James Dolan is not a man of interviews. He is almost never available to the media, and people only speculate on his thoughts based on what anonymous sources say or what he may randomly blurt out while he sings at a concert. That trend finally changes today, as he provided an exclusive interview to Mike Vaccaro of New York Post. Certainly, this one is a must read as he dishes on a number of topics, including Glen Grunwald, Mikhail Prokhorov, Woodson and more:
JD: I have a lot of confidence in Woodson, and one thing I can say about Mike is he has the respect of all the players. They all respect him. And he treats them fairly and relatively equally, and that’s part of where the respect emanates from. And those are hard things to get from a coach. When a coach loses a team … that’s when a coach is kind of done.
JD: I really don’t compare myself with other owners. I’ll bet you I’m more patient than Mikhail [Prokhorov] is of his team. Mostly, I think it does not pay to be impatient, because you destabilize your team. It’s not like the players don’t want to win, it’s not like the owner doesn’t want to win; everybody wants to win, so it’s a question of: Can you get there? With Mike, I think he can get us there. Mostly, I think Carmelo [Anthony] can get us there, and the other players can get us there, they’re going to have to jell and I think Mike can do a lot to get that to happen. Because he has their respect.
JD: You know what? I wouldn’t take last year’s team for this year’s team, because this year’s team is more designed to be a playoff team, whereas last year’s team was 18-5 but look who was playing: we had Rasheed Wallace who was doing everything for us, right? And we just started losing player after player … by the time we got to the playoffs that 18-5 team wasn’t the team that was playing in the playoffs. If they were I think we would’ve beaten Indiana.
JD: I hired McKinsey in the summer, and Glen is more of a “classic” GM, and he just wasn’t the guy to lead this initiative for the team, and it had to be someone in that position who could do it because I wasn’t going to do it. It needed someone behind it, someone who understood it, and that just wasn’t Glen’s forte. I think he was a good general manager, he’s got a great eye for talent, he knows basketball well, but the job description changed.
MV: Do you think you’re a good owner?
JD: Yeah. I do.
MV: Why?
JD: I think I watch out for my fans. I try to give them a good product. I care for the teams. I’m emotionally involved and intellectually involved. I think an owner needs to be present. When an owner is not present that’s when things tend to go awry. The players, the coaches, the fans know there’s somebody in charge. They may not like what I’m doing but it’s much better than having nobody there. Nobody there just leaves you in despair.
MV: Do you still consult him, too, about basketball ideas?
JD: Not really. For Isiah, I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to work in New York. I just don’t know that he’ll ever get a fair shake, going forward in New York?
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE:
Terrence Jones has been a valuable piece to the puzzle for the Rockets since being inserted into the starting lineup. He credits working on his game in the D-League and support from teammates for his rise, from Yannis Koutroupis of HoopsWorld: “The experience that Jones gained in the D-League last year has also been key in his rise to a starter for the Rockets. “I just tried to make the best of the opportunity that I could with getting better, if that came with playing in the D-League then that’s what I was going to do,” Jones said. “It helped me stay mentally focused, just to be able to play, get up and down and just use what I was learning in practice in actual games. “Just the players up top like Jeremy Lin, James [Harden], texting, checking up on me, watching every game on T.V. as much as they could, letting me know they were there for me and rooting me on the entire team was good for me too.”
The Clippers are one of the worst defensive teams in the league this season, and it is primarily due to their mostly-unproductive bench, from Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN: “When Byron Mullens is on the floor, the Clippers are 18.2 points worse defensively. His defensive rating of 120.7 is far and away the worse this season for any player who sees the court regularly, with Jordan Hamilton a very distant second at 116.4. In fact, even though Mullens plays only 20 percent of the Clippers’ minutes, if he’s on the bench at a given moment, the team goes from a 27th-ranked defense to one that would be ranked 17th, just behind the Rockets. It’s virtually unheard of for a fringe rotation player to have such an adverse effect on a team’s overall defensive numbers… It’s early in the season, but among the 10 most commonly used lineups by the Clippers, five would qualify as the league’s worst defense. Four of those five units are led by a backcourt of Darren Collison and Jamal Crawford.”
If Mike Woodson gets fired, getting John Calipari may be their next step. Berger of CBSSports explains what it would take to acquire the coach: “One league executive surmised that the bidding would start at $8 million a year. “That’s what Wes will be pushing,” one of the executives said. “That’s what CAA will be pushing.” Executives differ on whether Calipari would want full personnel control in addition to the coaching title. “He wants full control, bottom line,” one executive said. I agree with another exec who pointed out that, when it comes to the Knicks, it is understood that CAA has the power and that it would merely be channeled through Calipari. Either way, Calipari would instantly become the most powerful authority figure the Knicks have had since Isiah Thomas finally was run out of town. Somehow, that sounds just about right.”
James Harden is being sued for allegedly punching a fan, according to TMZ (h/t ballislife): “Houston Rockets star James Harden doesn’t take lightly to being told he’s Kobe Bryant’s bitch — so says a Lakers fan in L.A., who just sued the NBA player after Harden allegedly punched him for the diss. According to the lawsuit, Harden was on his way out of Greystone Manor nightclub in West Hollywood November 3rd — riding in the back seat of some SUV — when he rolled the window down to greet fans. That’s when a man named Barak Golan says he shouted at Harden, “Kobe owns your ass!” and Harden allegedly socked him in the face. But Harden wasn’t done … Barak says the Rockets guard flipped him off as his SUV sped away. Barak is now suing for assault and battery, demanding unspecified damages. Harden’s reps had no comment.”
Carmelo Anthony says the Knicks expect a lot from Iman Shumpert, from Ian Begley of ESPN NY: “Not much is going right for Iman Shumpert right now. He’s involved in a new trade rumor seemingly every day. He’s struggling with consistency on both ends of the floor. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, he committed a cardinal sin late in Wednesday’s game that led to another New York Knicks’ loss. But at the end of a rough night, Shumpert received a bit of a boost from one of the most important members of the Knicks organization. Carmelo Anthony said Shumpert is an important piece for the Knicks — in both the present and future. “I think he is; I believe so,” Anthony said. In other words, he doesn’t want to see Shumpert traded. “We have a lot of expectations for Iman, especially the way he played tonight,” Anthony said.
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.