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Odds & Ends: Bobcats, Nash, Beal, Lakers

November 17th, 2012 at 10:27pm CST by Michael Pina

Here's a look around the NBA this Saturday evening. 

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Nets Notes: Howard, Stackhouse, Celtics

November 17th, 2012 at 11:15am CST by Luke Adams

While the Knicks have got much of the Atlantic Division press for being the NBA's last undefeated team, their cross-town rivals are off to an impressive start of their own. The Nets will look to extend their early-season winning streak to five games tomorrow in Sacramento, but in the meantime, let's round up a few items out of Brooklyn….

  • It's no secret that Brooklyn was Dwight Howard's preferred destination last year, and that the Nets attempted multiple times to acquire him from the Magic. But Howard tells Fred Kerber of the New York Post that he was nearly positive he'd be headed to Brooklyn at some point, and continued to think so "until I got traded to the Lakers." According to Kerber, there were at least two occasions where the Nets thought they had a deal for Howard done.
  • When Jerry Stackhouse signed with the Nets this summer, he expected to assume a sort of player-coach role on the bench, but he's seeing more playing time than expected in Brooklyn, as Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News writes. Within Bondy's piece, Stackhouse says he might take it as a sign it's time for retirement when he can no longer dunk.
  • Although the Nets defeated the Celtics on Thursday night, Brooklyn views the C's culture as something worth emulating, writes Beckley Mason of the New York Times.
  • Earlier today, I looked back at a busy Nets offseason that saw the team take on more than $300MM in salary commitments
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Western Notes: Lakers, Howard, Bell

November 15th, 2012 at 7:45pm CST by Ryan Raroque

During an interview at the Lakers practice facility today, Mike D'Antoni acknowledged that his job will be to compete for a championship this season and added, "I told the team if we're not averaging 110-115 points a game, we need to talk." Zach Harper of CBS Sports relayed a plethora of other notable quotes as the new Lakers coach touched upon the offensive freedom he plans to give his players, the promise he sees in the second unit, and the notion that maximizing the amount of possessions per game will help offset one bad shot or bad call affecting the final outcome. Here's more of what we've heard tonight out of the Western Conference: 

  • Dwight Howard told reporters that he is playing at about "75-80%" and still needs to get his explosiveness back to where he can sustain it over longer stretches of the game (Arash Markazi of ESPN LA tweets). 
  • Marc Stein of ESPN mentions that Raja Bell would naturally be a target for the Lakers to pursue at this point, but him still being under contract with the Jazz, Los Angeles' $100MM payroll and a full roster remain as the most significant obstacles in their way (Twitter link). 
  • The Suns approach to rebuilding includes stockpiling assets and being prepared for circumstances in which a good player may become available via trade, similar to how Houston was able to acquire James Harden from Oklahoma City, writes Sean Deveney of the Sporting News. 
  • Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group (Sulia link) reports that Warriors center Andrew Bogut has received multiple injections of Regenokine in his left ankle to help with his overall recovery process. 
  • Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside explains why a trip to the D-League for Scott Machado will be a golden opportunity for him to garner attention as a strong talent, something that would have been difficult without any significant playing time on the Rockets. 
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Kupchak Addresses Lakers’ Coaching Choice

November 13th, 2012 at 6:16pm CST by Chuck Myron

Amidst Lakers.com scribe Mike Trudell's transcript of GM Mitch Kupchak's comments about the Lakers' decision to hire Mike D'Antoni as coach instead of Phil Jackson, Lakers spokesman John Black revealed that if Jackson had made it clear he wanted the job on Saturday, "the process may have gone differently." Kupchak admitted it was difficult to turn Jackson down, since he was clearly the fans' choice. The GM had plenty more to say, as we recap here.

