Category: NBA (Page 577 of 595)

22 of the 25 members of Team USA have been announced. Here’s the list:

Carmelo Anthony, Denver
Gilbert Arenas, Washington
Shane Battier, Memphis
Chauncey Billups, Detroit
Chris Bosh, Toronto
Bruce Bowen, San Antonio
Elton Brand, L.A. Clippers
Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Josh Howard, Dallas
LeBron James, Cleveland
Antawn Jamison, Washington
Joe Johnson, Atlanta
Rashard Lewis, Seattle
Shawn Marion, Phoenix
Brad Miller, Sacramento
Chris Paul, NO/Okla. City
Paul Pierce, Boston
Michael Redd, Milwaukee
Luke Ridnour, Seattle
Amare Stoudemire, Phoenix
Dwyane Wade, Miami

The final three spots will be filled by players from the college and high school ranks. Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick are believed to be two of the frontrunners at this point.

Shaquille O’Neal has a standing offer to join the team at any time.

Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Tracy McGrady, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince declined to play.

Looking at the list, the three names that are really surprising are Luke Ridnour, Rashard Lewis and Antawn Jamison. The fact that Team USA elected not to extend an offer to Allen Iverson makes their presence even more surprising. I’m not a huge fan of AI, but his gritty, determined play in the ’04 Olympics was one of the best things about that team.

The NBA season is just past its halfway mark and there are a number of teams that have stopped thinking about the playoffs and have started thinking about the NBA draft [Insider subscription required]. Overall, this year’s crop of players is considered weak, and there isn’t a clear cut #1 pick.

For now, there seems to be a consensus on the top three, and they’re all underclassmen. Connecticut’s Rudy Gay is a long, athletic small forward who has good range on his jumper. I’ve seen him play a couple of times and, thus far, he seems a bit soft. He floats around the perimeter and doesn’t seem to have much of a midrange game. He also doesn’t seem very intense, which is a problem when you start talking about taking someone with the #1 pick.

Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison is the sentimental favorite for a lot of (white) fans. He has a Larry Bird quality about him and is a fierce competitor. He has a ton of range on his jumpshot and has an excellent midrange game. His only weakness is his athleticism, and it is more apparent on defense. This is only going to get worse at the next level as he’ll be playing small forward in the NBA.

The third player is LaMarcus Aldridge of Texas. He’s going to be a power forward in the NBA and has a good offensive game, both facing the basket and with his back to it. The only knock on him at this point is that he’ll need to add muscle to his frame.

With this much uncertainty over the best player in the draft, it will likely come down to which team wins the lottery. That team will probably draft the player that best fits their needs.

I say “proabably” because there is no telling what the Blazers or the Hawks would do. (Last year, they both passed on Chris Paul to take small forward projects.)

ESPN’s Bill Simmons hit one out of the park with his facetious first-annual Atrocious GM Summit, which brought some of the league’s current and former atrocious GMs together for a frank conversation.

My favorite bit – Simmons interviews former Knicks GM Scott Layden about what current GM Isiah Thomas has done:

Simmons: So you like what Isiah has done?

Layden: Hell, yeah. Take the Francis trade, if it happens: Logically, it makes no sense because Francis and Marbury are the same player — expensive, shoot-first point guards with huge entourages and attitude problems who have never won anything. Even if you’re getting Francis for nothing, it still makes no sense on paper.

For example, let’s say you spent $3,000 on a living room sofa two years ago that you didn’t really like. To make the sofa stand out a little less, you bought a leather chair for $2,200 that doesn’t match –.

Simmons: Marbury is the sofa and Jamal Crawford is the chair in this case?

Layden: Precisely. And the room still looks bad. So now, you’re on Craigslist and you see that someone is selling another $3,000 sofa for $900 that’s almost exactly like the sofa you have. And there’s no way you would ever want two big, ugly sofas in the same room. It would just look ridiculous. But your mind-set is, “Hey, how can I turn down a $3,000 sofa for $900?” So you buy the sofa and stick it in the room, which is now cluttered with stuff since you also spent another $10,000 on some crummy art, a coffee table with support problems, two giant bookcases that have to be turned sideways, some wobbly end tables and a smashed sculpture that was patched back together with duct tape. But since it’s too late to go back, you spend another $5,000 on an interior decorator to make the room work. Well, you know what would happen? He wouldn’t be able to make it work. You bought too much crap.

See, this is why Isiah is a genius: He’s assembling the basketball version of that nightmare living room, and he has the fans convinced that either the expensive interior decorator — in this case, Larry Brown — will be able to make everything work, or he can somehow swap some of that furniture to one of his neighbors for a first-class piece of art. And he’s spending an ungodly amount of money! And you never hear rumors that he might get fired! I think it’s a tribute to him and his staff. He’s the best-ever at being an atrocious GM. He really is.

Thomas: Thank you, Scott, that means a lot.

He mentioned Craigslist. You gotta love it!