With the Kings, Suns and the 17-2 Warriors in action tonight, let’s take a look at some of the news and notes coming out of the Pacific division:
- In an era when frequent player movement allows new NBA powers to seemingly spring up overnight, Warriors GM Bob Myers credits roster continuity with his team’s white-hot start, and it was ultimately why a Klay Thompson-for-Kevin Love swap never materialized, writes Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders. “We have a cohesive roster where we haven’t had a lot of change, and it’s hard in this day and age to keep your roster together for a lot of different reasons — free agency, trades, financial reason,” said Myers. “To keep a team together was important to us, and that has helped us early in the season while other teams are trying to work in new personnel.”
- Many assign significant credit to Steve Kerr for the Warriors‘ early success, and it’s a group that presumably includes co-owner Joe Lacob, who took some shots at departed coach Mark Jackson last week. While star guard Stephen Curry called Lacob’s comments a “distraction” today, he also seemed content that Lacob apologized Sunday, writes Diamong Leung of the Bay Area News Group. “For him to apologize is a big gesture,” Curry said. “My whole thing is to not discredit anything Coach Jackson did because he was such a great coach for us and elevated a lot of our individual games, and I’m proud of that and I appreciate that.”
- Rather than fretting when the Kings drafted the similarly positioned Nik Stauskas in the lottery this past June, second-year shooting guard Ben McLemore worked in the offseason to elevate his game and the results have been evident in the early going this season, writes Aaron Fischman of Cowbell Kingdom. Sacramento selected McLemore No. 7 out of Kansas in the 2013 draft.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.