  • When Jackson told Kupchak and Lakers executive vice president Jim Buss during their meeting Saturday that he'd get back to them on Monday about whether he wanted the job, Kupchak said he told Jackson he'd have to continue his search and interview other candidates. "He nodded that he understood," Kupchak said. "Maybe herein lies a little bit of the misunderstanding. As it was reported, we never offered a job, and he never indicated he would coach the team."
  • Kupchak said the decision to hire D'Antoni "revolved almost completely around the personnel that we have on the team and the style of play we saw going forward for the team," and he and fellow Lakers executives had concerns about the ability of some of their players to learn the triangle in a timely fashion.
  • Explaining his decision to wake up Jackson in the middle of the night with the news they were hiring D'Antoni, Kupchak said he felt it would have been the "worst thing to do" to wait until Monday to call. 
  • In Saturday's meeting, Kupchak, Buss and Jackson discussed the level of personnel input Jackson would have as coach, as well as "the rigors of travel in the NBA," according to Kupchak, who adds there was no talk of Jackson missing games and no conversation about salary.
  • Kupchak said he was already familiar with D'Antoni before they shared lengthy conversations this weekend, and is convinced about D'Antoni's plan for the team. "We didn't feel with Mike Brown and the Princeton offense that we were getting the most out of the players we brought in this summer," Kupchak said. "We looked for a coach that could get the most out of the players we brought in this summer, and on top of that the existing players."
  • Dwight Howard publicly expressed his backing for Jackson this weekend, but Kupchak said Howard's impending free agency played a "significant" role in the coaching hire. "We look at Dwight as a cornerstone for this franchise going forward," Kupchak said. "Right now, it's Kobe Bryant, and right there are Steve Nash and Pau Gasol, but the cornerstone for this franchise based on talent and age is Dwight Howard going forward. Certainly, a big part of getting the most out of Dwight was important in the search."
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Western Notes: Dwight, Kobe, Kings, Crowder

November 10th, 2012 at 4:10pm CST by Chuck Myron

Dwight Howard told Sam Amick of USA Today last night that he thinks Phil Jackson, rumored to be close to taking over as Lakers coach, will be "great for me," and said he's anxious for the team to resolve the upheaval surrounding the head coaching position. "Yeah, because a lot of stuff that happened last year — I really had nothing to do with it, but it came out like it was me," he said. "So now when it comes out or if somebody says something about me, I'm going to stand up say, 'Hey, this is not going to happen again.' I'm just going to play. I don't want to get caught up in it." There's plenty more this afternoon on the Lakers and their Western Conference rivals, as we detail here. 

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Odds & Ends: Muhammad, Brown, Ferry, Jackson

November 9th, 2012 at 11:34pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NCAA declared UCLA shooting guard Shabazz Muhammad ineligible for an unspecified number of games, reports Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com. The 6'6" Muhammad is rated the No. 1 draft prospect for 2013 by DraftExpress.com and others, but Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com doesn't think the ruling will affect his draft status, believing he'll be a top three pick regardless of whether he plays this season (Twitter link). Tom Ziller of Sactown Royalty has a different reaction, saying via Twitter that the NBA's age limit, which kept him from entering the 2012 draft out of high school, is hurting Muhammad's career. While the NBA seems to be in Muhammad's future regardless, there's plenty more on people who are in the NBA right now, a group that no longer includes former Lakers coach Mike Brown.

  • Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel wonders whether Hawks GM Danny Ferry could reunite with Brown, who served as Cavs coach when Ferry was Cleveland's GM (Twitter link).
  • A return of Phil Jackson to the Lakers sideline could be a boon for Pau Gasol, but it wouldn't mean he couldn't be traded if the team wants to improve its footspeed, according to Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register (Sulia link).
  • Jazz forward Paul Millsap can't envision former coach Jerry Sloan with the Lakers, as Randy Hollis of the Deseret News observes.
  • Dwight Howard, who wants the Lakers to hire Jackson, once asked the Magic to pursue the Zen Master, tweets Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld. 
  • A pair of Western Conference teams are keeping tabs on Australian big man Aron Baynes, agent Daniel Moldovan told David Pick of Sportando.
  • Ric Bucher of CSNBayArea.com breaks down the reasons behind each of the deadline extensions for players coming off rookie-scale contracts, concluding that the fear of bloated offer sheets motivated several GMs into the deals.
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Mitch Kupchak On Mike Brown’s Firing

November 9th, 2012 at 6:21pm CST by Chuck Myron

Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak spoke to reporters about the team's decision to fire coach Mike Brown today, saying the team didn't want to wait for the team to break out of its funk only to find out that it wasn't going to happen. He shared lots more insight, as Yannis Koutroupis of HoopsWorld transcribes. We'll round up the highlights here.

