LeBron James has a bad back. (Insert joke about how he got it by carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers’ franchise here.)
It’s why he sits up, ramrod straight, at his locker these days, and why one of the biggest changes to his offseason program was learning not to slouch.
“I’m trying to change my posture,” he said last week. “I’ve had bad posture over the years.”
How does one find that sort of thing out?
“Ahh…I can’t tell you right now,” he said. “But it’s part of it. Maybe. Maybe. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now, trying to figure out if that’s the reason I’ve had back problems.”
Every little bit of information that keeps you going helps when you’ve turned 30. Even more so when Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert are still on the shelf, Timofey Mozgov is still feeling pain in his knee, Anderson Varejao and Kevin Love are just getting back up to speed after their injuries last season and it’s been 51 years (and counting) since the last championship parade.
When the Cavaliers had James, Irving and Love on the court (and healthy) last season, they were 33-3, their sub-.500 record through the first half of the season long forgotten. They got Shumpert and J.R. Smith from the New York Knicks for virtually nothing, and had depth and talent everywhere going into the playoffs. But Love got tangled up with Boston’s Kelly Olynyk in the first round and separated his shoulder, and Irving fractured his kneecap in Game 1 of The Finals against Golden State.
James still almost pulled it off, averaging 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists against the Warriors, in one of the greatest individual performances in Finals history — with some Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavadova sprinkled in. But the Cavaliers succumbed in six games, leaving James’ Finals record at 2-4.
Yet Cleveland’s path to another Finals appearance is about as manageable as last season’s. The Cavs will likely see the Bulls at some point in the playoffs, and have to deal with a good if not great team — maybe Atlanta again, or Washington, or Miami — in another round. That difficult (but not daunting) path would make the Eastern Conference a copy of a copy of a copy of the rugged Western Conference
And after a year under their belts of life in the James Fishbowl, the Cavs know better what to expect.
Coach David Blatt knows he’ll be barbequed when and if the Cavs lose two straight. Love knows there will be raised eyebrows and murmurs when he’s viewed as the team’s primary offensive option, as James said during the preseason and last week. Tristan Thompson knows that, his star turn during the playoffs aside, many around the league think owner Dan Gilbert is insane for giving Thompson a five-year, $82 million deal.
The passive-aggressive thing James had with Blatt last season, or his challenges to Love, including those public tweets to Love, now appear muted. The Cavs look like they fit better this year, with James willing to play goofy to help morale, just as he did in Miami.
“I think everybody is a lot more comfortable,” Love said. “In practice, on the floor, just coming to work every single day, I think everybody knows what Coach Blatt wants, and the coaching staff wants, and the organization wants … we have guys who are willing to do what it takes to get where we want to go. But it’s an every day thing.”
Irving is still a few weeks away from returning. Shumpert, who had wrist surgery at the end of September, is expected to miss two more months. Mozgov was outstanding for long stretches after coming from Denver and was the base upon which Cleveland built its stifling postseason defense. But he still feels sharp pain in his knee as he’s ramping up the minutes following surgery in early July.
That leaves Mo Williams, in his second tour with Cleveland, running the point, and the Cavs playing small ball. And it means the Cavs will have to win while injured, and do better than their 19-20 start last season. That means Williams, Smith and others — like newly signed veteran Richard Jefferson, who normally would fall to third and fourth options when Cleveland is fully healthy — will have to do more now.
“Last year, our first 39, 40 games were pretty tough,” Love said. “We didn’t have kind of a lay of the land on how things were going to play out. But we made a midseason trade, we continued to work, get our legs underneath us, find our chemistry. Once everybody was healthy and rolling, we seemed to be one of the best teams in the league. There’s no telling how this is going to play out. We had a talk the last few days about how I went down, Kyrie went down. There’s moments when guys have to be ready to step up, and you saw that throughout last season. But this is a brand new season. Things are different. And we have to get off to a good start.”
For the Cavs to win now, it has to be “ugly, choppy,” reserve forward James Jones said. “Grind-out type games. It’s like anything. When we’re done, we’re going to be a precision team. And the only way you do that is with repetition, repetition, repetition. You can’t do it in practice, or in between games. You have to do it in the game. So it’s going to take us a while. Once we get Iman back, once we get Kyrie back, they’ll still have to get acclimated. And then the guys that are playing are going to have to re-acclimate to them. It’s going to be a long process. But we knew that coming in. It doesn’t make it any easier, but it does keep us aware.”
James had already logged 35,769 regular season minutes going into 2015-16 — which doesn’t include another 7,562 playoff minutes, or all the minutes accumulated in international play through three Olympic Team appearances. He received a second injection in his back in less than a year during the preseason, and didn’t play any exhibition games after Oct. 12. But he says he’s still good for a big workload this year.
“I played 36 (against Chicago) and I felt great,” James said. “I had a bounce in my step, until that last one that Pau (Gasol) slapped out of bounds. But other than that, I had no restrictions. My third basket of the night was a dunk. I was able to explode from the perimeter to the rim. I was able to grab some rebounds in traffic.”
