As you can see from that video, it was a quiet night in the NBA as the final two exhibition games were played, Denver defeating Phoenix by 25 points despite playing without Nene, Ty Lawson, Al Harrington and Rudy Fernandez, and Atlanta defeating Charlotte by 17 despite a combined 0-for-7 performance off the bench by Tracy McGrady (0-for-4) and Jerry Stackhouse (0-for-3).
So, ready or not, the 66-game NBA season is about to begin.
And when then quintupleheader happens Sunday, Kobe Bryant expects to play.
Torn ligament in the wrist? No problem. At least that is what Bryant was saying after he did not participate in practice Thursday for the second-most hyped team in Los Angeles.
From Dave McMenamim of ESPNLosAngeles: “I should be fine,” Bryant said. “… It’s always been in my nature to try to figure out a way to play. The injuries that I’ve had, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to play through them because I haven’t had injuries where they could get worse the more I played on them.” … Bryant underwent an MRI exam Wednesday that showed he has a torn lunotriquetral ligament. The lunotriquetral ligament is a band of tissue that connects bones in the wrist. Bryant, who was wearing a bulky ice pack/compression device on the wrist when speaking to reporters, described the injury as “swollen and painful.” However, he said his condition is improving. “It feels OK,” Bryant said. “It feels a little better today than it did yesterday.” Bryant said he will not risk any further damage to his wrist by playing through the injury. “It’s not really going to heal. I mean, it’s gone,” Bryant said. “The ligament is gone. So there’s nothing I can do about it. But I’ve dealt with so many hand injuries. It should be all right.”
No such optimism was coming from New Jersey, where the Nets learned that center Brook Lopez had a stress fracture in his right foot that will require surgery today. But rather than weep over the consequences (not the least of which is how this injury could impact their chances of swinging a deal for Dwight Howard), Nets general manager Billy King went out and did something about it, acquiring Mehmet Okur from Utah for a second-round draft pick and then agreeing to terms with free agent guard DeShawn Stevenson.
Okur, an All-Star in 2007, missed most of last season with a ruptured Achilles tendon but had been playing for Turk Telecom during the lockout. NetsDaily points out that he averaged 13.5 points and 8.1 rebounds in 30 minutes per game for Turkish Telecom. He shot 46.4 percent from two point range and 38.2 percent from deep. In a head-to-head matchup with Deron Williams and Besiktas, Okur had 18 points and 13 boards while his once and future teammate had 23 points and 8 assists. Besiktas won the game.
Okur spent seven seasons with the Jazz and was a popular player. His departure frees up minutes for Derick Favors and rookie Enes Kanter, and it gives Utah a $9.9 million trade exception since all the Jazz received in return was a 2015 second-round draft pick.
From Kurt Kragthorpe of the Salt Lake City Tribune: “The Jazz are rebuilding and evolving lately, to a degree that’s both intriguing and frightening. This is the team’s 33rd season in Utah, and the Jazz have produced nine NBA All-Stars in that era. In the past 18 months, four of them have departed: Carlos Boozer, (Deron) Williams, (Andrei) Kirilenko and Okur. Okur is a unique player in Jazz history, as an unconventional center whose shooting skills made him an ideal complementary player in the team’s inside-oriented offense. As an outside threat, he created space for Boozer and others down low, while giving Williams a bail-out option as the shot clock was running down and defenses were packing the paint. As the Jazz became a rising team in the Western Conference, Okur averaged 17-plus points during three of four seasons, joining Boozer and Williams to give them a well-rounded offense. Beyond that, so many of his 3-pointers seemed to come at just the right times, creating huge momentum swings and deciding outcomes. That never was more true than May 5, 2007: Game 7, Jazz at Houston. That remains the franchise’s most significant moment since the 1998 NBA Finals, considering it ultimately helped propel the Jazz to the Western Conference finals, and Okur was right in the thick of it all. In a 103-99 victory, his 3-pointer gave the Jazz the lead for good, followed by another 3-pointer that extended their lead to four in the final minute. I’ll never forget the key sequence. Okur lined up a shot from the right angle, and I said out loud, “That’s not his spot.” He missed, but Boozer kept the rebound alive and Okur eventually got a another try from the left angle. “That’s his spot,” I said, and sure enough, he delivered. That’s how I’ll remember Memo, as opposed to the horror of watching him lying on the Pepsi Center court in Denver in Game 1 of the 2010 playoffs, having popped his Achilles tendon.”
In other news yesterday, the Sacramento Kings reached another agreement with free agent center Chuck Hayes after his first one was voided when he failed a physical because of a suspected heart ailment.
From Jason Jones and Grace Rubenstein of the Sacramento Bee: “The deal is worth $22.4 million over four years. That is $1 million more than Hayes signed for Dec. 9, the first day free agents were allowed to sign with teams following the 149-day NBA lockout. … The tests that Hayes underwent at the Cleveland Clinic reportedly included CT scans, an MRI, an EKG and another echo stress test. Steven Nissen, the head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, led the team that evaluated Hayes. He said doctors in Sacramento were right to send the six-year veteran to Ohio for further testing but emphasized that Hayes is completely fit to play. “There was legitimate concern. It was appropriate that he be sent to us,” Nissen said. “We did what was as exhaustive an evaluation as we could have done, and we concluded that he was fine to play.” Hayes does have an unusual heart structure, Nissen said. He has a little bit of what doctors call “outpouching,” or a bulge in the wall, in his left ventricle. But while that’s out of the ordinary, the doctor underlined that it’s not dangerous. “We don’t think he has a heart disease that is going to limit him, and we recommend that he be allowed to play basketball at a professional level,” Nissen said. “I told him I encouraged him to play and that I was going to watch him on TV. If we had felt he was at risk, we would have told him that.”
Finally, Thursday was the last day for teams to waive players without their salaries counting against the cap for this season.
Among those waived since Wednesday were Manny Harris by Cleveland, Michael Sweetney (Boston), Gerald Green (Lakers), Stephen Graham (New Jersey), Chris Hunter (Knicks), Mickael Pietrus (Phoenix), Jake Voskuhl (Pistons) and Keith McLeod (Utah).
Media outlets in Boston said the Celtics were interested in signing Pietrus if he clears waivers.
In one other piece of news, Miami Heat owner Micky Arison revealed that he voted “no” on the ratification of the new collective bargaining agreement.
From Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press: “Arison is the second owner to publicly disclose that he voted against the CBA, joining Dallas’ Mark Cuban. The NBA’s Board of Governors approved passage 25-5, and Arison’s “no” vote came after it was already assured that the deal would go through and the league would be back in business. In an interview with six Heat beat writers, Arison would say that he would vote the same way if the outcome was hanging in the balance. “While I did everything I could behind the scenes, and some not so behind the scenes, to get playing by Christmas, when you come down to it, financially … it’s a tough financial deal for us,” Arison said. “Particularly the revenue-sharing piece of it, the way it’s structured. For us to have to pay revenue sharing to larger-market teams was disturbing. And we will. So that was a kind of protest vote.” … The Heat made money last season for the first time in at least a decade, riding the boost that came from the first year of having LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the same team. But the new deal will eventually have a punitive salary cap and revenue sharing designed to help the so-called “small market” teams. In short, revenue sharing figures to hit Miami hard, even though Arison said he believes his “big market” club actually has a smaller market than Minnesota. “While the original intent of the owners was to have a hard cap, which would have basically leveled the playing field, instead because of players’ refusal to accept that they just made it extremely expensive,” Arison said. “So now you have to financially deal with how expensive that is.”