
To Infinity And Beyond
Few men have ever walked on the moon. But as Alvin Gentry recalls on TrueHoop TV, some that have weren't particularly impressed by the accomplishment. TrueHoop TV » Doc's message for Griffin »
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hiding it as the Heat met the media Monday at AmericanAirlines Arena. His situation will be a season-long topic of speculation as Miami seeks a third consecutive championship. “I’ll tell you right now how I’m going to handle it,” James said, “I’m not going to address it.” And then he talked about owing his team his focus and how his concern is winning another title and how mature the Heat is and how his potential opt-out (and Dwyane Wade’s and Chris Bosh’s, too) won’t be a distraction. Nobody has to explain himself, James implied. They have a professional goal, and the effort to achieve it won’t be sabotaged by after-the-fact business. The locker room won’t fracture. “We’ve got a veteran ballclub that’s heard everything and seen everything,” James said. “I know how delicate a team can be. I know how important chemistry and camaraderie are.” Here’s the thing: They’ll all probably opt-out, because doing so provides the player with flexibility. It’s the prudent move.
Lakers find themselves surrounded in dysfunction, confusion and blue. Giant gold jerseys bearing No. 24 are being replaced by oversized blue shirts bearing No. 66. Lakers flags are being pulled out of car windows to make room for Dodgers flags. Worry about Steve Nash's legs have been muted over concern for Andre Ethier's shins. Bryant took a self-publicized high dive, yet more people were talking about the Dodgers going swimming. This columnist will not repeat the assumptions that led to the long-ago mistake of calling this a UCLA football town. The Lakers-Dodgers climate change could end by next summer, when the Lakers will have the money and space to bringLeBron James to town. But since the death of Jerry Buss, the Lakers have no longer been the Lakers, so who knows what happens next? Meanwhile, with the best and richest lineup in baseball and the money to keep it going, the Dodgers have again become the Dodgers, a team that owned this city even through the Showtime era, a group that has the economic stability to own it again.
pales only to when Magic Johnson abruptly retired and announced in 1991 he had tested positive for HIV. … Still, with the Lakers far from championship favorites, Vitti believes any success this season goes beyond health. “If we get on the court and are fragmented as a team, it doesn’t make a difference that you worked that hard,” Vitti said. “You have to have a head coach and have guys buy into what he’s doing. We have to come together as a team, believe in each other and trust each other.” Vitti sounded encouraged the Lakers will have that attitude after seeing nearly everyone in recent weeks in the trainer’s room and informal workouts. The lone exception among the team’s 16 players involves Gasol, who trains in his native Spain each offseason. Save for a three-week vacation in August with his wife, Martha, to his house in Settefratti, Italy and a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic, Vitti’s schedule this offseason stayed busy. Players kept the trainer’s room full each day from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. With the Lakers’ hope to field a healthier roster this season, Vitti encounters constant interruptions. That still beats the Lakers’ feeling last season when every trip to the trainer’s room became as enjoyable as most visits to the DMV. “It was a very difficult situation,” Vitti said. “We were all over the place. This year will be much different.”
and includes some interesting anecdotal quotes from Olajuwon. But toward the end of the interview, he was also asked which players, of those who haven’t trained with him yet, would benefit most from his tutelage. His answer: Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant. Why Durant? “(He’s) very skilled, but doesn’t take advantage of his height in the post,” Olajuwon said. “He’s much taller than most of the guys who guard him. He’s got all the outside game, but now he needs to take them in the post. In other words, there’s something for everybody.” Overall, Durant’s actually been pretty efficient with his back to the basket, scoring 1.04 points per post-up last season (stat via mysynergysports.com), seventh highest in the NBA. But it still feels like an underutilized part of his game, particularly (as Olajuwon said) when he has smaller players defending him. Only 10.4 percent of his offensive moves were out of the post last season. Will he do it more in the future? We’ll see. Will he work with Olajuwon to improve? Couldn’t hurt. But it’s not exactly the most pressing issue facing the 24-year-old or his team.
The Utah Jazz have made their decisions, as they will exercise the options on both Alec Burks and Enes Kanter. Does Kanter deserve it? According to Grantland writer Zach Lowe , “Kanter hasn't done quite enough to justify a monster $5.7 million fourth-year option, but that's due to playing time issues; Kanter didn't play in college, and he's been No. 4 in Utah's big-man pecking order. He barely cracked 1,000 minutes last season, much fewer than we'd expect from a No. 3 selection working as a full-time rotation player on a .500 team.” Burks is an interesting combo player who can play both the point guard position as well as shooting guard. With a little more experience, Burks could prove to be a steal when he was picked 12th by the Jazz in the 2011 NBA draft.