James works as hard as anyone in the offseason with his trainer, Mike Mancias. He’s still unguardable as a power forward on the block, and still the game’s best mind, able to anticipate opponent coverages three steps before they happen.
“I know the work I put into it,” he said. “I know how I treat my body, and my body responded very well to the shot that I had two weeks ago. I didn’t just sit around. I actually worked on a lot of things to help me stay balanced, and keep me going in the right direction. It paid off the last two days of practice going into the season.”
Cleveland will have to lean on Thompson, who didn’t get his deal done until Oct. 21, and didn’t play at all in the preseason. Thompson’s agent, Rich Paul, stuck to his guns, the same way he did with Phoenix Suns guard Eric Bledsoe last summer (he got him a $70 million deal that few around the league thought possible).
In the end, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert gave the okay for his team to continue spending well above the luxury tax in order to keep the core together. After re-signing Love for $110 million, and James for $47 million, and $40 million for Shumpert, it may have been easier to pull the trigger on Thompson, who averaged almost a double-double (9.6 points, 10.8 rebounds) in the 2015 playoffs.
“I didn’t worry about it,” Thompson said. “Obviously I love playing the game of basketball. That’s what God blessed me to do. At the same time, playing in the NBA, it’s a business side to it. At the end of the day, myself, Rich, Mark (Termini), we handled it the way we felt best. We weren’t worried. If the deal gets done, it gets done. If not, so be it, sit out the whole season (and) work on my game, and just get better. It was no wondering if it would get done, or nervousness. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it the same way — no regrets.”
Thompson had to score last season after Love went down. Now, he can go back to doing the “little things,” as he calls them — rebounding and playing hard. That he’s one of the highest paid forwards in the league now will not alter his approach.
“I think it’s just part of being a pro,” he said. “When Kevin went down I had to be more aggressive at the offensive end, but still do my niche and my job, to play hard and to rebound. Now that Kevin’s back, I still have to find my spots. Obviously we have so many people who can score and put the ball in the hoop. For me to be effective and be in the game and help our team win the game, it’s doing what I did and what I’ve been doing — playing hard and defending. And if the opportunity arises to play offensively, you’ve just got to be ready and make it happen.”
In his first three games, Thompson is, again, almost averaging double figures (9.7) on the glass.
“If I came in and didn’t rebound, that would look bad on my part,” Thompson said. “People would be wondering, what was he doing the whole time? For me to come in, that’s what a pro is supposed to do — be ready when your number is called and come in.”
The only number that continues to matter in Northeast Ohio is 1964, the year the Cleveland Browns won the NFL championship. James returned last season to end that drought. When and if he does, his place in Cleveland sports history will be cemented, alongside Paul and Jim Brown and Bob Feller and the scant few others who helped bring rings to the city — well before James and any of his teammates was born.
The only way to get there is to slog through these first couple of months, and build their way to June.
“It’ll be a process,” James said. “We knew that coming into the season. Knowing that at least one of our guys was going to be out, and that’s Kyrie. And then with Shump now being out as well, it’s going to be a process. But we have guys that’s ready to step up, and just try to hold it down until those guys get back and we’re full strength.”
TOP O’ THE WORLD, MA!
(previous rank in brackets; last week’s record in parenthesis)
1) Golden State [1] (3-0): Averaging a cool 119 per game in their first week of play, which included home and away smackdowns of the Pelicans, their first-round playoff opponent last spring.
2) L.A. Clippers [3] (3-0): The Clips’ bench, with Paul Pierce, Josh Smith and Austin Rivers joining Jamal Crawford, has the potential to be a difference-maker this season.
3) Oklahoma City [6] (3-0): Number two in offensive rating (109 points per 100 possessions) to the Warriors after Week 1.
4) San Antonio [2] (2-1): Relax, everybody. LaMarcus Aldridge will be just fine in the Spurs’ offense.
5) Chicago [7] (3-1): Bulls do look like a completely different team on offense under coach Fred Hoiberg.
6) Cleveland [4] (2-1): Clip n’ save: Anderson Varejao has missed 222 games the last five seasons.
7) Atlanta [9] (3-1): Kent Bazemore, so far, has been more than decent (7 of 13 in the first week of the season) at the 3 part of 3-and-D at small forward.
8) Memphis [8] (2-1): The Grizzlies led the NBA in scoring in the preseason. Honk if you had that in July.
9) Toronto [13] (3-0): Raptors look serious about getting back to defensive basics at the start of the season, holding their first three opponents to 38 percent shooting and 96.3 points per game.
10) New York [NR] (2-1): Carmelo Anthony looks back to normal, and Langston Galloway looks like he’s for real.
11) Dallas [11] (2-1): Deron Williams off to a non-start for the Mavericks, with what the team is now calling a knee sprain instead of a contusion.
