Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon-Journal with a great tale from Cleveland Coach Mike Brown: "Brown revealed Monday that he ordered James to take over guarding Nets star Vince Carter in the fourth quarter after Carter drew two blocking fouls on Sasha Pavlovic. But Pavlovic didn't want to give him up and said so. 'The look that I got from Sasha -- I saw confidence there, so I let him stay,' Brown said. 'If you want to stay there, stay there, but man up. I believe in my guys. I'm going to give them an opportunity to get it done.' Moments later, Pavlovic blocked a Carter shot and triggered a Cavs fastbreak."
Brian Berger of Sports Business Radio has anonymous sources saying that the Blazers are close to hiring Steve Miller as their next president. Berger's reaction: "Now is the time to buy stock in the Trail Blazers." Now that the Blazers are getting great people in place, I hope Paul Allen gives them the latitude (cash and freedom) to do their best. Berger also says the team is close to hiring Cheri Hanson to run PR, who is a great professional I have worked with in the past, when she was in Milwaukee.
Got a press release this morning saying that former Olympic athlete Mike Conley, Sr., who is now an agent and will represent his own son Mike Conley, Jr., Greg Oden, and others, has aligned his brand new agency with the mighty Bill Duffy (who represents Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, and a big mess of other NBA players).
Tobias Seitz of the German site Hoop Nation just got home from the European Final Four and emails some observations: "FMP made it to the final and lost just by 4 against Zalgiris Kaunas with Milan Macvan scoring 28 points (8/14 2-pointers and 3/6 3-pointers) plus 15 rebounds. Another young man that might have drawn the attention of the NBA scouts was Donatas Motiejunas from Zalgiris Kaunas had 20 points with 9/15 from the floor but a terrible free throw percentage of 0.18. I would not be suprised if we soon read that the draft rights on these players are owned by a NBA team. On Sunday, the game for third place and the championship took place. The four rosters consisted of seven American players, six of whom had already played in the NBA: Tony Delk (who did not play one minute at the Final Four), Michael Batiste, who had a very strong game in the final to lead Panathinaikos Athens to the title, Fred House, Marcus Brown, David Vanterpool (injured) and former Duke and Cleveland Cavaliers player Trajan Langdon. My personal opinion is that Trajan Langdon is still good for 10 points per game in the NBA and almost won the game for CSKA Moscow. What about the non-American players? Some of them have already been to the NBA like former New Jersey Net Zoran Planinic, Igor Rakocevic (Minnesota), Jiri Welsch (Golden State, Boston, Milwaukee) and Pepe Sanchez (Philadelphia). So the question is: why aren't they still in the NBA? Well I talked to some of them and they all said one thing: 'I wanted to be more involved in the games.' Meaning, they did not play enough and didn't just want to be a name on the roster, make their money. So they went back to Europe, make almost the same money -- tax free -- and have big and important roles on their team."
Not a bad day to revisit the argument for Deron Williams as the league's Most Improved Player. He sure is good, but did you notice? Also, just slightly balding. Keep an eye on that. He'll join the shaved head crowd by this time next year.
TrueHoop reader Chris has a pretty cool idea to solve the playoff seeding problem: the best teams get to pick their first-round opponents. In each conference, those who finish first through fourth in the regular season draft from those teams finishing fifth through eighth. He explains: "In the East this past year Detroit could have picked Washington. Didn't they earn that with the top seed? Similarly, Dallas could have avoided Golden State, which they surely deserved. On the other hand, imagine if Duncan was hurt before the first round. Maybe Dallas or Phoenix would choose to take them out while it's easier. Moves such as this would lead to much discussion -- all good and provoking interest in the league, in my opinion." The only problem there is that there would be little reason to fight for the fifth, sixth, or seventh spots. But it's pretty cool.
Good Russ Bengston line during last night's game: "Whatever the Warriors have is obviously contagious." Good Dan Shanoff line about the same game: "Nothing takes the air out of a good unified national fan bandwagon like losing."
USA Today analyzes TNT's studio crew. Reid Cherner quotes TNT Senior Producer Tim Kiely: "Chuck is the bull, Kenny is the picador and Ernie is the matador." Ernie Johnson adds that he does not like to be compared to a traffic cop: "That is an insult to traffic cops, because they are trying not to have guys T-bone each other."
Road teams have won four of the last nine Game 7s. My assumption about all Game 7s: crazy stuff can happen. Some scrub can get hot, or some star can freeze up, and change everything. There's no such thing as a Game 7 underdog. If you get to that game and play hard, you have an excellent shot at winning.
Jeff Van Gundy says he's taking his time to decide about his future. Which is a fancy way of trying to prove with words that the rumor he would leave was totally incorrect, when in fact it may well prove to have been correct.
Matt from BlogaBull: "Everything was bad tonight, yet again." Ben Gordon is getting to be one of those players who makes you sweat, as a fan. A friend of mine has a theory that to be a superstar you don't have to be great every time, but you can never suck. Not sure Ben Gordon will ever get there. Yahoo's Steve Kerr on Ben Gordon: "Defensively, he has to work like crazy no matter who he's guarding -- Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton or at times Tayshaun Prince. Then, when he's trying to score, Gordon has to deal with excellent defenders who are quicker and stronger than the Heat guards. Basically the whole game has gotten more difficult for Gordon since the Miami series ended."
One of the names consistently connected to Seattle in this year's draft is Yi Jianlian. Like Yao Ming before him, word is Yi wants to go to a city with a large Asian population: Seattle fits the bill, but potential future home Oklahoma City does not.
Comments that include profanity, or personal attacks, or antisocial behavior such as "spamming" or "trolling," or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our terms of use. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
H
