Category: General NBA insight

General NBA insight

Some Suns players may soon begin working out at team facility

Actual pro basketball games aren’t returning just yet. Neither is any total team activity. But as for some individiual players making use of team facilities, that could happen soon. In limited fashion. Here’s the Arizona Republic:

The Phoenix Suns are looking to take advantage of the NBA allowing teams to use their practice facilities and arenas to train as the 2019-20 season remains on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Team officials said they’re prepared to have controlled, voluntary workouts May 16 at the earliest at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum as Gov. Doug Ducey announced last week the stay-at-home order would, with some modifications, be in place until May 15.

Talking Stick Resort Arena is under renovations as part of a $230-million project and the new state-of-the-art indoor practice facility on 44th and just north of Camelback Road has been under construction…

The NBA informed teams last week that as numerous state and local governments make “modifications of stay-at-home orders and other restrictions on non-essential business activity beginning”, the league plans to “modify its guidance regarding the use of team practice facilities and player training.”

This mainly means that the individual players will be better able to train. We’re still nowhere near games resuming. But it’s a positive step.

New Bulls GM Marc Eversley shares player-first mentality

The Bulls have a new front office. It’s a new era in Chicago. Okay, the start of one. Possibly. It’s all about results. Anyway, here’s the Chicago Sun-Times reporting:

“One of my mottos is ‘players first,’ ‘’ new GM Marc Eversley said on Friday, when he was officially introduced to the media via Zoom. “I think you have to create a players-first mentality. And I agree with you – we were the second-youngest team in the NBA last year, and I really believe it starts with a foundation of player development. True player development, that’s really when we can see what kind of players we have on our roster.’’

Develop the players to their fullest potential and then actually have a real selling point to a superstar?

Sure, former GM Gar Forman and vice president of basketball operations John Paxson spoke about that often, but had very little idea on how to execute it.

The best player developer Forman and Paxson had was one-time coach Tom Thibodeau, who was so adept at bringing the best out of players, he covered up a lot of the mistakes his bosses made both in the draft and free agency.

And here’s NBC Sports Chicago:

It seemed telling that Karnisovas answered a question on division of labor with a collaboration-focused response. Whether it’s internally or in inter-organization dealings, Karnisovas and Eversley will work in concert. For, say, a trade negotiation, one of Karnisovas or Everlsey might have a stronger relationship with an executive to leverage. In a different scenario, one might share a strong connection with an agent for a free agent pursuit. Even externally, Karnisovas said they will share duties like meeting with reporters to detail the team’s vision and actions.

“The luxury that we have with our current hires is that we’re coming from a lot of different programs. And we can take the best scouting practices and how we look at evaluating players, how we look at player development,” Karnisovas said. “We’re going to share our responsibilities. We’re going to hear each other out and make a decision at the end of the day.

First up will be the draft, which is scheduled for late June, but with May’s draft lottery and draft combine postponed, it’s possible the actual draft date might change as well.

2020 NBA Draft Lottery and NBA Draft Combine are postoned

The NBA has postponed the 2020 NBA Draft Lottery and the 2020 NBA Draft Combine.

Both events were scheduled to take place later this month in Chicago.

The draft lottery determines the order of team selections in the draft.

The combine includes player workouts, scrimmages and measurements, of prospects hoping to be selected in the draft.

In our opinion, there are ways the NBA can replace much of what goes on at the combine. But the draft lottery literally determines the structure of the draft, in terms of which teams has wish draft selection, so it’s absolutely essential and absolutely does have to be rescheduled.

Some quick words on a few Steph Curry NBA accomplishments

Here’s NBC Sports Bay Area reminding the world of some of Stephen Curry’s style of play, and a few of his lofty accomplishments:

When Curry is on the court, he is a head-hunter. He lives for the kill shot and — like MJ and the others — is haunted by his misses. Don’t fall for the veneer, the displays of glee, the easy grin and the honey-colored skin. This genuinely joyful soul with scripture on his sneakers has spent most of his career as the league’s most prolific undercover executioner.

Over the past seven postseasons, Curry has beaten every MVP, or MVP candidate, that has beaten him. Only Kawhi Leonard, who as a member of the San Antonio Spurs played only 24 minutes over nine postseason games against the Warriors, can be argued as an exception.

Curry is 3-1 against LeBron James in The Finals and 4-0 against James Harden in the playoffs. He’s 3-0 against Damian Lillard. In the lone instance when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook represented the roadblock, Curry took them out.

There’s much more to say about Steph — namely his historic shooting from three-point range — but the above certainly speaks volumes.

With the Kevin Durant era over in Golden State, but the team presumably at full health by the time NBA play eventually resumes, it’ll be great fun seeing what Steph accomplishes in 2020-21.

How Steve Kerr learned to not yell at Klay Thompson

Different players react to coaching and motivational methods in different ways. A huge part of being a basketball coach is learning how to share information and instructions to players in a manner that the player will understand and, just as importantly, accept.

As for the Warriors, here’s NBC Sports Bay Area reporting on head coach Steve Kerr and what he learned about coaching shooting guard Klay Thompson:

“My very first season, I lit into Klay. I took an early timeout, lit into Klay, and he didn’t respond very well,” Kerr said on the Runnin’ Plays Podcast. “And he went out and was kind of rattled, made a couple mistakes.”

Confused, Kerr solicited advice from folks around the eccentric guard, then in his fourth NBA season, and found that Thompson is more receptive to a different style of coaching.