12) Washington [10] (2-1): Bradley Beal picking up right where he left off in the playoffs.
13) Utah [NR] (2-1): Jazz picking up where it left off last season, with the league’s most stifling defense (Utah is currently tops in the league in defensive rating — 85.5 points per 100 possessions allowed).
14) Detroit [NR] (3-0): Great start for the Pistons, but Jodie Meeks just can’t get right.
15) Miami [15] (2-1): Heat bench will likely be a good barometer for team’s results this season.
Dropped out: Houston [5], Milwaukee [12], New Orleans [14]
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Detroit (3-0): The Pistons start the season with three straight wins for the first time since 2008, holding each of their first three opponents under 95 points. Plus, the chrome unis? Count me in!
TEAM OF THE WEAK
Indiana (0-3): Paul George shoots 15 of 43 (34.9 percent) in first week; Pacers’ smaller lineup gets hammered on the glass by Toronto and Utah. Not the start they were looking for.
NOBODY ASKED ME, BUT …
How can the Timberwolves find peace?
He wanted the list of fence-sitters, the people who hadn’t made up their minds about whether to buy Minnesota Timberwolves season tickets, or corporate suites, or go ahead with corporate partnerships and marketing deals.
Those are the people that Flip Saunders would cold call.
“He wanted to be involved with people who couldn’t see the vision for the team,” the Timberwolves’ president, Chris Wright, said by phone Sunday afternoon. “… He was our greatest ‘saves’ specialist that we had. He would take the most difficult of accounts and most difficult of relationships, and he wanted to reach out to them, and therefore rebuild the network. He built relationships.”
Phillip Daniel Saunders was a classic connector, as defined by the author Malcolm Gladwell: someone who seems to know everyone. That was a theme of Gladwell’s best seller, “The Tipping Point,” a book about why some ideas turn into big sellers, while others don’t. One of the reasons why some succeed is that the Connectors who walk among us put people together who otherwise may never have known one another, or done business together, or gotten married to each other.
“Sprinkled among every walk of life, in other words, are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances,” Gladwell wrote in 2013.
That was Flip Saunders. And that is only part of the sense of loss in the Twin Cities today, as the young and promising Timberwolves open their home schedule against the Portland Trail Blazers (8 p.m. ET, League Pass), after winning two games on the road to start the season for the first time in franchise history.
Saunders’s death at age 60 on Oct. 24 from complications from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma continues to reverberate throughout the NBA. A private memorial service in Minnesota on Saturday brought many of the league’s coaches and a lot of assistant coaches, many of whom who owed their starts to Saunders.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban leant his plane to his coach, Rick Carlisle, who brought Clippers coach Doc Rivers, a longtime friend of Saunders’, along with him from Los Angeles. They were joined on the ride by Mavs assistant Melvin Hunt and Clippers assistant Sam Cassell, who played for Saunders in Minnesota and then got his start on the bench as an assistant with Saunders in Washington.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, Kings coach George Karl, Wizards coach Randy Wittman, Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and former NBA coaches Jeff Van Gundy, Rick Adelman and Tom Thibodeau were among those who also attended the service.
So many people came to Minnesota to mourn, which is appropriate, since so many other people came to Minnesota to work and live, because Saunders asked them to come. Few coaches — maybe Pat Riley in his heyday on the sidelines in Miami — had so much control over everything their franchise did as Saunders had in Minnesota.
“When you lose somebody who was such a part of the DNA of your franchise, and everything you’re doing,” Wright said, “then this is a massive void. I don’t know that you could ever replace Flip Saunders with one person, because he had so many attributes, and he brought so much to the table.”
General Manager Milt Newton came to the Twin Cities because Saunders gave him a chance to spread his wings as an executive. The two had become close while Saunders was coach of the Wizards, part of the fallout of the Gilbert Arenas/Javaris Crittenton gun madness in 2010.
“We used to share all the time,” Newton said in Los Angeles last week, after the Wolves started their season with a one-point win against the Lakers, the victory assured only after Lou Williams’s last-second runner bounced off of the rim.
“I don’t know what it was on the court, but we just seemed to have Coach Saunders on our side,” said number one overall pick Karl-Anthony Towns.
No, no, no. Flip’s soul didn’t push Williams’ shot wide. That would be blasphemous to the Basketball Gods, whom Saunders often cited when something went cattywampus on the court. No, teams earn what they get most nights, and the Wolves earned the win. It wasn’t pretty, but many NBA games aren’t, and someone has to win them. Why not Minnesota?
“I think we can make the playoffs,” said Ricky Rubio, sotto voce, afterward.
That may be wishful thinking, but there’s no doubt that Minnesota has substantial pieces to build around in Towns and Wiggins, last year’s runaway Kia Rookie of the Year winner. Towns’ defensive chops are already evident, and he’s also shown potential to be very productive offensively.
“We’re just trying to keep the guys focused on the task at hand,” Newton said. “That’s our job. That’s what we have to do with our guys. Going back to the fact that we have great veterans, which is going to help us with that as well. He’ll definitely be missed.”