Three weeks after attending practice and then addressing the University of Tennessee football team in Knoxville as a favor to friend and Volunteers coach Butch Jones, Spoelstra was in Renton, Wash., on Tuesday, addressing the Seattle Seahawks. "Just having him here in front of the team and just having him in meetings with us and having him out here in practice is an unbelievable experience for everybody," quarterback Russell Wilson said after Tuesday's practice. "For him to be able to talk about how his basketball team was successful and the way that they went about their business in terms of sacrificing . . . just that whole idea of sacrificing everything, the players, LeBron [James] coming to Miami, and Dwyane Wade sacrificing all that, all that type of sacrifice that it takes to be great and to be great so often, is kind of what he talked about for the most part. And having that discipline, as well, too, is something that he talked about, and just working hard, continuing to work hard, continuing to believe in yourselves and ignore the noise.” … Spoelstra is from nearby Portland, Ore., with this his second trip to the Pacific Northwest this offseason. He had visited with Chip Kelly at the University of Oregon in previous seasons, before Kelly became coach of the Philadelphia Eagles this season.
silence coming from US Airways Center is deafening. The Suns still have not addressed what they plan to do with Beasley or even acknowledged his latest troubles, which came on the heels of a report that Scottsdale police are investigating a sexual-assault allegation against Beasley. Messages left Tuesday with Managing Partner Robert Sarver, President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby and General Manager Ryan McDonough went unanswered. Maybe there’s just nothing left to be said, except this: Babby and his former GM Lance Blanks made an $18 million mistake. Now, the Suns are going to have to eat all but $3 million of what remains of it, and the only question is whether they want to take their medicine in small doses or hold their nose and get it over with in a couple of big gulps.
the weight-bearing treadmill. While he has been walking on the Alter G for some time during his recovery, Bryant has clearly increased his pace. The Lakers All-Star guard was injured April 12 in a win over the Golden State Warriors. He had surgery the following day. While touring China, Bryant said he has "shattered" his recovery timetable, but more recently, Bryant said he's not sure if he'll make it back in time for opening night (Oct. 29). The original timetable for his recovery was six to nine months. Bryant also tweeted that he won't forget about what was said and written since his injury.
Jeanie said. "I feel like we failed him." Howard, who was a free agent this off-season, signed a long-term deal with the Houston Rockets. The Lakers' longtime owner had been Dr. Jerry Buss, who died in February from cancer-related complications. His ownership was passed on to two of his six children, with Jim in charge of basketball operations and Jeanie in charge of business. "My brother ultimately makes the [basketball] decisions,” said Jeanie. “I defer and will continue to defer because that’s what my dad believed would be successful." She would like to be more involved with the Lakers' basketball decisions, but that's not the role within the organization. … Jeanie recently said she believes her father might have been able to convince Howard to stay.
Muhammad was sent home after the first of four scheduled days to having a woman in his room. The program’s rules say no guests are allowed. “We talked,” Saunders said. “The biggest thing in any situation where there are rules and guidelines, you have to abide by them. That shows discipline. As I explained to him, part of being successful at our level is being disciplined, both on and off the court … He didn’t have much to say. He was very apologetic and just felt extremely disappointed in himself. We talked about his situation and his past, so you have to take what is a negative and turn it into a positive.” Muhammad likely will be fined by the league and will have to return next summer with the 2014 rookie class to complete the program. … Saunders said the team will not impose any punishment. “This is a league situation,” he said.
more punitive system wasn’t enough to prevent the Nets from shelling out millions of billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov’s personal fortune this offseason. Between completing their blockbuster draft night trade with the Celtics, re-signing Andray Blatche and signing Andrei Kirilenko, Shaun Livingston and Alan Anderson, the Nets sent their payroll soaring to more than $100 million for the coming season, which means they’ve also committed to paying a massive luxury tax bill of roughly $87 million next year. “I would say it’s no secret that we went into collective bargaining seeking a hard cap,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver — one of the main architects of the current CBA and who will replace David Stern as commissioner when Stern steps down Feb. 1 — told The Post Wednesday after speaking at the league’s Rookie Transition Program in Florham Park. “So, for the long-term health of the league, we would rather do more to level the playing field among our teams, so the teams that have disparate resources are all competing with roughly the same number of chips so to speak.” … Silver isn’t ready to say the system isn’t working because the Nets are willing to go to places where, apparently, few other team are in terms of their payroll.
Borders events. “The end of the season was disappointing,” Deng said. “I worked hard all season, played in the All-Star (Game), and wanted to take the team as far as possible in the playoffs. But then, when I got sick, I think that we could have handled the situation better. “Obviously there are some things that you can’t handle. You can’t really handle getting sick, being taken to the ER or going to the hospital. I got the spinal tap and that’s where it went all wrong. My body didn’t react well to the spinal tap. I had some serious side effects that not only didn’t allow me to play basketball, but really put my life in danger.” No matter how you slice it, Deng’s hospital visit on the afternoon of Game 6 vs. Brooklyn didn’t go well. Due to concerns he could have meningitis, Deng was given a spinal tap. As it turned out, he didn’t have meningitis. His body began to leak spinal fluid after the procedure, leaving him in no shape to move around, let alone play basketball. After a few rough days, there was nothing to do but wait for his body to replenish the fluid. The Bulls say Deng is doing fine now.