NBA games are back, baby. Sure, it’s preseason, but not a day soon enough, as Maryland’s 63-0 drubbing at the hands of Jameis Winston and Florida State has dampened what enthusiasm I did have for the college football season. Right now I’m sitting here watching the Pacers and Bulls, hopefully a preview of some great Central division matchups next spring.
We’ve also got Dwight Howard’s debut with the Rockets tonight, and the first game played by the New Orleans Pelicans. And then the Warriors take on the Lakers. If this were the regular season, it’d be a pretty great night of basketball. As it is, it’s a great way to welcome us back to the game after a long summer.
Now it’s time for all the latest from around the NBA.
Sean Deveney of the Sporting News looks at the future of the Lakers and Kobe Bryant: “Now, the Lakers’ future still belongs to Bryant, his retirement plans having long been abandoned. Instead, at the opening of Lakers practices last week, Bryant found some apt comparisons between himself and some other well-aged athletes who returned from injuries–Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. “It’s the same,” Bryant said. “It’s the same old story. (Rivera) is a guy who was written off and forgotten a little bit. He did the work, he put the time in and he came back and played extremely well. Peyton Manning, the same thing. Everybody wrote him off a few years ago, then all the sudden, now we all know it. I definitely pull from a myriad of those guys.” Manning is 37 and is in the second of a five-year contract with Denver. Rivera was 43 when he retired this year. If Bryant is pulling from guys like that, as he says, then it is conceivable he will be playing into his 40s, or at least pretty close. This is where Bryant and the Lakers run into a dilemma. If Bryant really does play that much longer, what will the Lakers have to pay him? LA is planning on having a huge swath of cap space this summer, enough to pay two maximum-salary free agents. That was the upside of not re-signing Howard–there would be money for the very promising free-agent class of ’14 available.”
The Lakers signed a couple of longtime friends this offseason, and Ben Bolch of the LA Times has a feature on them: “Now the players once known as Peanut Butter and Jelly when they played on the same summer club team, before being dubbed the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird of the Pacific 10 Conference, are simply Nick and Jordan, and they might be just what the Lakers need. One season after the Lakers wrecked themselves in part by infighting and silly jealousies, their locker room should exude the warmth of close friends who adore the sometimes off-putting Kobe Bryant and are thrilled to play for maligned Coach Mike D’Antoni because Farmar and Young fit the fast-paced offense he likes to run. Young, 28, is an energetic swingman whose ability to create his own shot leads to scoring binges. Farmar, 26, is a dynamic playmaker who is as comfortable on forays to the basket as he is spotting up for jumpers. “Our ability to play off one another and play at a high tempo like that and put pressure on the defense will be exciting,” Farmar said.”
According to eyes of spy I trust, DRose looks even better now than he did before. Tonight we can all start making our own judgements
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) October 5, 2013
Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com has an interesting postscript to the Celtics-Clippers negotiations this summer: “Doc Rivers said he never wanted the Los Angeles Clippers to trade DeAndre Jordan to the Boston Celtics for Kevin Garnett last June when the two teams were working on a deal for the head coach. One of the proposed trades attached to the eventual deal that got Rivers out of the final three years of his contract in Boston and allowed him to sign a new three-year deal with Los Angeles had the Clippers sending Jordan and a draft pick to the Celtics for Garnett. It was a side deal that the NBA nixed because such side deals go against league rules. Rivers said he’s happy the deal fell apart. He had hoped there would be a way for the Clippers to land Garnett, but not at the expense of Jordan. “I couldn’t get involved in that whole thing,” Rivers said. “That was the strangest thing in the world. I was seeing the trade talks and I was saying, ‘Wait a minute! We don’t want to give away that guy!’ We wanted that other guy too. That was the home run to get both. [Jordan] is just too young and too gifted to let walk out your door, bottom line. He’s a game changer defensively. He can single-handedly change a game with his defense. There’s five guys, and that number maybe too high, that can do that single-handedly with their size and athleticism and he’s one of them. When you have one of those guys, you want to keep them.”"
