HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – With the eyes of the basketball-loving public focused squarely on the playoffs and who will emerge from the Eastern Conference semifinals, we decided to take a mini-detour this week on the Hang Time Podcast.
With all the news coming out of Orlando, we simply could not let an opportunity to dig a little deeper into the goings on down there slip away.
So we turned to our good friend of the program Evan Dunlap, the founder and managing editor of the Orlando Pinstriped Post blog, which covers all things Magic. We had to know if Dwight Howard was really behind the departures of both Stan Van Gundy and Otis Smith, as so many people believe, or if someone else is really calling those shots?
We also had to talk about the potential replacements for both Van Gundy, the coach, and Smith, the general manager. Names like Brian Shaw, Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson, yes the Zen Master himself, have popped up on the short list of replacements for Van Gundy. Meanwhile, names like Donnie Walsh, Jeff Bower and TNT’s very own Shaquille O’Neal have popped up on the surprising short list of candidates to replace Smith.
(We first heard these rumblings about O’Neal being a candidate Monday night … talk about things getting interesting if the Big Fella were to return to the Magic after all these years.)
You get conversation about all that and more, we talk plenty of playoffs, flagrant fouls, suspensions and everything else with our main man Evan Dunlap of the OPP.
Check it out on Episode 80 of the Hang Time Podcast:
– 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 PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – If Dwight Howard thought Stan Van Gundy was tough to deal with, can you imagine how he’d react to Hall of Famer Jerry Sloan?
The former and longtime coach of the Utah Jazz is apparently contemplating a coaching comeback at 70, with feelers from both the Charlotte Bobcats and potentially the Magic, who fired Van Gundy Monday and are currently searching for his replacement.
Sloan has already spoken with the Bobcats about their opening and is “intrigued” by the possibilities in Orlando, per the Salt Lake Tribune:
Asked about his reported interest in Orlando, Sloan said, “I’m sure a lot of people are interested. But I really don’t know what the parameters are going to be or what’s going on. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens.”
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – Before anyone else in Los Angeles points another finger at Pau Gasol, Mike Brown, Ramon Sessions or any of the other convenient scapegoats in the wake of a second straight second-round playoff exit, look in the mirror.
Stare long and hard and ask yourself if you didn’t see this coming. Didn’t you realize last season, when Andrew Bynumwas heading to visitor’s locker room in Dallas without his jersey, that this team was fatally flawed and had no chance of overcoming its own internal obstacles?
Like an aging heavyweight champ who gets K.O.’d in his last bout and then comes back into the ring the next time without truly understanding what went wrong, the Lakers got popped against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals. This time, it came by believing in their ability to overcome any obstacle with sheer talent alone.
Avoiding the sweep this time around shouldn’t ease the sting for Lakers fans, either. They knew (better than most) what they saw from this group during last season’s semifinal flame-out against the Mavericks exposed the team’s flaws.
Why would anyone, Kobe Bryant included, be surprised at Gasol’s struggles against the Thunder when you saw him crumble against the Mavericks?
You replaced a living legend in Phil Jackson with a good coach in Brown, but if Jackson couldn’t get this team over the proverbial hump in his final season, why would anyone assume Brown would be capable of pulling it off now? And Sessions was supposed to be the anti-Derek Fisher — a younger, more athletically gifted point guard capable of matching up better against the league’s younger and more athletic guards. He proved to be just as ill-equipped to handle Russell Westbrook as Fisher would have been.
This is a mess of the Lakers’ own making, whether they admit it or not. They are the ones that tossed Jackson’s hand-picked successor, Brian Shaw, aside in favor of Brown. They saw the cracks in their foundation and opted for some instant sealant instead of legit fixes.
SAN ANTONIO – For nearly two decades, there have been many different ways to describe the enduring success of the Spurs.
In the Alamo City, it’s known simply as Pop’s way.
It’s contentious and cranky, irascible and irreverent, insightful and often inventive.
Year after year, more than anything, it’s just winning.
Gregg Popovich was named the 2011-12 NBA Coach of the Year, the second time he has won the honor, once more validating a style and an attitude that permeates the Spurs organization.
“That’s probably overblown I’m sure,” Popovich said. “When you win a lot of things get attributed to you that you shouldn’t get full credit for and when you lose you get a lot of things you shouldn’t be blamed for.
“We’ve just been blessed with people who understand their priorities and are very team and community oriented. Our organization has also been blessed, as I’ve said many times, with incredible good fortune. If you can draft David Robinson and follow that up with Tim Duncan, that’s a couple of decades of very, very possible success unless you just screw it up.
