- A profile of trainer Idan Ravin, who strikes me as a very nice and genuine guy. He works out people like Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. The Wall Street Journal's Hannah Karp writes about a drill that sounds fascinating and difficult: "In one particularly exhausting drill, Mr. Ravin throws 25 balls, one at a time, in different directions. The player's job is to catch them after only one bounce and then shoot." He doesn't have much of a basketball resume, and says he sometimes gets paid in sporting goods. How does he make ends meet? He runs several ethnic dating sites, among other things.
- The operative quote about Kevin Garnett comes from Kendrick Perkins, in an AP story: "A guy that has a month off from rest, comes back and he's still not fully recovered, it's still kind of scary."
- The Cavaliers are closing in on a 40-1 home record. If they achieve it, they'll tie the Boston Celtics' record set in 1985. This is the story of the Celtics' lone loss, which was a big deal to me personally. Steve Colter was my first favorite NBA player ever, and this game was a big part of the reason why.
- Richard Sandomir of The New York Times: "For the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, Nets Sports and Entertainment, which owns the team and real estate in Brooklyn, had a pre-tax loss of $77.8 million. That brings the three-year total of losses to $228.2 million, according to a 10-K filing by Forest City Enterprises, the parent company of Forest City Ratner. Forest City Ratner is developing the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, the site of the arena. Forest City Enterprises owns 23 percent of the Nets, who play in the Izod Center at the Meadowlands. Because of the way losses are allocated among the partners, and the increased capital that has been advanced to the team by Forest City, its share of the team's pre-tax losses for the last three years is $76.5 million. 'The team is expected to operate at a loss in 2009 and will require additional capital from its members to fund the operating loss,' the company said in the filing."
- Michael Grange of the Globe and Mail: "One kind of funny anecdote: when I was gathering some thoughts on the topic of how the economy might impact the coming free agent class, I suggested to Shawn Marion that there was the possibility that he might have to sign for the mid-level this summer. He looked confused. I'm not sure it has ever crossed his mind. I was talking to a scout the other night who figured Marion might be lucky to get four or five million. That might be an extreme, but as nice a player as he is at times -- I'm not sure I've seen a guy make better and quicker cuts; he really has a feel for open space and his ability to get there that far exceeds the Raptors collective ability to throw passes that coincide with him being open -- he is ultimately a complimentary player in my eyes. A good one, but also one who takes the odd night off and can't create his own shot to save his life."
- The Nuggets' owner increases his stake in the London soccer club Arsenal. Love to understand international business well enough to understand what that means. (UPDATE: TrueHoop reader David points us to some background.)
- And a new legal headache for one of the owners of the Thunder. (Via SuperSonicSoul)
- Sactown Royalty's Section 214 has some history for Kings fans who want to know Blake Griffin's real height before deciding if they'd like to have him: "While pre-draft measurement data is rather incomplete (not everyone gets invited to the big yardstick), there are some interesting names that crop up below 6'10”, 6'9” and 6'8” (these measurements are without shoes, because it makes this all the sillier). Like, who? Like -- Below 6'10” -- Dwight Howard, Chris Webber, Alonzo Mourning, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess. Other surprises include DeAndre Jordan, Nené and Brian Skinner. Below 6'9” -- Al Horford, Theo Ratliff, Emeka Okafor, Al Jefferson ... alright, hold on a minute. Those guys are all playing center for their NBA teams. Not power forward. Center! Brandan Wright, Drew Gooden, Shawn Kemp, Brian Grant, Amare Stoudemire, Elton Brand, David West. I guess we should stop lusting after Horford or even Brandan Wright -- they're just too freakin' short. Below 6'8” (which makes them too short for some rides at Six Flags, I think) -- Kevin Love, David Lee, Carlos Boozer, Antawn Jamison, Josh Smith, Udonis Haslem. No wonder their shorts look so big on these guys -- they're shrimps!"
- An explanation of how playoff seeding works. Remember, in the first round, it's possible for a higher seed not to have homecourt advantage.
