– A ThunderWorld without Westbrook (from Royce Young, ESPN.com):
“There was a familiar tone of defiance in Russell Westbrook’s voice as he said it.
“Never,” he answered Sunday when asked if he had any doubts he’d be the same after a third surgical procedure in eight months. “Never a doubt.”
Westbrook’s unwavering confidence isn’t shocking. He’s Russell Westbrook, the man who fires from 18 feet with 20 seconds on the shot clock and never thinks twice about it. But his inner confidence doesn’t ease any of the growing concerns emanating across Oklahoma City.
The Thunder’s superstar point guard, their heart and soul, their emotional leader, has now had the same knee operated on three times since Patrick Beverley crashed into him last April, causing a torn meniscus in his right knee that threatened to sap the explosiveness that allows his game to thrive. Westbrook plays with an uncaged fury, but it works only because he’s such a freakish athlete, because his body makes it so.
When Westbrook returned from arthroscopic surgery in November four weeks ahead of schedule, he was pain-free and didn’t need long to look like his old self. The Thunder ripped off 20 wins in 22 games, capped by Westbrook’s Christmas Day triple-double at Madison Square Garden.
Then the bad news came: another scope on Westbrook’s knee because of swelling, another multiple-week absence.
The anxiety and fear absent on Christmas as Westbrook carved up the Knicks crept back into focus. “The team will manage the situation” — that’s how Thunder general manager Sam Presti described the situation over and over, yet there’s no denying the future is murky again. The cryptic description of the injury — from a loose stitch the first time to something being called “the area of concern” this time — makes it impossible not to fret.”
Read it here: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/65224/a-thunderworld-without-westbrook
– Warriors’ Streak Ended By Reviving Nets (by Brian Windhorst, ESPN.com):
“Winning four consecutive games, by any measure, makes for a pleasant week in the NBA. The past week’s value to the Brooklyn Nets, though, seems to have a currency beyond a modest win streak.
The Nets scored an impressive victory Wednesday night, breaking the Golden State Warriors‘ 10-game win streak with a 102-98 win. It had the symbolic value of getting the Nets into eighth place in the Eastern Conference, which really means nothing in January. More importantly, the Nets played like a more energized team than the unit that’s generally gone through the season with slumped shoulders.
It’s not time to jump to conclusions that Brooklyn has turned a corner. It had a nice little run in December when it won four out of five games before taking another nosedive. The fact that Deron Williams just got plasma therapy on his continuing-to-be troublesome ankles and is out for a while is not wonderful news.
It must be said these four victories are reasonably legit, bookended by a strong win in Oklahoma City and then this victory over the hottest team in the league. On Friday, the Nets host the Miami Heat and get them playing their fifth game in seven days in another chance to build on the streak.
“It’s definitely going to give us a confidence boost moving forward, and it shows what you’re capable of,” Nets forward Paul Pierce said. “We beat two great Western Conference teams in the matter of a week.”
Read it here: http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-140108/daily-dime-nets-snap-warriors-road-run
– Luol Deng trade grades and analysis (from blogabull.com):
Bullsblogger has collected some of the more informed analyses here: http://www.blogabull.com/2014/1/8/5285970/luol-deng-trade-grades-and-analysis
And read about the obscure rule that “helped tear Bulls roster apart” here: https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140108/sports/701089712/
– 10 NBA D-League Players Who Deserve Call-Ups (from Drew Corrigan at Dimemag.com):
“The NBA Development League is often looked upon as a downgrade when players receive an assignment to places like Delaware, Springfield, Rio Grande Valley or Sioux Falls rather than playing in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Detroit. While it may be underwhelming, most NBA fans miss the whole point of the D-League or the benefits it can have on a player.
The D-League can be described as a dark place that players never want to step foot in, but there is no doubt that the D-League gives players the opportunities to hone skills that can’t be worked on sitting at the end of an NBA bench. Instead of sitting on the end of that bench, these players are given the opportunity to play 30-plus minutes per game against other players fighting for their NBA lives. It’s the proverbial Hunger Games of the NBA.
The worst thing someone can do is talk down about the level of competition in the NBA Development League. Sure, you won’t find a Kobe Bryant or LeBron James there. But you’ll find a roster full of ambitious young athletes trying to make their dream become a reality. You see the grit, the guts and the glory that can be lost in the magic of the NBA. I love the underdog mentality and that’s something that EVERY player in the D-League has. They play in venues that have more empty seats than people, trying to play a team oriented game when they know they have to value individual success over team success for them ever to take the jump to the NBA.
Sometimes we all take for granted the stars we watch night in and night out. For now, lets give some praise to these 10 D-League players that deserve to be playing in front of thousands before the season is over.”
