Santiago points out, loyalty between fan and team is complicated, nuanced stuff:
Miami is the geographic incarnate of the new Tom Sawyer. We have no loyalty to any god, government, sport, or team. The sycophantic fickle fans of South Florida couldn't locate the word "loyalty" in the dictionary. If the citizens of this town participated in a reality TV role play of the Oregon Trail, the wagon would burn before it reached Ft. Lauderdale. As a life long member of this fine community, I can say that few of us are willing to give our allegiance to a loser. However, things may be different this time. You see this is the first time in a long time that someone builds a team with a foundation. The Heat and the Marlins are the recent teams to bring prosperity to our city, and in all three cases, (the Fish won two World Series) the teams were built to "Win Now." Within two years there was nothing left but the skeleton frame of rebuilding.
This time around, the fans will stick like leeches because there is a legitimate chance of a dynasty. Dan Le Batard said we don't deserve this team. I have to agree. But for those of us who were true fans through thick and thin, this is a better afterlife than a million virgins and rivers of wine and honey. It's like winning the lottery. People will either spite you out of envy, or pucker up in search of gold. The fans, like the invisible hand that guides society, will sell out the triple-A despite the varied purity of their motives. For better or worse, it will still benefit the team. If the Heat wins like everyone expects, the arena will erupt with passion and love. If there's one thing this town craves, it's an excuse to party, and with the South Beach Armada in sight, they will party the night away wearing D-Wade, Chris Bosh, and LeBron James jerseys.
Some, like Ben Batory, offer pithy explanations:
It's simply a mismatch of sport and culture. Those who care (the local Miamians...) just don't know. Sure, they enjoy the spectacle and the result, but the nuances of the game are totally lost on them. Those who know (the transplants from the northeast and elsewhere) just don't care. They might get the subtle stuff, but they came here for other things.
Back in late March, I discussed Atlanta's reputation as a lackluster sports town. Many of the issues that surround Atlanta apply to Miami. Both are transient sun-belt cities that have relatively young histories in the realm of pro sports, as Travis Lund writes:
I believe the start of any great fan base or sports culture comes out of tradition. You grow up watching your team with your folks. You learn, before you can form a complete sentence, to love that team passionately, and to hate their rivals with equal passion. To qualify, a team must A. have existed long enough to have at least one legitimate passing of the fandom torch; an adult generation that imbues its children with fanatical sports devotion from the cradle. Fans come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of commitment, but the core of any good sports culture stems from those children. In Miami’s case, the Heat formed in 1988, so we haven’t really had enough time for a generation to fall in love with the team, have kids, and through parental osmosis, instill the same love in their children.
Corollary: these people need to stay in town. Sure, you can raise your kids to love the teams of your youth, but it’s a tougher endeavor if you’re vying for their attentions with whatever teams reside in your current city. Native sons and daughters make better fans because they have local media, billboards, etc. reinforcing their fandom. Atlanta (and I suspect Miami) is not a great sports town because so much of the population are transplants, so the next generation is never made up of quite enough diehards from birth to sustain this kind of love. Corollary number two: If the team hasn’t been around long enough to experience fan inheritance, there’s a decent chance they also haven’t been around long enough to build up a real rivalry, which, to an extent, negates some of the fun of loving a team. Every great narrative needs a villain.
I like Cory Brandfon's response, which dovetails with Lund's comments, but parses the generational component a little further:
Miami is a young person’s basketball town. Anyone familiar with professional sports in South Florida can tell you that the culture throughout the mid to late 90’s (the end of the Dan Marino lull) was focused around the Miami Heat. The buzz amongst sports fans focused on the arrival of coach Riley as well as the success experienced by the exciting duo of Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway. Many of the greatest Heat memories from that time are, of course, related to the well-publicized battles with the bigger and much badder New York Knicks. For a time, Miami sports fans followed the Dolphins, but cheered for the Heat, and the excitement surrounding the latter was palpable. I distinctly remember a watch party that I was attending when Allan Houston’s runner let the collective air out of the basketball bubble in South Florida. The success of the Heat and the rise of basketball in the area at the time however should not be overlooked ...
... Any sports fan can tell you however, that a young crowd, especially in the NBA, won’t fill up an arena. It wasn’t until 2006 when the Heat made their Championship run on the back of a recognizable star in Shaquille O’Neal, and the highly touted talent of youngster Dwyane Wade that the older sports fans dished out the money to fill the arena on a consistent basis, and with them came the younger fans.
