Inside Hoops – Page 1235 – NBA Blog

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw has no regrets about not landing Lakers job

“Regardless of how it ended, I don’t have any regrets,” Shaw said. “Those were some of the best times that I experienced. I will always cherish them.”

Asked if there were any hard feelings lingering now, two years after being passed over for the head coaching job with the Lakers after Jackson’s retirement in 2011, Shaw said: “No, no. You know, it’s the nature of the business. I found that out pretty quickly. I preach to our players to get on to the next play; let that last play go, and I try to do the same thing, too. Every decision is not my decision. It’s not going to work out the way I want it to work out. So I’ve just got to move on.”

Shaw not only moved on, he also flourished with the Pacers. Indiana coach Frank Vogel was big on giving his assistants a significant voice. Shaw ran with that responsibility. The Pacers’ success during his two years there vaulted him into a select group of “next in line” for a head coaching job.

The Nuggets landed him after firing George Karl following the team’s first-round playoff ouster.

Reported by Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post

Derrick Rose enjoys successful return for Bulls in preseason

Now do you believe him? Now that you’ve seen Derrick Rose challenge 7-2 Roy Hibbert at the rim, get knocked down and bounce up to shoot his free throws in Saturday’s 82-76 Bulls win over the Indiana Pacers.

Now that you’ve seen him crossover George Hill, leaving Hill reaching and the entire Pacers’ defense coming at Rose and Rose pounded at the rim. Now that you’ve seen him go full court and dunk, though two handed? Nothing fancy yet, Rose said. And now that you’ve seen him run the wing with Kirk Hinrich and finish, double pump on a drive and put in the layup and a finger roll, score 13 points in just over 20 minutes and complain to Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau he didn’t want to leave the game.

Now will you believe Derrick Rose when he says he’s back? And maybe even, as incredulous as it may seem, as good or better than he was some 18 months ago before he suffered the ugliest of basketball injuries, a torn anterior cruciate ligament?

“He got mad at me,” Thibodeau said about removing Rose from the game for good with 7:07 remaining in the third quarter and the Bulls ahead 50-49. “That’s when I knew we were good. Now I know things are normal.

“Like we’ve been seeing in practice,” said Thibodeau. “Hit the floor, aggressive. That’s the way he played before the injury and he’s back playing like that. For him, that’s his game, the speed, the quickness, but the power to go along with it. That’s what makes him so special and unique. There’s no one like him.”

Reported by Sam Smith of the Bulls.com Blog

Shareef Abdur-Rahim is a busy man

The lone front-office holdover from last season is a busy man.

Shareef Abdur-Rahim was an assistant general manager under Geoff Petrie and was retained by new general manager Pete D’Alessandro as director of player personnel.

Abdur-Rahim is also the general manager for the Kings’ D-League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns. Abdur-Rahim’s primary focus is on the Kings during training camp, but he is always monitoring players that might fit in with Reno.

“With Reno, we’re always in the process of keeping our eyes open in regard to guys who might fit what we’re doing here (with the Kings),” Abdur-Rahim said. “It’s a different process because we have to let what happens in the NBA training camps materialize first before you can really identify all your guys.”

Now that the Kings run the Bighorns, there is more emphasis on finding young players the Kings can develop in the D-League into contributors in Sacramento in the future.

Reported by Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee

Trail Blazers rookie CJ McCollum suffers broken foot

Portland Trail Blazers rookie CJ McCollum broke his foot during practice Saturday and is out indefinitely

Terry Stotts initially told the media following practice Saturday that McCollum had sprained his foot and left practice early.

However, the Trail Blazers public relations department later announced via twitter around 4:30 this afternoon that McCollum sustained a fracture of the 5th metatarsal bone. The Trail Blazers announce that a date has not been announced for surgery.

Reported by Erik Gundersen of the Columbian

Sixers sideline Lavoy Allen

The 76ers will play their preseason opener minus Lavoy Allen.

The reserve post player will be held out of Sunday’s exhibition game against Bilbao Basket at the Bizkaia Arena due to a lingering knee injury. He’s expected to play Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Manchester, England.

Reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer

Sixers sign Gani Lawal, waive Solomon Alabi

The Philadelphia 76ers today announced they have signed free agent forward Gani Lawal (GONN-ee luh-WALL). The Sixers preseason roster stands at 20 players.

Prior to signing with the Sixers, Lawal (6-9, 234) was a member of VEF Riga of the Latvian League and last season, he averaged 14 points, eight rebounds and two blocks for Virtus Roma of the Italian League.

Lawal was originally an early entry candidate for the 2010 NBA Draft following his junior season at Georgia Tech and was selected with the 46th overall pick by Phoenix. He was on the Suns roster during the 2010-11 season and was also assigned to the NBA Development League.