“It’s hard to take credit when the circumstances have gone your way so consistently. There are a lot of people who have been in circumstances that have not been in their favor that would be just as successful in this situation, but just didn’t have the opportunity. So we don’t pay much attention to that.”
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The relationship between Jim Buss and Kobe Bryant was discussed incessantly in the days after Phil Jackson departed the premises and before Mike Brown was hired to replace him.
But we never had a full grasp of exactly what that relationship was like for either man. Buss didn’t speak on it, and neither did Bryant. That left us to our own devices to imagine what that dynamic was like, a dangerous thing for folks looking in from the outside during such a pivotal time for the Los Angeles Lakers and their fans.
Buss was an easy target for those who didn’t like the choice to replace the legendary Jackson. And Bryant’s seemingly cool reaction to the choice and the fact that he had little input on the process (or the choice) only fueled the grumbling about Buss and his role in shaping the Lakers’ future.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — The man who coached Dennis Rodman and Metta World Peace (back when he was just Ron Artest) is telling us that Andrew Bynum is no big deal.
The former Lakers coach told The Times he enjoyed seeing Bynum’s development, even if it had been filled with inexplicable turns the last few weeks.
“Bynum is not quite mature, but everyone should relax and watch him grow up,” Jackson said via email. “This year has been a big step for him offensively…nice to see…and when he takes up the mantle as defensive captain the Lakers can get back in the hunt.”
Jackson was strict with Bynum while coaching him for six seasons, prodding him about his fitness, getting more rebounds and playing better defense.
Bynum’s on-court troubles began last month when he tossed up a three-point shot early in the third quarter of a close game against Golden State. Bynum didn’t exactly apologize afterward after being yanked from the game.
He was fined a total of either $5,000 or $7,500 by the team for his conduct relating to that game, which included shrugging and frowning for a TV camera while sitting at the end of the bench.
Then Andrew Bynumtests Brown again last night by launching a 3-pointer and the All-Star big man gets benched, only to have Bryant ride to his defense and point out that he and the big fella are kindred spirits, of a sort. This is the same Bynum that Bryant ranted about (infamously) in a parking lot once, seemingly a lifetime ago, when Bynum wasn’t the low-post load that he is now.
“It’s somewhat amusing to me, because in some ways the edginess and the chippiness of him make it easy for me to relate to him – because I had some of that when I was young,” Bryant, 33, said about Bynum, 24. “So, it’s easy for me to see where he’s coming from.
“I understand where he’s coming from. And the first thing you want to do if you want to get the best out of somebody or the best out of your players is you have to understand what they’re feeling; you have to understand where they’re coming from and what they want to accomplish. That’s why it’s not that big a deal to me. You don’t see me sitting here trippin’ or sweatin’ or anything like that. I’ve been there.”
Bryant’s support for Bynum in this situation is proof of the evolution of a relationship that at one time seemed destined for a nasty breakup (long before last month’s trade deadline, there were rumors of Bynum being replaced by the likes of Dwight Howard.)
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Lakers coach Mike Brown had all the pressure in the basketball world on his shoulders the moment he decided to accept the offer to replace a living legend like Phil Jackson.
But that’s an institutional pressure any coach would have faced stepping into those gigantic footsteps.
Now comes an even more specific set of pressures for Brown, whose job it is to sort out the Lakers’ point guard situation now that Derek Fisher is gone and Ramon Sessions has been added to back up Steve Blake.
Brown has a rotation in mind: Blake as the starter and Sessions as his backup with both capable of playing off the ball late in games when Kobe Bryant is handling facilitator duties or playing together in a three-guard rotation with Bryant, if called for.
“Right now, Steve Blake is my starting point guard, and he’s my starting point guard for the foreseeable future until there’s a time I think I need to make a change and right now I don’t see a time right now, but who knows?” Brown said.
Is that because Brown likes Blake as his starter or Sessions as a backup?
“Both,” Brown said.
“Basically, Steve Blake has taken Derek Fisher’s spot and Ramon Sessions has taken Steve Blake’s spot,” Brown added.
Presumably the rotation will change once Sessions becomes more comfortable in the Lakers’ offensive and defensive schemes and the team plays against the sort of young, fast and athletic point guards that hurt them in the past.
