Category: General NBA insight

There are different levels of knee surgery. Some are relatively minor, while others can really mess an athlete up for a season or two, or much longer. Here’s the Dallas Morning News reporting:

Dallas Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons said he’s delaying surgical work on his right knee until after the Mavericks are finished with their playoff run and that he and doctors won’t know exactly what’s wrong with the knee until he has the procedure.

Parsons has been getting multiple medical opinions on his injured knee, which kept him out of the final six games of the regular season and ended his playoff run after one game.

He also has been with the Mavericks for all of their playoff games, and that won’t change.

“There’s a lot of opinions and a lot of different things out there, but really the doctors won’t know anything until they open me up,” Parsons said at the Mavericks’ shootaround Tuesday morning. “So I’m not going to say something is going to happen or not happen and then be wrong. I really won’t know until they open me up.

Thabo Sefolosha statement on NYC police incident and his injuries

“I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to my family and friends, the Hawks organization and my teammates. This has been a difficult time for me and I truly appreciate the support I have received from everyone. I am extremely disappointed that I will not be able to join my teammates on the court during the playoffs and apologize to them for any distraction this incident has caused. I will be cheering for them every step of the way and will be diligent in my rehabilitation.

On advice of counsel, I hope you can appreciate that I cannot discuss the facts of the case. Those questions will be answered by my attorney in a court of law. I will simply say that I am in great pain, have experienced a significant injury and that the injury was caused by the police.”

CJ Fair named D-League Performer of Week through April 5

Fort Wayne Mad Ants forward CJ Fair was today named NBA Development League Performer of the Week for games played Monday, March 30 – Sunday, April 5. Fair joins Andre Emmett as Mad Ants to earn the honor this season.

Fair led the Mad Ants to a 2-0 record last week as the team clinched the Eastern Conference’s fourth seed in the 2015 NBA D-League Playoffs. For the week, Fair averaged 26.5 points on 62 percent shooting along with 12.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks.

He scored a season-high 28 points to go with 10 rebounds and three blocks in a 98-91 road win over Sioux Falls on April 3. The next night, he posted a 25-point, 14-rebound game against the Skyforce at home.

Fair, who played in all 50 regular season Mad Ants games, heads into the postseason averaging 13.9 points and 5.7 rebounds.

Other top performers considered included Austin’s Kyle Anderson, Bakersfield’s Xavier Munford, Idaho’s Jared Cunningham, Iowa’s Damien Wilkins and Oklahoma City’s Frank Gaines.

The Los Angeles Lakers have signed guard Dwight Buycks to a 10-day contract, it was announced today by General Manager Mitch Kupchak.

Buycks’ previous NBA experience came with the Toronto Raptors in 2013-14, where he averaged 3.1 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 10.4 minutes per game over 14 contests. After being waived by the Raptors in July, the 6’3’’ guard signed with Valencia of the Spanish ACB League before joining Tianjin Ronggang of the Chinese Basketball Association. At the conclusion of the CBA season, the 26-year-old was acquired by the Oklahoma City Blue of the NBA Development League on March 4, and in 10 games (all starts) with the Blue, averaged 18.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, 6.2 assists, and 2.1 steals in 34.4 minutes per game before receiving his GATORADE Call-Up from the Lakers.

The Milwaukee, WI native’s D-League experience also includes eight games with the Bakersfield Jam in 2013-14, and 28 games for the Tulsa 66ers in the 2011-12 season. Buycks went undrafted in 2011 after playing two seasons (2009-2011) at Marquette following two seasons at Indian Hills Community College, and his professional stops also include time spent in Belgium (2012) and France (2012-13 season).

The Lakers roster now stands at 16 players after being granted a hardship waiver exception from the NBA.

InsideHoops.com Postgame Notes

BROOKLYN — Behind 30 points and 11 rebounds from center Brook Lopez, 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists from small forward Joe Johnson, and 17 points from guard Markel Brown, the Nets beat a badly short-handed Lakers squad 107-99

Jeremy Lin, Nick Young, Ed Davis, Carlos Boozer, Kobe Bryant (out for season) and Julius Randle (out for season) did not play for Los Angeles, whose squad today resembled the bargain bin at Walmart.

NETS NOTES

Nets swept season series with Lakers for first time since 2005-06 season

Brook Lopez averaged 28.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.3 blocks in his four games this week.

Nets guard Markel Brown scored a career-high 17 points today.

The Nets got 11 steals today, their most since a January 22 game against the Clippers.

The Nets are now 32-40 this season, and just 14-20 at home as they battle for a playoff spot.

Kevin Durant will have bone graft, out for 4-6 more months

The Oklahoma City Thunder released the following statement on behalf of Thunder Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti regarding Kevin Durant:

“As we communicated last week, Kevin was going to use this time to engage in consultation and evaluation regarding the persistent soreness in his right foot at this stage of his rehabilitation. As part of this process, Kevin and Thunder personnel traveled to two additional specialists this past week; Dr. Martin O’Malley in New York City and Dr. James Nunley at Duke University. These in-person consults were designed to further supplement the previous evaluations of Dr. Bob Anderson. Several conference calls and discussions amongst the specialist team concluded that, while the majority of the soreness in Kevin’s foot was related to continued inflammation of the cuboid bone and would subside with rest, the evaluation process also determined that the Jones fracture of the fifth metatarsal, which had shown significant healing previously, was now demonstrating signs of regression.

