We’re back! It’s the NBA’s turn starting Monday, as the exhibition season opens with the Cavaliers playing the Wizards in Washington. The Bulls get going Tuesday night in Grand Rapids, Mich., playing the Pistons.
But it might be appropriate that the opener features the Cavs and LeBron James, the latest in a collection of saviors working on reaching plateaus rather than mountains. James, the next would-be Michael Jordan, enters his third season off an 11-19 finish. He’s working on his third coach in less than a year and is still without a playoff appearance.
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So the question in the NBA is: Was it really just all hype?
“We don’t want to put everything on LeBron,” new general manager Danny Ferry said. “Obviously, he’s a huge part, but this team has to improve defensively more than anything else. When you look at last season, defensively is where the big breakdowns were. The Bulls and Lakers in their heyday, the Spurs, they were all excellent defensive teams.”
Defense is the mantra of all teams in training camp, and the Cavaliers had a problem–they were 19th in opponents’ shooting. They have a new coach in heralded longtime assistant Mike Brown. And Ferry did a good job in the off-season by re-signing center Zydrunas Ilgauskas and adding shooters Damon Jones, Donyell Marshall and Larry Hughes.
“I don’t understand why people aren’t just going crazy over [Cleveland],” Miami coach Stan Van Gundy said as camps opened. “I looked at . . . rating systems on players, and they’ve got five of the top 50 players in the NBA now, based on performance last year. That team, on paper, is a 55-win team.”
But it all comes down to James. Most believe he was difficult to deal with last season, ripping teammates and coaches as the season slipped away, though most in the organization now are throwing themselves under the bus to absolve him. James opened camp with a defiant proclamation that he was staying in Cleveland despite rumors to the contrary. He said he was thrilled with the new management and off-season additions.
“There should be no excuses for us not to get to the playoffs with the guys we’ve added,” he said.
Now with Hughes, locals are talking up a tandem resembling Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Last year it was supposed to be Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady or Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom. LeBron and Larry?
“LeBron is going to be a different player than the other guys,” said Ferry, who played for the Cavs from 1990 through 2000. “Larry is going to complement him differently. `Z’ will add something to the mix the Bulls and other teams did not have. Hopefully it can all come together and work in a big way.”
Dress for success?
We may love this game, but loving its players gets more difficult. Asked about the NBA’s proposed new dress code asking players to be neat on the bench and dress well on trips with sport coats and collared shirts, Denver’s Marcus Camby said, “I don’t see it happening unless every NBA player is given a stipend to buy clothes. Guys who haven’t been wearing suits and don’t own suits, it will be really hard to get them in time for the season.”
Camby makes $9.3 million this season.
Dozens of players have objected. The fear some team officials now have is players, independent and rich and generally feeling they’re owed a living, will forget that it’s a privilege to play in the NBA. They’ll revolt and make the league look worse.
Greg Ostertag said he may wear loud sport coats to sabotage the plan. Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan are among those who have said they don’t intend to comply. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who wears T-shirts, also objects.
But Toronto’s Matt Bonner expressed the league’s concern: “We have the worst image rating out there of all the sports, and I think anything we can do to improve that is good. The dress code’s a start.”
Charlie’s challenge
Bald, or balding, can be beautiful. Toronto rookie Charlie Villanueva, the erstwhile Illinois recruit, is a poster boy for alopecia areata, a disease that results in loss of body and scalp hair.
Villanueva said he started losing his hair when he was 10, though being taller than 6 feet by the time he was in 8th grade held off the bullies. He’s now a spokesman for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
Though his draft selection at No. 7 was criticized, Villanueva’s 6-foot-11-inch size teamed with Chris Bosh and Joey Graham could finally give the Raptors a core worth developing.
Wounded knee
Looks like Amare Stoudemire may have signed that $70 million contract extension with Phoenix just in time. There are reports that he has serious knee problems that could require surgery and sideline him for an extended period.
This also affects the Lakers, who had Yao and Stoudemire on their free-agent wish list for two seasons away, when they can get below the salary cap.
Is Los Angeles losing its aura? Is playing with Bryant an issue? Don’t be surprised if the Lakers focus on Bosh, the best least-known and underappreciated big man in the NBA.
Vowing to rebound
Chris Webber called last season “the worst feeling I’ve ever had: timeout times 50.” That was a reference to his infamous gaffe in the 1993 NCAA title game paling in comparison to his struggles last season under fired Philadelphia coach Jim O’Brien.
But with Webber’s colossal salary, there was little the 76ers could do but find a coach (Maurice Cheeks) to accommodate Webber. Webber’s knee problems will be an ongoing story this season.
Not quite the last
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Phil Jackson’s “The Last Season” is out in paperback with a new epilogue sympathetic to Bryant. Wrote Jackson:
“I found myself, despite the criticism I had given him, becoming very protective, even defensive. I was no longer his coach or mentor. I was quite sure he was angry at me for the things I wrote about him. Yet I still felt a great deal of compassion for this young man . . . for the challenges he will face in repairing his tarnished image.”
Jackson said he’ll start Bryant, Odom, Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm but still has no point guard. It’s possible late pickup Smush Parker could get the job.
Musings
Knicks President Isiah Thomas said one reason he felt confident to trade for Eddy Curry was the work done by former Bulls general manager Jerry Krause. Said Thomas: “I know the type of research Jerry Krause does into kids. He’s real thorough. He doesn’t make mistakes on character. He’s made some mistakes on talent, but he digs way down there, so we feel confident about Eddy.” . . . Observers are waiting to see what happens with noted control coach Jeff Van Gundy and street-ball legend Rafer Alston, who was traded to Houston from Toronto, where Alston spent the season in pouts and team disputes. But Rockets owner Les Alexander is not worried: “I think at some point we’ll win the championship, or two or three. We have the foundation. We have guys that are young, just coming into their prime.”
Ready to work
Kevin Garnett says he’s returning from his non-playoff season with a chip on his shoulder, though not thrilled with some of the Timberwolves’ moves, especially dealing Sam Cassell. “It was hard, but what’s new around here?” Garnett said. Michael Olowokandi then was barred from the team’s first public scrimmage for being late. . . . Denver’s Andre Miller wonders why management brought in Earl Watson as a third point guard behind him and Earl Boykins, with no true shooting guard. . . . At Golden State, swingman Michael Pietrus declared he wants to start, though–oops–he plays the same position as Jason Richardson.
Catching up
Will Perdue is a radio analyst for the Magic. . . . The Mavericks are raving about DeSagana Diop. Yep, pencil them out of contention. Former Mavs coach Don Nelson was at Spurs training camp in St. Croix. Noting it, new Spur Michael Finley cracked, “I guess everybody is trying to get out of Dodge now, huh?” . . . The Cavs’ Donyell Marshall said he has stopped wearing his hair in braids because he’s been bothered too much at airports being mistaken for hip-hop artist Ludacris. . . . The Clippers’ Shaun Livingston is sidelined again, this time with back problems. . . . Utah coach Jerry Sloan isn’t big on rookies, so he offered this about former Illini Deron Williams after the team’s first public scrimmage: “He’s got a lot to learn.”
Scene of the crime
They’re dumb because they are crooks. Chicagoan Melvin Ely, who plays for the Bobcats, was robbed outside a Charlotte strip club. He went to a neighborhood pawn shop looking for some of the stolen jewelry when “the guy that robbed me walked right in. He saw me and ran out. But his face is on the camera now. I guess there are some dumb crooks.” Ely may have joined the club by saying he saw no reason not to return to the strip club.
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