Ball Don't Lie

A look around the league and the web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: Brahsome, via TSB. The 11 greatest Sonics of all time. (My favorite three: Detlef, Kemp and The Glove.)
PF: Out Of Left Field. The Raptors may be considering playing some games at Buffalo's HSBC Arena.
SF: Talking Points. Breaking down the emotional and financial parameters of this Brand-to-GS talk.
SG: Passion and Pride. Andre Iguodala and Corey Maggette. What do you think, Philly fans?
PG: CelticsBlog. Is it a bird? Is it a pla— oh, wait, it was a bird. Celtic fans want Chris Andersen in kelly green.
6th: Hooped Up. The five best basketball movies ever, complete with YouTube trailers.
7th: Sports Biz. USA Basketball team photo: Artistic or logo "conspiracy"? You be the judge!
8th: Wicked Chops, via DS. Charles Barkley says it's the media's fault that he's no longer allowed to gamble.
9th: Lion in Oil. Anyone out there want to play Halo 3 with Adam Morrison? Anyone? C'mon, it's for charity.
10th: FreeDarko. Dr. LIC: "Everyone who grew up in the 1980s who paid any attention to basketball felt some odd connection to the Seattle Supersonics. I think it was the colors." Couldn't agree more.

OK, that's it, folks. (Tough week for this guy, eh?) Have a great Fourth of July, friends — be safe, and we'll see you back here on Monday to try and make it through NBA dead week. 

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What? You didn't think Create-a-caption was dead, did you? C'mon. Some of the best lines of the bloggin' day come via you crazy cats in the comments. So to get the funny back up and running, we turn to a photo of LeBron speaking to a crowd at USA Basketball's media tour stop in NYC. Best caption/question wins a special 13th spot on Coach K's roster. (Go nuts, Gil!)

Note: Because Samaki's derby was posted so long ago, let's just crown everyone the winner. Free pimp canes all around!

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Things work out kind of oddly for me. San Antonio booked a flight for me to go to Toronto, and Toronto had done the same. It seemed to only make sense to take the flight that Toronto had booked because they were in charge of picking me up from the airport and lord knows that if the hotel ended up being far from the airport then I couldn't afford that cab ride.

I could have flown on Delta from San Antonio to Cincinnati to Toronto and arrived at 9:55pm. Instead I took the American Airlines flight from San Antonio to Dallas to Toronto that was scheduled to arrive at 10pm. When I got to the airport, there was already trouble. Within five minutes I realized that I would have to pay $15 to check one bag. Jerks. Then I found out that my flight to Dallas was delayed an hour. I guess those are things I can deal with, but they are still annoying.

Before I boarded, I talked with the Raptors guy, Courtney, about my flight delay and that I'd be landing in Toronto about an hour late. It was all good. Then I arrived in Dallas and checked the monitors. My flight was pushed back another hour. I was now taking off at 10pm Toronto time on a three-hour flight. I was cool with that even though it was terrible. I ate a small meal and checked the monitors again. I was pushed back another hour. I was now slated to take off at 11pm Toronto time. Now I was getting worried. Most of these workouts are at 9am. How am I supposed to arrive at 2am and be fresh for the workout?

It was a question I never had to answer.Read More >>

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Pete Seeger is proud of this kid. As soon as die-hard Clipper fan, Michael Whang, heard that Baron Davis had opted out of his Warriors' contract, Wang set down the donuts, grabbed his guitar and set about writing a song to bring the O'Bearded One to LA. Within hours of rhyming "Chris Kaman" with "amazin'," Davis was a Clipper. Free agency is so easy!

Whang's second musical offering, Clippers Clippers Clippers — catchy title — is already up and rockin' in sunglasses. Clipper Darrell has nothing on Clipper Whang!

[ClipperBlog via Ballhype] 

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The city of Seattle will be paid $45 million in exchange for letting the Sonics move to Oklahoma City. (Ugh. This is not the news you want to hear after returning from a trip out West.) Here's what they're saying out in the ether about the last-minute deal ...