It’s no secret the reason the Lakers acquired Sessions from the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday and traded Fisher to the Houston Rockets was to match up better with point guards like Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Sessions is the Lakers’ only hope of dealing with the likes of Westbrook or any of the other big point guards in the league. Blake, as valuable as he is, does not have the size or defensive chops to match those guys. Few players in the league can.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Hey Lakers, enough already.
Phil Jackson is not walking through that door. And the triangle offense that some of you seem to believe is the answer to all of your problems is the same triangle offense that didn’t save you last season. You remember that playoff sweep at the hands of the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks, right?
The Lakers go from one crisis to another trying to figure out why they aren’t the kings of the hill anymore, looking for any scapegoat possible to explain what everyone else has already figured out. It’s pretty simple — father time has caught up with you, fellas!
You are no longer the dominant bunch you were a few years ago. It happens. You’re not the first to experience this and you will not be the last. Just check in with your counterparts in Boston if you don’t believe it.
There’s no shame in admitting it. And you are welcome to battle until there isn’t an ounce of energy left in your bodies. But at least go out with a little dignity instead of throwing a tantrum every single time something goes wrong or you hit a little dry spell.
Brown’s effect on the Lakers’ defense has been undeniable, but sources say the team’s ongoing struggles on the road — with L.A. dropping to 6-14 away from Staples Center following a loss in Detroit and blowing a 21-point lead to the undisciplined Wizards — have some veterans longing for a return to the trusty Triangle offense preferred by Brown’s predecessor, Phil Jackson.
ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard recently reported that Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher called a players-only meeting after a win against Portland on Feb. 21 to address concerns about Brown’s style, as well as persistent trade rumors involving Pau Gasol.
While that meeting might have quelled some of the tension in the short term, these two latest losses have brought the issues right back to the forefront and perhaps even exacerbated the situation as the team nears the March 15 trade deadline, continuing to languish in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference.
Sources told ESPNLosAngeles.com that multiple players have continued to meet privately since the initial team meeting to discuss running elements of the Triangle offense again.
“The players want to unify,” one source with knowledge of the situation said. “They know how to win, and they want to fix this. I don’t know if they can, though. “
When you were riding Bryant’s masked man routine to three straight wins after the All-Star break, there was little-to-no grumbling about the offense and how bad it was. You lost two straight to bottom feeders and it’s back to throwing Mike Brown from the train. It’s ridiculous.
Save us all the headache and just play ball, fellas.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – You can count Hornets coach Monty Williams among those taking a wait-and-see approach before anointing the Derrick Rose-led, Tom Thibodeau-coached Chicago Bulls as anything more than just a good, solid contender.
And this notion, no doubt from some diehards in the Windy City and beyond, that the next great era of Bulls basketball is at hand … well, Williams is not ready to crown them just yet.
He suggested to the Chicago Tribune that everyone needs to step back before making comparisons between these current Bulls and the Michael Jordan-led, Phil Jackson-coached Bulls teams that Williams played against early in his NBA career:
“I don’t think it’s even close to that yet,” he said before his team took the United Center floor Tuesday. “They do a really good job and they are on their way, but I played against (Michael) Jordan and (Scottie) Pippen and (Dennis) Rodman, and that was a different beast. If you didn’t watch yourself, when they called out Jordan’s name, you’d get caught up in it.”
Williams, the former Notre Dame star who played for the Knicks, Spurs, Nuggets, Magic and 76ers from 1994-2003, said: “There’s a little bit of that (aura) with Derrick Rose, but it’s not the same. I think you have to win a title first. It’s a tough place to play anyway, but when you have a title, that separates you.”
Williams believes the Bulls are on their way, thanks to the hiring of coach Tom Thibodeau, who also was offered the Hornets job.
“When they signed Coach Thibs, they knew they’d be a defensive(-minded) team,” he said. “He’ll bench a guy for not playing defense, and I think that’s the identity you have to have to move toward a championship.
“They play a physical style. They foul a lot, and it’s not always called. … They play hard. That’s an identity you want to have.”
If our read-between-the-line skills are still intact after a long All-Star weekend, that would appear to be quite a bit of backhanded praise on the part of Williams.
He’s also spot on about one thing in particular, these Bulls (who face the Spurs tonight at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN) are not close to matching the prowess of the Jordan-led Bulls just yet. And until they win a championship, there’s no need to even entertain the conversation.
The best part? Rose and Thibodeau would be the first people to insist on ending the comparison talk!
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – With the eyes of the basketball-loving public focused squarely on the playoffs and who will emerge from the Eastern Conference semifinals, we decided to take a mini-detour this week on the Hang Time Podcast.