Every day, between 2:30 and 3 in the afternoon, Saunders would wander around the Wolves’ offices to his hand-picked team — Newton, Director of Player Personnel Calvin Booth and his son, Ryan, an assistant coach — and say ‘you guys ready for lunch?’ They’d almost always wind up at Crave, on Hennepin, just a few blocks from Target Center, and eat the rest of the afternoon away.
Coach Sam Mitchell came back to Minnesota, where he’d played for Saunders as the Wolves built a contender behind a young Kevin Garnett, and mentored KG, so that Saunders would have a trusted voice on the bench as his top assistant coach.
“At the end of the day,” Mitchell said Wednesday, “you just remember that Coach brought us all here for a reason.”
Mitchell knows that his young guys probably don’t remember when he played. “They don’t look at myself and (assistant coach) Sidney Lowe as former players; we’re too old,” he said. “And they don’t want to hear how it was back in the day when you had no face masks and you didn’t wear mouthpieces, and you wore Chuck Taylors. They don’t want to hear all that.”
So Saunders sought more contemporary role models.
Tayshaun Prince came to Minnesota because Saunders asked him to be an elder statesman. Prince had offers on the table from playoff teams, contending teams. But he loved the idea of being a mentor at the end of his career for Saunders, who’d coached him for three years in Detroit duing the end of the Pistons’ incredible run in the 2000s.
“We talked a few times,” Prince said. “His pitch was pretty much, my young guys don’t know how to win. And they need to see what it takes to win. Obviously, KG being here, and signing Andre [Miller], he needed a wing, a three guy that they could see on a day to day basis. Professionalism, how to prepare and practice. Just the little things. As far as on the court, he said, ‘sometimes you’ll play 15, 18 minutes. I’ll give you back to backs off.’ Things like that.”
Prince’s project is Wiggins, whose talents are obvious to anyone who has access to YouTube and NBA League Pass. The Rookie of the Year came on the second half of last season, but he’s still just 20 and he still has a lot to learn.
His elders notice that against the LeBron Jameses and Kobe Bryants of the league, he’s jacked and ready to play. But against the non-one-name superstars, he sometimes needs a kick start, like when Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton lit him up for three quick baskets during the preseason before the game seemed to have even started.
“He’s definitely, definitely, definitely a work in progress, as far as how to approach each day,” Prince said. “Wiggins is a guy like myself, as far as just real cool, laid back. I gotta get on him a little bit to get him amped up and stuff like that. We don’t have no problems with him come game time. Just little things that we do, how to approach it, so when you come in a game, you’re prepared for it.”
Miller came to Minnesota because Saunders needed someone who could throw a damned inbounds pass.
There had been a half-dozen games last season, Saunders believed, that had turned because the Wolves couldn’t get into their offense at a key moment. Who better to calm the nerves than Miller, who has never met a game he couldn’t influence, even as he approaches 40.
That wasn’t the only reason, of course. He also needed someone to help show Rubio the nuances of playing the point.
Over lunch in July, with Flip and Ryan Saunders, Newton and Booth, Miller and the Wolves’ braintrust talked hoops for an hour. From that point on, the Coach and “The Professor” communicated via text, with Flip Saunders sending motivational quotes and ideas for the team to Miller.
“He wanted to win,” Miller said. “Obviously bringing back KG, and he told me he was going to bring in Tayshaun … he had a vision. That was the biggest thing. And I saw the amount of talent and the upside, and the direction that the team was going. That was big.”
Prince last saw Saunders in late August, at the practice facility.
“I went to do my physical and everything,” Prince said. “Believe it or not, the day I took my physical was his last radiation treatment. After I got out, after I finished the physical, I talked to him, told him, hey, I’m going to go back home, see my family, go to Vegas — he knows I work out at Impact — and I said ‘every few days, I’m gonna shoot you a text to see how you’re doing, see how you’re feeling.’ He said ‘okay, great.’ I texted him a couple of days later, and he responded within 30 minutes — ‘hey, I’m doing good.’ I get to Vegas a few days later, send him a text. He didn’t respond.”
Prince then texted Ryan Saunders, who said his father had suffered a “little setback,” and was going back into the hospital.
“It’s just a tough situation,” Prince said. “Obviously a wonderful guy, wonderful man, great coach.”
And Rubio stayed in Minnesota because Saunders believed he was ready to, finally, become the elite point guard the Wolves hoped he’d be when former GM David Kahn took Rubio with the fifth pick of the 2009 Draft. (reigning Kia MVP winner Stephen Curry went two picks later, to Golden State.) During the succeeding six seasons, Rubio flashed often, but just as often was waylaid by injuries.
Yet Saunders gave Rubio a four-year, $56 million extension last year. And he hoped that the additions of Wiggins and Towns would allow Rubio to relax, to no longer feel that he was the face of the franchise, to hand off the pressure he’s had on him for almost a decade, going back to his star turns as a teenager in Spain.
