VIDEO: Top plays from Friday’s preseason action
NEWS OF THE MORNING
‘Big Thaw’ behind Popovich/Team USA pick | Rose Bullish on Hoiberg offense | Barnes calls out media ‘half truth’ | Holdout over, Thompson happy, healthy, wealthy
No. 1: ‘Big Thaw’ behind Popovich/Team USA pick — Just because Gregg Popovich was an obvious choice to take over as the next head coach of Team USA doesn’t mean he was an easy choice. Popovich’s NBA resume, built on his belief in international players and basketball as a universal language, and his global inclinations dating back to the Air Force Academy made him the logical successor to Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, as our own Fran Blinebury explained. But there was a back story to Friday’s announcement involving the San Antonio coach and Jerry Colangelo, chairman of USA Basketball, that played out over a decade before the tumblers all fell into place. Adrian Wojnarowksi of Yahoo! Sports pulled back the curtain:
Just over a year ago in Chicago, Gregg Popovich raised the question with commissioner Adam Silver at the annual NBA coaches meeting: How did the USA Basketball national coaching job turn into a lifetime appointment for a college coach?
“Isn’t an NBA coach good enough to coach NBA players?” is one of the queries to Silver that peers in the room remembered Pop asking of the commissioner.
Pop offered several candidates, including Doc Rivers, as deserving of a chance to coach the Olympic team. All around Pop, NBA head coaches nodded with agreement. Popovich never offered his own name, though.
Popovich had once wanted the job, but would never campaign now – and truthfully never thought it possible as long as Jerry Colangelo was running USA Basketball.
Popovich and Colangelo had a decade-long cold war that started to thaw with a telephone call in March, league sources told Yahoo Sports on Friday. Colangelo finally reached out to Popovich to measure his interest in replacing Krzyzewski as the national coach in 2017. There would be no process, no competition. Pop had earned the right, but the question he and Colangelo had to answer, as one source with knowledge of the process said, “Could they work together?”
As those around Colangelo and Popovich understood, these two men had never had the opportunity to get to know each other, and maybe that was worth exploring before fully abandoning the idea of Popovich for the job. Popovich’s relationship with Adam Silver is much stronger than his with Stern, much more trust exists there. That helped, too.
Truth be told, how could Silver and Colangelo explain passing on Popovich again? They couldn’t – and Popovich needed to come to the conversations also with an open mind.
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No. 2: Rose bullish on Hoiberg offense — There’s no pinning down Chicago’s Derrick Rose when it comes to his injuries. Sometimes when folks, even his own team, expect him to return in a timely fashion, his rehab and recovery require more time, occasionally a lot more time. And then, when he is said to still have double vision as a result of a left orbital fracture suffered in the Bulls’ first practice of training camp, he manages to play anyway. Rose got on the court for 11 minutes against Dallas in Chicago’s preseason finale, darted to the rim for three layups and was effusive about the pace and potential of the team’s offense as coached by newcomer Fred Hoiberg. Sam Smith of Bulls.com chronicled the results from Lincoln, Neb.:
And it looks very promising for Rose to open the season where the Bulls expected him to be, at point guard leading a dynamic attack.
“I don’t want to say,” Rose said with a smile about the opener against Cleveland Tuesday. “I don’t want to jinx myself, but it’s improving every day. It looks like it’s a go for me.”
Beep, beep; get ready for the road runners.“I felt good,” Rose said. “I just wanted to come out, get a feel for the offense. I loved the way coach designed everything, the way the offense is run. They’ve got me running down hill every time I catch the ball and I’m catching the ball with a live dribble.
“He asked me to play yesterday,” said Rose of Hoiberg. “For him to ask me it must mean he loved the way I was playing in practice. With this offense it’s a lot of openings and gaps. With the way we shoot the ball and the freedom we have to shoot the ball, it’s like you can’t help off anyone; if someone has it going we’re to keep feeding them. We’re going to play off matchups. We’ve got to do that a little bit more and get people the ball a little more, like when Jimmy [Butler] had a couple of post ups when he had [J.J.] Barea on him a couple of times and we missed him. That’s all about reading the game and reading who is out there, giving the ball to the right person.
“There are a lot more (driving) lanes,” enthused Rose. “It’s so many opportunities to drive or so many opportunities to shoot my mid range even in transition; it’s open. I’ve just got to get used to playing this way. I know that might sound crazy, but playing in a (deliberate) system for three or four years kind of got me out of my rhythm.”
