The Charlotte Observer (Rick Bonnell) reports: Friday morning I asked Charlotte Bobcats center Emeka Okafor why so many of his shots were blocked last season. The question mystified him. “You think I get my shot blocked a lot?” he replied. Why, yes, I told him, about once a game. Then I passed along a statistic published on espn.com: That 12 percent of Okafor’s shots were rejected last season, the highest such percentage in the NBA. It never occurred to him how susceptible he was to shot blockers, and apparently no one from the previous coaching staff raised the issue with him last season. “It’s a fluke,” Okafor said with a shrug. “That’s all I can say about it.”
Category: General NBA insight
General NBA insight
Melo may not play tonight
The Rocky Mountain News (Chris Tomasson) reports: Carmelo Anthony is listed as questionable for the Nuggets’ preseason opener at the Pepsi Center on Friday night because of a hand injury, and even coach George Karl isn’t sure of his star’s status. The fifth-year forward suffered a contusion on the fourth finger on his left hand in practice Thursday when a teammate slapped the ball out of his hand.
InsideHoops.com editor says: In preseason most star players are on the court for very limited minutes, so even if he was healthy Melo may have only played 10 or 15 minutes. All that really matters here is that the injury is very minor and will soon heal up.
Glancing at Dan Dickau
The San Francisco Chronicle (Steve Kroner) reports: Dan Dickau’s basketball life has changed pretty dramatically in the past two months. He spent last season with the Clippers, signed with Avellino, an Italian team, in August, stayed in Italy for most of September, and after his deal with Avellino went south, signed with the Warriors on Oct. 1. In Golden State’s 110-95 win at Portland on Wednesday night, Dickau made his first appearance of the preseason, scoring eight points, collecting five rebounds and making four steals in 21 minutes. “I thought I played well,” Dickau said. “There are some things I could have done better but for my first game here, coming into camp late, it was a good building block.” “He’s a very good point guard,” head coach Don Nelson said. “Physically, he’s not gifted but he does the right thing most all the time and when he does get beat, it’s because of a physical problem, not a mental one.”
Wizards used to suffering injuries
The Washington Times (Mike Jones) reports: While the loss of starting center Brendan Haywood, who needs wrist surgery and will miss four to six months, is a blow to the Washington Wizards, the team is rather well-prepared for this type of situation. Last year, the Wizards lost center Etan Thomas to a heart operation that sidelined him for the entire season. Only eight games into the season, franchise player Gilbert Arenas had a second surgery on his left knee and missed 66 consecutive games. And fellow All-Star Caron Butler missed 24 games of his own with injuries. But Washington found a way to overcome the absences and reach the playoffs for a fourth straight year. The year before that, All-Star forward Antawn Jamison missed 12 games with injury, and Butler and Arenas both went down in April with hand and knee injuries, respectively. Again, the Wizards held on down the stretch to make the playoffs.
Matt Harpring is a mess
The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: Although he continues to make slow progress in recovering from an ankle infection this summer, Harpring couldn’t even offer a best-case scenario for his return. “I have no idea what I’m going to feel like,” Harpring said. “I just know that these last 3 1/2 months have been terrible. I’m just waiting for something to change. “I’m going to keep working, keep working hard, and hopefully it’ll just change and one day I’ll be like, ‘Ooh, it’s starting to feel better. I’m right around the corner.'”
InsideHoops.com editor says: Harpring is one of those guys you never want to guard or have guard you, because he’s insanely intense to the point where you assume an elbow is about to nail you each second you’re within 10 feet of him. Every team can use a healthy Harpring.
JR Giddens tattoos have meaning
The Boston Herald (Mark Murphy) reports: J.R. Giddens is a man of many tattoos, but each, he says, have a purpose. A basketball encircled by a Black Mamba snake is tattooed over the Celtics rookie’s heart with the inscription, “Natural Born Killer” – an apparent reference to his playing style. But his newest – a green shamrock with the No. 4 behind his left ear – may also be one of his most dear. “I was the last pick of the first round,” he said. “Everyone had a chance to get me and they passed, and this is the team that took me. So I wanted to honor it.” Of his body art philosophy, Giddens said, “Some guys have tattoos all over that don’t mean anything. Mine all mean something.”
Luke Walton was being stalked
The Orange County Register (Kevin Ding) reports via blog on key quotes from a Luke Walton interview where the Lakers player talks about being stalked: “A couple of days later, I was signing stuff, and she came up. And I just rolled up my window and drove off. And as I was driving off, she threw her basketball at my car. It didn’t hit the car, but I saw it was bouncing down Nash Street. And I was kind of laughing like, ‘She’s kind of lost it.’ But at the same time, it was like, she’s really starting to pick up what she’s doing.” … “Once I moved out of the gated community, that’s when I started noticing. I’d come home, and the same car with tinted windows would be parked across the street all the time. One time, I was like, ‘I swear I see someone there.’ So I walked up and saw her, and she had a hat on, and I said, ‘I can’t believe this is the same chick from the practice site.’ And then for a while, everywhere I went, I’d see her park like a street down. As soon as I took off, she’s start following me.”
Preseason kicks off tonight
The 2008-09 NBA preseason kicks off tonight, with the Pistons and Heat at 6:30 p.m. ET, thenby the Warriors and Hornets at 7:00 p.m. ET.
In preseason, stars play very few minutes, and the games are often pretty ugly.
The Pistons, according to both local Detroit newspapers, will now start Amir Johnson at power forward. Antonio McDyess will come off the bench. The Heat are worth watching to see how Michael Beasley looks. As for the Warriors, watch CJ Watson, who gets increased minutes with Monta Ellis out.
There are two Monday games as well, with the Hawks and Magic, then the Wolves and Bucks.
Things really kick off on Tuesday, October 7, with five games. There are nine Wednesday matchups.
I write this from Holland, where I’ve spent the last week. In a few days I finally return home to New York City, and a day later InsideHoops.com kicks into overdrive with nonstop season previews and a dozen or so updates per day.
PG Jason Williams brought the fun
The Sacramento Bee (Scott Howard-Cooper) reports on now retired point guard Jason Williams: “He really has a little bit of a unique place in the history of the NBA, I think,” Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie said, “in the sense that his rookie year and into his second year, he kind of came out of nowhere at a time when the league was coming out of the lockout and sort of struggling with its style of play and just trying to regain some of the footing it had lost at that time. And here was this kid that had these incredible dribbling and passing skills and sort of pedal-to-the-metal attitude about the game. He just caught the imagination of the entire country, along with the rest of our team. “It really helped the NBA. It really helped this franchise, along with a lot of other terrific players, too. He became the darling of ESPN highlights just about every night. I’ve told this to other people: There was a time there, probably for about a year or so, other than Michael Jordan, he was the most popular basketball player in America because of this flamboyant style he had.”
Brian Cook out of shape
Florida Today (John Denton) reports: Despite losing weight and getting back healthy over the summer, Orlando Magic forward Brian Cook has still managed to work his way into head coach Stan Van Gundy’s doghouse. Three days into training camp and it’s already apparent that Cook’s conditioning isn’t where the Magic would like for it to be. It certainly isn’t a serious situation this early in camp, as Van Gundy pointed out, but it could hurt Cook’s chances of getting significant minutes off the bench as the backup power forward.