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Okay, now that's funny.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/c....1260be4b.html
Mike Monroe's NBA Beat: Everyone adjusting on fly
Mike Monroe
San Antonio Express-News
By the middle of the week, meaningful player movement in the Association will be complete.
Sam Cassell will join the Celtics, Gordan Giricek will become a Phoenix Sun, Tyronn Lue will sign with Denver. The Spurs will wait another three weeks before re-signing Brent Barry, just as the Cavaliers will wait 30 days to bring back Ira Newble.
Then, more than any season in the past three decades, nearly every team with legitimate championship credentials will try to re-establish a winning iden y.
Roster stability?
The only le-worthy teams that let the last few weeks pass without changing lineups were the Magic and Jazz.
The rest are adjusting on the fly.
No team is making a bigger iden y transformation than the Suns. Plugging Shaquille O’Neal into a program designed to score in seven seconds or less on every possession has required more adjustment than anyone in the Suns’ basketball brain trust anticipated.
Allowing Jason Kidd to truly run the Mavericks’ offense appears to be an adjustment Avery Johnson will have trouble truly accommodating.
The Rockets didn’t expect to make the wrenching adjustment the injury to Yao Ming necessitates. Now Rick Adelman has to completely change his approach to the offensive end. Nobody ever ran an offense through Dikembe Mutombo, and Adelman isn’t going to be the first.
The Lakers gave up so little to get Pau Gasol that his presence made them immediately better. However, when Andrew Bynum returns from injury, Phil Jackson will have to figure out which combinations of 7-footers work best.
The Hornets have to decide if Bonzi Wells replaces Morris Peterson in the starting lineup and is on the floor at crunch time.
Adjustments for the Spurs and Celtics will be more subtle, but they are modifications, nonetheless.
How much playing time does Kurt Thomas take from Fabricio Oberto or Robert Horry? Does Thomas play alongside Tim Duncan? Will Jacque Vaughn, so valuable during Tony Parker’s absence, return to his role as primary Parker backup after Damon Stoudamire gets most of the backup time so he can learn the offense?
When Cassell lands in Boston, does he automatically become the Celtics’ crunch-time point guard? It’s when he is most valuable, even at his advanced age.
“Over and over and over,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said, “everybody has to get another rhythm. Usually, by now, things are winding down and everybody starts thinking about playoffs and each team is what each team is. It’s all set and everybody knows everybody and you start thinking about ‘If we play them, we could do this,’ and ‘if we play them .....’
“Now, you’re thinking, ‘Whoa, I don’t even know who they are.’.”
Especially in the Western Conference, where the playoff race is so tight — as of Saturday morning only two games separated the top six teams in the conference — this post-trade-deadline feeling-out period makes the final six weeks of the regular season truly fascinating.
“Everybody is in that situation going down the stretch,” Popovich said. “That’s what’s really different about this season, compared to other seasons, so there’s much more emphasis on the end of the regular season this year, because nobody wants to be seventh or eighth in the playoffs. And it could happen to any one of us. Just go cold for a couple of weeks, or get somebody hurt for a couple of weeks, and it’s tough.
“But it’s great for the game.”
Coaches who have taken their teams to the Finals — Popovich, Johnson and Jackson — understand the need to get to the playoffs with key players fresh. Late-season games that don’t affect playoff positioning for elite teams often are approached like exhibitions. Starters play token minutes, if at all.
That is much less likely this season.
“I think it’s logical to think people aren’t going to have the same opportunity to save minutes for people that we have been able to in the past,” Popovich said.
Every roster change the elite teams made the past few weeks was intended to improve their chances. Every GM and coach knew these adjustments would be necessary.
Conference les will be won by the teams that re-discover their true iden ies most quickly and thoroughly.
Sizing up the schedules
With the stretch run in the ridiculously tight Western Conference under way, it seems a good idea to analyze the remaining schedules of the seven teams that were separated by only two games, as of Saturday morning, plus the Northwest Division-leading Jazz.
To assign a degree of difficulty to the remaining schedules of those six teams, we considered several factors: number of remaining home games and road games; games against teams with winning records and losing records; and games against elite teams.
We arbitrarily categorized as elite the top seven Western teams (Spurs, Lakers, Mavericks, Suns, Rockets, Jazz and Hornets) and the Eastern Conference's best, the Celtics and Pistons.
Quick facts: New Orleans has more remaining road games (14) than the other six elite Western teams. The Lakers, Jazz and Mavericks (10 each) have the fewest. The Spurs have more games (15) against teams with winning records than any of the other five, and more road games (six) against the other elites. The Lakers have the fewest road games (four) against teams with winning records.
We assigned a value of plus-3 to a home game against a team with a losing record, plus-2 to a home game against a team with a winning record, plus-1 to a home game against another elite team, minus-3 to a road game against another elite team, minus-2 to a road game against a team with a winning record and minus-1 to a road game against a team with a losing record.
Ranking the schedules from easiest to hardest, here is how the remaining schedules added up, using our highly unscientific methodology:
• Jazz (plus-12)
• Lakers (plus-11)
• Mavericks (plus-4)
• Rockets (minus-1)
• Spurs (minus-2)
• Suns (minus-3)
• Hornets (minus-6)
Power Rankings
Through Friday's games (last week's ranking in parentheses):
1. Lakers (1)
They're 12-2 since trading for Gasol; Kobe's shooting less and enjoying it more.