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No. 3: Barnes calls out media ‘half truth’ — Matt Barnes is one of the NBA’s reigning bad boys, in a league in which villains and heels are hard to find compared to 20 or 30 years ago. His dust-up with New York Knicks coach Derek Fisher out in Los Angeles – the result of Barnes’ angry reaction when Fisher visited socially Barnes’ estranged wife – generated unsavory headlines. And Barnes didn’t mince words this week when he talked with our own Shaun Powell about his departure from the L.A. Clippers, among other things. But Barnes had a right to take umbrage with a Web site, Complex.com, that spun his quotes second-hand and then spit them out in a headline more spiteful and controversial than what the veteran NBA forward actually said. So Barnes cut out the media middle men and made his case, in all its raw emotion, directly through Instagram:
matt_barnes9 I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore when my interviews or events in my life are taken & twisted up to make me look like an [expletive]!
So this recent article about me “hating Doc Rivers” is no different… I did say “Doc & I never saw eye to eye”,which was the truth & I also said “he couldn’t wait to get me outta there” which was the truth.. But I also said theres “No Hard Feelings” this is a BUSINESS & Doc did wat he felt was necessary to better his team! Not one time did I say “I hate Doc or the Clippers organization”..It’s actually the opposite!! I have nothing but gratitude & appreciation for the franchise that I had a “small part” in help turning around! I did say “I can’t wait to play the Clippers & Doc Rivers” because I am a competitor & even tho I love my former clip teammates, when that ball goes up Nov 9th for that next 48mins we are enemies!!
It’s just funny how EVERYTHING that comes out about me is half the truth or $h!t none of the truth..! The few people in the media that try & paint this negative picture of me you are doing a good job, “hats off to you” but my friends family & teammates know me & the truth & I guess that’ll have to do! “Just like I drove 95miles from Santa Barbra to LA” lol smh
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No. 4: Holdout over, Thompson happy, healthy, wealthy — Tristan Thompson isn’t sure how fans around the NBA or even just in Cleveland will respond when they see him for the first time since his contract holdout ended Thursday. But if there are enough bankers, financial planners and professional negotiators in the stands, the Cavaliers’ backup power forward ought to hear plenty of cheering. Thompson and his agents Rich Paul and Mark Termini gambled and won big, scoring a fully guaranteed, five-year contract worth $82 million, because a) Thompson performed so well in the Cavs’ playoffs crisis, stepping into the void opened by Kevin Love‘s shoulder, and b) the restricted free agent and his reps didn’t blink when the league’s artificial deadline for reaching a new deal passed on Oct. 1. Here is some info from Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com on how Thompson made a three-week holdout work for him:
His patience paid off, and it wasn’t just tested over the summer. It started about a year ago when his agents Rich Paul and Mark Termini turned down a four-year, $50 million extension in October of 2014, NEOMG was told. It is believed that the figure Paul would have settled for at the time was north of that $50 million sum.
An extra year of duty in a backup capacity (behind Kevin Love) while averaging the lowest statistics since his rookie year somehow translated to Thompson locking up $32 million more.
Last year the Phoenix Suns gave the Morris twins, Markieff and Marcus, a four-year $52 million extension to split between the two. Markieff, the better player, collected $32 million. Thompson picked up Markieff’s entire salary in the span of 12 months.
The news of Thompson’s deal prompted Sacramento Kings star DeMarcus Cousins to Tweet out: “How much?”
You think Thompson has any reservations to the sequence of events that led to his massive contract?
“If you asked if I would do it again, I’ll tell you I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Thompson told NEOMG. “Business is business and I believed in my guys Rich and Mark and myself and that’s what I did.”
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SOME RANDOM HEADLINES: Cleveland coach David Blatt apparently doesn’t doubt for a second that LeBron James will be healthy and available for the team’s season opener Tuesday in Chicago. But James hasn’t practiced for a week since receiving an anti-inflammatory injection in his lower back, his second in 10 months. … Ten weeks after beginning his own fight with cancer, Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell has been given a clean bill of health. He talked about that battle with reporters and disclosed that he had spoken with Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders, whose own treatment for Hodgkins lymphoma has been more difficult. … NBA commissioner Adam Silver talked after the Board of Governors meetings about the potential, at least, of a peaceful path to the owners’ next labor contract with the players and how shared business concepts might contribute to that. … When Doc Rivers calls Paul Pierce slow, he means it as a compliment. … Miami’s Gerald Green cost himself $25,000 in a matter of seconds with some unwelcome firearm pantomimes. … Meanwhile, Memphis’ Jeff Green committed the faux pas of third-person self-referencing. …
