Source: http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/johnson/2011/06/14/why-miami-lost/
After taking a gig this week as an assistant coach with the Memphis Tigers for former Arizona teammate Josh Pastner -- ESPNLA's Dave McMenamin has a great story on it here -- Lakers forward Luke Walton made the rounds on L.A. sports radio. As he explained to 710 ESPN's Mason and Ireland, working with the Tigers allows him get a real taste for coaching, and decide if it's something he truly wants to do once his playing days are over. Second, with the Tigers, he'll have access to their training and medical facilities, a step up from what's available locally during the lockout. "Here, it's me and eight other NBA guys at Mira Costa High School [in Manhattan Beach]," he said, "and they've already told us once school starts they're kicking us out." “It obviously bothers me. I haven’t really noticed it because I kind of stay out of the media during the offseason. But obviously it bothers you as a player. You want to feel your worth. Obviously I’m getting paid a salary that was for a much larger role back when we agreed upon the deal. I was a playmaker, I was playing 30 minutes a game and I was able to do a lot of things for a team. And I had offers from other teams to do the same thing. … For the most part, fans have been great out here. Then, all of the sudden you bring in Pau Gasol and other players of that caliber and my role kind of gets smaller and smaller. I can still play the game … then all of the sudden my back goes bad on me and mentally I’m frustrated. … The role that I was paid that money to do kind of got taken away in a sense.”
Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-bulls-confidential/2011/08/when-should-the-bulls-go-all-in/
The lockout is a tough time for athletes who have spent most of their lives focused on basketball. The sport has been their calling for years, and it can be tough for anyone to find a new interest in his mid-20s.
Al Harrington is somewhat lucky, though, because he already has another sport to fall back on. As a child, Harrington boxed regularly, and he's kept it up as part of an offseason workout routine. With plenty of free time, Harrington has returned to the art of combat in a more serious way. Except he's now gone in the direction of mixed martial arts instead of the sweet science.
If the video above is any indication, Harrington is pretty good, at least if he only fights reporters who have had no MMA training. Plus, his form looks solid, or at least better than that of Carmelo Anthony.
So congrats to Al. On the other hand, his embrace of this new sport has unfortunately included a turn towards some horrific fashion choices. Please get a new shirt, Al. Your NBA friends may not welcome you back if you don't.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBasketballJones/~3/bf2ap-qoaGI/
Source: http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/08/30/horford-splitter-stand-out-on-day-1/
Like most of the Lakers, Pau Gasol had a pretty unimpressive playoffs. In 10 games against the Hornets and Mavs, he averaged 13.1 ppg on just 42 percent shooting from the field. Worse yet, he seemed to be playing with little fire and determination. For a player who was deemed one of the two or three best big men in the league during the 2010 playoffs, it was a notable fall from grace.
This summer, Gasol is part of the stacked Spain squad at the European Championships. Winning the tournament would help his reputation, even if EuroBasket isn't the biggest stage in America. Still, Gasol isn't putting too much pressure on himself to perform well as a way of atoning for his playoff failures. From Ben Bolch for the Los Angeles Times (via PBT):
In the playoffs last spring Gasol and the Lakers were run ragged by Nowitzki's�Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers power forward was also besieged by unsubstantiated rumors of a rift with his girlfriend, and was the subject of finger-pointing by fans disappointed with his play, and a jab to the chest by coach�Phil Jackson during the Western Conference semifinal sweep.
"I do not think there's anything to prove on my side," Gasol said via email when asked if he was eager to put the Lakers' postseason behind him. "Last season we didn't perform during the playoffs as we were supposed to. . . . You cannot win every year; there are a lot of very good teams in the league."
The typical American sports narrative is that a disgraced player should come back from disappointment with a fanatical devotion to improve his game and make himself more impressive in the eyes of the sporting public. Gasol, to his credit, is taking a more measured approach.
Just one year before his postseason troubles, Gasol helped dominate the paint on the way to back-to-back championships. He has by all standard metrics established himself as a top-shelf player. And while he doesn't always play to his best, his partnership with Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum still gives the Lakers the most impressive frontline in the NBA. Plus, Gasol is a player who looks best when he's comfortable and knows his role. Would it really be in his best interest to beat himself up about his failures? Not every player responds to that kind of pressure in a positive way.
Gasol is not a perfect player and the Lakers are in a transitional period. But he's still very obviously an asset to the team and one of the best international players in the league. Whether Spain wins this tournament or not, his legacy is sealed. Treating every event in his career as if it's a defining moment is a path to confusion and unnecessary anger.
Madison Square Garden has taken a hit in the stock market due to the continued NBA lockout, and could this mean good things for players looking to soften the NBA's hard-line stance?
