Basketball from a fan’s perspective

No…. please don’t do it!

We have now heard it a second time, Russell Westbrook to the Lakers. I am not signing off on this one, Westbrook from 5-6 years ago but not this version. The reason why now, the Lakers found themselves woefully lacking in offense at times this past season. Westbrook its believed would invigorate the offense that suffered with no AD and LeBron in the lineup. Despite his ability to rebound and distribute the ball Westbrook’s shooting has fallen off the edge of the earth.

Would Westbrook be willing to curtail his shooting on a Laker team? We are discussing possible adjustments, the Lakers are a better team than the Wizards with AD and LeBron alone. There are too many potential problems for this to work successfully in my view. As an example, Andrew Drummond was criticized all around for clogging the lane, with a Westbrook in the lineup that might be a continuous issue. The key matter for us to discuss is $$$, it would be difficult to see how the Lakers could afford to pay Westbrook. All we read indicates the Lakers are over the salary cap, we shall see if this rumor has legs.

It’s over

We are not speaking of the NBA championship, but the pre-season and early hype is over. In December Las Vegas had the odds heavily in favor of a Lakers-Nets 2021 NBA championship, that will not occur as you are aware. The Lakers were bested early by the Suns and Saturday evening we witnessed the Bucks beating the Nets in OT 115-111. What might have been was seriously impacted by events beyond anyone’s control, injuries affected both teams. We always say injuries are part of the game we are just unsure if they ever affected two odds on favorites in this manner.

The Lakers coming off the 2020 championship and the Nets with the triple combination of Durant, Irving and Hardin (sounds like a law firm). For the Lakers it was early as AD went down in February and LeBron in March both missing significant time. They returned before the end of the season but were they fully healed? For the Nets James Hardin suffering injury earlier was “suppose” to be ready to play, he went out with an injury in the first minute of the first game. Later Kyrie Irving would also suffer injury missing valuable time. Kevin Durant would be the only one to play and boy did he play, it just wasn’t enough to allow the Nets to win. What about next season for the two, both the Lakers and Nets will be re-tooled in some manner. We are just uncertain how each team will look next season. 

How about including her too

We heard the names Becky Hammon of the Spurs, even Kara Lawson current Duke woman’s coach has been mentioned in the discussion of becoming the first female head coach in the NBA. One of the names overlooked in this search is Teresa Weatherspoon, she’s been an assistant on the Pelicans staff. Beyond that her basketball history is quite diverse she played in the WNBA for several years. After her playing career was over, she went into coaching first as an assistant.

In 2008 Weatherspoon was hired as head coach by Louisiana Tech where she was a successful coach with a 99-71 won-loss record, in 2020 she was hired by the Pelicans as an assistant coach. Spoon as she is nicknamed is also a Naismith Hall of Fame inductee in the Class of 2019.  A friend voiced concern whether the NBA would take this bold step, he mentioned the length of time it took Patrick Ewing to be hired. I believe you always have time to do the right thing…hear that NBA?

Draft Lottery

The NBA will conduct its annual Draft Lottery on Tuesday June 22, who wins? All the teams win provided they land in a position to draft that talent which takes them over the top. On the surface this draft appears deep indicating there is potential ability beyond those who might be chosen in the lottery portion. There are a total of 14 participating teams, it’s weighted therefore the worst a team’s record it’s likely their odds improve.

Depending on your age you might ask, “Why does the NBA conduct a lottery?” Prior to the lottery a variety of methods was utilized a coin flip being most common. The key issue, teams with the two worst records could be in the same conference and the NBA probably wanted to avoid that possibility. In addition, it was said the Rockets purposely were losing games toward the end of the season to position themselves for the top pick. With the first pick in 1983 the Rockets chose Ralph Sampson, the following season losing on purpose it’s believed the Rockets in 1984 again had the top pick. In the 1984 draft they chose Akeem (Hakeem) Olajuwon, and the rest is NBA history.   

Sam Presti

One of the websites I regularly read contained this account on Friday evening. “Thunder GM Sam Presti has accumulated 19(?) first round picks over the last 7 years.” I attempted to return to the site but could not locate it, that’s why there is a question mark behind the number of picks. Whatever the case, Presti might be one of the nicest guys going but as the Janet Jackson hit goes, “What Have You Done For Me Lately.” It seems accumulating draft choices without showing progress on the court really serves no purpose in my view.  If we check the Thunder’s won-loss record over the last three seasons they appear to be going in a reverse direction.

The Thunder have been on a downward spiral from 49 wins to 44 and the recently completed 72-game season witnessed them finishing with a 22-50 record. Sorry fans just picking up draft picks without improvement on the court is not impressive to me. With any issue we cannot just look at one thing and claim that is the basis for below par play, coaching and personnel at hand certainly factor into the equation. I’m just not ready to pat Presti or anyone else on the back for that matter until evidence is provided. In fairness to him the Thunder have been a competitive team during much of the time he’s been general manager. I hope it doesn’t appear I’m being negative on purpose; I would just appreciate visible proof of improvement which is not evident to this writing.