As I follow the Anucha Browne Sanders/Isiah Thomas/Madison Square Garden trial -- which has been loaded down with conflicting statements -- I have shaken my head many times and thought: somebody here is lying. And bad. I'm glad I'm not on the jury, because you end up having to decide whom you believe. But then I thought about it some more, and the thought occurred to me: you have to at least consider the possibility that no one involved is telling the gospel truth. Which would make it, in a weird way, like they're both kind of telling some truth, too, if you see what I mean. Anyway, I recommend reading that article I linked to above, and then being glad you aren't involved.
All those of you who think LeBron James is destined to one day leave Cleveland for New York will be interested to note that he has said that if the Cleveland Indians face the New York Yankees in the playoffs, James will be rooting for the Yankees. Also, James is in New York all week preparing to host Saturday Night Live.
I always wondered how Rick Adelman made it from coaching at Chemeketa Community College to the NBA. I still don't really know the whole story, but it says here that one of his assistants for a while was a certain Geoff Petrie, the first-ever Trail Blazer and a golden child of Portland's early years. (Both Petrie and Adelman had played in the NBA.) Jack Ramsay then hired Adelman as an assistant, and the rest is history.
SI's Jack McCallum has fantastic insight into the mind of Shawn Marion. One of Marion's beefs, he says, is that he's often covering up for Amare Stoudemire on defense. He also talks about Marion's apparent victim complex, and where it might come from: "In his private moments, D'Antoni even concedes that he sometimes gets on Marion so much because he expects so much from him. Whatever Nash's defensive liabilities, they don't come from a lack of effort, and when D'Antoni and the coaches get on Stoudemire for his poor defense, it seems to go unheard. D'Antoni gets all over Leandro Barbosa for shot selection, but he battles through it. Raja Bell is so hard on himself when he gets into a shooting funk that no one needs to do it for him. But Marion takes pointed criticism personally and feels that he is too often the only Sun in the blame game."
Nate McMillan talks to the Oregonian's Jason Quick, who writes about it on OregonLive. The news? Taurean Green, says McMillan will not only be playing, but will be winning three or four games for Portland with his outside shooting. (Sergio Rodriguez, on the other hand, is out of the rotation, says McMillan.) McMillan explains his love of Green: "He's small, but you don't win back-to-back (NCAA) championships as the starting point guard unless you can play. You put him on the floor at the end of the game with Brandon (Roy) because he can shoot the three. Right now, I would say he is the best three-point shooter among the guards. He handles the ball, runs the pick and roll, gets up on his man ... I like him.'' The Blazers need to make a trade or two, for sure. If they can shed a little payroll they could be under the luxury tax. They have too many point guards. And they need a big man.
And, while we're thinking about the Blazers, this is Portland's blueprint to win a title, as designed by Kevin Pritchard. It involves a solid locker room, balanced humans with interests in basketball and beyond, and cap room in 2009.
The team of Kevin Durant/Aaron Goodwin signs another big endorsement deal, this one with Gatorade.
Did we need a "Oh come on, is it really that great to play with Steve Nash?" post? I guess we did.
Head up, people. Let's not let the basketball blogosphere go rotten. (Language.) Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko says things feel different from this time last year. But you know what I think a big part of that difference is? A year ago, it was a rush just to get an email from ... any number of people. Now a lot of those people email all the time. That's not backsliding. That's progress. It might not feel as fun all the time. But it's not a sign that the quality of the work, nor the relationships, have gone south, right?
Allan Houston needs to decide where he'll try to catch on -- likely New York or New Jersey -- but the decision is complicated a little by the reality that he's about to have his third child.
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