In the most touching story of the day, Stephen Curry gives us yet another reason to jump on the Golden State Bandwagon. You can find out why in this incredible story by Gabrielle Wallace, whose Davidson roots helped inspire another great moment in sports: “I found out about Stephen gearing up to break the 3-point single-season shot record the morning of the game. The very first thing in the morning, in fact, with my father rapping at my door and shouting how we needed to buy tickets immediately. I had to rub my eyes to realize I wasn’t dreaming, because I couldn’t remember the last time Dad had urged me out of bed.”
My dad had been diagnosed with liver cancer on August 15, 2012 and given approximately one to three months to live. By the grace of God (and some holistic medicine), he had been outliving the doctor’s expectations by several months. However his health still steadily declined, and he moved in with me on his 73rdbirthday.
I opened my eyes to see him peeking his head in my bedroom door, listening how much he wanted to watch Stephen beat our home team, the Portland Trail Blazers. So, around noon, we splurged on some good seats for the 7:30 game. He was so excited he could hardly sit still, which was saying something for Dad these days. And suddenly an idea hit me, and I decided to put this Davidson connection to the test.
Curry was also the topic of conversation in an extensive column by ESPN’s Skip Bayless on Tuesday, who believes Curry’s ankle issues may make him the next Bill Walton: “He is in danger of becoming the point guard version of 6-foot-11 Bill Walton, who once played as audaciously as he speaks. Walton was an NBA MVP and a Finals MVP but limped through parts of 10 NBA seasons battling all sorts of foot and ankle injuries, finally winding up as (sad but true) a Sixth Man of the Year for Boston in 1985-86. Talk about what might have been. Walton had the skill, spring and Frisbee-chasing energy to dominate for two decades. But he needed ankle fusion after his career ended. Please, not Steph. Not a young man whose basketball artistry is matched by his spirituality, whose shooting range is as deep as his character. Curry’s Bible tells him that bad things do happen to good men — that God can work in painfully mysterious ways. Please, God, not this man. Give him ankles.”
Sean Deveney of Sporting News believes the Memphis Grizzlies are defying logic and could make the NBA Finals: “Now, in mid-May, with a 3-1 lead in the conference semifinals over the Russell Westbrook-less Thunder, it’s time to pull the Grizzlies from the ranks of the darkhorses and face the fact: There is a very good chance that the Grizzlies, whether they play the Spurs or the Warriors, can win the West. And land in the NBA Finals.”- More from Deveney: “Chew on that. As good as the Grizzlies have been, there are so many logical reasons to think they should not be in the Finals. Yet this team has a chance to defy logic, to treat conventional wisdom the way Marc Gasol treats a can of Barbasol—with utter disdain. Just think what we would be getting with Memphis in the Finals, think about how much weirdness would be involved.”
Memphis is defying logic in large part to the improved play of Mike Conely, who Grantland’s Zach Lowe believes is creeping up into the treasured class of elite point guards: “Conley sort of defies this exercise, even for those of us who spend unhealthy amounts of time watching NBA basketball. And that’s fitting. Conley’s game on both ends is one of refined subtlety, and it can take a long time in the NBA for that sort of player to find the right rhythms. That has been doubly so for Conley, who entered the league a “frail” 19-year-old, says his coach, Lionel Hollins. Conley spends the bulk of his time on the floor with two slow-moving behemoths who control the Grizzlies’ pace, own the real estate south of the foul line, and prop up one of the league’s last true inside-out offenses. Conley doesn’t have spectacular pick-and-roll lob partners, a 3-point shooting power forward to open up space down low, or even all that much time when he’s clearly the controlling figure in Memphis’s offense. So how good, really, is Mike Conley?”
For those still questioning Derrick Rose’s lingering torn ACL injury and why he has not been able to return 13 months later, check out this interesting piece on SB Nation’s Hal Brown: “Everyone is also making judgement calls (Rose should’ve come back, shouldn’t have come back, etc.) without having a real understanding of what tearing an ACL is like; what tearing an ACL implies. I know what it’s like, and I know why Rose hasn’t come back yet. I also know why Shumpert has. I’m not going to make a judgement on Rose — or really anyone else — one way or another, but I want you to understand what it’s like to have put a hole in one of the most important parts of your leg. It really is not, by any interpretation of the word, fun.”- More from Brown: “You can teach your quads to function without the ACL though. I got mine working just fine before my surgery, and Dejuan Blair has been playing pretty well without either ACL. However, doing too much without an ACL is really risky for long term health.”
- While Brown intertwined his personal anecdote in with Rose’s situation, the case of Rose is directly dissected by SheridanHoops’ Jan Hubbard here.
During the second round of last years playoffs Dwayne Wade was slowed by injuries. We asked if he was breaking down. Could the Heat contend without him? This year is no different. More from ESPN’s Miami guru, Brian Windhorst: “Wade has been dealing with an injury to his knee since March, five different times missing games because of it. He has twice taken two weeks off to rest it. It has not helped that he has repeatedly aggravated it, which isn’t hard to do playing competitive basketball. The Heat have called it a bruise and said MRIs have shown nothing is structurally wrong. Wade revealed at one point he actually has three bone bruises in the knee. But when he went to the bench Monday night to get it looked at, he had to reveal an odd-looking bandage that was under a protective wrap on the knee that Heat athletic trainer Jay Sabol needed to fix.”
“This was just the first time you’ve seen it, other times I’ve been able to not show you,” Wade said after the game before revealing a rather gnarly detail about the bandage that certainly helps explain his troubles in the postseason.
“I’m taping it. When you have a [bone] bruise, you try to move the kneecap over so it won’t rub. When you get into game sweat you have to re-tape it a bit.”