Read about the ten players Drew thinks deserve call-ups to the Assn here: http://dimemag.com/2014/01/10-nba-d-league-players-deserve-call-ups/
– The 15 Best Second Options In The NBA (from Drew Corrigan at dimemag.com):
“If there’s one thing to be learned about the NBA, it’s that a championship can’t be won on the back of one player. How obvious was this last season in the playoffs when Russell Westbrook was injured and the Thunder relied completely on Kevin Durant isolations? Even with Durant being one of the top three players in the league, he couldn’t will a team to a playoff series victory by himself.
For every spectacular play a Batman makes, there’s a Robin somewhere on the team that made the play possible. Let’s be honest, …Jordan needed Pippen, Malone needed Stockton (he actually needed more than that, unfortunately), LeBron needed Wade, so on and so forth. Most barbershop discussions center around the best player in the NBA, but what about the second option? Some of these second options can even contend as some of the best players in the league.
This piece isn’t about rating players based on talent — it’s about which ones have mastered this particular role on their specific team. With this in mind, lets rank the top 15 second options in the NBA.”
Read Drew’s take on the best second options here: http://dimemag.com/2014/01/nbas-15-best-second-options/
– Four NBA teams offer unique spins on the classic pick-and-roll (from Rob Mahoney, Sports Illustrated):
“No strategy is more fundamental to modern basketball than the pick-and-roll. It is everywhere — laced in every playbook, deep in every player’s brain and placed neatly in every coach’s back pocket. It takes many shapes and forms, and today we look at some of the most compelling.”
Rob takes a look at “a handful of exceptional case studies in the mechanics of pick-and-roll play through the lens of four duos (Lin/ Howard, Chalmers/Bosh, Ellis-Calderon/Dirk, Anyone/Anthony Davis) served to highlight the commonalities of the sequence and the wide varieties of its execution here: http://nba.si.com/2014/01/07/the-fundamentals-four-nba-teams-offer-unique-spins-on-the-classic-pick-and-roll/3/
– Surveying the notable moves of the contract guarantee deadline (from Rob Mahoney, Sports Illustrated):
” The NBA calendar is littered with various deadlines, which naturally bring droves of business as each cutoff nears. One lesser-known limit is currently upon us: Jan 10 is the date after which player salaries for the season are guaranteed, meaning the release of any player on a fully or partially unguaranteed contract must have formally cleared waivers by that particular date. In effect, that waiver requirement shifted the deadline to end of business by Tuesday, Jan 7.
Therein lies the motivation for the flurry of moves over the past few days, most of which involve lesser-known players on the fringes of NBA rosters.” (Rob discusses the “most notable moves , both in terms of which players survived the deadline to remain with their respective teams and which were released in time to sign elsewhere” here: http://nba.si.com/2014/01/08/contract-deadline-nba-moves/
– Anthony Bennett’s struggles take a turn for the worse (from David Zavac at feartheswrod.com):
“Anthony Bennett was a surprise pick in a horrible draft. He came to a team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, that didn’t need him to start immediately. He would be able to come off the bench, work himself into shape following offseason shoulder surgery and still be able to contribute; the Cavaliers didn’t have another credible backup power forward on the roster with Earl Clark winning the starting small forward job.
He has not proven capable of holding down the backup power forward job. In 311 minutes of play this season, Bennett has compiled a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 1.0. He is shooting 27% from the field. He is 4 for 28 on three point attempts. The average total rebounding rate for power forwards last season was 14.0. Bennett’s is 11.8 thus far. He has -.8 win shares. He has 26 turnovers and 7 assists. As Jacob Rosen of Waiting For Next Year pointed out to me last night, the Cavs are outscored by 9.9 points when Bennett plays, and 4.5 points when he sits.
The reasons for Bennett’s disappointing play have been debated at length, and there isn’t a possible resolution. Is it the shoulder surgery? Is it the speed of the NBA? Did he need to lose weight? How much weight? Is it his asthma? His sleep apnea? Is he taking too many threes? Is he playing the wrong position? Does Mike Brown not give rookies enough of a chance? Is this all in his head now? How do the Cavs get him to start having fun again?
These are all great and fair questions. I don’t know the answer to any of them, really. What I do know is that I was encouraged by the fact that Bennett appeared to be working his tail off even as his game failed him. His handle was shaky but he was running. He had no rebounding technique or clue, but he was battling. When he showed on pick and rolls, he ran like heck to recover to the basket. Until last night.
Last night, with the game decided long prior, Bennett stopped playing. Problem was, he was still one of the Cavaliers on the court helping to put the game away.”
Read it here: http://www.fearthesword.com/2014/1/8/5288476/anthony-bennetts-struggles-take-a-turn-for-the-worse
Basketball Intelligence 