Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of the Sheridan Hoops blog. I’m Dan Malone, coming to you from the land of October Thanksgiving.
That would be Canada.
Still, even up here, Jason Kidd’s cup trick made the news. Here’s a gif of the incident:
If you haven’t heard by now, here’s Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News:
Kidd, holding a soda on the sideline with 8.3 seconds left, was caught on video clearly telling Nets point guard Tyshawn Taylor to “hit me.” Taylor then bumped his shoulder into Kidd, whose cup spilled onto the Barclays Center court, causing a delay while the mess was cleaned.
It essentially gave the Nets a free timeout, and perhaps served as a tactic to ice the Lakers’ shooter, Jodie Meeks, who was in between a pair of foul shots when the soda spread. It was a savvy move for a rookie coach trying to navigate an ugly start to the season.
Kidd looked away immediately after telling Taylor to hit him, making the contact look accidental. The league will certainly look into the incident.
“That’s vet stuff,” Lakers guard Nick Young told the Daily News. “That’s something you can’t teach. That’s something you have to learn if you’ve been in the league for a while.”
Young believed what the video demonstrated: Kidd did this purposely. Some other Lakers players, including Steve Blake, ran over to the mess and tried to break into Brooklyn’s huddle.
So… is this legal?
Apparently not.
The NBA will fine Nets coach Jason Kidd $50,000 for his stunt with the dropped cup in loss to Lakers, league sources tell Yahoo.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) November 29, 2013
That’s just one piece of the latest news from around the NBA. Let’s get to the rest:
The Knicks are really bad, and nobody knows exactly why. Scott Cacciola of the New York Times writes: “In his postgame session with the news media, Anthony used the phrase “I don’t know” seven times. Typical was his response when asked about what had gone wrong in the second half: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t know, to be honest with you.” All this might sound familiar, since the Knicks have used similar language throughout the meat grinder that has been the month of November. After Monday’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, for example, Amar’e Stoudemire said his frustration was at an “all-time high.” It was unclear how he felt after Wednesday’s game. He left the locker room without taking questions, as did Kenyon Martin, who simply shook his head as he headed out the door. “It won’t be pleasant,” he said. Anthony indicated that the team had aired out some feelings immediately after the game, though he declined to get into specifics. “We talked,” he said. “Everybody talked. The players had a meeting, the coaches. Everybody had a meeting after the game. It wasn’t really a meeting. It was just, we had to talk. We’re trying to figure it out together.””- The first guy off the Knicks ship could be Iman Shumpert, but they aren’t going to deal him for just anyone, writes the New York Post’s Marc Berman: “With another report the Cavaliers approached the Knicks about Iman Shumpert, coach Mike Woodson continues to stamp out the perception he doesn’t like the Knicks combo guard because he’s on the trading block. An ESPN.com report stated the Cavaliers asked about Shumpert as they shop young guard Dion Waiters. The Knicks aren’t interested in Waiters as they are looking for frontcourt help, not another shooting guard. On Tuesday, Woodson called the notion he doesn’t like Shumpert “bull—-” in the wake of a performance in Portland that looked as if Shumpert had quit on the coach. Woodson is trying to push the right buttons for Shumpert now — and at least to increase his trade value. Woodson met with Shumpert during practice at UCLA on Tuesday following Monday’s zero-point, zero-assist, zero-rebound, two-turnover effort. “It was a good conversation,’’ Woodson said before the Knicks’ 93-80 loss to the Clippers Wednesday night. “This thing buzzing around out there I don’t like Iman. I got a great deal of respect for Iman. That’s why he plays the minutes he’s played and has been in the starting lineup since I’ve been here.’’”
Here’s the other side of that floated Waiters deal, from Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal: “Cavs sources are disputing Chris Broussard’s ESPN report that Waiters essentially encouraged both Chris Grant and Mike Brown to explore trading him. Further, the team privately insists they haven’t made any calls offering Waiters to other teams. They have fielded calls on a number of young players, including Waiters, but have not offered him up to anyone. Regardless of who is calling whom, I’ve held the belief for a while Waiters isn’t long for Cleveland. I wrote a couple of days ago I expected the Cavs to deal him by the trade deadline or next summer. That remains true. The Cavaliers are committing to Kyrie Irving long term and I just don’t think Waiters fits alongside Irving. I also don’t believe Brown is overly thrilled with Waiters, particularly because of his defensive lapses. But Brown lavished high praise on Waiters following Wednesday’s loss. “I thought Dion played the game the right way tonight,” Brown said. He looked very good. He had a couple defensive lapses. Other than that I thought he was good defensively, thought he was tremendous offensively. Dion stepped in and took 3s at right time. He got to the free-throw line 11 times. He got six rebounds. I thought he played the game the right way and it was fun to watch him play.” The Cavs would be thrilled if Waiters played every game like he did tonight.”- The boss suggests the Knicks trade Shumpert and Hardaway to the Charlotte Bobcats to get Bismack Biyambo.
- Interesting Mark Cuban story here from Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com: “Mavericks owner Mark Cuban intends to fund studies to determine whether human growth hormone use would be beneficial for athletes rehabilitating from injuries. USA Today reported this week that Cuban broached the subject at NBA’s Board of Governors meetings in October, suggesting that the issue should be studied to determine whether HGH should remain on the league’s banned-substance list or be permitted for use by players recovering from injuries. Cuban said Wednesday night that league officials were relatively receptive to the idea of the studies, which he is willing to fund. “They’re open-minded,” Cuban said. “Knowing that it’ll take 10 years to get [the studies] done, it’s easy to be open-minded and say when it’s there, it’s there. But hopefully it’s something I can accelerate. I’ve talked to a couple of different universities about funding studies. It doesn’t happen in a year or two, though. It’ll take a long time.” Any HGH use would have to be cleared by the Food & Drug Administration and Drug Enforcement Agency.”
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Dan Malone is in his fourth year as a journalism student at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and spent this summer as a features intern at the Cape Cod Times. He blogs, edits and learns things on the fly for Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on Twitter.