Now the young fans that grew up admiring those legendary Heat-Knicks battles form the nucleus of the fan base. We are all hoping that our patience the last 4 seasons, during which we had the undeniable privilege of watching all-world guard Dwyane Wade take on teams by himself, will be rewarded.
Many e-mailers, like Brandon Resnick, cited the economic downturn in recent years as a deterrent. No region in the nation has born the brunt of the current recession more than south Florida:
Another issue hampering support for these franchises is that finally my generation has enough disposable income to support the team, and most of the people I know have left the area. The economy in South Florida has lead the recession along with California and that has definitely caused the younger generations to flee in search of better opportunities.
A number of south Floridians who responded maintain that the Miami Dolphins' (and college football's Miami Hurricanes) historic success, longevity and supremacy among the constellation of sports teams somehow preclude the city from becoming a basketball town, but that's a somewhat apocryphal explanation. For one, plenty of cities have enough love to go around for multiple teams. Boston manages a rabid loyalty to all four of its pro teams. Though you can probably assign rankings to Chicago's affinity for its pro franchises, the Bears, Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Hawks are beloved by large swaths of the population.
Carlos Gimenez gets into this dynamic, referencing Dan Le Batard's comment that Miami is an "event town" above all else:
See, all the talk about Miami being a football town, or any other town, fails to recognize the truth. Miami is an event town pure and simple. The regular season games, no matter the sport, have a tough time selling out, unless it is an "event game." Unless the Dolphins are playing the Jets, Patriots, Bills, within division, or a marquee team, forget it, some local TV station is going to have to buy the rest of the tickets to avoid a blackout. Same thing with the 'Canes. If it's not UF or FSU, don't count on a sellout. We didn't even have a sell out for the Oklahoma game last year ...
... Some, following the "Decision" said that Miami does not deserve a basketball team because the fans are fickle. To that, I say so what? I like fans that demand their teams not only perform well, but put a show on in the process. We are fickle fans because we demand excellence. We were spoiled into demanding excellence. 1972, Dolphins Perfect Season. The U has won five National Titles (actually six if you include the Fiasco Bowl), and have been undefeated three times in the process. The Heat has won a title, one of eight franchises to win a title in the last 30 years. Even the Marlins have won the World Series every time they have been to the playoffs (twice).
That being said, Miami is not a football town, or a baseball town, or a BASKETBALL TOWN, we are an EVENT Town, and there will be no better event than every single Heat home or away game this year!
Gimenez's conclusion holds a lot of weight, but I'd go even further.
Miami might not have been a basketball town over the past 22 years.
But it is now.
- Tracy McGrady isn't winning friends and influencing people during his job search. There's a certain irony to McGrady's behavior: Teams seem confident that McGrady is healthy enough to contribute as an important piece off the bench, but his off-putting, petulant comments during his workout tour are hurting his prospects. Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub picks apart the absurdity of McGrady's most recent comments.
- Amare Stoudemire is in Jerusalem, embracing the ancient language and, though reports can't be confirmed, has the vibe of a guy who might just orchestrate one of those adult Bar Mitzvah for himself at the Wailing Wall. Question: What would you get Stoudemire for his Bar Mitzvah?
- Neil Paine of Basketball Reference has been examining which NBA players perform best against elite (and the most porous) defenses. Today's results might surprise you. Guess who was more productive against the stingiest teams (using offensive rating), better than LeBron James, Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki? None other than Corey Maggette.
- John Krolik explains what "Entourage" has to do with LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard. If you e-mail with Brian Kamenetzky and me, we'll explain what "Mad Men" has to do with the Lakers.
- Everyone has an opinion about the Knicks' new big man, Timo Mozgov, but few have seen him play. NBA Playbook features a breakdown of his game.
- Here are the vitals on Emeka Okafor: A 16.53 Player Efficiency Rating. Four years and approximately $52 million remaining on his contract. Much of the discussion surrounding potential trades for Chris Paul operate under the premise that any team serious about obtaining Paul would have to take on Okafor's onerous deal. Tom Ziller of Fanhouse writes that Okafor's deal might not be a beaut, but it's hardly an albatross for an offensively productive, defensively solid big man in the NBA.