“I kind of checked that box,” Kerr said. “I said, ‘Klay’s not a guy who’s going to respond to yelling.’ ”

The adjustment worked.

After racking up multiple championships, then seeing the departure of Kevin Durant, all while suffering a big stack of injuries, the Warriors were at the bottom of the league in 2019-20. It’ll be interesting to see what they’re able to do in the next offseason in building up a supporting cast for 2020-21.

Checking in with Heat guard Tyler Herro

Here’s ESPN.com checking in on young Heat guard Tyler Herro:

For the season, Herro ranks eighth among rookies in scoring (12.9 points), seventh in 20-point games (9) and tied for first with 2.1 3-pointers per game.

His seven made 3-pointers on Jan. 22 against the Washington Wizards were the most in a game by a Heat rookie in franchise history and tied for the most by any rookie this season, according to ESPN Stats & Information. However, Herro is still not satisfied.

“I just hope that they open as soon as possible,” Herro said of practice facilities possibly reopening soon. “Obviously, hoping everybody stays safe … but we would all love to get back into the facilities and start working out and stuff like that again on a normal routine.”

The NBA season is on hold, but there’s still hope that either it will resume — likely in condensed form — or some sort of playoffs can take place.

To Warriors coach Steve Kerr, the NBA season feels over

The NBA season has been put on hold since mid March. But it hasn’t officially been canceled. Though, it certainly won’t surprise anyone if that’s what winds up happening. And soon. Here’s ESPN.com reporting what Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said on Tuesday:

As the NBA continues to try to find ways to salvage the end of its season as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr acknowledged that his team is operating as if its season is over.

“It feels like the offseason,” Kerr said during a video conference call in conjunction with the University of San Francisco on Tuesday. “And, in fact, we had a Zoom call, Bob Myers and I got on a Zoom with our players, our whole roster last week. And it was just a chance to check in, but it was also a chance for Bob to update the players on his contact with the league and the latest news, but it also kind of felt like our annual team exit meeting. Our coaching staff and I have been undergoing staff evaluations, offseason plans, so we are absolutely in offseason mode right now.”

As other teams in playoff contention try to keep their teams focused on a possible resumption of play, Kerr said that though the Warriors remain in communication with all their players and staffers, the team isn’t concerned about a possible resumption, given that Golden State had a league-worst 15-50 record when the season was suspended on March 11.

Clarity on the matter will likely come sometime in May.

Michael Jordan could have played for the Oakland A’s, says former GM

Here’s NBC Sports Chicago reporting on some interesting insight into a turn Michael Jordan’s brief pro baseball career could have taken:

Michael Jordan’s departure from his life as the greatest basketball player in the world to play minor league baseball with the White Sox is the stuff of Chicago legend.

But it might have gone quite differently. And with a different organization altogether.

Former Oakland Athletics general manager Sandy Alderson told ESPN’s Buster Olney on a recent edition of the Baseball Tonight podcast that he offered Jordan a spot on his major league roster in 1994.

“You recall when Jordan stopped playing basketball and decided to try baseball, and ultimately went down to the Birmingham Barons — the Chicago White Sox affiliate,” Alderson said. “When I heard that was happening, or about to happen, I called his agent right away and said, ‘Hey look, I understand he may be going to Double-A. I don’t even know who the 25th man is on our major league team right now, I will sign him and put him on the major league roster. He’ll be part of our 25-man team. Tomorrow.'”

Just speculating here, but unless Jordan had somehow magically been better at the major league level than he was in the minors, he’d still probably have wound up back in the NBA around the same time as he did. But this could have potentially been an even more fascinating detour.

Like the rest of us, Danny Ainge is waiting to see what happens

Here’s the Boston Herald with an update on what Celtics front office guru Danny Ainge is thinking these days as we all wait to see what happens with the NBA season and playoffs in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic:

“This is a time for the really self-motivated that are going to be able to take advantage of this opportunity in their career to get stronger, to get in greater condition,” [Ainge] said. “We’re approaching this like we’re going to return to play and that we’re going to be playing playoff basketball. And we are staying in touch. We are having conference calls where we have guest speakers, motivational speakers, that address all of our guys on Zoom. We are doing workouts with the coaches and with the strength coaches via Zoom and so forth.

“So we’re trying to do all we can. Some players are better than others at doing things on their own and doing extra work, and some players are more compliant than others, some are harder to reach than others, but for the most part, I’ve been impressed with how our players have bought in and the work that’s going on behind the scenes.”

The NBA regular season was suspended six weeks ago today. And the 2020 playoffs were due to start this past Saturday. But for now, everything remains on hold.

On Andrew Wiggins and the Warriors

Here’s NBC Sports Bay Area reporting on Andrew Wiggins:

Wiggins came to the Warriors in the February trade that sent D’Angelo Russell to the Minnesota Timberwolves, in large part for his better-perceived fit alongside Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. A talented but inconsistent wing, Wiggins had worn out his welcome in Minnesota following four years of failed expectations and sub-par defense.

But he was successful in his short time in the Bay Area, averaging 20.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists over his last five games. In a 112-106 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Feb. 12, he finished with 27 points, four rebounds and five assists and four blocks. Three weeks later, in his first game playing with Curry, he notched 20 points, 10 rebounds and two assists against the Raptors.

In 12 games played for the Warriors, Wiggins averaged 19.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, shooting 45.7% from the field.

The Warriors this season were short-handed. The real test — the chemistry test — comes in the future when the squad is healthy and at full strength.