The Wages of Wins Journal: "This entire scenario seemed to play out like the movie "Major League." The Sonics appeared to make little effort to field a winning team this past season. And it looked like they were not going to be winning much if the team stayed in Seattle to fulfill their lease.  Unfortunately — unlike the movie — the team was not able to guess the plot and suddenly become winners on the court."

Indy Cornrows: "A part of my basketball soul is left empty tonight. The minute I heard the City of Seattle had settled their lawsuit with the current Supersonics' ownership group, the realization hit home hard. The team of my youth was gone. The fact that I happened to be in Seattle to hear about every angle of the case this week, made it that much tougher. ... There's plenty of blame to pass around for this fiasco, but don't expect me to point toward Clay Bennett. Anyone who didn't think he bought the team to move it ASAP is a SAP. Nope, you have to dig a little deeper to find those responsible. Hearing Mayor Nickles nearly pat himself on the back for this deal and talk about the plans for an Arena renovation that will help, possibly, maybe, if Seattle is lucky, land a team in the near future left my mouth agape. Would've been nice to hear that talk four or five years ago when it mattered."

Ziller, FanHouse: "... of course the city and Legislature have culpability in the end result. But they weren't the ones who purchased a team under false pretenses and lied to everyone's face about it. Bennett was. And Stern let it happen without recourse, to make an example of Seattle and teach those other cities a lesson. That the city and Leg (and voters) rejected bad plans for new buildings (Key would be fine with a renovation, according to everyone except Bennett and Schultz — even the NBA agrees with the city on this) is a far smaller crime than those committed by Bennett and Stern."Read More >>

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By now you've likely heard Joe Buck's candid and not-altogether-unexpected revelation about his life away from the broadcast booth. If you haven't, I'll touch on it, and you can also go here for the breakdown. And if you're waiting for the NBA angle, it will show up, eventually.

Buck went on one of those miserable radio chat shows to tell the world that he doesn't watch much baseball anymore. He crams like hell when he has a weekend baseball game to cover, but he's hardly a big baseball fan, he doesn't watch any during the working week that don't directly impact his weekend duties, and much prefers pro football to baseball in spite of being FOX's lead announcer during the baseball playoffs.

You can't knock the guy for his honesty, not in the slightest. I'm not going to kill Buck for watching as much baseball during the week (or more, really) as I do, and I certainly appreciate the man's honesty.

And, on a personal level, I don't hold as much enmity for the man as most others in the blogosphere do. Mainly because I don't take in as much football and baseball as others, so if he had another embarrassing tee-off like the one that followed Randy Moss' moon in Green Bay a few years ago, I've likely to have missed it. My main exposure to the guy comes from his appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, frankly, where he comes off quite well.

But this isn't a good thing, in the end. It is one thing for a slugger who pounds 40 homers a year or a 7-footer who can score 20 with ease to admit to not really caring for the games that they play. Terrell Owens has told anyone who will listen for years that he's rather be a 12^th man on the Kings bench than lining up for the Cowboys every Sunday. Those skill sets are hardly replaceable, though.

And Joe's, for all his pedigree, is quite replaceable. And it's a bit of a slap to hear that the guy being paid millions to work the odd game of the week on Saturday can't be bothered to take notes on the occasional Monday game.Read More >>

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Seattle SuperSonics at Houston Rockets, May 17^th, 1997 

So, I've an old DVD of Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, the bracket featuring the Houston Rockets, and the WC's defending champs, the Seattle SuperSonics. And I figured we'd do a little running diary.

Houston was rebuilt before the season for one last go at a ring for Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and Charles Barkley. Seattle stayed more or less the same in the 1996 offseason, save for what seemed like the innocuous addition of a defensive presence in the middle - shot-blocking and goatee-sportin' Jim McIlvaine.

Turns out, Shawn Kemp became incredibly jealous of McIlvaine's contract, and though the SuperSonics have won two clutch games in this series to tie it at 3-3, it hasn't been the easiest year for George Karl's crew.

Greg Gumbel, Bill Walton, and Steve "Snapper" Jones have the call for NBC, the game's at the Summit in Houston, and I'm ready for some Matt Maloney.