- Chuck at Hooptropolis: "... the most common offensive play in the NBA is a pick and roll. Everyone runs them, yet we have no measure for who the best screeners in the NBA are. I want to know how much better Chris Paul shoots off of Tyson Chandler screens than he does off of Peja screens. I'm sure a lot of teams keep track of these things, but there is no way for fans to get hold of them."
- Apparently the uniform was the problem. Mikki Moore couldn't shoot in Sacramento, but in Boston he can. And, don't look now, but Stephon Marbury is earning praise, too.
- Sports experts are often asked to predict all kinds of things. The New York Times' Ben Stein makes the case that in any field it's a fool's errand: "I have long noticed that almost all economic pundits and soothsayers -- whether on television, in newspapers, or at brokerage firms and conferences, are asked to tell the future. And most of them agree to try to do so, and the really successful ones actually say they can do it -- and they say it with extreme conviction. Some of them are stunningly well paid for their efforts, even though they are wrong decade after decade. And I would be remiss if I did not add that I have succumbed to this temptation to speak as if I could tell what the future holds. But the fact is that we as humans cannot tell the future. It does not matter whether you are Mr. Cramer or if you are Warren Buffett, an off-the-charts genius on a scale rarely seen.
It does not matter if you are Milton Friedman or Paul Samuelson or James Tobin, all Nobel laureates. Human beings cannot tell the future, or at least cannot tell it in any consistent way. Humans can't consistently pick the right stocks or call markets, foretell political or geopolitical events or successfully predict changes in interest rates or commodity prices. Life is far too complex and baffling for the minds of mortals to understand it as it happens, let alone to predict it accurately. (I am mindful of how Professor Friedman, a true supernova of brilliance, said of economic forecasting, "If you're going to predict, predict often.”) Some humans shine like dazzling stars when their predictions turn out to be true, but those same humans can't ever be counted on to replicate the feats regularly. Yet, we cry out for someone to tell us the future, like children who want to hear the end of the story." - The Pistons wouldn't mind facing the Magic, and as far as the Heat are concerned, the Pistons can have them.
- Photos of Greg Oden trying his hand behind the counter at a McDonald's as part of some kind of promotion. (Via Dwight Jaynes)
- PR people made a big stink about top high-schooler Lance Stephenson making a decision about where he'd go to college. Then he announced that he still hadn't made up his mind. I don't know what the story is ... but I bet it's a good one.
- CSKA Moscow coach Ettore Messina (writing on Sports.ru) with playoff insight that could certainly apply in the NBA, too: "The key to the best-of-five series is to perform consistently at a high level for two games in a row. Let me explain. If you lose game one, you instinctively try to bounce back from a bad performance, whether you are at home or on the road. The problem arises when you win game one. Instinctively, you relax and have the tendency to prepare the second game referring to the first one. You assume that if you repeat what you did well in the first game, you will win again. It's nonsense. You cannot assume anything, as repeating the success depends on too many factors. Unfortunately, we all make this mistake. When I go home and I watch the tape, sometimes I also tend to think that way. But then I realize: nobody can guarantee me that we'll be able to do it well again. You need to be even more alert, if you want to repeat the good performance you had in the first game. This is why there's such a high probability of splitting the first two games."
- LeBron James' selfish promotion of his selfless mindset.
- Jerry Sloan tells the Salt Lake Tribune's Ross Siler that timeout is like candy, and he doesn't want to spoil his team with too much: "He said he would have ordered up the same play in a timeout as he did during the game. 'I don't call timeouts just because the score changed all the time,' Sloan said. 'Once in a while I will, but I think that's an important thing to learn is to how we do it. What am I going to tell them? A different play?' What about just stopping another team's momentum? 'They should be able to stop that by running the same play,' Sloan said. 'We could come back and run the same play whether we use a timeout or not use a timeout. I don't like to use my timeouts just for that. That's like giving them a handful of candy. As soon as they eat it, they come back and want more. I don't play that with them all the time. I've never done it since I've been in coaching. I don't go by all the rules that everybody has, you've got to do this and this, and I probably make mistakes with it. I think players have got to learn. What are we going to do if we call a timeout?"
- Shaun Livingston is back in the NBA. Per a press release, he has left the D-League to sign with the Thunder.
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