A McDonald’s High School All-American, Lawal was twice named All-ACC Third Team while with the Yellow Jackets. The 24-year-old is also a member of Nigeria’s senior national team and competed in the 2013 FIBA Africa Championship.

In a related move, the Sixers have waived center Solomon Alabi.

LeBron James says Bahamas trip great for Miami Heat team bonding

The Heat has an endorsement deal with the Bahamas, and the team did its part to attract attention to these beautiful islands and its wonderful people, but from the perspective of players and coaches, the trip was valuable time spent building team chemistry.

When the players weren’t sweating on makeshift courts in an enormous ballroom, they were lounging together by the pool or palling around together in the resort’s casino. Unlike the trip to China last year, families and friends of players and coaches weren’t invited to the Bahamas.

“To come down here, just us, it gives us a great time to bond and have some camaraderie both on and off the floor,” James said. “We worked our tails off for five practices and to be able to have down times in the afternoons to just chill around the pool, we had a lot of laughs.”

Dwyane Wade called it the best training camp of his 11-year career despite most of the practice time being dedicated to defensive fundamentals. The Heat’s defense performed below its normal standards to begin the 2012-13 season and time was spent in the Bahamas to prevent a recurrence of the problem.

Reported by Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald

Derrick Rose finally set to return for Bulls

In the pantheon of greatly anticipated exhibition games, oxymoron that it is, Saturday’s in the Indianapolis basketball temple ranks among the most significant, a great welcome back for one of the NBA’s basketball gods.

Or at least most everyone still hopes.

“I’m just playing the same way I normally do,” Derrick Rose promised after Bulls practice Friday, displaying the sort of self assurance we were accustomed to watching in him when he’d attempt a game winning shot. “There’s no point holding back. I think we go as I go, and me being aggressive gets people open. And that’s how I’m going to play.”

But this bit of sangfroid at this time perhaps defines Rose best as the basketball world wonders just what they’ll see in Rose after the longest injury absence ever for a former league Most Valuable Player.

Rose has not played against NBA competition in a game, even an exhibition, since his catastrophic knee injury in the opening playoff game to conclude the 2011-12 season. He missed all of last season amidst doubt among some in the community of his motives and readiness. But he remained stoic and committed. And now he says he’s ready.

Reported by Sam Smith of the Bulls.com Blog

Timberwolves trying to improve defensive communication

Timberwolves trying to improve their defensive communication

The Timberwolves broke training camp Friday afternoon with coach Rick Adelman grateful that his team survived four demanding workouts without a significant injury but concerned about his best players’ defensive focus.

“We’ve known from the very beginning that we have a lot of offensive players, and their concentration is at that end,” Adelman said. “Their concentration has to be at both ends. You can drill on them everything in the world, and when they’re drilling, they’re fine. As soon as they get on the court, their concentration starts slipping. I’d say most of it is mental, and it’s something as soon as we start playing other teams, we’re going to find out real quick.”

Adelman and his coaches spent four days instructing their players on such complexities as proper positioning and rotations and preaching a basic such as urging them to communicate better on the court.

“You have to talk on the court,” Adelman said. “Every coach you talk to, their guys don’t talk enough. They get in the locker room and they talk all the time, but on the court, they don’t. That’s just the way it is. The good defensive teams talk. That’s one of the reasons [Kevin] Garnett has been so effective here and in Boston. He’s very vocal and helps his teammates out. We’ve got to get our guys to do that.”

Reported by Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Suns guard Eric Bledsoe aims to solidify himself as an NBA starter

LeBron James was the first. Then ex-teammate Jamal Crawford.

Both players went on record over the offseason sharing their opinion that the Suns landed themselves a future NBA star in 6-foot-1, 195-pound point guard Eric Bledsoe.

The Suns certainly hope so.

They hope they’ve acquired a player, who much like backcourt teammate Goran Dragic, will blossom once out of the shadow of a perennial all-star.

As a backup to Chris Paul last season, Bledsoe averaged a career-high 8.5 points to go along with 3.1 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.43 steals in 20.4 minutes.

When given the chance to start when Paul got hurt, Bledsoe, in 12 games, responded with 14.2 points, 5.3 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 2.5 steals in 34.2 minutes.

“I was looking forward to this moment, and it came and I’m ready for it,” Bledsoe said of being a first-time starter as he enters year four of his pro career. “I’ve been preparing for it this summer—not only this summer, since I’ve been playing basketball since college. I’ve been preparing (that) one day I would get a chance to be a starter in this league.”

Reported by Craig Grialou of Arizona Sports