Blake Griffin is taking on a new role with the Clippers, writes Broderick Turner of the LA Times: “Entering his fourth NBA season, Blake Griffin said it’s time for him do more. And for Griffin, that means taking more of a leadership role. “I think the guys that play the bulk of our minutes need to be the leaders,” Griffin said. “And CP [Chris Paul] and myself are going to play most of the minutes. Other guys are going to play a lot of minutes as well…. It’s a thing I have to step into every year and take a step forward.” Griffin, an All-Star in his first three seasons, already is one of the Clippers’ leaders, stats-wise. He led the team in scoring (18.0) and rebounds (8.3) last season and was second in minutes played (32.5) and assists (3.7). So in many ways, Griffin led by his play. He still plans on doing it that way more often than not, but Griffin said he’ll speak up more.”
Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer has the latest on Royce White: “New 76er Royce White tried last week to dispel any speculation that air travel would hinder him from playing for the team this season. However, the 6-foot-8 forward, who has an anxiety disorder, wasn’t among the 14 players who flew here Thursday. The Sixers will face Bilbao Basket on Sunday at the Bizkala Arena at Bilbao Exhibition Center. On Tuesday, they will face Oklahoma City in Manchester, England. “It really was just based on our team doctor giving me and [general manager] Sam [Hinkie] and the club advice that it may be best for him to remain at home,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said of White’s absence. “You know we are with him. We will support and help him.”
Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News has a cool feature up on Renaldo Balkman, who is trying to make an NBA comeback with the Mavs: “Eyelids are made for blinking and shadowing. And in the case of Renaldo Balkman, tattooing. The Mavericks’ forward has the words “hustle” and “harder” inked onto right and left eyelids, respectively. Those words embody his philosophy on basketball and also are a testament to his pain tolerance. Asked for his first thoughts on the dreadlocked, multi-tattooed former first round draft pick of the New York Knicks, coach Rick Carlisle said: “My first thoughts? I like his hairdo. And I like his tattoos a lot. There’s a lot of storytelling going on there. “You know he’s got a high pain tolerance if he’s got tattoos on his eyelids. All that stuff impresses me before we even start talking about his game. That’s why I liked (DeShawn) Stevenson.” As Carlisle likes to say, you can’t have a whole team full of milk drinkers. You need a few guys who can scare the opponents just a little bit.”
Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com has some advice from Mike Woodson for J.R. Smith: “Mike Woodson would like to see enigmatic sixth man J.R. Smith improve his shot selection this season. “When you’re a scorer in this league, you’ve got to learn when you can turn it on and turn it off and I think those are the adjustments that he’s going to have to make,” the New York Knicks’ coach said Friday. Smith is known for having a quick trigger on offense. His numbers from last season show that he was at his best when attacking the rim. During the Knicks’ 13-game winning streak late in the regular season, Smith scored 23.2 points per game on 49 percent shooting. Smith doubled the percentage of shots he took in the restricted area during the streak (15.6 percent beforehand; 33 percent during).”
The Pistons have one of the best young front lines in the NBA, and it’s only getting deeper with the addition of rookie Tony Mitchell. Brendan Savage of All Michigan reports on Mitchell’s ambition for this year: “Like virtually every NBA rookie, Tony Mitchell’s goals are to show enough ability to get playing time and help the Detroit Pistons win some games. But the power forward from North Texas also has something else on his mind: Mitchell wants to be invited to New Orleans next February for the All-Star Game weekend. Now, Mitchell isn’t so bold as to think he’ll be an All-Star in his rookie season. But he does think he has the potential to earn a spot in the Slam Dunk contest that will take place Feb. 15, one day prior to the All-Star Game at New Orleans Arena. Mitchell has already turned some heads this year, when he put on a dunking exhibition at the annual NBA rookie photo shoot. That already has Mitchell being touted as a potential dunk champion.”
Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News informs us of a rule change: “New rule for this season: Players can’t run to a place beyond the baseline, out of bounds, and just stand there, as more than a few teams had been doing in recent seasons. Now, the player has to return to the court immediately or his team will lose the ball. The league said upwards of 11 teams had been having players stand out of bounds, possibly to create more space in a 4-on-4 game, with Denver supposedly coming up with the strategy first.”