On the timing of the decision:

“It wasn’t made out of panic. We were aware of this team’s progress through training camp and the beginning of the season. Only yesterday did we come to the decision to make a change. Obviously, everyone in this room knows we went 0-8 in the preseason, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but we are 1-4 now. It didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s something that’s out there that we talked about internally, continuing to support Mike. But after our loss to Utah we came to the decision this morning to make a change.”

On why the move wasn't made after last season:

“I would say it was an incomplete evaluation. What he went through last season wasn’t really fair. Making a trade that fell apart, one of the players has moved on – Lamar Odom – and the other player was scarred for a complete season. Then we made another trade as we approached the trade deadline to get a younger ball-handling point guard. And we did no worse than we did the year before. It’s tough to grade him, plus on top of that it was a (lockout)-shortened season. So on top of that it’s tough to give a coach a grade. Maybe you call it a free pass for a year and let’s see how we do this year.”

On whether Dwight Howard's free agency next summer had to do with the firing:

"(It was) not something that was discussed between the three decision makers. Obviously we know he’s a free agent this summer and you want to make the experience for him as good as possible, but we have a lot of other people we’re trying to please as well, we have a lot of fans and players, it’s not just about one person.”

On selecting a replacement:

"The sooner the better. We don’t have a timetable. … The reality is you can’t call around and gauge coaches' interest in this job; in the fraternity that exists, a coach wouldn’t say he was interested as long as someone has the job so we haven’t even begun the search, but we do have a list that we’ve put together and we will go through that list in an orderly fashion."

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Paul, Howard Not Planning To Play Together

November 1st, 2012 at 6:55pm CST by Zachary Links

Just over a year ago, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard hoped to formulate a plan to team up and form one of the NBA’s most formidable cores.  While the two are both playing in the same city and in the final year of their respective contracts, both say that they won’t try to pair up as free agents this summer, writes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports.

Starting in 2009, the two began talking regularly and trying to figure out a way to play together. Howard tried to convince Paul to come to the Magic while the guard tried to lure Howard to the Hornets.  When they couldn’t come to an agreement, they considered looking for a common destination.  Sources close to both players said that destination was Dallas, knowing that owner Mark Cuban could clear cap space for them.  The Mavericks tried to trade for both players, but didn’t have enough assets to pull it off.

Paul was willing to opt out of his deal last year with the Clippers in order to join the Mavs, provided that Howard would also commit.  When that didn’t happen, Paul chose to stay put in Los Angeles, not unlike fellow star guard Deron Williams in Brooklyn.  Whether Paul makes a long-term commitment to his club like Williams remains to be seen, but he doesn’t envision going to a cap-rich club like the Mavs or Hawks with Howard this summer:

“He’s on the other side.  I don’t worry about that.“

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Lakers Notes: Howard, Kobe, Blake

October 27th, 2012 at 8:47pm CST by Sean Highkin

A roundup of the latest news around the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night:

  • Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times reports that Dwight Howard has been working hard this summer to improve his free-throw shooting.
  • Bresnahan also reports that Kobe Bryant may miss the Lakers' Oct. 30 season opener against Dallas with lingering foot pain.
  • Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News reports that Mike Brown is sticking with Steve Blake as his backup point guard, citing Blake's familiarity with the offense as his reason.
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Lakers Notes: Kobe, Hill, Howard

October 25th, 2012 at 9:57pm CST by Ryan Raroque
Lakers star Kobe Bryant didn't make the trip to San Diego tonight for their pre-season finale against the Kings because of a sprained right foot, and Ramona Shelbourne of ESPN Los Angeles points out that the 34-year-old guard might be out for the season opener as well. Here are a few more team-related links from tonight: 
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