In a must-read column from Tuesday, SI.com's Sam Amick detailed a slim hope that the NBA's players have regarding a potential rift between NBA owners. More specifically, NBA owners from larger markets that might not be as keen on locking out players as are the owners from smaller markets.
Here's Amick's take on the hope, gleaned from discussions with players and agents, on the Players Association's last hope in trying to come out on the even end of a "billionaires vs. millionaires" fight:
The hoped-for fracture might start with Jerry Buss or Donald Sterling in Los Angeles, or Jerry Reinsdorf in Chicago, or James Dolan in New York. In the eyes of so many players and the folks who represent them, someone from a large market will eventually raise his hand and ask out of this lockout game. This owner would explain how the old system worked just fine for his team and how it's no longer in his best interest to support this cause.
He would be followed by a few more of the fattest cats whose finances are just fine, and then there would be weeping from small- and mid-market owners who have dreamed of a system makeover. The players, who would have missed many months of paychecks by this hypothetical point, would rejoice in that seemingly plausible scenario.
It is definitely a plausible scenario, though we doubt it will take place. Owners like Reinsdorf, Buss and Dolan are set to lose quite a bit of potential money should the lockout result in canceled games, but they're also still taking in their fair share of the pie in terms of national TV revenue that will still find a way into teams' coffers even if ABC, TNT and ESPN don't televise a single game this season.
Also, these big-market owners knew they were heading into this lockout destined to lose, as the NBA tries to even out its revenue-sharing system and make it so smaller-market teams have an easier chance to compete with their big-market rivals. It's a plausible scenario, but a slim hope.
One crack in the armor? MarketWatch is reporting (via the NBAPA's Twitter account) that the Madison Square Garden corporation has taken a hit in the stock market, as investors worry about the impact of a sustained lockout.
[MSG Co. was] downgraded to neutral by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in part because of lost income caused by the work stoppage. "Despite our continued belief in MSG's robust long-term story...we think the shares will be unlikely to outperform over the near-term with $90 million of adjusted operating cash flow at risk from a full-season NBA lockout and a possible LA Forum acquisition on the horizon."
Not only does MSG own the New York Rangers, but it also runs concert events across the country, competing with outfits like Clear Channel and Jam Productions. Fresh off an expensive re-design of Madison Square Garden proper this year, the purchase of the 44-year old Forum in Los Angeles and subsequent re-design, done without the help of (at least) 41 home Knick games and local TV revenues, has investors worrying.
Perhaps James Dolan, in Amick's scenario, will be the first to raise his hand?
Cleveland Cavaliers Miami Heat Shaquille ONeal Kevin Garnett
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBasketballJones/~3/QcXdcsaWe7I/
The NBA announced its preseason schedule on Thursday, to be played should the lockout resolve itself by autumn. And laugh all you want at the idea of a lost month of basketball that nobody cares about, but there is value to NBA basketball in October.
On Oct. 9, the strongest and saddest of NBA junkies will likely tune into the NBA League Pass subscription's free preview that they've probably already paid for, in order to ignore both the baseball playoffs and the NFL's Sunday night lineup, and take in a preseason game between the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves. That night those sickies will also flip around to see what's going on with the Mark Jackson-"led" Warriors and the Mike Brown-"helmed" Lakers at the Save-Mart Center in Fresno, Calif. And, if San Antonio's FOX Sports provider deigns to send a crew out, they'll probably click over to see how the Hornets are faring against the Spurs in Texas that night.
This obscure scenario takes place every fall, and it's not a minute too soon for NBA fans that are already bored with a month-old NFL season, or ticked that their favorite baseball team didn't challenge for the pennant. The problem getting in the way of this yearly routine this time around is that the NBA is seven weeks into a lockout. No progress has been made on either side in an attempt to create a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players, and the entire 2011-12 season is in jeopardy as a result.
Along with a minor casualty, at least in the eyes of most. The NBA's preseason will be the first to go.
The NBA's warm-up stage, as is the case with baseball's spring training or the NFL's oft-mocked (but highly watched) preseason, is a bit of a joke. Teams will field eventual regular-season starters, but they're often hooked off the court a few minutes into the opening quarter of each half, and a litany of roster invites and rookies will do most of the heavy lifting before a crowd of very few.
On top of that, even with the inherent team-building exercises and attempts at building chemistry or learning a new coach's system, you never hear of teams turning a corner because of a preseason gone right. You've never heard an eventual champion point to Oct. 17, in Minot, N.D., as the point where everything started to click. Unless they're talking about some sort of cell phone app that told them which restaurants were open after 11:30 at night in Minot, N.D.
There is value to that month of anonymity, though.