- Zach Harper, writing for A Wolf Among Wolves, offers some hope that Nikola Pekovic could be a solid addition to Minnesota's beleaguered frontcourt. Check out the guy's stats from Europe -- they look a whole lot like Marc Gasol's production overseas. Bottom line: "Nikola is impressively efficient in scoring the ball in the post. The fact that his lowest field goal percentage is 57.4% should tell you a lot about his patience and ability to get off quality shots inside. There’s not a lot of wasted movement. For the last couple of years, we’ve been used to watching Al Jefferson pump fake eight times before awkwardly getting his shot off. It went in more than it rimmed out for a rebound opportunity but it wasn’t the most efficient way to get a good flow in your halfcourt offense. But with Pekovic, you’re going to get direct movement that gets the ball into the basket in the quickest and most proficient way we’ve seen with this franchise."
- Who's been the biggest Phoenix Suns bust over the past 15 years? Wil Cantrell of Bright Side of the Sun takes inventory.
- In Chris Palmer's feature article on Rashad McCants in a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine, McCants insists that his reluctance to smile doesn't make him a bad guy. Ben Polk of A Wolves Among Wolves responds: "No dude, not smiling does not make you a bad person. But making an exasperated spectacle of sighing and rolling your eyes when you don’t get the ball, looking vacantly into the distance during team huddles, and audibly castigating other players for minor sins for which you yourself are also guilty (all of which were on full regular display during his time as a T-Wolf) does make you pretty rotten teammate."
- Rudy Fernandez wants out of Portland -- and that's old news. Dwight Jaynes writes that the Trail Blazers waited too long to grant Fernandez his wish: "A year ago this guy was thought to be a rising star and considered quite possibly to be one of the best young shooting guards in the world. Now? The Blazers will be lucky to get much for him."
- Former Florida Gator standout and new Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has agreed to endorsement deal with Jockey. This puts him in direct competition with Michael Jordan, who has been a pitch man for Hanes forever.
- Hey, Wizznutzz! Darvin Ham has been named the head coach of the D-League's New Mexico Thunderbirds. (Hat Tip: Scott Schroeder)
- Apparently, Greg Monroe's grandma has yet to embrace the cordless phone movement.
- Israel Gutierrez of The Miami Herald: "Suddenly, everything that goes wrong in the NBA can justifiably and comfortably be blamed on LeBron James. Creating an even more top-heavy league? LeBron's fault. Making free agency more interesting than the NBA Finals? LeBron's fault. A lockout looming at the end of the upcoming season? LeBron's fault. Well, that third one isn't an argument that has been made yet, but it might as well be anticipated given the irrational scrutiny James has received for choosing to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. The latest round of nonsense comes as a result of Chris Paul trying to force his way out of New Orleans via trade. Paul reportedly wants to play with at least one superstar, knowing that it's the minimum requirement for creating a championship contender. Paul appeared to back off his trade request Monday, but reports remain that he still wants out. ... For those who aren't friends with Paul, it would be nice to see him honor his contract with the Hornets in a Western Conference that has been slightly weakened through free agency and wait until he's a 27-year-old free agent to leave New Orleans rather than cripple the franchise that apparently is trying to rebuild itself. But James is Paul's friend. He might see things differently. That still doesn't make this his fault."
- Phil Miller of the Star Tribune: "Jonny Flynn got an early start Tuesday on an ugly Timberwolves tradition: second-year injuries to first-round picks. Flynn underwent surgery to repair a tear in the labrum of his left hip, an injury that almost certainly will keep him out of training camp and could cost him the first month of the 2010-11 season as well. That makes him the fifth consecutive Wolves' first-rounder to be sidelined by major injury in his second season. Flynn was hampered by his sore hip in the final few weeks of his rookie season, and even sat out the finale after starting the Wolves' first 81 games. ... The streak began in 2006, when 2005 first-rounder Rashad McCants missed more than half of his second season after microfracture knee surgery. The Wolves' bad luck is unbroken since then: Randy Foye, who played in only 39 games of his sophomore season because of a stress reaction in his knee; Corey Brewer, who tore an ACL in his knee and played in only 15 games his second season; and Kevin Love, who needed surgery after breaking his left hand during a preseason game last October, costing him 18 games."
