HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Might things be heating up between the Oklahoma City Thunder and their prized sixth man James Harden regarding negotiations for a contract extension?
Thunder center Kendrick Perkins, speaking following an appearance at a Thunder Fit event at a local middle school, said the two sides are “getting close” on a deal that would keep the reigning Sixth Man of the Year in Oklahoma City.
“We’re doing good. We’re making positive steps going forward,” Perkins said of the organization’s off-season. “We got coach (Scott) Brooks locked in. We got Serge (Ibaka) locked in. And we’re getting close with James, and we’re getting close to keeping our unit together. And we’re still hungry.”
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS –LeBron James and the Miami Heat versus Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder in The Finals is a matchup made in basketball heaven.
Too bad neither one of these superstars is interested in that narrative, because as far as drama goes, we could ask for much more in a postseason no one was sure would happen in November.
Whether they like it or not, the three-time MVP and the three-time scoring champ will be center stage for the next four to seven games. And they are front and center on Episode 83 of the Hang Time Podcast, as well, as we preview The Finals with Oklahoman Thunder beat writer Darnell Mayberry and NBA.com’s numbers guru John Schuhmann.
That’s not all we’ve got going on, though. In addition to examining the The Finals, we also spent a little time reflecting on the Dream Team and the impact they have on the global game born out of their Olympic experience 20 years ago. (Our very own Lang Whitaker, whose oral history of the Dream Team is in the July edition of GQ Magazine, spent months digging into the details about the greatest team ever assembled.)
– To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here, or get the xml feed if you want to subscribe some other, less iTunes-y way.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS –LeBron James still has work to do to solidify his legacy. He still has to stare down his crunch-time demons in the fourth quarter of a season and have a potentially career-defining moment to chase away his haters. He still has to win a championship to shut us all up and to validate all the premature coronation that’s gone on since he was 16.
But there is one debate that needs to come to an end today: the notion that James is riding shotgun on Dwyane Wade‘s team needs an immediate obituary. It’s simply not the case, and never has been as far as we can tell.
Batman wears No. 6 in Miami, folks. And last night’s performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder is the latest statement to that point from James, who outdueled Kevin Durant in their second MVP showdown in the past two weeks (Durant won Round 1 in Oklahoma City 10 days ago) and made you forget that Wade and Chris Bosh were on his team as he went off on the Thunder.
The MVP of the Heat is a race that ended months ago. This is a team that rises and falls on the shoulders of James. And it has been that way since the Heat fell to the Mavericks in The Finals last year.
If it’s ultimately his responsibility when they fail, why wouldn’t he be equally responsible when they succeed?
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We should apologize in advance for overloading your basketball senses with one of the most jam-packed Hang Time Podcasts of the season.
We tackle everything from Russell Westbrook‘s surge to the Thunder’s chances to win it all to the chances of Anthony Davis being an immediate factor in the NBA to what’s in store for Vinny Del Negro and the Los Angeles Clippers to why in the world one of our favorite analysts was rocking that “Elevator Ernie” Halloween costume on Fan Night last night on NBA TV.
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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – For months, Derek Fisher‘s face and voice were all over the place.
The lockout, and whatever good or bad came of it, seemed to have Fisher’s fingerprints all over it. No one looked more measured or steadfast during the lockout and no one more relieved when it was finally over.
Fisher has been silent since the trade, the only statement from his camp coming from his spokesman Jamie Wior:
“After much discussion and expressing their desire to welcome Derek to their team this season as well as the 2012-2013 season, the Houston Rockets and Derek have negotiated a buyout.
“Derek’s desire to win a sixth championship is what drives him and will continue to drive him as he moves forward. We thank the Rockets front office for their interest, time and their absolute professionalism.
“There will be no further comment this time.”
It’s understandable. Fisher probably needs a little time to process it all before deciding on his next move. He’s been through an exhausting nine months, dating to the Lakers’ playoff sweep at the hands of the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks last spring.
One thing that the new collective bargaining agreement makes clear, though, is that Fisher will not be re-signing with the Lakers. He can’t do that before July 1.
So chasing that sixth championship will have to be done elsewhere, with another contender. And two of the most obvious places where a veteran point guard with Fisher’s clutch-shooting ability might come in handy are the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat.