As is the case with regular-season games in winter that hardly matter, or aren't highly regarded, the sheer financial impact behind these contests is significant. Not only will those roster invites earn more in a month than they might make in a half-season spent in the minors or overseas, but the addition to the resume is profound. They get to go on record as having been a member of an NBA team for a short spell, and this isn't huge because they'll get to keep their uniform and the team-issued sweats. The real count is when they're potentially called into service midseason on that or another team, and they remember what Flip Saunders likes to run coming off a made free throw. That stuff counts, to a coach, when it's time to throw the midseason injury replacement into action late in the third quarter.
And the local impact? Whether it's Minot or Manhattan, these games bring people out of their living rooms and into an arena. And along the way those people have to pay for gas, swipe a subway pass card, buy a pretzel, tip on a beer, pay for parking, get something "for the kids," and fork over cash for myriad other transactions. Even in preseason, this stuff counts. Even during the preseason, there is someone on the other side of that transaction planning out that week's bills and what they can spend on groceries knowing that they'll make a certain amount of cash during the Nets/76ers game that might not even be televised locally.
Of course, the NBA wants you to believe that there will be a preseason this year. And the NBA's players would like you to believe that they're optimistic that things will work out soon enough and that the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., will get to see the Raptors and Pistons on Oct. 12.
That's just talk, at this point. And that's all there has been, since July 1 when this lockout began.
There's just too much ground to cover, before we can consider rocking the Van Andel Arena. The owners have to figure out how they're going to slice up their share of the pie in terms of revenue sharing between large and small markets, even before they present to the players what they think a fair sharing of pie would include. The players have to come clean on the fact that they've gotten fat with pie time and again since 1999, and though poor business and basketball decisions have a part in that, that it is time to give in. And both sides haven't even gotten into the millions that are spent each month in team expenses, costs that aren't even factored into this particular pie.
It's mid-August. Kids are sizing themselves up for backpacks, football season is starting, and baseball fans are learning how to calculate the magic numbers needed to take the division. Nobody is thinking about the NBA's preseason, which is usually the case even in mid-October.
The NBA and its players should be, though. Even with games that don't count, there's still quite a lot to lose.
Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan Dallas Mavericks Cleveland Cavaliers
Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan Dallas Mavericks Cleveland Cavaliers
Source: http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/08/25/mutombo-calls-for-africa-aid/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBasketballJones/~3/_DhDDjC2fEU/
When Omri Casspi entered the NBA in 2009, he was hailed for representing Jewish athletic dominance. Many cities held heritage nights when the Sacramento Kings came to town, and his trip to New York was a bona fide media event. Jews like to see their own kind succeed, no matter the field. Take it from me, a guy who grew up with lamb's blood smeared on his door and a pan of kugel in the oven at all times.
Oddly enough, Casspi was and is still not the only Jew in the NBA. Point guard Jordan Farmar was raised in a Jewish household and even had a bar mitzvah. Yet, for whatever reason, racial or otherwise, he was not embraced with the same fervor as Casspi.
In Israel, though, he's some kind of hero. Above, watch a video of Farmar, complete with "Nice Jewish Boy" T-shirt, arriving in Israel to finalize his agreement to play with Maccabi Tel Aviv during the NBA lockout. There's a sizable crowd to greet him at the airport, and Farmar seems legitimately excited to be there.
The length of his stay is yet to be determined, but it's nice to see him getting some love. I'm not exactly sure why he never caught on in the Jewish community to the same degree as Casspi, but he's deserving of the same kind of identification. We diasporic Jews need to stick together.
(Original video via PBT)
Like most of the Lakers, Pau Gasol had a pretty unimpressive playoffs. In 10 games against the Hornets and Mavs, he averaged 13.1 ppg on just 42 percent shooting from the field. Worse yet, he seemed to be playing with little fire and determination. For a player who was deemed one of the two or three best big men in the league during the 2010 playoffs, it was a notable fall from grace.
This summer, Gasol is part of the stacked Spain squad at the European Championships. Winning the tournament would help his reputation, even if EuroBasket isn't the biggest stage in America. Still, Gasol isn't putting too much pressure on himself to perform well as a way of atoning for his playoff failures. From Ben Bolch for the Los Angeles Times (via PBT):
In the playoffs last spring Gasol and the Lakers were run ragged by Nowitzki's�Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers power forward was also besieged by unsubstantiated rumors of a rift with his girlfriend, and was the subject of finger-pointing by fans disappointed with his play, and a jab to the chest by coach�Phil Jackson during the Western Conference semifinal sweep.
"I do not think there's anything to prove on my side," Gasol said via email when asked if he was eager to put the Lakers' postseason behind him. "Last season we didn't perform during the playoffs as we were supposed to. . . . You cannot win every year; there are a lot of very good teams in the league."
The typical American sports narrative is that a disgraced player should come back from disappointment with a fanatical devotion to improve his game and make himself more impressive in the eyes of the sporting public. Gasol, to his credit, is taking a more measured approach.