“When I was 14, everyone was talking about me,” Rubio said. “I always have that pressure. I was kind of born with it. But when you share that pressure, it’s easier, there’s no doubt. Like I say, we have a lot of talent, but in this league, there’s a lot of talent. We have to show that we’re willing to sacrifice a lot of the talent that we have to play as a team.”
The franchise grieves, but the team must get going with its season, something no NBA team in recent memory has had to do while mourning the in-season loss of its coach. Ryan Saunders has been told to take all the time he needs before deciding when he wants to return to the bench.
“He’s holding up all right, but it’s going to be difficult,” Newton said. “They were father and son, but they were like brothers, best friends. But we’re here to help him as well. I (told) him, just like I told the guys, don’t even try to circumvent that grieving process. You’ve got to go through that. We’ll be there to support you. When you’re ready to come back, and we see you, we see Flip. He’s got his legacy with Ryan and the girls.”
Saunders came back to the Timberwolves at owner Glen Taylor’s behest in 2013, after a stint as an analyst for ESPN. When Taylor re-hired Saunders, the Wolves’ all-time winningest coach, it was as president of basketball operations — a job Saunders wanted to keep him from going back to his alma mater, the University of Minnesota, as coach.
In his new job with the Wolves, Saunders had his fingerprints all over the franchise, not just on the floor.
“Obviously, his passion was game operations,” Wright said. “And he had a very strong opinion — around music, around skits, around mascots, around dance teams, around introductions. He had a lot of opinion around that. And we would have a lot of conversations about what to include, what not to include, etcetera. Generally speaking, he had a very informed opinion.”
Saunders played a major role in sealing the deal between the franchise and the Mayo Clinic to partner at Mayo Clinic Square, the shared facility between the team and the famous medical center. Mayo’s medical reputation spoke for itself, but it wanted to engage both the elite athlete and the weekend warrior through sports. Saunders quickly suggested himself and Kevin Love, then with the team, to make the pitch.
“He and Kevin presented the elite athlete category, and how that potentially could work for the Mayo Clinic, in terms of this incredible facility that we built,” Wright said. “That had a major impact. Here you had this cadre of doctors, marketing folks, business administration people from arguably the most iconic health care provider in the world. And here’s Flip Saunders, with Kevin Love, who he got to the meeting, presenting why this was the optimal time for the relationship to form.”
The $29 million, 20,000 square foot facility opened across the street from Target Center earlier this year — a converted multiplex movie theatre that has practice courts both for the Wolves and the WNBA’s Lynx, a locker room in the round, a 105-seat theatre for players’ families and team employees to use when available, a new weight room and a $1 million hydrotherapy pool. It was everything Saunders wanted, he said in August, and he thought the facility would help the Wolves attract free agents down the road.
Saunders had two offices in the building — one for each hat he wore with the franchise. In that in so many ways, his death leads an incredible void in the organization he so loved, just as it appeared the Wolves were finally close to finally turning the corner for good.
Who will connect all those people now?
“If he was here, he would have told us, ‘keep fighting,’ ” Rubio said. “It was something we learned from him. He was a fighter until the end. And we’re going to honor him that way: fighting every game, fighting until the end.”
NOTE: There will be a public memorial service for Saunders later this year. His family has asked that in lieu of flowers or other expressions of sympathy, those wishing to send condolences send contributions in his memory to The Flip Saunders Legacy Fund.
The address:
The Flip Saunders Legacy Fund
P.O. Box 46410
Plymouth, MN 55446
… AND NOBODY ASKED YOU, EITHER
Awaiting a Motor City Miracle. From Tamer Mohamed:
The Pistons have looked great through these first few games. With that small sample size, plus trusting a full year with Reggie Jackson and new great additions, does this well-balanced, deep roster have a chance to be a top 4 team in the East?
Despite Detroit’s great start (see above), there’s no way the Pistons finish top four in the East. I do like the direction in which they’re going, though. Andre Drummond (see below) is in a contract push and should have a big year, Jackson has solidified the point and there are enough shooters on the floor at a given time to play the spacing game Stan Van Gundy wants. The problem for Detroit is that other than Brooklyn, I don’t see any of the playoff teams from last season taking a huge step back. Meanwhile, Miami will be much better than it was last year, and New York and Indiana at least a little better — and none of those three teams made the playoffs last year, either. Just getting in the postseason should be Detroit’s goal this season.
(Not so) Great Scott? From Danny Silver:
Honestly, do those in NBA inner circles actually think that Byron Scott has the coaching acumen to be in charge of a team in 2015? He’s been a complete embarrassment. For over a year now he’s been complaining about his players being soft and not being ready to play. At some point, that’s a reflection of the coach. He never makes adjustments or takes responsibility. I can go on for days. He’s about to ruin another winter for me as a Laker fan.