With the focus of this process being aimed entirely on Kevin’s long term health and stability, it was the consensus of the specialists team, in addition to a collective decision by Kevin, his representation and the Thunder, that to address the setback of the fracture site, a bone graft procedure would be the most proactive and recommended approach. The bone graft is the standard procedure for the five to eight percent of Jones fracture surgeries that do not initially have success or experience setbacks sometime within the recovery period. While everyone is disappointed that Kevin falls into that group, we are encouraged that the bone graft procedure has historically demonstrated long-term health and stability.

Dr. O’Malley will perform the bone graft surgery early next week in New York. He has extensive bone grafting experience amongst athletes and has been consulting on the case throughout. Kevin will miss the remainder of the 2014-15 season and is expected to return to basketball activities in the next four to six months.”

The Utah Jazz announced today that the team has signed forward Chris Johnson to a multi-year contract.

Johnson re-joins the team following a 10-day contract with the Jazz from Jan. 28 through Feb. 6, during which time he appeared in two games and averaged 7.0 points, 1.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 19.0 minutes per game.

The 24-year-old Johnson (6-6, 201, Dayton) most recently spent a pair of 10-day contracts with the Milwaukee Bucks (March 6-26), seeing action in eight contests and averaging 3.9 points and 1.4 rebounds in 16.0 minutes.  He began the 2014-15 with the Philadelphia 76ers, where he averaged 6.0 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.0 steals in 20.8 minutes in nine games (two starts) before being waived on Nov. 15.  For the season, Johnson has played in a total of 19 games (two starts) and averages 5.2 points, 2.1 rebounds, 0.6 assists and 0.9 steals in 18.6 minutes per game.

For his NBA career, Johnson has spent portions of three seasons with the Jazz, Bucks and 76ers (2014-15), Boston Celtics (2013-14) and Memphis Grizzlies (2012-13), appearing in 67 NBA games (two starts) and owns averages of 5.6 points and 2.2 rebounds in 18.6 minutes per game.

Prior to being called up by the Jazz and becoming the 15th D-League Call-Up in team history (fourth this season), Johnson had also appeared in 14 games for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League in 2014-15 and was selected as a 2014 NBA D-League All-Star and named to the 2015 NBA D-League Showcase Second Team.  Following his 10-day with the Jazz, Johnson returned to the Vipers for two additional games, and appeared in a total of 16 D-League games (all starts) this season, averaging 20.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.6 steals in 34.6 minutes per contest. He scored in double figures on 15 occasions and recorded 20-plus points in 10 games, including one 30-point contest.  Johnson has appeared in 75 games (58 starts) for Rio Grande Valley over three seasons and owns averages of 15.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.6 steals in 31.3 minutes.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Johnson played four seasons at Dayton (2008-12).  He earned Atlantic 10 All-Championship Team honors following his junior season and was the 2010 Atlantic 10 Most Improved Player recipient.  He was not selected in the 2012 NBA Draft.

The Utah Jazz announced today that the team has waived guard Ian Clark.  Following the move, the Jazz roster now stands at 14 players.

Clark (6-3, 180, Belmont) appeared in 23 games as a reserve this season for the Jazz, averaging 1.9 points in 7.0 minutes per game.  He also appeared in seven games (six starts) while on assignment with the Jazz’s exclusively owned and operated NBA Development League team, the Idaho Stampede, where he averaged 14.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.1 steals in 32.0 minutes per contest.  The second-year guard appeared in a total of 46 games over two seasons with the Jazz, owning a career scoring average of 2.4 points in 7.2 minutes per game after originally joining Utah as an undrafted rookie free agent on July 29, 2013.

Warriors win 2014-15 Pacific Division title

The Golden State Warriors have clinched the 2014-15 Pacific Division title, improving to 58-13 on the season following Tuesday’s 122-108 road victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. This marks the organization’s first Pacific Division title since the San Francisco Warriors won back-to-back Pacific crowns in 1974-75 and 1975-76.

This is the organization’s fifth division championship since the team moved to the West Coast in 1962, with the Warriors claiming Western Division titles in 1963-64 and 1966-67. Overall, the team has now won eight division championships in franchise history, including Eastern Division titles by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1947-48, 1950-51 and 1955-56.

The Warriors are slated to make their third consecutive postseason appearance as the team finished second in the Pacific Division in each of the past two seasons, with records of 47-35 in 2012-13 and 51-31 in 2013-14. Golden State’s 58 wins thus far, with 11 games remaining in the 2014-15 regular season, are the second most in team history and just one shy of the franchise-record 59 wins by the 1975-76 squad.