1Q 12:00: Seattle is throwing Sam Perkins, Shawn Kemp, and Detlef Schrempf out, with Gary Payton and Hersey Hawkins in the backcourt. Houston is countering with Dream, Barkley, Mario Elie, with Clyde and Maloney at the guards.

McIlvaine may have been miserable, but Karl couldn't have even thrown him out there to help on Hakeem.

1Q 11:50: I'm immediately reminded of Houston's playbook back then - which essentially let either Hakeem, Charles, or Drexler have a go at the low left block. The team would take turns, quite literally, and hope for the best. Hakeem misses a jump hook to start it, but Barkley corrals the rebound and makes both free throws. Shawn Kemp grabs an early foul.

1Q 11:15: Kemp has to pick up Hakeem in transition, and appears to have picked up his second foul guarding the post before it's discovered that the refs called the infraction on Detlef Schrempf's double-team help. I'd forgotten all about this, George Karl cutting off his starting center to spite his general manager. Classy, classic Karl. While I'm typing, Hakeem scored again on Sam Perkins. 6-0.

1Q 9:45: Bill Walton points out that Matt Maloney is jumping in the air to pass for no reason, and that Gary Payton has been taking advantage all series long. It's a nice way of saying that Matt Maloney is more than a little scared of Gary Payton.Read More >>

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After tempting us in Boston, flaming out in Minnesota, and barely showing up in his hometown of Houston, high-flyer (legally required to call him that) Gerald Green has signed a one-year deal with the Dallas Mavericks. It's not mentioned in the story from the Dallas Morning News, but it's hard to imagine the deal being guaranteed, and it's likely for the league minimum.

Now, Green has had his moments (after the jump), and he did win the Slam Dunk Contest in 2007, but to me he's known for possibly the most damning hoops anecdote of the modern era. And by "modern," I mean "post-Stromile Swift." It's from Britt Robson, from The Rake:

"During a Wolves' timeout in the second quarter, Gerald Green spent the entire time well removed from the circular huddle, where, you know, he might glean some information that would improve on his reputation for not knowing where to go in the offensive and defensive sets. Instead Green was conversing with the injured Ratliff near the end of the bench. Twelve seconds after play resumed, Gomes picked up his third foul and with McCants also saddled with three, Sichting sent Green into the game. Thirty eight seconds after that, Green receives a pass just over center court from McCants for his first touch. Kobe and Lakers' rookie Jarvis Crittenton immediately sneak up behind Green and knock the ball from his grasp, resulting in a ruthlessly gorgeous, but rather embarrassing to Green, breakaway slam by Kobe. Two or three years from now, Gerald Green will be back in his old neighborhood, alternately bragging about his NBA career and complaining how he got screwed because nobody gave him a chance to play."

It will be kind of hard to do that in Dallas, what with the owner closer to the huddle than some backup centers, but we're pullin' for ya, GG.Read More >>

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(I love that picture. You think they're discussing opt-out clauses?)

Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the San Antonio Spurs are the front-runners to obtain Corey Maggette's services, and that he'd take in the full mid-level exception from San Antonio, and there's very little not to like about it.

The 2007 champs can use a dash of athleticism, somebody else to finish on the break, and another competent shooter. Maggette doesn't need another huge payday, and will be taking less money to play big minutes for a championship contender. Good on him. 

There's one major thing that Corey needs to work on, and I say this knowing full well that - as a player who will turn 29 this November - Corey more or less is what he is at this stage. That's why I'm not mentioning is iffy defense. This will make or break the signing, however: In order to seamlessly fit in San Antonio's offense, as likely a third or fourth option most of the time, Maggette is going to have to learn how to shoot from the corners of the court.

Corey can shoot, he's streaky, but the stroke is there and teams have to guard him. But if you're to play the small forward spot in Gregg Popovich's, even in a point-forward capacity as Brent Barry has at times, you're going to have to nail that corner trey. Because that's where Coach Pop sticks you. And Maggette rarely sticks to that spot. Read More >>

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