Andrew Bogut says he and the Golden State Warriors are negotiating for a new contract, from Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com: “Bogut said team officials started conversations with agent David Bauman last week, before the Warriors left Oakland for exhibition games in Beijing and Shanghai against the Lakers. Bogut expects talks to heat up once Golden State returns to the United States following the Friday night contest. The issue will come to some resolution by early in the regular season: either he will have a new deal soon or he will become a free agent because neither side wants the discussions dragging long into 2013-14. Bogut said the initial numbers from the Warriors, “weren’t insulting. But they weren’t what I’m looking for. Nothing concrete has been actually formally written up. We’ve just been going back and forth, but nothing too crazy.” Not insulting is encouraging — the sides are starting in the same vicinity.”
- Joe Lacob shared how he felt about the Bogut situation in an email he sent to Tim Kawakami of Mercury News: “I know that doesn’t answer your question!! All I will say is that we traded for Andrew (and I seem to remember taking some heat about that!!!!) and we really like him a lot. He makes us much better and is a perfect fit for our style of play and the constitution of our team. He is healthy and looking great. Personally, I hope he is a Warrior for a long time. The rest is in the hands of Bob Myers and his representatives.”
- According to Bob Finnan of The News-Herald, Kyrie Irving expects to see a big jump in his assists this season. Click here to see the video on Irving’s thought process.
- CJ McCollum will go through a non-surgical procedure on his injured foot, according to NBA.com: “Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum will undergo a non-operative ultrasound procedure on Wednesday to repair the fifth metatarsal fracture in his left foot. The procedure, which is designed to stimulate bone growth, will be performed at the OrthoCarolina Foot and Ankle Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina by Dr. Robert Anderson.“
MarShon Brooks opened up about the lack of opportunity for him in Brooklyn, from Stefan Bondy of Daily News: “According to multiple sources, Brooks had communicated to the Nets that he wanted to be dealt. Brooks didn’t go that far while opening up in an interview with the Daily News on Tuesday, but he outlined some of his frustrations under Avery Johnson and PJ Carlesimo. “I wasn’t really sure with (Jason Kidd becoming coach). I didn’t know what to expect. Last year obviously we knew what was going on, it was so rocky, I didn’t know if I was playing. There just wasn’t any structure to any of my minutes,” Brooks said. “So it was kind of hard for me to perform under those circumstances and obviously I didn’t want to be in that situation next year.”… I found out through ‘The Association’ like everybody else. We knew (defense) was something I have to work on. Offense comes easy. I have to work hard on the defensive end. That’s something I knew but he told the world.”
In this great piece from Chris Broussard of ESPN, LeBron James explained why he went through a mental struggle against the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals: “The Spurs dared me to shoot, and it worked for the first few games, and it became a mental challenge for me. I started rethinking. I was thinking too much. But once I got past that, I just started thinking to myself, Man, you’ve worked on your shot too much to now go back in reverse. Just go out and do it. Just go out and shoot the same shots you shoot in practice, the same shots you shoot in workouts, and just believe in them… [Q] So you were having doubts about your J? Yeah, yeah, it was more mental than anything, the first couple games. Game 1 was okay. Game 2, I struggled. Game 3, I struggled from the perimeter. It wasn’t even my jump shot. It was more of how they were playing me, and I was trying to drive into the teeth of their defense when they were playing off me instead of just shooting the jump shot — taking what was there. I went into the film room after Game 3, and I was like, Man, just go out and play. Do what you do best and just feed off the game and let it do what it do.”
After reading those remarks from Kobe, fans shouldn’t complain about his being ranking #25 for the upcoming season. Since Kobe apparently wants to extend his career a few more years, in order to improve his career statistics, I can’t seeing him returning any time soon. Kobe isn’t going to be a happy camper after he retires, with his personality. His wife probably made a good decision to move on, without him.
Regarding MarShon, the guy is one hell of an offensive player and a nice guy. However, he never had the right intensity to make his teammates better and to focus on defense. He’d often be paying attention to the fans on the sidelines, during games he was playing. He believed he possessed “Swag”, and that was a good thing. The fans encouraged him to play with “Swag”. Swag may flow through his veins, but it didn’t help him to involve his teammates and play defense. This season, he would have done better with Kidd/Frank as his coaches. However, the team is just too deep, and he wouldn’t get playing time. He is a strict SG and Nets now have Joe Johnson, Jason Terry, Alan Anderson and even Deron Williams (when Shaun Livingston is at PG). MarShon wasn’t originally in THE TRADE, but then he was swapped for Reggie Evans. Evans will help the Nets more this Championship seeking season, even if playing only 10 minutes in many games.