Flotsam and Jetsam Around the League 2019-2020

Luka does it again with brilliant clutch plays down the stretch in OT to beat Zion and the Pelicans. Very entertaining game!

bobc33 wrote:Luka does it again with brilliant clutch plays down the stretch in OT to beat Zion and the Pelicans.  Very entertaining game!

They can also go big with Willie Cauley Stein and Porzingus, they blocked more shots on Zion than in any game and knocked him down bunch of times, very entertaining game indeed. Doncic and Porzingus are just learning how to play together, they got a lot of elite ball together in the future. Ball is also improving and has shown he can get hot from 3, Ingraham is also hitting shots, Pelicans are on the rise too.

The talent level of the young players in the league has never been better - so many game changers at such a young age. Exciting to watch.

swish

swish wrote:The talent level of the young players in the league has never been better - so many game changers at such a young age. Exciting to watch.

  swish

Hi Swish. Nice to see you. Hope all is well.


bob


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And, of course, after playing out of their minds and beating us in OT the Nets went home and lost to Memphis, a team we desperately want to lose, by 39 points.

Dinwiddie, 1-9, 4 points
LeVert, 6-19, 14 points, after going off on us for 51.


bob

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Lavert gets up for us, I noticed a game a year ago or so, he went right at 2 J’s in iso successfully. You want to make a name for yourself, play big against us. Tatum does the same thing going against Kawhi and Lebron.

Aaron Baynes had a decent game last night:

37 points
9 of 14 three pointers
16 rebounds
1 assist
1 steal
2 blocks
The bum had 2 turnovers though.

Aaron Baynes 9 of 14 from the three point line, let that sink in. Not your father’s NBA!

bobc33 wrote:Aaron Baynes had a decent game last night:

37 points
9 of 14 three pointers
16 rebounds
1 assist
1 steal
2 blocks
The bum had 2 turnovers though.

Aaron Baynes 9 of 14 from the three point line, let that sink in.  Not your father’s NBA!

bobc,


Cowens will read this and curl up into a fetal ball.


bob


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bobc33 wrote:Aaron Baynes had a decent game last night:

37 points
9 of 14 three pointers
16 rebounds
1 assist
1 steal
2 blocks
The bum had 2 turnovers though.

Aaron Baynes 9 of 14 from the three point line, let that sink in.  Not your father’s NBA!

He’s been good this whole year

Why bob, I’ve always rooted for Baynes, who would think he’d have a year like this?

Brooklyn Nets

@BrooklynNets
The Brooklyn Nets and Head Coach Kenny Atkinson have mutually agreed to part ways. Jacque Vaughn will serve as head coach for the remainder of the season.

1,540
6:36 AM - Mar 7, 2020


bob
MY NOTE:  I'd like to believe this was Kenny Atkinson's idea.  It would be unconscionable for the Nets to hand a guy his hat, however politely, when he is without the two big names they went out of their way to sign this off-season (Irving and Durant).



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Joakim Noah just signed with the Clippers, if he has anything left, could be just what they need, a rim protecting 5. Kenny Atkinson mutually agreed to leave the Nets, sad the inmates are running the asylum now....that guy was doing a great job.

bobc33 wrote:Aaron Baynes had a decent game last night:

37 points
9 of 14 three pointers
16 rebounds
1 assist
1 steal
2 blocks
The bum had 2 turnovers though.

Aaron Baynes 9 of 14 from the three point line, let that sink in.  Not your father’s NBA!

The days of rigid positional standards are over. The BIGS now display the same skills once reserved for backcourt players. Seventy years of inovations have sure changed the face of the NBA.

swish

swish

bobheckler wrote:Brooklyn Nets

@BrooklynNets
The Brooklyn Nets and Head Coach Kenny Atkinson have mutually agreed to part ways. Jacque Vaughn will serve as head coach for the remainder of the season.

1,540
6:36 AM - Mar 7, 2020


bob
MY NOTE:  I'd like to believe this was Kenny Atkinson's idea.  It would be unconscionable for the Nets to hand a guy his hat, however politely, when he is without the two big names they went out of their way to sign this off-season (Irving and Durant).



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Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 5 hours ago
The thirst for star power in the league is strong enough that the team that was lauded for building one of the league’s best cultures decided to tear it all down around two injured stars who clashed with world class cultures at their last stop.