2. Spurs (3)
The Return of The Mango Tree must wait, but Barry's calf should be fully healed by the time he's back.
3. Celtics (7)
They'll get Sam I Am as soon as Cassell clears waivers. Don't forget, he teamed with KG on best Wolves team ever.
4. Mavericks (5)
When was the last time in his life Jason Kidd wasn't on the floor in final seconds of a close game?
5. Pistons (4)
After Hamilton went into post-All-Star funk, Dumars pulled him aside. The message:" “Don't relax.”"
6. Hornets (6)
Chris Paul responded, again, to challenge of Deron Williams; Hornets got their biggest win since All-Star Weekend.
7. Rockets (2)
Win streak is at 14, but now their schedule gets tough and loss of Yao is about to bite them.
8. Suns (8)
Adjustment to playing with O'Neal is taking longer than they thought. They'll add Giricek, but he's no Mango Tree.
9. Warriors (11)
Newest Warriors hero: Rookie Brandan Wright, getting more time after Biedrins' appendectomy.
10. Nuggets (13)
Melo can't be happy: They didn't make a trade and they're not going to get Cassell.
11. Jazz (9)
12. Magic (12)
13. Cavaliers (10)
14. Trail Blazers (19)
15. Kings (14)
16. Raptors (16)
17. Bulls (15)
18. 76ers (17)
19. Nets (22)
20. Wizards (20)
21. Hawks (18)
22. Pacers (24)
23. Knicks (26)
24. Timberwolves (21)
25. SuperSonics (23)
26. Bucks (27)
27. Clippers (25)
28. Bobcats (28)
29. Grizzlies (29)
30. Heat (30)
Quick notes for NBA fans on the run ...
I don't want to say Dikembe Mutombo is old, but when talk bubbled up that Yao Ming's injury might prompt the Rockets to sign him to another contract for next season, I believe he became the first NBA player who ever had to talk over his decision with his wife and grandkids.
The NBA's oldest player has gotten sensitive about his age, but he broke into the league when I was covering the Nuggets for the Denver Post, so I can kid him with impunity. .....
The Heat recently won their 10th game and added an 11th win Friday night. It was that 10th that was most meaningful, though, because it eliminated the slim chance the Heat might match the 1972-73 76ers for the worst record in league history.
Thirty-five years after the fact, Fred Carter, the best player on that horrid team, told the Philadelphia Daily News' Phil Jasner how happy he was that Miami finally won No. 10.
“I don't want a team to go through what we went through. A little selfishly, immortality comes in different ways. As the saying goes, 'Spell my name right on my tombstone.' Let it say I was the best player on the worst team ever.'' .....
I wonder if any team has had a worse time finding a productive center than the Nets. Jamaal Magloire signed a one-year, $4 million contract the day after Mikki Moore inked with Sacramento last summer. Now Magloire is gone, negotiating a buyout of that deal so he could become a free agent and sign with the Mavericks.
Other “bigs” whose careers in New Jersey were decidedly unproductive: Mutombo, Marc Jackson and Alonzo Mourning. .....
When Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes arrived in Chicago after last week's trade, they discovered their headband-wearing days were behind them. They didn't squawk. The no-headband team rule was the beginning of the ill will in Chi-town for Ben Wallace, and looked what happened to him. Gooden, a longtime headband wearer, joked about showing his “peanut head.”
By the numbers
13 Games in which former Spur Hedo Turkoglu has scored at least 10 fourth-quarter points for the Magic. He scored 17 of his 25 points in final 8:31 in Orlando's victory over New Jersey on Tuesday.
11 Technical fouls Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has after getting three in a span of five games recently. Five more, and he is suspended for one game.
10 Three-point shots Jason Kapono has taken in Toronto's last 26 games. Kapono tied Mark Price's 1986 record by scoring 25 points during the 3-point contest at All-Star weekend.
4 Timberwolves who scored at least 20 against the Jazz on Tuesday: Al Jefferson (22), Rashad McCants (22), Ryan Gomes (20) and Randy Foye (20). It was only the fifth time in the last 18 seasons a Jazz opponent has four players score 20 points or more against them. The last time was in 2003, when Milwaukee's Michael Redd, Sam Cassell, Ray Allen and Tim Thomas did it.
1 Remaining Nets from the 2003 NBA Finals team that lost to the Spurs. Last 2003 Net standing: Richard Jefferson.
0 Players in NBA history who scored 10,000 points at younger age than LeBron James, whose dunk in the third quarter against Boston on Wednesday gave him 10,000 for his career. James became the youngest at 23 years, 59 days. Bryant is the second youngest at 24 years, 193 days.
The Shelf
He hate me: “I don’t know. From what I read in the blogs, everyone hates me.” -- Potential July 1 free agent Ron Artest, on where he might end up.
Best bet: Mavericks at Lakers, 2:30 p.m. today (ABC). Last season’s MVP (Dirk Nowitzki) vs. this season’s top MVP candidate (Kobe Bryant).
He said it: "Did you know that Big Baby was Shaq's illegitimate LSU child?'' – Shaquille O’Neal, interrupting Doc Rivers' pregame press briefing in Phoenix
Okay, now that's funny.
Now why exactly are the Lakers above the Spurs with the cupcakes they played in the 14 games!
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