I don’t think it’s as cut and dried within the league as it obviously is with Laker fans, Danny. Byron did good work both in New Jersey and New Orleans. The criticism of him as not embracing the pace-and-space game favored in the league today is a valid one — because the Lakers keep struggling. But that struggle is also a product of a roster that doesn’t have near the talent on it as other teams in the West. You are right that a coach will ultimately be judged by his players perform, so Byron’s got to get more out of his young team, or he’s not going to be there much longer.
The New Math: two is greater than five. From Javonte Johnson:
Are the Thunder better off playing team basketball? Or are they better off having KD and Russell Westbrook scoring 35-40 each every night?
Ideally, you want everyone touching the ball, Javonte. Coach Billy Donovan knows it as well. But just as it was hard for former coach Scott Brooks not to take advantage of the incredible individual skills of KD and Russ, it will be difficult for Donovan not to lean on mismatches for his two All-Stars. But as the competition gets tougher in the playoffs, the more diverse OKC’s offense must become. Defenses are too good not to be able to take at least one of the Dynamic Duo away, and make someone else beat them.
Send your questions, comments, criticisms, and other great Scrabble words to know for future use like “oryx” to daldridgetnt@gmail.com. If your e-mail is sufficiently funny, thought-provoking, well-written or snarky, we just might publish it!
MVP WATCH
With the season underway, we renew our weekly tabulation of the league’s premier performers, who are leading their respective teams and are worthy of league MVP consideration. There’s no specific criteria used to come up with the list: it’s just one man’s (brilliant) opinion.
1) Stephen Curry (39.3 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 7.3 apg, .588 FG, .955 FT): Seriously, I don’t need to make a case. Just look at those numbers. And that includes 17 of 35 shooting on 3s. That’s insane.
2) Russell Westbrook (32 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 8.7 apg, .500 FG, .826 FT): Whenever anyone asks you if Kevin Durant is leaving OKC after this season, just point to this. Or this. It’s just hard — it’s almost impossible — to see Durant leaving Westbrook for any other player (or combination of players) in the league.
3) Blake Griffin (32 ppg, 9 rpg, 4 apg, .644 FG, .714 FT): Has become almost unstoppable on offense. You play off, he shoots the perimeter jumper; you come up, he gets you on his shoulder and takes you to the front of the rim. You double him, he makes a scoring pass.
4) Andre Drummond (18.7 ppg, 16.3 rpg, 2 bpg, .413 FG, .581 FT): His march to a max deal got off to a great start in the Pistons’ undefeated week, including a 20-20 spot he dropped on the Bulls Friday in Detroit’s overtime win.
5) Kevin Durant (30 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 2.3 apg, .483 FG, 1,000 FT): Just as deadly as his teammate. Again.
BY THE NUMBERS
340 — Coaching victories in Dallas for Rick Carlisle, who went past Don Nelson to become the franchise’s all-time leader in coaching wins when the Mavericks defeated the Lakers Sunday night.
157 — Coaching victories in Toronto for Dwane Casey, who became the Raptors’ all-time leader in coaching wins Sunday night after Toronto defeated Milwaukee. Casey passed Sam Mitchell on the list in four-plus seasons.
500 — Regular season games as a coach for Brooklyn’s Lionel Hollilns, who started his coaching career with the Grizzlies while the franchise was still in Vancouver in 1999. Hollins is 252-248 in his career, which included three different stints with the Grizzlies.
I’M FEELIN’ …
1) The reigning MVP sure looks like he wants to successfully defend his title, doesn’t he? What a start by Stephen Curry. Just beautiful to watch someone with his talent as confident as can be.
2) San Antonio’s Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, as a group: four NBA championships, four NBA Finals MVP awards (Duncan has 3, Parker has 1), 23 All-Star appearances, and 541 regular season victories — which, as of Sunday, made them the winningest trio of players on one team in NBA history (passing Boston’s Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish).
3) Injustice finally resolved: the Bucks began the regular season with a home game for the first time since 1984, when the franchise played at the Mecca. Of course, Milwaukee proceeded to lose to the Knicks by 25.
4) A great oral history of the Grizzlies’ days in Vancouver.
5) Doc Rivers joins Twitter, and this has to be good.
6) You’d think Duke, of all schools, would understand the importance of getting in front of the man and taking the charge. Unbelievable.
NOT FEELIN’ …
1) A Mel Daniels Handshake made you reassess your next greeting to the big man. He wasn’t purposely trying to crush your fingers, but maybe he was testing you, taking a measure of your toughness. The Hall of Fame center lived in the paint on those great Pacers teams in the ABA, winning three championships, two league MVP awards, making seven All-Star appearances and finishing as that league’s all-time leading rebounder. And he remained a fixture in the Pacers’ organization for almost 40 years after his retirement, a quiet man with a regal bearing which nonetheless warned: do not trifle with this man. His death last Friday at 71 continues what has been the worst stretch of notable passings in pro basketball in one year that I can remember. (This is a terrific remembrance of Daniels by longtime Pacers beat writer Conrad Brunner.)