Just one year before his postseason troubles, Gasol helped dominate the paint on the way to back-to-back championships. He has by all standard metrics established himself as a top-shelf player. And while he doesn't always play to his best, his partnership with Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum still gives the Lakers the most impressive frontline in the NBA. Plus, Gasol is a player who looks best when he's comfortable and knows his role. Would it really be in his best interest to beat himself up about his failures? Not every player responds to that kind of pressure in a positive way.
Gasol is not a perfect player and the Lakers are in a transitional period. But he's still very obviously an asset to the team and one of the best international players in the league. Whether Spain wins this tournament or not, his legacy is sealed. Treating every event in his career as if it's a defining moment is a path to confusion and unnecessary anger.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBasketballJones/~3/QcXdcsaWe7I/
At this point, seemingly half the NBA is on Twitter. It's a wild world of training updates, questions as to which movies they should go see, and explanations of their Call of Duty prowess. Every so often, though, you also get a picture into the more interesting aspects of NBA life. This feature is your window into that world.
Ronnie Brewer: Not to be funny be i wonder what the first thing the West Memphis 3 r gonna do now they r out i would go to church and thank god #Blessing ? Then it would be the #hangover3 lol just saying they been in there a hella long time just saying
Chris Douglas-Roberts: Tattoos erry weekend until the lockout is over... #Session3 lockerz.com/s/131121607
Derrick Williams: This Costco pizza is on point
Blake Griffin: If To Catch A Predator w/ Chris Hansen was recorded in front of a live audience it would be considered a comedy and I'd wait in line for it
Jordan Crawford: Little Caesars jus had to go in the safe after I dropped the 20 ball!! It can't be that wild is it? Smh
You can also follow Eric Freeman on Twitter at @freemaneric.
Michael Jordan Dallas Mavericks Cleveland Cavaliers Miami Heat
Pro athletes are pampered. From the brightest of stars down to the most anonymous of seat-fillers, pro athletes are allowed to take in on a daily basis what most of us will only get to enjoy for 1 percent of our otherwise-fulfilling lives.
Of course, pro athletes are the 1 percent of 1 percent that are good enough to get to play pro sports for a living. That's sort of the trade-off. Actually, that's the entire trade-off. And if you feel differently, then don't patronize a sports website or television station that carries sporting events for a week. Or a day. Go ahead, slugger.
The real point, as it pertains to the NBA (mired in a lockout over escalating costs and who should do what with ever-rising revenues), is how much this luxury should tax the players, or owners. Who should be footing the bill for this sort of largesse? How much should the owners be obligated to sustain an environment that allows their short-pants artists to create? And how often should that 1 percent of 1 percent, working for team executives that could never dream of emulating such flights of fancy, be asked to pick up the bill? Or chuck in for that night's pregame spread?
While you ponder such things, here's former New York Knicks draft pick (and son of former NBA player and Knicks, Bucks and Wizards personnel boss Ernie Grunfeld) Dan Grunfeld, detailing an NBA life gone so, so smoothly:
When you're on the road in the NBA, you get per diem for food, well over $100 a day.� Sometime on board the plane, someone from the team came around and casually handed me an envelope with like $500 in it.� During my short time with the Knicks, my go-to move was to get to the city we were playing in, buy three or four Subway five-dollar foot longs, put them in my fridge, then pocket the rest of the per diem.� I was a little younger then, but looking back, I still think it was a pretty legit way to go.
When we landed, our luggage was immediately loaded onto the bus for us, so all I had to do was hop on board and ride to the hotel, where I was promptly given a key to my own room. I went upstairs and found exactly what you'd expect in a nice hotel room: cushy bed, flat screen TV, big bathroom. A few minutes after I got up there, my bag was delivered, so I unpacked a couple things, turned on the TV, got into my bed and went to sleep. Our trip to Philly was the same deal: private plane, food everywhere, fancy hotel. And the trip back to New York was on the same plane and -- as you might have guessed -- was also easy and breezy. That's the league for you, and obviously, it's not a bad way to travel, to say the least.� It's true that the NBA road gets lonely, especially with 41 games away from home not counting the preseason or playoffs, but you have to admit, if you're traveling, you might as well travel like that.
The point of Dan's very, very entertaining SB Nation post (which is a must-read, mind you) is to elucidate the differences between the "weary" NBA traveler, and the worrisome international pro basketball player. And how life on the road with a team under the FIBA banner, while well-heeled, is literally and figuratively miles away from life on the road as a member of an NBA squad.
These per diems, though? They involve tangible numbers you can account for. What's harder to account for is the sheer millions that NBA teams spend on getting their 12-15 players from game to game, accounts that don't show up on a team's player payroll.