HANG TIME STUDIOS – Eight days of NBA action is all we needed to fire up the engines here at the hideout. Eight days of highlights, heroics and high drama.
And you know whenever there is NBA drama (good and/or bad) to be discussed, we do it on the Hang Time Podcast.
We rounded up a crew of experts to chop it up with us this week.
– Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman joined us to break down the Thunder and the latest drama surrounding Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
– Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated dove in during the Ricky Rubio festival, which included us trying to finally settle the debate as to who is really driving the Rubio bandwagon, while also dropping a little Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao knowledge on us.
– Tom Ziller of SBNation and Sactown Royalty helped us close out the show with the latest on Demarcus Cousins and the Sacramento Kings and all the craziness that comes with that mess.
Eight days and we get all this and more. If you have any suggestions or topics you’d like to see us cover as the season rolls along, let us know in the comments or on Twitter.
– To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here, or get the xml feed if you want to subscribe some other, less iTunes-y way.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Don’t beat yourself up if you’re having a hard time keeping up. Most of us are in the same spot, trying to figure out who is for what as the clock ticks down to the league’s 5 p.m. ET Wednesday deadline for the players to either take or dismiss the league’s 50-50 proposal.
“We need for the two sides to get together again before Wednesday, because we’re too close to getting a deal done,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports. “We need to iron out the last system items and save this from spiraling into a nuclear winter.”
Some others are not. Some of the owners are for it and apparently, per ESPN.com‘s sources, some others are not. It’s high time someone made a move, the right move to get the 2011-12 season up and running.
But when the sides can’t come to a consensus within their own caucuses, it’s tough to see some sort of breakthrough if and when the sides come together again to try and hash out the final details of a new collective bargaining agreement.
With the union representatives from all 30 teams set to meet today in New York, in advance of Wednesday’s end-of-business deadline, plenty of observers are a little nervous about what type of movement could emerge from the gathering. The players have limited options at this point. They can take a vote on the proposal and decide to take the deal, bowing to the league’s “ultimatum,” as union president Derek Fisher called it over the weekend, and breathe life into a season and the NBA fan base. Or they can refuse to even consider it, as Fisher insisted in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s bargaining session, and push this affair into an even darker corner.
Fair or not, the players will own the next 36 hours of this mess.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – It’s obvious that the Mavericks’ season would be all but over if Dirk Nowitzki had not fought through the effects of fever to play the role of Lazarus in Game 4.
It was also timely and significant that Jason Terryused that clutch fourth quarter to finally pull his “JET” persona out of the hangar for the first time in The Finals.
But if Dallas is going to keep fooling the experts, bamboozling the Heat and have a real chance of clawing out its first NBA championship, the series will likely rest in the hands of Tyson Chandler.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – When the Heat and Thunder square off tonight in Miami (8 p.m. ET on ESPN), it’ll serve as a bit of a test for both sides.
The Heat get to test their mettle against another one of the league’s “elite” squads and the Thunder get a chance to prove that they most definitely belong in the mix of said elite.
My main man Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman added a little twist to the festivities for the Thunder by posing the question, just how far away from championship contention is this Thunder group? (particularly with Kendrick Perkins in tow):
“There’s no easy path to that level. You have to earn it by working every day,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks, a member of the championship-winning 1994 Rockets. “We’re getting pieces to having a good team. Perk is another good piece to getting where we want to get to.”
Perkins joins a stable of young talent that is led by soon-to-be back-to-back scoring champ Kevin Durant and fellow All-Star Russell Westbrook. Together, despite both being just 22, they form the league’s third highest scoring duo. And they’re flanked by what appears to be the right blend of role players, a mix of veteran glue guys (Nick Collison and Thabo Sefolosha) and other young, untapped potential (James Harden, Serge Ibaka, Eric Maynor and Cole Aldrich).
“But it takes a lot of work, effort and good players,” Brooks said. “Not just one or two, it takes a team full of good players. And it takes some good fortune. We’re building our team with some good players. We want to keep working and keep improving. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but we think like champions. We do everything like a champion.”
We’ll see tonight if they compete like champions, because this is the time of year that your championship timber really needs to show (especially when you face another member of the elite crew). Our friends in Miami have shown in the past few days that they are more than capable of facing a little adversity and resuming their title quest. Now we get to see how the thunder stacks up. And if their previous matchup (video above) is any indication, we should be in for a treat tonight.