2) James Harden is 12 of 54 from the floor. Dwight Howard still isn’t right. The Rockets are 0-3. Of course it’s early, but with the injuries and The Beard’s terrible slump out of the gate, Houston can’t afford to fall too far off the track in the hyper-competitive West.
3) Any player who, in the first month of the new season says, “last year, we would have lost this game.”
4) Sad to see Grantland, the site on ESPN.com started by Bill Simmons, get shuttered by the Four-Letter last week. It didn’t all work for me, but there was an awful lot of good writing on that site — and since the NBA is my bailiwick, I particularly concentrated on the outstanding work done by Zach Lowe and Jonathan Abrams over the years. Both are illuminating, terrific storytellers, using their own unique methods.
4A) This ain’t so hot, either. As a former Inquirer writer (and someone who almost went to the Daily News in another life), it’s sad that these two distinct voices in a big market can’t continue to co-exist.
5) RIP to a great character actor, Fred Dalton Thompson, who had a second act in life as the Republican Senator from Tennessee from 1994, when he was a special election for the seat, through 2002.
Q & A: DERRICK ROSE
The mask was made by the same guy who designed Rip Hamilton’s mask in Detroit many years ago. It protects Derrick Rose’s face, which ran into friendly fire — an elbow from a Chicago Bulls’ teammate the first day of training camp, which fractured his right orbital socket. The litany of injuries that Rose has suffered since his MVP season of 2010-11 is long and has been re-hashed ad nauseum. He’s been banged up for so long it’s hard to remember sometimes that Rose is still just 27, in what should be the prime of his career.
But he begins his eighth NBA season (he missed all of 2011-12) again coming off of an injury, after finally having a summer where he didn’t have to rehab anything. Rose was good for stretches last season, but still is looking to get back to elite form.
In new coach Fred Hoiberg’s new system, the expectations is that Rose will get every chance to again shine, in an offense where greater pace and increased space should be the norm. Rose and his backcourt mate, Jimmy Butler, will have to be dynamic for Chicago to overcome Cleveland, the current Finals favorite in the East. But Rose will have something to say about that. He can imagine the Bulls emerging. But first, he has to be able to actually see.
Me: How is your vision right now?
Derrick Rose: I see two of you right now.
Me: Still?
DR: Still, but every day, like I’ve said, it’s improving. It’s a slow, slow process. But I’m still able to go out there and play.
Me: Do you think you may have suffered a concussion?
DR: No, no concussion. Right when I got hit, the trainer came over, and he was just asking me questions, and I was able to answer the questions. It was just that I got hit. It was a bad hit.
Me: You can’t mess with your vision, though. How do you compensate for where it is right now?
DR: I don’t know. Not to sound cocky, I just feel like I’ve got a good feel for the game. I feel I can play the game without messing up the game, or going out there and just facilitating, just getting what they give me, seeing what the defense is doing and seeing what, offensively, we need to work on. Really, just go out there and have fun and ball.
Me: What was the process for getting the mask fitted, and did you try on different ones to see which one you liked?
DR: They actually had to get a cast of my face first. After they got the cast of my face, they went to the lab in Michigan, and they sent it like two days after they fitted me for it. It came back pretty quick. It wasn’t different types (of plastic); I don’t know, I didn’t really go that deep into it. All I know is he asked me did I want something under my nose, and I said no, So I think it’s going to help me breathe a little bit better.
Me: How did it feel the first time you got hit on it?
DR: It felt all right. I got hit a couple of times in practice, too. You feel the impact, but it’s no pain to it. That’s the good thing. I can go out there and still play and don’t have to worry about it.
Me: You’ve talked about the offensive freedom you have in this new system. How does that manifest itself on the court?
DR: I think that’s the way that I normally know how to play, is just go out there and make something happen. In the past, from high school all the way until I got to the league, that’s how I played basketball. It was just pick and rolls, and going out there and creating something. And the last couple of years, I played in a system. It kind of feels good to go out here and just have that freedom. Not only me, but my teammates have that freedom, too. Coach is really a laid-back dude, but he wants everybody to take good shots.
Me: Is there a dribble-drive component to this offense, like you played at Memphis in college?
DR: Yes, with the dribble-drive, like college. A lot of handbacks, and I catch the ball with a live dribble. That’s something I didn’t have in the past. On the move, so I’m running downhill. I’m always attacking. And I think that’s my game.
Me: And how much does the weakside open up in this offense?
DR: Not only the weakside, I think just the game in general. Like the freedom that he allows us to shoot the ball. We shoot a lot more threes. I think the first game that we played, we shot 39 threes in the system. He’s letting us shoot it, shoot that shot. That’s something that we work on every day in practice. We shoot a lot in practice. And he has a lot of confidence in us to take that shot.
Me: What does that do for a player when he can take a shot and not have to look over at the bench to see what coach says?
