Basketball from a fans perspective
This is interesting
Food vendors, janitors and ticket agents are employees of the Cavs and work at Quicken Loans Arena. Gilbert and partners announced they are paying an additional $1 million dollars to provide all Cavs employees championship rings. Reminds us of the Oprah Winfrey program at the time she would provide audience members automobiles. Instead its---YOU get a championship ring and YOU get a championship ring. Okay you would have had to see her program to fully understand my Oprah reference.
Bits n Pieces
The plan will be implemented early, as for late season into the playoffs that might be a completely different story. Tyronn Lue has announced in training camp he hopes to decrease the number of minutes LeBron is on the court. LeBron was at 35.6 minutes during the regular season and 39.0 in the playoffs. Considering NBA games are 48 minutes long you can see LeBron logged a great number of minutes last year and has throughout his career. He’s not over the hill but he turns 32 in December.
He’s one of those dual sports athletes I overlooked. Bill Sharman would be a vital part of the Celtic mystic of the 1950’s but he had a baseball career too. From 1950 to 1955 Sharman was in the Brooklyn Dodgers minor league farm season. As for basketball it might be the luck of the draw, drafted by the Washington Capitols and the team was disbanded. Sharman was selected by the Fort Wayne Pistons in the dispersal draft and the Pistons would trade him to the Celtics and the rest is history. After retirement Sharman would distinguish himself coaching in both the ABA and NBA.
I’m surprised Nick Young (at least to this point) remains a Laker. Young can shoot however the problem was he didn’t perform it very efficiently last season. Young just turn 31 which is not old however he needs to step up his game if he expects to remain a Laker.
The 76ers have three centers Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor. The problem how do you play all three at the same time. Just joking that ain’t happening. There is an issue though, Embiid has been pronounced ready to play and we know what Noel and Okafor can do. Noel could be moved to power forward but you are not going to have Embiid playing backup to Okafor or vice-versa. Somebody get’s traded and who that might be is unknown as camp opens.
Snake bit
Are the 76ers snake bit might be the next question? If I were a superstitious person I might say yes however I’m not. Enter Joel Embiid stage right exit rookie Ben Simmons stage left well not quite correct. Simmons will be sidelined for awhile after breaking a bone in his foot. As this is written we have no idea of a possible return date for Simmons.
I’m sure 76er fans are screaming loudly; “We cannot catch a break can we?” We can say not completely though. Its been announced Joel Embiid who’s been sidelined like forever will start on Tuesday in the teams first pre-season game. Embiid’s had two birthday without stepping onto a court in competitive action. In truth we can say the news out of 76er training camp is good and bad.
Point guard?
Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni claims James Harden will see time at the point this upcoming season. Hey isn’t Harden the guy who’s never seen a shot he didn’t like? We also know D’Antoni’s history offensive fast pace basketball history with a number of NBA teams but Harden? Is he talking about the same guy many teammates (not named Dwight Howard) consider a black hole. That’s the term one applied to former Rockets Coach Kevin McHale.
At the time McHale played for the Celtics it was said you passed the ball to McHale you never saw it again. Rather than just pontificate I decided to check the numbers. I was in for quite a surprise and I will issue an apology to Mr. Harden aka “The Beard” after checking his numbers. In 82 games last season Harden scored at a 29 points per game clip and dished out 7.5 assists, in the playoffs in 5 playoff games he scored 26.6 ppg and 7.6 assists. Harden registered these numbers without D’Antoni’s high power offense.