It's a ton of money, and while this entire lockout is the fault of NBA owners failing to secure a better revenue-sharing system while miserably failing at taking advantage of the payroll-slashing perks afforded by previous collective bargaining agreements, owners would like an answer to the whole "who's payin' for gas?" question.
Can you blame them?
While you figure that one out, go read Dan's post.
The NBA announced its preseason schedule on Thursday, to be played should the lockout resolve itself by autumn. And laugh all you want at the idea of a lost month of basketball that nobody cares about, but there is value to NBA basketball in October.
On Oct. 9, the strongest and saddest of NBA junkies will likely tune into the NBA League Pass subscription's free preview that they've probably already paid for, in order to ignore both the baseball playoffs and the NFL's Sunday night lineup, and take in a preseason game between the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves. That night those sickies will also flip around to see what's going on with the Mark Jackson-"led" Warriors and the Mike Brown-"helmed" Lakers at the Save-Mart Center in Fresno, Calif. And, if San Antonio's FOX Sports provider deigns to send a crew out, they'll probably click over to see how the Hornets are faring against the Spurs in Texas that night.
This obscure scenario takes place every fall, and it's not a minute too soon for NBA fans that are already bored with a month-old NFL season, or ticked that their favorite baseball team didn't challenge for the pennant. The problem getting in the way of this yearly routine this time around is that the NBA is seven weeks into a lockout. No progress has been made on either side in an attempt to create a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players, and the entire 2011-12 season is in jeopardy as a result.
Along with a minor casualty, at least in the eyes of most. The NBA's preseason will be the first to go.
The NBA's warm-up stage, as is the case with baseball's spring training or the NFL's oft-mocked (but highly watched) preseason, is a bit of a joke. Teams will field eventual regular-season starters, but they're often hooked off the court a few minutes into the opening quarter of each half, and a litany of roster invites and rookies will do most of the heavy lifting before a crowd of very few.
On top of that, even with the inherent team-building exercises and attempts at building chemistry or learning a new coach's system, you never hear of teams turning a corner because of a preseason gone right. You've never heard an eventual champion point to Oct. 17, in Minot, N.D., as the point where everything started to click. Unless they're talking about some sort of cell phone app that told them which restaurants were open after 11:30 at night in Minot, N.D.
There is value to that month of anonymity, though.
As is the case with regular-season games in winter that hardly matter, or aren't highly regarded, the sheer financial impact behind these contests is significant. Not only will those roster invites earn more in a month than they might make in a half-season spent in the minors or overseas, but the addition to the resume is profound. They get to go on record as having been a member of an NBA team for a short spell, and this isn't huge because they'll get to keep their uniform and the team-issued sweats. The real count is when they're potentially called into service midseason on that or another team, and they remember what Flip Saunders likes to run coming off a made free throw. That stuff counts, to a coach, when it's time to throw the midseason injury replacement into action late in the third quarter.
And the local impact? Whether it's Minot or Manhattan, these games bring people out of their living rooms and into an arena. And along the way those people have to pay for gas, swipe a subway pass card, buy a pretzel, tip on a beer, pay for parking, get something "for the kids," and fork over cash for myriad other transactions. Even in preseason, this stuff counts. Even during the preseason, there is someone on the other side of that transaction planning out that week's bills and what they can spend on groceries knowing that they'll make a certain amount of cash during the Nets/76ers game that might not even be televised locally.
Of course, the NBA wants you to believe that there will be a preseason this year. And the NBA's players would like you to believe that they're optimistic that things will work out soon enough and that the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., will get to see the Raptors and Pistons on Oct. 12.
That's just talk, at this point. And that's all there has been, since July 1 when this lockout began.
There's just too much ground to cover, before we can consider rocking the Van Andel Arena. The owners have to figure out how they're going to slice up their share of the pie in terms of revenue sharing between large and small markets, even before they present to the players what they think a fair sharing of pie would include. The players have to come clean on the fact that they've gotten fat with pie time and again since 1999, and though poor business and basketball decisions have a part in that, that it is time to give in. And both sides haven't even gotten into the millions that are spent each month in team expenses, costs that aren't even factored into this particular pie.
It's mid-August. Kids are sizing themselves up for backpacks, football season is starting, and baseball fans are learning how to calculate the magic numbers needed to take the division. Nobody is thinking about the NBA's preseason, which is usually the case even in mid-October.
The NBA and its players should be, though. Even with games that don't count, there's still quite a lot to lose.
One of the nice aspects of the lockout is that basketball fans have been forced to focus on areas of the game they usually overlook. Summer pro-am leagues are an obvious example, but even tournaments as big as the European Championships usually get short shrift in the face of important NBA news like Mickael Pietrus' latest destination and Tim Donaghy's latest allegations about mascots betting on games.