Steve Bulpett @SteveBHoop
about 3 hours ago
So let me see if I've got this... Kenny Atkinson takes a Brooklyn team without Kevin Durant all year and without Kyrie Irving for 42 of 62 games and gets them into a 7 seed -- and the Nets don't want him as coach anymore? Somewhere logic is sitting in a bar getting $#!+faced.


bob
MY NOTE:  Just when you think the Nets front office is qualitatively superior to the dumpster fire that is their crosstown rivals they pull something like this that makes you wonder if NY water isn't all it's cracked up to be.  And this was on top of them completing an impressive comeback victory over us in Boston this week.


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https://www.yahoo.com/sports/kenny-atkinsons-tenure-with-nets-comes-to-its-natural-conclusion-as-kd-kyrie-era-nears-014215773.html



Kenny Atkinson's tenure with Nets comes to surprising end, as sources say Kyrie Irving prefers Tyronn Lue to take over




Vincent Goodwill
Yahoo Sports

March 7, 2020, 5:42 PM PST



NEW YORK — The clock on Kenny Atkinson’s time with the Brooklyn Nets started ticking the moment Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving arrived on his doorstep, when the franchise turned from afterthought to relevant.

The atmosphere Atkinson helped build — one that was apparently so attractive to Durant and Irving — seems like it played a part in his undoing. Whether he was fired or “mutually parting ways”, as the Nets news release states, is immaterial.

In a year that was nothing more than groundwork for the future, the meshing of Atkinson’s style with Durant and Irving was on trial. Even though Irving only played 20 games and is out for the season following shoulder surgery and Durant is still recovering from his Achilles injury, everyone had to deal with each other and honestly evaluate if this would be a marriage that would stand into next season.

“Kenny pushed for the parting just as much, if not more than Brooklyn,” a league source told Yahoo Sports.

In a player’s league and on a team where star players’ voices undoubtedly matter for a franchise that yearns to matter, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Durant and Irving wanted to keep Atkinson around, but general manager Sean Marks was hellbent on firing a friend, someone who helped build the Nets into a respectable product.

Marks didn’t say it was the Nets’ 28-34 record, off the pace from their 32-30 mark at this point last year. It would’ve been an excuse that didn’t fly far, but he didn’t even make note of it during his media session Saturday afternoon.

Is this player empowerment rearing its head? Or the burden of incoming expectations causing a franchise to take an honest look at itself, not wanting to tether itself to its overachieving past but to the hard reality that awaits when two superstars are healthy, vocal, influential and ready to win now?


Kenny Atkinson was in his fourth season as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets before Saturday's parting of ways. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)


Sources: Kyrie Irving prefers Tyronn Lue for Nets

Now the Nets become an intriguing place for whomever will step in next season, assuming Jacque Vaughn only keeps the interim title for the next 20 games. It’s a challenge to corral all of this together, especially when Irving and Durant are so admittedly mercurial and tough to please.

Irving soured on Atkinson early, league sources told Yahoo Sports, and currently prefers Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue to be the team’s next head coach. Lue was the head coach in Cleveland when Irving hit the winning shot in the 2016 NBA Finals and was in talks to take the Lakers job before discussions broke down.

“It’s a service business. I’m serving these guys. I’m just a vessel,” Vaughn said. “It’s today’s game and being able to adjust, getting the most out of talent on your roster. But also listening and hearing the voices of the No. 1, 2, 3, 4 guys on your roster is crucial. And having that relationship is a must in today’s game.”

Marks wanted to take the pressure off the players, saying it was something he and owner Joe Tsai were collaborating on more recently. But as someone who should take the pulse of his most important players before making such a change, he’s too smart to do that without knowing the room.

There seemed to be friction from the start, dating back to when the team’s rigid methods seemed to clash with the individual equity stars like Irving built up through years of on-court success.

There’s always pushback from even the most mild-mannered players to agreeable types, let alone strong personalities that don’t keep their thoughts to themselves.

“This is the NBA. Disagreements happen, it's an alpha male dominated environment, a highly competitive situation,” Spencer Dinwiddie said, being more tight-lipped than usual.


Atkinson preferred not to be around for KD, Kyrie

Multiple sources told Yahoo Sports that Atkinson wasn’t fond of coaching Durant and Irving based on what he saw this season, and would rather something happen now than at the end of the season.

That gibes with Marks saying he and Atkinson had been in discussions about this for weeks, even months now. It’s tough to embrace Atkinson putting so much into turning the franchise around, but ready to wash his hands of it months into this season.