- Baxter Holmes of the Los Angeles Times: "The courtship began with a text message. Matt Barnes typed out a greeting, added his name and pressed send. Surprisingly, Kobe Bryant texted right back. The flirting escalated from there. Ultimately, Barnes signed a two-year deal Thursday with the Lakers, a lifelong dream of the former UCLA Bruin. On Tuesday at the Lakers training complex, Barnes explained that his route to L.A. was largely because of Bryant, the player with whom he has a bumpy past. 'He told me one day that anyone crazy enough to mess with me is crazy enough to play with me,' Barnes said. Barnes, a forward who averaged 8.8 points and 25.9 minutes a game last season for the Orlando Magic, is on his eighth team in eight years. It appeared he would be heading to Toronto in a sign-and-trade deal, but that fell through. Other teams appeared interested, but Barnes eventually signed for less money in order to pursue a championship with the Lakers, who at most can pay him $1.77 million next season; Barnes also has a player option for about $2 million in 2011-12."
- Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle: "First of all, if Yao gets hurt again, he won't need to announce his retirement. He'll be retired. That'll be understood. He won't announce his retirement because he'll keep trying to play. Why? Because that's what athletes do. So this retirement talk is just silly. Yao is smart enough to know that about 99.99 percent of professional athletes have no say when they retire. When teams stop calling, they're retired. Sometimes it's because their skills have gone. Sometimes it's because their bodies are broken. Either way, the athlete has no say. He may think he has a say. He may tell the world he'll go when he wants to. He says these things because he's trying to convince himself. ... So Yao says if his foot doesn't hold up, he may retire. I doubt it. He may think that, but there's one thing in the world he's better at than almost anyone, and he's going to do it as long as he can."
- Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: "This time, Yao Ming said if he does not recover from his foot injuries, he might consider retiring. This seems pretty obvious. Yao cannot play with a broken foot. If Yao's foot remains broken, Yao cannot play. This feels like a revelation because it brings up the possibility that Yao will not recover. 'If we did not think he had recovered,' one Rockets official said Tuesday with a laugh, 'we wouldn't be letting him go through full contact, on-court workouts.' This is not to say that Yao will never be injured again. There is always a possibility that the surgery won't work the way his surgeon predicts. According to persons familiar with Yao, he also has a right foot. It is possible he could have similar problems on the other side. At the moment, however, Yao's left foot is doing remarkably well. He is definitely not as strong on that side as on the right. That familiar tree trunk calf is noticeably slimmer on the left. But he was absolutely giddy after a few recent workouts. He was thrilled with his improved conditioning. He was so enthusiastic about his diet -- 'The food tastes horrible so you don't want to eat it,' he said. -- that he was nagging me to join him."
- Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer: "The Cavaliers have traded for a 24-year-old point guard who had some success early in his career, but was trapped in a system that underlined his main weakness while erasing his greatest strength. Ramon Sessions is exactly the type of player the Cavs should be adding at this stage of their life without LeBron James. That's especially true because the price for Sessions was minimal, in terms of contract ($12 million left over three seasons) and cost in the trade. Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair were shipped to Minnesota, where both are expected to be cut for salary cap purposes. Meanwhile, Sessions could start, or at least be the Cavaliers' first substitute in the backcourt. ... At this point, Sessions is a better bet to consistently produce. He may resemble the Delonte West who showed up with the Cavs in 2007. He had a so-so career on some bad Boston teams, then played little for Seattle -- before joining the Cavs and being significant contributor for 1 1/2 seasons until he struggled last season. The Cavs also picked up 7-footer Ryan Hollins in the trade, but he's a backup. This deal is about Sessions, and it could be a very good one for the Cavs."
- Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News: "It's still two months and a few days before the Spurs begin training camp, but it's never too early to challenge a widespread misperception. Though he was the Spurs' starting point guard for 18 of the final 23 regular-season games and all 10 playoff games, George Hill wants the basketball loving world to know his rapid development at the position has not rendered three-time All-Star point guard Tony Parker expendable, no matter how much speculation to the contrary has hit the rumor mill this summer. Hill has seen and heard most of the rumors, which aver that Hill's progress, combined with the fact Parker's contract expires after next season, makes Parker prime trade bait. 'I've heard that (stuff),' Hill said, 'but I don't think a player like Tony Parker, a guy who has helped this team win and has championships under his belt, can ever be considered expendable. Right now I don't pay any attention to it. ‘TP' is my teammate, and that's all I'm riding with. Hopefully, I still get to play alongside him next year in that 1-2 combo situation.' "
- Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald: "Retired or well-past-their-prime point guards keep lobbying to play for the Heat. First it was Penny Hardaway and Stephon Marbury (forget those). Now, Steve Francis plans to contact Miami; he's 33 but hasn't played since a quadriceps tendon injury in 2007-08. Retired former Duke star Jay Williams said, 'I should come out of retirement and give Miami a point guard. I'm only 28. It helps that [Heat executive] Nick Arison and I went to school together.' But all of those names are unlikely, and there are mixed views inside the Heat about whether even to add a third veteran point guard."
- Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post: "After eight U.S. presidents, 19 Supreme Court justices and 41 Nobel laureates, it looks like Harvard University can chalk up a different achievement this summer: its first grad in the NBA in 57 years, and just the fourth ever. Jeremy Lin, who signed July 21 with his hometown Golden State Warriors, also will be the first Asian American in the league since 1947, when Wat Misaka, a Japanese American, became the first non-white player in what was then known as the Basketball Association of America. 'Trying to make the NBA is one of the very few areas where a Harvard degree won't necessarily help,' Lin said matter-of-factly. Lin is aware of the significance of both accomplishments, but doesn't want the labels. He was usually the only Asian on the court when he captained Palo Alto High to a California state championship in 2006 and during four years at Harvard, where last season he was part of the 0.5 percent of Asian American Division I men's basketball players. Lin just wants to be known as a basketball player."
- Kerry Eggers of the The Portland Tribune: "There are only a few players in the two decades I have covered the Trail Blazers who have carried themselves with an almost regal presence. Clyde Drexler. Brian Grant. Scottie Pippen. Brandon Roy. I’d put Buck Williams in that category. If Drexler and Terry Porter were the lifeblood of the Blazers who were the best team in the NBA through three seasons in the early ‘90s -- everyone living in the City of Roses at the time knows it’s true -- Charles Linwood Williams was their heart and soul. ... Williams was a first-team all-defensive team pick his first two seasons with Portland and a second-team selection in 1991-92. The Blazers nearly reached the summit twice, losing to Detroit in 1990 and to Chicago in ‘92 in the NBA finals. To Williams -- who retired after 17 seasons in 1998 as one of nine players with 16,000 points and 13,000 rebounds -- it has always stuck in his craw. Now Williams – officially named Tuesday as a member of Nate McMillan’s coaching staff -- has some unfinished business to tend to. 'We came so close to winning a championship during my time here as a player,' Williams says. 'I just feel like my career is not really complete until I win a championship. I didn’t do it as a player, but I think I can help the Blazers get it done as a coach. We have all the pieces here to do it. We’re going to get it done.' "
Trade offers for Chris Paul
July, 28, 2010
Jul 28
6:59
AM ET
What kinds of offers will the Hornets be getting for Chris Paul?
In a multi-team blogger exercise, Ryan Schwan of Hornets247 tried to stir up some ideas. He asked team bloggers from around the TrueHoop Network to make their best pitches. He received more than a dozen offers, and to his surprise found those from the Pistons and Magic most compelling. Well worth a read.
In a multi-team blogger exercise, Ryan Schwan of Hornets247 tried to stir up some ideas. He asked team bloggers from around the TrueHoop Network to make their best pitches. He received more than a dozen offers, and to his surprise found those from the Pistons and Magic most compelling. Well worth a read.
Does your employer need to know how fat you are?
July, 27, 2010
Jul 27
5:53
PM ET
TrueHoop reader David e-mailed a very interesting point:
It's not a simple question.
I can hear already that the basic reaction will be that these players make all this money, being out-of-shape is the least teams can ask, and this is one of the only objective ways to measure it.
Not to mention, if the players aren't complaining about it, who cares?
But on the other hand, I think David is right that here in the U.S. "none of your business" is a good and healthy reaction when employers want to know about things that are not directly related to job performance.
I'm sure a lot of employers would love to have mind-reading software tell them if you'd accept a 15% pay cut, but they don't get to know that! I'm sure some bosses would like to know if you speed in your car, or cheat on your spouse. As gene tests evolve, some companies will no doubt try to find out, before hiring you, if you're likely to get an expensive disease like cancer that'll hurt your productivity and jack up their long-term health insurance costs.
Generally, the proper response is to say "butt out." If I can do my job day in and day out, the other stuff about me is my business. And in the NBA, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, among others, would seem to prove that players can perform at elite levels without being the leanest people in the room.
And high salaries are not a good enough excuse to demand players be held to a different standard.
Would you let your employer test your body fat, and reward or punish you based on the results? Should things be any different for NBA players? Why?
