Daily Factoid: In light of the NBA Playbook’s article about players with unorthodox shooting forms, Josh Childress led all small forwards in field goal percentage with a .567 during the 2007-2008 season (the last season Childress played in the NBA).
- Yao Ming Mania posts a video of several NBA players (including Houston’s own, Chase Budinger) playing in a scrimmage game for Yao’s foundation in China.
- Trey Kerby – ‘Pat Riley in June — Trading Beasley for cap space ‘won’t happen”: “The Internet already serves as a very effective ‘make people look silly’ device. Whether it be LeBron James saying he’d never chase a ring or anything Bill Simmons says in a draft diary, there are hundreds of instances of someone saying something, only to have that saying come back and make them into a fool. Rarely is the turn-around so quick as in Pat Riley’s case. Check out what he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Ira Winderman on June 25, just before he landed LeBron James and Chris Bosh in the biggest free-agency haul of all-time… With the Heat already having cleared enough salary-cap space to re-sign star guard Dwyane Wade and another maximum-level free agent, Riley then created additional cap space by trading guard Daequan Cook and a first-round draft pick Wednesday to the Oklahoma City Thunder. That presented the opportunity for the Heat to potentially open a third maximum-salary slot with a trade of 2008 No. 2 overall draft pick Michael Beasley. Riley, however, denied numerous reports that his team spent Thursday trying to move Beasley during the draft. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ Riley insisted of potentially selling Beasley off for additional cap space. ‘We are not that desperate for room, to trade the second pick in the draft. We want to build around him.’ Fast forward 13 days and what’s going on with the Heat? Three max players, a Michael Beasley trade and the beginnings of a team — nice one, Patty. Whoops, that’s the exact opposite of what he said, though Michael Beasley was technically traded after LeBron made his choice, so maybe we can let that one slide. Or not. Either way this is funny.”
- The official Kevin Durant summer mixtape.
- FanHouse – ‘NBA schedules regular-season games in London’: “NBA commissioner David Stern announced Monday that the Toronto Raptors and New Jersey Nets will face each other on March 4 and 5 at the O2 Arena, the same venue that has hosted preseason games over the last several years.”
- Dan Devine – ‘In defiance of logic and wisdom, the Knicks bring back Isiah’: “Like a bad penny, Isiah Thomas tastes of copper and old blood. Also, getting rid of him is pretty hard. Stupidly, infuriatingly, ridiculously hard, it appears, because he’s once again employed (at least part-time) by the New York Knicks. Yep, the New York Knicks. The same franchise he stripmined, submarined and shattered during his lamentable 4 1/2-year tenure as president of basketball operations and, later, head coach. The same franchise that, under his stewardship, became the most expensive failure in American professional sport. Thomas will serve as a ‘part-time consultant’ to the team, writes Marc Berman of The New York Post, who first reported the news of Thomas’ return to Madison Square Garden on Twitter. He ‘will assist the team’s senior management in various capacities, including player recruitment,” reprising the role he reportedly played in the Knicks’ successful seduction of Amar’e Stoudemire and its considerably less successful attempt to lure LeBron James, according to a joint statement released by the team… A franchise that only now, after a summer spent restocking a roster once left nearly devoid of talent — a free-agency and trade-fueled shopping trip made possible by a two-year post-Zeke crash diet to get under the salary cap — finally appeared able to look toward a brighter future. Instead, Knicks fans get force-fed a bitter reminder of their depressing recent past.”
- NBA Playbook introduces a new feature on its website: player scouting reports.
- NBA Playbook finds commonalities in the uniquely effective shooting forms of Kevin Martin, Rashard Lewis, and Josh Childress.
- C.A. Clark – ‘Player Report Card: Andrew Bynum’: “There is an element of reviewing Andrew Bynum’s season that absolutely has to be taken into account: Sacrifice. Andrew Bynum was willing to give more than his body was capable of in the hopes of helping his team win a championship. Nobody, short of Kobe Bryant himself, gave more of himself towards the Lakers championship aims, and any time you are mentioned in the same sentence as Kobe when the terms sacrifice and devotion to winning are concerned, you are doing something very, very right (or at least, very, very noble). Just take a second to let that sink it. Andrew Bynum is 22 years old. He’s had significant injuries for the past three years running. He could have a long and fruitful career to look forward to, one that will see him be well paid for the next decade. Or, with continuing injury trouble, he could see his production taper off and he could fail to reach the heights his talent would seem to indicate. A worst case scenario involves his injuries actually driving him from the league prematurely. In short, once the swelling in his knee reached levels that required mutliple drainings over a short period of time just to keep playing, he had every right to hang it up for the year. Nobody would have batted an eye. His effectiveness on the court was limited, he was in a great deal of pain, and to continue playing on the damaged knee allowed for the possibility of a much more serious injury to occur. Considering his previous injury history, one could easily make the point that Andrew Bynum risked his career, including the millions upon millions of dollars he would have earned, so that he could play nothing more than a bit part in the Lakers’ championship run.”
- Greg Payne of Celtics Blog gives us a montage of memorable quotes from Shaquille O’Neal.
- Chris Shierdan – ‘Dolan must decide on Walsh’s future by April 1′: “A league source told ESPN.com that Walsh’s four-year contract with the Knicks as team president includes a clause designating March 31, 2011, as the day the team must decide whether it will pick up the option on Walsh’s fourth year. By then, the Knicks will be some 70 games into the 2010-11 season. and owner James Dolan will have a better idea whether he wants to continue allowing Walsh to be the architect of the franchise as it heads into a summer in which Carmelo Anthony, should be become an unrestricted free agent, will be the No. 1 player on New York’s wish list. The NBA is still reviewing the Knicks’ new contract with Thomas, and colleague Ian O’Connor rightly points out that it could open a whole can of worms if Thomas is allowed to continue holding that consultant’s role while simultaneously coaching Florida International University.”
- Forum Blue & Gold – ‘Degree of Difficulty’: “From the Thunder series through the Celtics Finals series, Kobe saw a huge number of different defenses thrown at him ranging from single coverage, double coverage, triple coverage, delayed double teams, faux double teams, match up zones and true zones. To counter these defenses, they put Kobe in different scoring situations: isolating him in the pinch post and on the wings, posting him up, putting him in screen and roll situations with bigs, and setting screens for him a la Ray Allen. The one thing that didn’t change throughout the course of the post season was his ability to knock down difficult shots. One thing that tends to go unnoticed during Lakers games is the number of quality defenders that Kobe sees on a nightly basis. Kobe has a unique ability to make a lot of very good defenders seem average just as he makes difficult shots look easy. There were an innumerable number of shots Kobe made with a defender all over him. Kobe has made shots after he’s had the ball knocked out of his hands, the ball touched as he releasing it, over double teams, over seven footers – and none of that seems to matter to such an amazing offensive player.”
- Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub takes a quantitative look at whether Paul Pierce is the best offensive player in Celtic history.
- NBA Playbook begins a new series that will be looking at players who struggled last season and determining whether their play will improve this upcoming season. First up? Devin Harris.
