Bits n Pieces
A number of stories emanated from Los Angeles and Houston after Dwight Howard chose the Rockets over the Lakers. One of the first stories circulating; “he left the Lakers because he thought the reins of leadership should have been turned over to him.” Another report said; “he wanted the Lakers to amnesty Kobe.” We have no idea if the reports are accurate this one is fact, it’s based on an interview with the player. “He asked Laker management to hire Phil Jackson after Mike Brown was fired.”
July 19 Words eye view contained a story on international NBA players. It was pointed out one of the most populace nations in the world India was yet to produce an NBA player. That might change at some future date with these two brothers. Sim Bhullar played last season at New Mexico State; big brother is really BIG standing 7 feet 5 inches and weighing a hefty 360 pounds. Tanveer made a decision to follow his older brother to New Mexico State. Tanveer is on the smallish size he’s “only 7 feet 3 inches tall and a trim and slim 300 pounds.” The brothers were born in Canada however their parents immigrated to the country from India. It will be interesting to see if the brothers form a twin-tower tandem at NMSU.
Derek Fisher signed a 1-year contract with the Thunder over the summer. Fisher indicates this will be his last year in the NBA; he will retire at the end of the season. Cynics will claim Fisher should have probably retired 5 or 6 years ago.
Perhaps I made too much of the Knicks-Nets battle recently. Frank Isola sportswriter for the New York Daily News wrote a column on the subject. “Best team in New York? Since when did they hand out a trophy for winning that title? The Nets have never won an NBA championship, and the Knicks haven’t won one since 1973, which feels like forever.” Isola may be correct---one of the teams needs to win an NBA Championship before deciding who the King of New York City is.
Sometimes you just don‘t know
Noah Trister wrote a piece on the best and worst draft choices of each NBA team. The draft choices that warranted being chosen we can name most of them by heart. As for the misses that’s another story, I‘ll only list those beginning with the year 2000. How about Darko Milicic picked by the Pistons in 2006 (a story was written recently). He was chosen behind LeBron James and before Carmelo Anthony? Based on an outstanding season at Gonzaga the Bobcats made Adam Morrison the number three pick in 2006. Morrison had a decent rookie year (11.8 ppg); an injury caused him to miss the entire 2007-08 season. After returning to action he was never able to resurrect his career, 2010 would be his last year in the NBA.
The Bulls second pick in the 2002 draft Duke was standout guard Jay Williams. After a promising start his NBA career was cut-short by a motorcycle accident, today he is a basketball television analyst for ESPN. Draft experts claim the 2013 draft was weak by comparison to many in the past. It’s always been my view an accurate assessment is not possible until two or three years later. Sometimes adjustment to the NBA occurs much sooner, other times we overlook an athlete. Question, how many were familiar with Damon Lillard? A better question how many of you were familiar with Weber State or even the location pf the school? Point guard Lillard burst on the scene and snatched the 2013 NBA Rookie of the Year trophy from Anthony Davis. Many in the media had pronounced Davis Rookie of the Year prior to him setting foot on an NBA court.
They tend to do a better job at times
Many of the best interviews I’ve witnessed have been conducted by those in the media who don’t cover sports. I would cite 60 Minutes as an example; I still remember an interview conducted on 8th grade basketball player Tyson Chandler. Certainly at that time I don’t believe any of us believed he was headed to the NBA. The 60 Minutes reporter interviewed mom and son asking questions beyond that of a sports media person. The same television news magazine would interview Brad Stevens many years later. Stevens had burst on to the scene after leading Butler University back to the national spotlight. The story was told of the 36-year old Stevens first date with his future wife, he took her to a high school basketball game. Of course at the time we had no idea Stevens was on his way to becoming head coach of the Celtics. This is no endorsement of his future NBA success, the interview left many of us with a good opinion of the man revealed in the interview. Maybe what I might fail to realize all sports fans don’t toil in that field. Example, Wolfe Blizter at CNN has been covering hard news for years he also turns outs to be a Wizards and NBA fan. The same might be said for former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw who also counts himself a member of the NBA fan alliance.