Whether Atkinson didn’t bend enough to accommodate his accomplished veterans for fear of alienating those who knew him as something different, or the situation was too awkward to work, seems fair to speculate.

And it’s easy to like a “culture” from the outside before you have to put in the hard work that comes with maintaining it. It’s also easy to admire something from afar when you’re yearning to leave the Bay Area and Boston for something, anything else.

“Oh, it was definitely mutual,” a league source told Yahoo Sports.

For the Nets, their “culture” came at a cost and for anyone who thought otherwise, a culture only goes as far as the players allow it to, and even then there will be natural erosion over a period of time — hence why Marks alluded to Atkinson apparently telling him recently that “my voice is not what it once was here. It’s time.”

For any culture to endure, there must be buy-in from the biggest voices, and for this Nets renaissance, Atkinson’s voice was the loudest. Who else had the standing in the league to challenge him before this year?

Atkinson was helping to develop players, a master at maximizing what he had to work with. Turning Spencer Dinwiddie from a confident journeyman to near All-Star, Joe Harris from underwhelming prospect to near Olympian and Caris LeVert from a maybe to a certainty will be the biggest victories on his dossier.

But it takes a little something different to coach Irving, to coach Durant as individuals, let alone a duo with skins on the wall, championship moments and Hall of Fame résumés.

It doesn’t feel like an accident that the man tabbed to replace Atkinson — Vaughn — is said to have a strong relationship with Irving.

“We have the immediate connection of being point guards,” Vaughn said. “We’ve formed a relationship, which I’ve tried to with each guy, but I guess we’re able to talk in point guard language.”

The question is, how long before the language changes? And who’s multilingual?



bob
MY NOTE: Remember when people used to call Rondo a "coach killer", even though he never got a coach fired in his life? Kyrie Irving is the ultimate locker room cancer.


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I am so glad we got rid of Morris, he flip* up that whole game for Clippers both ends, following his usual pattern of being terrible in big games. Whole game Lebron was bottled up somewhat, then goes off in 4th with Morris on him, what a dumb move by Doc....

Well well well, Rockets centerless line up crashing badly, 4th loss in a row, good if this would have worked, a lot of big guys would be out of work....

dbrown4 wrote:Looks like the Lakers have the worst possible week ahead of them.  PHI, MIL and LAC.  Only advantage is they are all at home.      

db

Three big wins for the Lakers.
They will now how the advantage of resting players at the end of the season since they are very secure with the #1 seed.
It looks better and better that the Lakers will face a very young Memphis team in the first round and will probably avoid the Clippers in round 2.

tj,

They played and are playing like champions by rising to all three occasions!  I wish I could say the same for the Celtics.  We can't seem to find ours asses with both hands at the moment.

Under the Post Game OKC thread you'll see my overall assessment.  It appears at the moment we are giving back all of our gains vs. last season.  

Now all LeBron has to do is shut up Pat Bev!  What an idiot.  Lakers to the 2020 Finals.  Ink that one in.

db

Here's people talking about the 2007 trades that got us Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and #17.

https://www.facebook.com/bostonceltics/videos/502091177366272/


bob


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Just curious. Why are the Lakers being so secretive regarding who the two players were on the team that have Corona Virus while all the rest of the teams had to reveal instantly? Or have I missed something?

db

willjr wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:Just curious.  Why are the Lakers being so secretive regarding who the two players were on the team that have Corona Virus while all the rest of the teams had to reveal instantly?  Or have I missed something?  

db

My guess would be that it is not a Laker organization thing but a player/patient legal right to privacy. If the individual does not wish to divulge or consent he has no obligation to do so. Not even close to being a lawyer but I'd assume this is what HIPAA laws are about. The Lakers were correct by informing that the possibility of transmission existed but would have had no right to release any personal information, especially their names.

Yes, HIPAA.  I think I remember that Christian Wood (Pistons) was pissed that his name got out there.

https://www.bet.com/news/sports/2020/03/30/nba-player-christian-wood-upset-coronavirus-results-leaked.html


An NBA player, who was one of the first to test positive for COVID-19 in the league, is reportedly upset that the test results leaked before he could tell his mother.

Detroit Pistons forward Christian Wood has now recovered from the deadly coronavirus but his coach Dwayne Casey explained to ESPN that Wood was not happy that his name was leaked to media outlets on March 14 that an unidentified player had tested positive for the virus.

That makes sense. Thank you gyso and willjr!

db