I'd be fascinated to hear smart thoughts on this.
It's often pointed out that the Miami Heat regularly measure body fat percentage on their players and that it's required they be below a certain threshold in order to play. Antoine Walker was famously withheld from games for not meeting this requirement, for instance.
I'm assuming any player "suspended" for this still gets paid, but is this really allowed by the CBA? It seems to me that playing time should be doled out according to performance and need, not what materials your body is made out of.
While athletics are often a whole different breed than most other jobs, this seems to tread into discriminatory territory that would never be allowed in any other workplace.
It's not a simple question.
I can hear already that the basic reaction will be that these players make all this money, being out-of-shape is the least teams can ask, and this is one of the only objective ways to measure it.
Not to mention, if the players aren't complaining about it, who cares?
But on the other hand, I think David is right that here in the U.S. "none of your business" is a good and healthy reaction when employers want to know about things that are not directly related to job performance.
I'm sure a lot of employers would love to have mind-reading software tell them if you'd accept a 15% pay cut, but they don't get to know that! I'm sure some bosses would like to know if you speed in your car, or cheat on your spouse. As gene tests evolve, some companies will no doubt try to find out, before hiring you, if you're likely to get an expensive disease like cancer that'll hurt your productivity and jack up their long-term health insurance costs.
Generally, the proper response is to say "butt out." If I can do my job day in and day out, the other stuff about me is my business. And in the NBA, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, among others, would seem to prove that players can perform at elite levels without being the leanest people in the room.
And high salaries are not a good enough excuse to demand players be held to a different standard.
Would you let your employer test your body fat, and reward or punish you based on the results? Should things be any different for NBA players? Why?
I'd be fascinated to hear smart thoughts on this.
On hitting a basketball with a golf club
July, 27, 2010
Jul 27
4:27
PM ET
On Monday I linked to this video with a shot of a guy using a golf club to chip a basketball into the hoop from some distance.
Quickly there were people saying it was clearly faked. If the ball were to travel that far, they say, then either it was not a real basketball, or the whole thing was somehow digitally staged. There were suggestions that a golf club would bend or snap in two with that much force on it.
The whole issue, as you'll see, is an excuse for people to use the word "shaft" way more than normal.
TrueHoop reader Cooper e-mails that he has done these tests, as it were. He apparently spent much of his childhood hitting a basketball with a golf club -- repeatedly.
"The shaft," he says, "was just fine. I can't imagine it was still a high-performance golf club, but it worked just fine for my teenage golf games. ... Maybe there's a difference between old-school steel shafts and the newer, graphite shafts when it comes to durability under impact pressure of a basketball."
Then he adds one of the most macho things anyone could possibly say about all this: "I am sure," he says with refreshing confidence, "I was using a steel shaft."
I asked him how far he could get the basketball to fly. (Which was entirely the wrong question. Obviously, what I really should have asked was: What the hell was he doing? Where? Why? Really? Didn't they have bicycles or TV or board games or swimming pools or golf balls there?) But I had my scientist hat on. Cooper remembers the basketball going "at least 15-20 yards with a short iron." To my eyes, 15 yards is farther than the basketball travels in the video.
Case closed?
Not so fast.
There is one more equipment loophole to address. "It must be taken into account," says Cooper, "that I was using a cheap outdoor ball, like the kind that used to be given away by Pizza Hut as a promotion. I can't imagine a good, leather, indoor ball going nearly as far. ... I hope this helps in your scholarly research."
You see that? It took him just three short sentences to get from somebody handing out a cheapo Pizza Hut ball to playing a vital role in academia. The perfect ending to this would be for someone to magically combine the three key ingredients to form the test: A video camera, a real basketball and ... a steel shaft.
UPDATE: TrueHoop reader Chris has insight and e-mails: "The video is handheld, so editing it to make a ball fly like that is unlikely. However, if you look at the slow-motion of the YouTube clip, it looks like there's a springboard of some kind underneath the basketball. The golf club would have triggered the release, and the springboard does the work."
At first I thought that was a crackpot theory, but then I watched the video once more and I'm almost positive he's right. This is the Zapruder moment.
UPDATE: The young man hitting the ball in the picture above is said to be John Jones, who e-mails:
Far be it from me to doubt Mr. Jones. Watch again, and this is certainly plausible.
This is what a football tee looks like, by the way. It has three legs, one or two of which could have been stuck in the grass, causing that strange spring-like action you can see on the video, where part of it pops up, then retracts back to where it started.
