Once again, I'm on the road today -- I'm joining Will Leitch, among others, on a panel about sports blogging at the Sports Business Journal conference in New York. But there should be some action here nonetheless.
TrueHoop reader Michael watched Denver and Cleveland last night: "Most serious NBA fans already know that coaxing LeBron into taking midrange and three-point jumpers is the best way to contain him. Well, tonight he took 12 shots midrange or longer, making five of 12. For everything closer he was four of four. The numbers don't lie. The other way to contain him? Free throws. How about nine of 16 from the line? ... What was up with the Larry Hughes ejection? Does somebody know? Maybe anybody that was actually at the game? ... Iverson was really going at the Cleveland guards. Daniel Gibson played great defense all night, and still got burned almost every time. Iverson was taking him off the dribble, shooting over the top, and even posting him up!"
Meawhile did anyone else watch New Jersey and New Orleans last night? Jason Kidd was masterful in getting an offensive board, after two missed Nenad Krstic free throws with 42 seconds left. As soon as Kidd got it, I thought to myself: get a shot up, New Jersey. It has been ages since the Nets have had a reliable way to get an open look at the end of the game. I just knew that whatever they got would be tortured and difficult. (Not sure why, they have one of the best passers, a super coach, and plenty of skill -- but remember the playoffs last year?) Shooting with around thirty seconds left -- something they were well-positioned to do -- is what every broadcaster knows to be a "two for one." The Nets needed a two for one. But instead they pounded the ball for a while, not doing much of anything, and ended up with a heavily contested Nenad Krstic fadeaway with 18 seconds left. (They couldn't have got that ten seconds earlier?) He missed, and on the other end, Chris Paul pounced as Kidd went under a high pick, and Paul scored with two seconds left. When I was a kid -- maybe the defense wasn't as good? -- I just knew that an NBA team down two with two seconds left would get a great look. But last night, I knew the Nets were cooked, which they proved with, after a zillion timeouts, an errant, drifting, heavily contested fadeaway from Antoine Wright.
Brian Berger of Sports Business Radio spent a long time interviewing Stephen Pyeatt of Save Our Sonics. Then Berger delivered his five reasons that the Sonics are doomed in Seattle nonetheless. I'll tell you why I think there will be an NBA presence in Seattle one way or another: it's a great market. There's more long-term money there than just about anywhere else the league could go (except something crazy like London or Berlin) and the NBA is a savvy business. Pyeatt, by the way, has noodled with the idea of the city seizing the team by eminent domain. The whole "hi, we're the government, we're here to take your stuff" thing gives me the shivers, no matter how much I'd love to see Seattle get a real chance to keep its team. On SI.com, however, Dave Zirin is gung ho: "It's time to stop the madness. From Slick Watts to Shawn Kemp, from the Xavier McDaniel scene in Singles to Tom Chambers' mullet, from Shawn Kemp to Bird, the SuperSonics -- and the Storm -- are Seattle. To the people of the Emerald City, it's time to go on offense. Until now, you have threatened lawsuits to keep the team an extra couple years. But that will just delay Bennett's agenda. It's time to get serious. It's time to talk municipalization. Municipalization means turning the Sonics into a public utility; call it a kind word for expropriation. Basketball fans should press the state of Washington to sue for the right to buy the team back from Clay and his cronies. They should claim that the SuperSonics and Storm are the intellectual property -- the eminent domain -- of the people of Seattle, and therefore the city has far more of a claim on the team than the Bennetts of Oklahoma."
QueenCityHoops has a new leaguewide stat page that you should really check out. A lot of stuff that can be found in bits and pieces elsewhere, all in one place. For instance, team efficiency at both ends of the floor, assist rate (whoa, nellie it's bad in Sacramento and Washington), adjusted +/-, super assist rate (those are assists for layups and dunks -- the Blazers are last)
Josh McRoberts hasn't played in a real NBA game yet, thanks to a nasty ankle sprain. But if you believe his jokey blog, he's in tip-top form as a video game player, and he says his physical conditioning is OK, too.
A report in the Detroit News talked about how terrible Josh Smith is, saying that he had to be restrained in a mid-game dispute with his teammate Tyronn Lue. Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution followed up: "'It's a lie,' Smith said of the report that had him yelling at Lue to pass him the ball and then yelling at Woodson to 'get Lue out of the game' and later having to be 'restrained by coaches and teammates.' 'I'm just tired of all these false accusations about me being thrown out there,' Smith said. 'Where is all this stuff coming from? Because it seems obvious to me that someone out there has an agenda against me. If I'm going to get in trouble, at least let me get in trouble for something I've actually done.' ... This latest report has been fabricated, according to Lue. 'We never got into it,' Lue said. 'So he had to be restrained by other players and coaches ... man, are you serious? None of that happened.'"
The Bulls, at 1-5, are in team-meeting mode, and is it just me or is Ben Wallace implying something about Scott Skiles in this quote from a Brian Hanley report in the Sun-Times? "'We talked about being a team,' center Ben Wallace said of the players' meeting. 'It's one thing to hear from the coaching staff. It's something totally different when you hear it coming from your teammates. I think it's going to be a big help for us.'"
Frank Isola of the Daily News: "A high-ranking team official told the Daily News that Thomas and Dolan have been in talks in recent days concerning Marbury's future. Knicks brass is considering what options it has to reduce Marbury's role or get rid of him entirely. A trade is unlikely because Marbury, the team's controversial point guard, is scheduled to earn $42 million over the next two seasons. Dolan's and Thomas' history suggests that they would not rule out negotiating a buyout for Marbury, who then would become a free agent. At the very least, Marbury's minutes could be reduced substantially for as long as he remains on the team."
Doug Robinson of the Deseret Morning News on the next Stockton: "Michael Stockton, the second of John and Nada Stockton's six children, is a freshman point guard for Westminster College. He's a thin (6 feet, 165 pounds), late-blooming, left-handed, pass-first guard (sound familiar?) who shoots from slightly over his shoulder (sound familiar?)."
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