Now, though, we can luxuriate in all the wonder that these tournaments have to offer. Check out the video above of this Nicolas Batum dunk from a recent game involving France and Great Britain. It's a nice play, certainly. The real attraction, though, is Ronny Turiaf's reaction in the angle near the end of the clip. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but "Ray Lewis stepping into a puddle while dancing" feels close.
It's the kind of ecstatic post-play reaction that Turiaf has become famous for during his NBA career. It's so great, in fact, that now I'm getting all sad about missing out on moments like this one next season. Even when you try to enjoy another part of the basketball world, you can't help but feel some loss over the lockout.
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It's going to be a couple weeks before Ron Artest can use those new business cards. 
Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/21918/nba-stars-come-out-for-elite-24
Most NBA fans know Shane Battier as one of the league's great men, the kind of person who could branch out into politics after his athletic career is over. He has a real sense of the world outside of himself.
But to what extent did that disposition develop because Battier was born with a French-sounding last name. France, as we all know, is a haven for the life of the mind. If that name were all a sham, would the Battier mistake come crumbling down?
The answer, of course, is yes. Prepare to have your world rocked with the real story of how Battier's last name came to pass. Here's what he had to say at a press conference for the apparel brand Peak in China (via SLAM and TBJ):
"My dad, Eddie Battle, born Eddie Battle, on his birth certificate, whoever wrote it down wrote B-A-T-T-scribble-scribble-scribble. So my dad grew up Eddie Battle his entire life, and then he joined the army when he was of age, the army recruiter actually had his own interpretation of what was on the birth certificate. They wrote down B-A-T-T-I-E-R.
"So the first day in the army, my dad says 'Private Battle reporting for duty.' The sergeant said, 'There's no Battle, there's a Battier�[ed. note: pronounced 'batty-er'].' So my dad says, 'That's not my name.' The sergeant says, 'Well Uncle Sam says it is.' So my dad kept it.
"So he was Eddie Battier�[still 'batty-er'], and he met his wife, my mom, in '75 and she said, 'It looks French. We'll call it French.' So from that point on they were Battier�[bat-ee-ay]. So I'm a first generation Battier."
It's a bizarre story, especially when you consider that Battier's father could have easily gone back to being Eddie Battle when he left the armed forces. On the other hand, ad campaigns and action movies have taught me that men don't become men until they fight for their country, so maybe that name is the true representation of the man Eddie became.
This news also makes you wonder if any other NBA stars were incorrectly named. Perhaps LeBron James was always supposed to be Lyndon Baines Johnson. Or maybe Dwyane Wade was meant to be "Dwayne." Would he be a more conventional star if that were the case?
Yes, almost uncertainly. For proof, just remember that Joe Smith is one of the most boring players in the NBA.
Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan Dallas Mavericks Cleveland Cavaliers
Kobe Bryant hasn't put pen to paper. Dwyane Wade is nowhere to be found. Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh are appearing on "Law and Order," and Kevin Love has taken up pro volleyball. There was a lot of bluster earlier this month and last as to whether or not NBA stars would take up residence overseas during the lockout, and with the NBA's stalemate failing to inch closer to a resolution, we're still not seeing many NBA players of note jump into action overseas.
By far, the biggest name (as reported by Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski) to make the jump is former Golden State Warriors scoring forward Reggie Williams, and his name was met with a resounding "who?" when I ranked him 30th amongst NBA small forwards this time last year. Williams will be playing in the Spanish League this year, with a pretty hefty buyout clause (he'd have to go halfsies with an NBA team on a million dollar buyout) likely making it so he'll stay overseas even if the NBA plays a full season this year.
Woj is also reporting that 2010 Final Four Most Outstanding Player, Duke product, and Detroit Pistons second-round pick Kyle Singler will also play in the Spanish League. Singler isn't the highest choice from last June's draft to make the leap, as former USC forward and Philadelphia 76ers' 16th overall selection Nikola Vucevic will be going back home to play for a team in his native Montenegro during the lockout.
Early Tuesday morning, ESPN.com's Marc Stein relayed that Cavaliers forward Omri Casspi could jet off to work with Tony Parker's team in France. It should be noted that Parker doesn't have any current designs on playing for that team, but should this lockout keep rolling along (and especially if the athletic Casspi hops on board), Parker could suit up for his squad.
Rasual Butler? He's heading to Spain, with no apparent opt-out clause according to CSN Chicago. Hawks second-rounder Keith Benson? Spain. Pooh Jeter? According to Wendell Maxey, potentially Spain.
And that about rounds it up. Hardly the tidal wave agents would have us expect, though I do submit that we're just entering late August and that late September could see another wave of guys you've never seen play signing with international squads.