I'm a little disturbed that the word "shaft" did not appear even once in Jones e-mail, but I can help. Does the Ping i5 8 iron he tells us he used have a steel shaft? Did you really have to ask? But of course it does.
So, what have we learned here? Certainly, a lot of things that look amazing on Internet video are misleading and even faked. But sometimes, the conviction that they are faked can be the real thing that gives you the shaft.
Quickly there were people saying it was clearly faked. If the ball were to travel that far, they say, then either it was not a real basketball, or the whole thing was somehow digitally staged. There were suggestions that a golf club would bend or snap in two with that much force on it.
The whole issue, as you'll see, is an excuse for people to use the word "shaft" way more than normal.
TrueHoop reader Cooper e-mails that he has done these tests, as it were. He apparently spent much of his childhood hitting a basketball with a golf club -- repeatedly.
"The shaft," he says, "was just fine. I can't imagine it was still a high-performance golf club, but it worked just fine for my teenage golf games. ... Maybe there's a difference between old-school steel shafts and the newer, graphite shafts when it comes to durability under impact pressure of a basketball."
Then he adds one of the most macho things anyone could possibly say about all this: "I am sure," he says with refreshing confidence, "I was using a steel shaft."
I asked him how far he could get the basketball to fly. (Which was entirely the wrong question. Obviously, what I really should have asked was: What the hell was he doing? Where? Why? Really? Didn't they have bicycles or TV or board games or swimming pools or golf balls there?) But I had my scientist hat on. Cooper remembers the basketball going "at least 15-20 yards with a short iron." To my eyes, 15 yards is farther than the basketball travels in the video.
Case closed?
Not so fast.
There is one more equipment loophole to address. "It must be taken into account," says Cooper, "that I was using a cheap outdoor ball, like the kind that used to be given away by Pizza Hut as a promotion. I can't imagine a good, leather, indoor ball going nearly as far. ... I hope this helps in your scholarly research."
You see that? It took him just three short sentences to get from somebody handing out a cheapo Pizza Hut ball to playing a vital role in academia. The perfect ending to this would be for someone to magically combine the three key ingredients to form the test: A video camera, a real basketball and ... a steel shaft.
UPDATE: TrueHoop reader Chris has insight and e-mails: "The video is handheld, so editing it to make a ball fly like that is unlikely. However, if you look at the slow-motion of the YouTube clip, it looks like there's a springboard of some kind underneath the basketball. The golf club would have triggered the release, and the springboard does the work."
At first I thought that was a crackpot theory, but then I watched the video once more and I'm almost positive he's right. This is the Zapruder moment.
UPDATE: The young man hitting the ball in the picture above is said to be John Jones, who e-mails:
Thank you so much for featuring our newest video on your blog! I must say though, I was a little disappointed when you reached the conclusion that my golf shot is fake. I am a 6 handicap and play for my high school golf team. I'm entering my junior year and played varsity my freshman and sophomore years.
My friends and I made these videos for fun and they are all real. Even the golf shot.
I put a football tee under the ball so that I could really get under it. No springboards or any other device that would manipulate the ball flight were involved. We put the hoop at the bottom of a small slope in my yard so that I didn't need to get much height on the ball. We deflated a regulation sized ball just little bit so that I didn't hurt my wrist. The club I used was a Ping i5 8 iron from my old set of golf clubs. The reason my swing is so short is because I found that the more wrist action I used, the more power I was able to generate. If you play golf, you would know that the release of your wrists is where power comes from. That is why Sergio Garcia, who is 5-9 at the most, can hit the golf ball over 300 yards.
I don't know what else to say, but if you have any more questions as to how I hit the shot please e-mail me back. I would love to answer your questions and help you see the light.
Far be it from me to doubt Mr. Jones. Watch again, and this is certainly plausible.
This is what a football tee looks like, by the way. It has three legs, one or two of which could have been stuck in the grass, causing that strange spring-like action you can see on the video, where part of it pops up, then retracts back to where it started.
I'm a little disturbed that the word "shaft" did not appear even once in Jones e-mail, but I can help. Does the Ping i5 8 iron he tells us he used have a steel shaft? Did you really have to ask? But of course it does.
So, what have we learned here? Certainly, a lot of things that look amazing on Internet video are misleading and even faked. But sometimes, the conviction that they are faked can be the real thing that gives you the shaft.
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