DR: Confidence can make you or break you. Especially if you’re a young player and you’re not allowed to play through your mistakes, and not able to learn from your experiences. It just takes being out there and messing up a couple of times before you actually get the groove of it. And this is the NBA. This is the highest level of basketball. So you’ve got to be able to learn through your mistakes.
Me: What were you able to do this summer — the first one in years where you weren’t rehabbing an injury?
DR: I was able to relax. In the summer, I don’t play pickup, but I was able to relax a little bit, work out when I wanted to work out. Whenever I had my surgeries, I had to get up (afterward) for my rehab. And rehab started at 7:30 in the morning, or 8 in the morning. Not saying that’s too early, but for an NBA schedule, that’s pretty early to be getting up and having to travel with the team and work out all day. So I was able to relax a little bit, work out in the afternoon, and just enjoy the freedom I had in taking in my summer.
Me: What are the differences like between Thibs and Hoiberg like on a daily basis, after you’d been in one system for so long?
DR: It’s a little bit different. Thibs was a great coach, and his staff was a great staff. That’s the past. We’re just thinking about the future. With Fred, he’s a little different. He’s laid back. He plays music in practice. He’s just throwing a different twist, a different atmosphere around us, creating one. We love it. Guys are coming in on off days to just get work in, shooting and all that. In the past, that wasn’t the case.
Me: You have any say in the playlist?
DR: Nah, not yet. The other day it was some 80s song. We’re just happy to have some music, any music. Any music is a good change.
Me: Do you think the fact he played in the NBA helps him in terms of understanding players?
DR: I think so. That’s why he’s so laid back, because he played. He was the GM before (in Minnesota). And we just love having him around. He’s just a great person, a great individual. I don’t know if it’s because he came from college, but it seems like he cares about every single person on this team, and that means a lot in this profession.
Me: But under Thibs, you were an elite-level defensive team. How do you balance the freedom you now have on offense with trying to maintain that lockdown defense?
DR: If you lose anyone like Thibs, it’s going to hurt you. He worked on defense his entire career, and is still working on defense. If you lose a person like that, it’s going to hurt you. But with the coaching staff that we have now, the emphasis is help everyone on defense, and the principles are basically the same, though it’s a little bit different. Twists here and there. But everything else is the same — it’s just play hard, get into your guy and make sure we rebound the ball.
Me: Is the Warriors model, with Kerr coming in and taking an already good team to the next level, the expectation here?
DR: I mean, hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. Why not? We’ve seen so much of that happening in the NBA — not only them, but you look at the Hawks. They got a new coach and they did very good, too. If anything, we’re just happy that we’re back hooping, and I’m happy I’m back hooping. We have a great group.
Me: Couldn’t you just have bought Jimmy a steak instead of a $30,000 watch?
DR: I was just taking a different approach for a veteran. I think that he deserved it. He had a great year, a hell of a year. I think you’re supposed to spoil your teammates. I just got him the watch, and I told him he better wear it, because it ain’t no fun giving it to him if he ain’t gonna wear it after the big contract. I’m a hope he wears it.
Me: How will his development last season help you this season?
DR: Oh, man, that’s key. Whenever he’s out there, I tell him what I see on the floor. I just want him to be the best player he can be, as far as working on his game every day. I tell him to shoot more threes, because in our offense, he’s allowing us to shoot more threes, and he can make that shot. He just doesn’t shoot it enough.
Me: So if you say there’s no beef between the two of you, and he says there’s no beef, where do you think it came from?
DR: I really don’t know. I don’t know. That’s a good question. It’s just people nitpicking our team, at our team, just trying to start something for the beginning of the year. I don’t know. Just trying to sell papers or something.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
— Veteran guard Jordan Crawford (@jcraw55), Friday, 9:39 p.m. Crawford, who played with Curry during the 2013-14 season, had limited action last season in China and in the D League. He was among the Bulls’ final cuts last week.
THEY SAID IT
“All I kept thinking was when he came to our game the last time and we lost by 30 or 40 points in Washington. I told him if it happens again, then he’s done. He can’t come to our games anymore.”
— Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, to the Chicago Tribune, on the presence of President Obama at the team’s season opener last Tuesday against Cleveland. The Bulls actually only lost by 23 points to the Wizards that night in 2009.
“I think complaining has an effect on the officiating. I don’t think the villain thing has an effect on officiating at all. That’s something we’re going to try to be better at as a group, including the coach. We do it too much.”
— Doc Rivers, to local reporters Thursday, on whether the perception of his Clippers’ team as one that complains too much to referees about calls hurts them with the officials.
“What happened was, I think we practiced on a Sunday, and the Broncos’ game was on. So we were sitting there in the locker room and the guys started discussing who’s slower. It kind of hurt my feelings a little bit. Some teammates actually picked me, and some picked against me.”
— Dirk Nowitzki, on how his Twitter “challenge” to Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning to a 40-yard dash came about. The Diggler said he could probably break six seconds in the 40.
Longtime NBA reporter and columnist David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