UPDATE: Eighty seconds more surfing revealed this post written by Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside that details several of the players I mentioned above, and a few stray ends beyond that. Give it a read.
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The NBA announced its preseason schedule on Thursday, to be played should the lockout resolve itself by autumn. And laugh all you want at the idea of a lost month of basketball that nobody cares about, but there is value to NBA basketball in October.
On Oct. 9, the strongest and saddest of NBA junkies will likely tune into the NBA League Pass subscription's free preview that they've probably already paid for, in order to ignore both the baseball playoffs and the NFL's Sunday night lineup, and take in a preseason game between the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves. That night those sickies will also flip around to see what's going on with the Mark Jackson-"led" Warriors and the Mike Brown-"helmed" Lakers at the Save-Mart Center in Fresno, Calif. And, if San Antonio's FOX Sports provider deigns to send a crew out, they'll probably click over to see how the Hornets are faring against the Spurs in Texas that night.
This obscure scenario takes place every fall, and it's not a minute too soon for NBA fans that are already bored with a month-old NFL season, or ticked that their favorite baseball team didn't challenge for the pennant. The problem getting in the way of this yearly routine this time around is that the NBA is seven weeks into a lockout. No progress has been made on either side in an attempt to create a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players, and the entire 2011-12 season is in jeopardy as a result.
Along with a minor casualty, at least in the eyes of most. The NBA's preseason will be the first to go.
The NBA's warm-up stage, as is the case with baseball's spring training or the NFL's oft-mocked (but highly watched) preseason, is a bit of a joke. Teams will field eventual regular-season starters, but they're often hooked off the court a few minutes into the opening quarter of each half, and a litany of roster invites and rookies will do most of the heavy lifting before a crowd of very few.
On top of that, even with the inherent team-building exercises and attempts at building chemistry or learning a new coach's system, you never hear of teams turning a corner because of a preseason gone right. You've never heard an eventual champion point to Oct. 17, in Minot, N.D., as the point where everything started to click. Unless they're talking about some sort of cell phone app that told them which restaurants were open after 11:30 at night in Minot, N.D.
There is value to that month of anonymity, though.
As is the case with regular-season games in winter that hardly matter, or aren't highly regarded, the sheer financial impact behind these contests is significant. Not only will those roster invites earn more in a month than they might make in a half-season spent in the minors or overseas, but the addition to the resume is profound. They get to go on record as having been a member of an NBA team for a short spell, and this isn't huge because they'll get to keep their uniform and the team-issued sweats. The real count is when they're potentially called into service midseason on that or another team, and they remember what Flip Saunders likes to run coming off a made free throw. That stuff counts, to a coach, when it's time to throw the midseason injury replacement into action late in the third quarter.
And the local impact? Whether it's Minot or Manhattan, these games bring people out of their living rooms and into an arena. And along the way those people have to pay for gas, swipe a subway pass card, buy a pretzel, tip on a beer, pay for parking, get something "for the kids," and fork over cash for myriad other transactions. Even in preseason, this stuff counts. Even during the preseason, there is someone on the other side of that transaction planning out that week's bills and what they can spend on groceries knowing that they'll make a certain amount of cash during the Nets/76ers game that might not even be televised locally.
Of course, the NBA wants you to believe that there will be a preseason this year. And the NBA's players would like you to believe that they're optimistic that things will work out soon enough and that the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., will get to see the Raptors and Pistons on Oct. 12.
That's just talk, at this point. And that's all there has been, since July 1 when this lockout began.
There's just too much ground to cover, before we can consider rocking the Van Andel Arena. The owners have to figure out how they're going to slice up their share of the pie in terms of revenue sharing between large and small markets, even before they present to the players what they think a fair sharing of pie would include. The players have to come clean on the fact that they've gotten fat with pie time and again since 1999, and though poor business and basketball decisions have a part in that, that it is time to give in. And both sides haven't even gotten into the millions that are spent each month in team expenses, costs that aren't even factored into this particular pie.
It's mid-August. Kids are sizing themselves up for backpacks, football season is starting, and baseball fans are learning how to calculate the magic numbers needed to take the division. Nobody is thinking about the NBA's preseason, which is usually the case even in mid-October.
The NBA and its players should be, though. Even with games that don't count, there's still quite a lot to lose.
By the '90s, All-Star Weekend was a mainstay of the NBA. Fans had eaten up the dunk contest, 3-point contest, and all manner of hijinks during the '80s, and things were only going to improve.
This video from 1990s All-Star Saturday in Miami suggests that they were still working out some of the kinks. Not only did they curiously introduce every All-Star on live TV when the game itself took place the next day, but they also made them walk down a giant-shoe staircase to an "It Takes Two" remix that contains all the cliches of late-'80s/early-'90s rap.
