The New York Knicks surprisingly hired Steve Mills to replace Glen Grunwald, from Ian Begley and Marc Stein of ESPN: “The New York Knicks have reshuffled their front office yet again, announcing Thursday that former executive Steve Mills has rejoined the organization as president and general manager, replacing Glen Grunwald. Grunwald, who served as GM for two seasons, will be reassigned as an adviser, the team announced. “I am pleased to be able to welcome Steve back to the Knicks,” team owner James Dolan said in a statement. “… We look forward to his leadership and believe he is the right person to help us reach our ultimate goal of winning an NBA championship. “We are grateful for Glen’s many years of valuable service and pleased that he will remain with the organization.”
Sam Presti had no clear-cut answer on Russell Westbrook’s status for the season opener, from Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman: “Are you surprised that it’s taken this long for him to be cleared? “First and foremost, the most important thing is he’s healing properly, and all signs point to that. We were very hesitant to give a specific timetable because when you’re dealing with injuries, recovery time, everybody’s different.” Is there at least the possibility that Russell will not be ready for the start of the regular season? “I wouldn’t say that he will be, and I wouldn’t say that he won’t be. Again, we’ve got to see how the next month goes. Beyond that, I’m just projecting on things that I have no business projecting on. We’re going to trust the medical team. Russell will be ready to go once he’s cleared. This is an important player for us not only this year but for many years down the line, and we’ll be operating with that in mind.”
One of Carmelo Anthony’s goals off the court is being on the cover of Time magazine, from Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report: “I wanted to kind of put that into my sneaker, in some way somehow, and try to play with that and see if we could intertwine some of the tourbillon movement,” he said. “We did it to a certain extent, but now I know that we have the technology to be able to do that. I want to take it to a whole other level, whether I build an electronic line, a headphone line. I want to put the tourbillon in the headphones. The sky’s the limit with that.” So if a championship with the Knicks is his main on-the-court objective, what’s his goal off it? It’s simple: the cover of Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” issue. “That’s my goal—to one day to see me on that Time magazine,” he said. “I’m trying; that’s my goal, man. A lot of people don’t take advantage of the situation. For me, I know what I have to do on the basketball court. That comes first; that’s a no-brainer. If I wasn’t doing that, I wouldn’t be sitting here today launching this partnership. I’ve got to take care of that first and then everything else comes secondary.”
Renaldo Balkman will try to make the Dallas Mavericks roster this season, from Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas: “Former New York Knicks first-round pick Renaldo Balkman has reached an agreement on a nonguaranteed deal with the Dallas Mavericks, a source said. Balkman, 29, a defensive-minded 6-foot-8 small forward, has been out of the NBA since 2011-12. He has since played in the Philippines, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Balkman averaged 25 points and 13.4 rebounds for the Petron Blaze Boosters in in the Philippine Basketball Association, but he was banned for the rest of the season in March after initiating contact with an official, shoving a coach and teammates and grabbing a teammate by the neck while irate about a no-call. Balkman later publicly apologized for the incident. Balkman, the 20th overall pick in the 2006 draft, has career NBA averages of 4.0 points and 3.5 rebounds in 13.9 minutes, appearing in 221 games for the Knicks and Denver Nuggets.”
The latest news on Lamar Odom from TMZ is not good: “Lamar Odom is holed up in a private home in a gated community 100 miles from L.A. … and his life is now revolving around smoking crack and partying with 2 young women — and he’s intimate with one of them. Multiple sources privy to Lamar’s current state tell TMZ … Lamar has a driver who is regularly shuttling back and forth from L.A. to his rental home with one purpose — scoring drugs, including crack. We’re told Lamar is so paranoid … he insists the driver only buy small quantities of crack at a time, so as not to draw too much attention to him — and that means frequent trips to score the drug. Lamar almost never leaves the home. He’s smoking crack and partying with the 2 women, both in their early 20s. His life now revolves around smoking crack and listening to rap music.”
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
Howard also had a torn labrum last season. Never heard how he got better and avoided surgery. I assume it was the Acupuncture (with Electric Stimulation), treatment that he was receiving. He’s tweeted photos in past season. Perhaps Kobe has been doing the same.
Knicks should sign Lamar Odom so that MWP and JR Smith could have a friend in the locker room.