Second-year guard Goran Dragic opened some eyes with an amazing performance against the Spurs in Game 3 of the Western Conference Semis, and he had another good game against the Lakers in Game 4, featuring this whirling-dervish layup.
I wonder if it would be better to say you just got Goran’ed!
Prior to Game 3, I submitted a few questions to NBA.com as part of the Blogger Q&A with Kenny Smith. On the heels of two substandard performances by Amare Stoudemire in L.A., one of the questions I posed to Smith was whether or not he was playing himself out of a max contract with his performance against the Lakers.
D’oh! If you don’t like the question, Kenny, pick a different one! Come on!
But I still wonder — even though Stoudemire will almost certainly sign a max deal this summer, is he really worth it?
I wrote earlier today about Jackson’s willingness to field questions about his future in the middle of the Western Conference Finals, and now CBSSports is reporting that a person close to Jackson believes that the coach would be unwilling to take a major pay cut to stay with the Lakers.
While Jackson reiterated his hunch Tuesday that there’s a 90 percent chance he’ll either be coaching the Lakers next season or retiring, a person with close ties to Jackson told CBSSports.com that it’s too early to set odds. If Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss insists on a massive pay cut, the person said, Jackson would not return. Published reports have indicated that Buss is seeking to pay Jackson $5 million next season, a pay cut of $7 million.
The source close to Jackson indicated that the question of how much Jackson’s pay would be reduced is, to some degree, semantics. Given that he is close to retirement age, a significant portion of Jackson’s salary could be deferred in the form of retirement benefits that he would see without penalty in two years.
Another person with knowledge of Jackson’s situation said it would be difficult to imagine him leaving the Lakers with Kobe Bryant in the prime of his career and having just signed a three-year extension. The person equated it to overtures that frequently came Jackson’s way when he coached Michael Jordan in Chicago, saying Jackson never would’ve left Jordan in his prime, either.
But one of those sources said circumstances could change with the possibility of Jackson becoming bait to lure LeBron James to the Bulls, who have maximum salary-cap space to sign him and a quality roster that Jackson views favorably. The person said the Jackson/LeBron situation was plausible, considering Jackson would have the chance to complete a potentially irresistible trifecta – coaching Jordan and Bryant, and then capping his career with James.
The bit about the “irresistible trifecta” is interesting. Jackson has been fortunate in that he has been in a position to coach some of the league’s greatest players, but if he were able to join forces with LeBron and win his 11th (or 12th) NBA title, it would certainly cap what has already been a remarkable career. Yes, he has been fortunate in the quality of player that he has coached, but it takes more than great players to win championships, and Jackson’s ability to manage massive egos and get 12 players pointed in the same direction is, for lack of a better word, uncanny.
He’s not going to grind out 50+ wins with an inferior roster like Jerry Sloan does year in and year out, but if Jackson has the most talented roster, he’s a good bet to be the last coach standing at the end of the postseason.
And that’s probably worth $12 million a season.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Before last night’s Game 4, Phil Jackson shot down the rumors about a possible return to Chicago.
“I have no, at all, desire to go back to Chicago and coach the Bulls,” Jackson said, responding to an ESPN.com report from Monday night that the Bulls had reached out to Jackson through back channels to gauge his interest in a return.
Jackson went on to say that the “probabilities are great” that he’d be coaching the Lakers next season, though the franchise has made it clear that they expect him to take a pay cut.
The timing of this is curious. The Lakers are still in the playoffs, and Jackson is fielding questions about his 2010-11 salary and a possible job change. Sometimes he gets caught up in using the media to tweak his players or tweaking the media just for fun, but there’s a possibility that this is becoming a distraction to a Laker team that came to Phoenix looking invincible and is leaving the Valley of the Sun knotted in a 2-2 series and licking its proverbial wounds.
With the media in a tizzy trying to predict the landing spot for LeBron James and several other big-name free agents, these questions are going to come up over and over again. Sometimes the best way to answer is just to say “no comment.”
The Suns lead 64-55 at halftime, but both teams were hot in the second quarter, combining for 73 points.
Check out this series of jumpers:
8:19 Kobe Bryant makes 21-foot jumper
8:07 Leandro Barbosa makes 21-foot jumper
7:52 Kobe Bryant makes 22-foot jumper
7:30 Jared Dudley makes 15-foot two point shot
7:01 Channing Frye makes 26-foot three point jumper
6:09 Jared Dudley makes 24-foot three point jumper
5:50 Kobe Bryant makes 25-foot three point jumper
5:41 Leandro Barbosa makes 26-foot three point jumper
5:24 Kobe Bryant makes 23-foot three point jumper
4:41 Steve Nash makes 26-foot three point jumper
4:11 Ron Artest makes 25-foot three point jumper
3:59 Channing Frye makes 25-foot three point jumper
3:10 Kobe Bryant makes 22-foot jumper
2:58 Channing Frye makes 23-foot three point jumper
2:36 Derek Fisher makes jumper
2:03 Kobe Bryant makes 26-foot three point jumper
1:53 Steve Nash makes 17-foot jumper
That’s 17 made jumpers in 6:26 of gameplay. In other words, during this stretch, there was one made jumper every 21.5 seconds. Wow.
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