10 questions about this Suns' season: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune
Insight into Porter's playbook (now with muddled metaphors!)
“I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.”
The Suns spent an hour ironing out the wrinkles on one such play in Wednesday’s morning session.
So are wrinkles good? Or bad?
Also from that article:
When the Suns broke the huddle under former coach Mike D’Antoni, they chanted "Suns!" Under Porter, that mantra has changed to "Defense!"
I'm cautiously excited about seeing how they do with this defense oriented approach.
More on Porter's defense and how players are adapting to it.
Nash is in favor of fewer minutes, but not fewer games.
"If I could miss 10 or 12 games and go to the Bahamas, that sounds good," Nash said. "If I have to stay here, I might as well play. But to shift the minutes around a little more and change our style just a little bit to preserve guys' legs ... I think that's possible."
I'm just ridiculously in favor of there being backups for Nash that might let Barbosa return to his natural position. The man just doesn't see the floor well, and that's ok. You'd never ask Nash to post-up, or Shaq to start jacking up threes, so why is it a problem if LB is a (really good) undersized shooting guard?
Speaking of Barbosa, he left training camp to be with his very ill mother in Brazil. My thoughts are with them.
Also in that article:
The players [ran] gassers for every missed free throw.... "I have to change that around because they didn’t run that many," [Porter] said. "There were too many free throws made."
Diaw poked STAT in the eye and now Amare may wear goggles for the rest of his career. It isn't serious, but he's just a cautious guy.
Also in that article: Barbosa hasn't set a date to come back from Brazil yet. The Suns do not expect him back before next week, at the earliest.
A fairly nay-saying look at the upcoming season. Some positive bits, but also featuring many phrases in the vein of as if his feet are nailed to the floor and collection of dinosaurs.
Other NBA
Photo from the Plain Dealer
Information about Anderson Varejao, his off season, and his ankle injury.The injury also prevented Varejao from playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifier. Surprisingly, he received criticism in his own country for sitting out the qualifier and rehabbing his ankle.
How is this surprising?
"What was tougher for me is the media in Brazil didn’t know what was going on," Varejao said. "I didn’t know why. Everybody started talking like I didn’t want to play for the national team. That was tough. Brazil is a soccer country. Basketball is not that big, so they didn’t really know what was going on."
No, really, I think that even if they had known why he didn't play for Brazil, they would have been disappointed. Especially b/c he played in the playoffs even with the sprain. And claiming that basketball fans around the world don't know about it when their favorite player is injured? Is shortsighted in the age of the internet.
Varejao said the ankle is still swelled a little, but not as bad as it was.
Which, aside from some questionable grammar, is both good and bad. Obviously.
The Spurs count their blessings and come up with three.
Lawrence Pedowitz's review of the NBA's referees has been completed. He found that Donaghy was the only ref who acted illegally. But, as Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, points out: "If this had been an independent investigation we would have gladly cooperated," Lauro told ESPN.com's Mike Fish. "But we knew this was going to be a PR effort. ... It is a way that David Stern can say, 'I put nice little ribbon on this whole case and the only person that has ever done anything incorrect is Tim Donaghy.' That really was the whole purpose of the report."
I gotta say, I agree. I'm on the fence about if there are other refs who were fixing games or doing things that were worse than favoritism, but I don't trust Stern at all.
The Warriors' mascot is named Thunder. The new OKC team is the Thunder. Conflict!
"For the sake of not making things confusing, we're going to do something. We just have to figure out a good exit strategy."
He just might have one -- leave Thunder in China during the team's upcoming trip to Asia.
"He might get lost in the crowd over in China," Rowell said. "There are 1.3 billion people there."
General WNBA
Lauren Jackson will be a free agent and the Storm are bound and determined to keep her. Also, no matter what the title of the article says, she doesn't want to think about the issue yet.
WNBA Finals
You may be able to stop Nolan, but the Shock have more options than that. For instance, they have Taj McWilliams-Franklin. And other veterans like Katie Smith. Also, the awesomeness of Bill Laimbeer. But mostly, they have Taj.
Doris Burke's diatribes about how the Mystics are eeeeevil for trading Taj to a contender have been bothering me a lot during ESPN's coverage of the Playoffs. I'm glad that someone else put it into words. If I had tried, it might have come out as *keyboardsmash*
I would also add that the Mystics picking up a 8.3ppg/3.7rpg 22 year-old rookie center (in Humphrey) is a lot better for rebuilding than the Grizzlies picking up a 4.8ppg/4.9rpg 26 year-old center who has been playing professionally for 7 years (in Kwame Brown). So please don't even begin to compare this to the Gasol trade, Ms. Burke. Thank you.