On the other hand, this video is worth watching for several reasons. Like, say, the fashions of the era, including Dominique Wilkins' hilarious high-fastening pants and Dennis Rodman in normal clothes. Or, I don't know, hard-to-find highlights of Tom Chambers and Fat Lever.
The true piece de resistance, though, is what has to be the only available highlight of Chris Mullin dunking on an opponent. Clips like that one just don't come along very often. It's the basketball version of the original director's cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons."
Source: http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/johnson/2011/05/09/champs-lose-their-fight/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBasketballJones/~3/-kcjRcXlsvo/
Cleveland Cavaliers Miami Heat Shaquille ONeal Kevin Garnett
The NBA announced its preseason schedule on Thursday, to be played should the lockout resolve itself by autumn. And laugh all you want at the idea of a lost month of basketball that nobody cares about, but there is value to NBA basketball in October.
On Oct. 9, the strongest and saddest of NBA junkies will likely tune into the NBA League Pass subscription's free preview that they've probably already paid for, in order to ignore both the baseball playoffs and the NFL's Sunday night lineup, and take in a preseason game between the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves. That night those sickies will also flip around to see what's going on with the Mark Jackson-"led" Warriors and the Mike Brown-"helmed" Lakers at the Save-Mart Center in Fresno, Calif. And, if San Antonio's FOX Sports provider deigns to send a crew out, they'll probably click over to see how the Hornets are faring against the Spurs in Texas that night.
This obscure scenario takes place every fall, and it's not a minute too soon for NBA fans that are already bored with a month-old NFL season, or ticked that their favorite baseball team didn't challenge for the pennant. The problem getting in the way of this yearly routine this time around is that the NBA is seven weeks into a lockout. No progress has been made on either side in an attempt to create a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players, and the entire 2011-12 season is in jeopardy as a result.
Along with a minor casualty, at least in the eyes of most. The NBA's preseason will be the first to go.
The NBA's warm-up stage, as is the case with baseball's spring training or the NFL's oft-mocked (but highly watched) preseason, is a bit of a joke. Teams will field eventual regular-season starters, but they're often hooked off the court a few minutes into the opening quarter of each half, and a litany of roster invites and rookies will do most of the heavy lifting before a crowd of very few.
On top of that, even with the inherent team-building exercises and attempts at building chemistry or learning a new coach's system, you never hear of teams turning a corner because of a preseason gone right. You've never heard an eventual champion point to Oct. 17, in Minot, N.D., as the point where everything started to click. Unless they're talking about some sort of cell phone app that told them which restaurants were open after 11:30 at night in Minot, N.D.
There is value to that month of anonymity, though.
As is the case with regular-season games in winter that hardly matter, or aren't highly regarded, the sheer financial impact behind these contests is significant. Not only will those roster invites earn more in a month than they might make in a half-season spent in the minors or overseas, but the addition to the resume is profound. They get to go on record as having been a member of an NBA team for a short spell, and this isn't huge because they'll get to keep their uniform and the team-issued sweats. The real count is when they're potentially called into service midseason on that or another team, and they remember what Flip Saunders likes to run coming off a made free throw. That stuff counts, to a coach, when it's time to throw the midseason injury replacement into action late in the third quarter.
And the local impact? Whether it's Minot or Manhattan, these games bring people out of their living rooms and into an arena. And along the way those people have to pay for gas, swipe a subway pass card, buy a pretzel, tip on a beer, pay for parking, get something "for the kids," and fork over cash for myriad other transactions. Even in preseason, this stuff counts. Even during the preseason, there is someone on the other side of that transaction planning out that week's bills and what they can spend on groceries knowing that they'll make a certain amount of cash during the Nets/76ers game that might not even be televised locally.
Of course, the NBA wants you to believe that there will be a preseason this year. And the NBA's players would like you to believe that they're optimistic that things will work out soon enough and that the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., will get to see the Raptors and Pistons on Oct. 12.
That's just talk, at this point. And that's all there has been, since July 1 when this lockout began.
There's just too much ground to cover, before we can consider rocking the Van Andel Arena. The owners have to figure out how they're going to slice up their share of the pie in terms of revenue sharing between large and small markets, even before they present to the players what they think a fair sharing of pie would include. The players have to come clean on the fact that they've gotten fat with pie time and again since 1999, and though poor business and basketball decisions have a part in that, that it is time to give in. And both sides haven't even gotten into the millions that are spent each month in team expenses, costs that aren't even factored into this particular pie.
It's mid-August. Kids are sizing themselves up for backpacks, football season is starting, and baseball fans are learning how to calculate the magic numbers needed to take the division. Nobody is thinking about the NBA's preseason, which is usually the case even in mid-October.
The NBA and its players should be, though. Even with games that don't count, there's still quite a lot to lose.
