As you’ve likely heard by now, Tracy McGrady is seriously interested in pursuing a baseball career. He pitched to some minor league hitters and here is what they had to say, according to Mark Berman of My Fox Houston: “The hitters did not swing, but they got a good look at what McGrady can bring. “He’s so tall and his arms are so long. His downward slope, you’re not going to see that too often,” said Barrett Barnes, a minor league outfielder in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, in an interview with FOX 26 Sports. “When you have a presence like that on the mound, it’s really hard to settle in and be comfortable hitting. Barnes was chosen in the 1st round of the 2012 MLB Draft by the Pirates when they used a supplemental pick. “Say his velo is 87, but with his arms and his body, it feels like it’s 90-91 (MPH),” Barnes said. “His velo might by lower, but it feels like it gets on you way faster.”
Kevin Durant and LaMarcus Aldridge confirmed that their respective teams don’t like each other. That did not stop Nicolas Batum from giving Durant high praise, from Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports: “Kevin Durant, the NBA’s leading scorer, fired the first blow in the visiting locker room by revealing the Thunder’s disdain for the Blazers.“We respect this team, they respect us,” Durant told reporters after burning the Blazers with 36 points. “But we don’t like them and they don’t like us. That’s point-blank.”A few minutes later, down the hall in the home locker room, someone relayed Durant’s comments to Blazers’ All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge. He didn’t bat an eye when he added to the simmering rivalry between the Northwest Division foes.“We don’t care to like them,” Aldridge responded. “We’re not trying to make friends out there. We’re trying to win games.”… “He is the best one-on-one player in the league now,” Batum said. “I used to say ‘Melo (Carmelo Anthony) but I say him now because he can score from everywhere. The post was his weakness but now he has it … I can’t say it was a weakness, he never had a weakness, but you didn’t have to think about it. He has that now.”
According to Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, Kyle Lowry is becoming less likely to be moved before the trade deadline: “The Toronto Raptors are showing significant resistance to trading point guard Kyle Lowry and appear determined to keep him as they pursue a postseason berth, league sources told Yahoo Sports. “We’ve heard it from [Toronto] that he won’t be moved,” a rival front office executive told Yahoo Sports. While there are never absolutes – especially if a team makes an unexpectedly rich offer – Toronto officials and sources close to Lowry have emphasized lately that Lowry appears destined to finish the season with the Atlantic Division-leading Raptors.”
Steve Blake has been back for the Lakers, but he is still in a lot of pain, according to Mark Medina of Daily News: “But the pain in Blake’s elbow bothers him so much that he revealed feeling hurts when he practices, notably when he’s fitting in outside shooting sessions to build his rhythm. It also partly explains why Blake’s shots fell short against Utah. Blake vowed he will “have to mentally push through it.” But as he showed with his postgame demeanor, the obstacles appear overwhelming. “I’m frustrated. I don’t like to lose,” Blake said. “It doesn’t matter who’s out there and who’s not. There’s no excuses. Just focus on myself right now. I have to make shots. It’s going to be tougher for me to do that, but I have to try to push through it and figure it out.”
Carmelo Anthony is not looking to recruit anyone during All-Star weekend, from Fred Kerber of NY Post: “I think All-Star weekend is just a time where you can relax, decompress, kind of reflect on the first half of the season and gear up for the second half of the season,” Anthony said, noting tales of recruiting “as always, as always” are blown out of proportion. “As far as recruiting and things like that, that never happens.”… “It’s not, ‘Whatcha gonna do?’ or ‘You should do this or you should do that.’ It’s more just being there during this time.”
LeBron James has been dealing with some nagging injuries this season, but he finally appears to be healthy now, according to Ethan Skolnick of Bleacher Report: “I’m feeling really good right now,” James said… as recently as Jan. 28, James has alluded to not feeling physically right. Apparently, since that last mention, some healing happened. “About a week and a half ago,” James said. “My shoulder is feeling a lot better. Obviously, I’m not icing it after the game now, it’s feeling a lot better, I’ve been doing some exercises on that. My knee is feeling a lot better. My groin is feeling a lot better now. Obviously, I’m going to continue to do the treatment, as you can see.”
Stan Van Gundy would put LeBron James in his own personal Mount Rushmore right now, according to Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk: “Man, you’re talking four guys on Mount Rushmore. So, for me, I got Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson there for sure, Michael Jordan and, probably… yea, I’ll put LeBron there. “Look, you could probably throw a lot of other names at me and I’d say ‘yea,’ it’s tough. Really it’s tough. How do you leave out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? How do you leave out Magic Johnson? How do you leave out Larry Bird? How do you leave out Jerry West? We could go on and on, guys like Elgin Baylor, when you’re trying to get it to four guys it’s going to be hard. But on mine, yea, I’ll go with Wilt, Oscar, Michael Jordan and LeBron. That’s at least as good a four as anybody else is going to put up there.”
- See what LeBron James thinks of being on Mount Rushmore here.
- Lon Babby expects to keep Eric Bledsoe beyond this season, from Adam Green of Arizona Sports: “I think our answer to that is yes, that we know enough about Eric as a player,” Babby said. “Even more importantly, we’ve lived with him now for almost a year as a person. We like everything about him. Like him as a teammate, like him as a representative of our franchise and everything that he stands for. “He’s got a tremendous future.”
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
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