SH Blog: Two college stars decide to enter draft; Mark Jackson denies looking at other jobs

How great was last night’s Pacers-Heat game?

Enough to make up for an entire season of lackluster basketball from the rest of the Eastern Conference? Probably not.

Enough to get even the most casual fan’s appetite whetted for a playoff showdown between the defending champs and the rising stars? Absolutely.

But if the best the NBA has to offer isn’t enough for you, or maybe you’re a Sixers fan, the NCAA Tournament is back tonight, and as I write this I’m absorbed in an engrossing Arizona-San Diego State game. And by the time the NCAAs wrap up, it’ll be almost time for playoff basketball.

Springtime is great. Even when you get buried with three feet of snow on March 26th. Yes, that happened. It meant I had no possible reason to not be watching the Indiana-Miami game.

Okay, now on to the latest from the NBA:

ENNIS, EMBIID TO ENTER DRAFT

One is a bit more certain than the other.

Via Syracuse University:

Syracuse freshman guard Tyler Ennis has announced his intention to put his name in the 2014 NBA Draft.

“I’d like to thank Coach Boeheim, the coaching staff, my teammates and the amazing fans of Syracuse for the opportunity to play at a great university like Syracuse,” said Ennis. “I feel this experience has helped prepare me to fulfill my lifelong dream – to play in the NBA.”

Ennis started all 34 games for the Orange and averaged 12.9 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 2.1 steals. He also averaged 35.7 minutes per game, the second-highest total on the team.

Ennis earned second team USA Today All-America and NABC Freshman All-America honors. He was second team All-ACC and earned spots on the All-ACC Defensive Team and the All-ACC Freshman Team.

Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski:

Kansas star Joel Embiid – a possible No. 1 overall choice – has decided to enter the June NBA draft, sources told Yahoo Sports.

Embiid, a 20-year-old, 7-foot freshman, rapidly emerged as one of college basketball’s major talents and moved into competition with Jayhawks teammate Andrew Wiggins and Duke’s Jabari Parker to be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft.

Wiggins has been consistent in saying he’ll only play one year of college basketball, and Parker says he still is deciding whether he’ll enter the draft.

A formal announcement on Embiid’s decision is expected soon. In the past week, Embiid has progressed in settling on agent representation, but no final decision has been made, sources said.

MARK JACKSON DENIES LOOKING FOR OTHER JOBS

Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com:

Warriors coach Mark Jackson on Wednesday strongly denied reports that he showed interest in other coaching jobs around the league in recent months.

“Not true,” he said after practice.

Jackson, who has so far worked through differences with management and ownership, claimed this was among numerous inaccuracies contained within a story by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports on Tuesday.

The report cited not only that Jackson was looking to leave the Warriors for another job, specifically with the Clippers or the Nets, but that he also went weeks without talking to former assistant Michael Malone, who has issue a denial of his own.

“I’m not going to comment on everything,” Jackson said. “First of all, Mike Malone commented and said that his part was a lie. So there you have that. Second of all, it’s poor reporting by Wojnarowski if you decided and knew this to hold on to it until (Tuesday). That’s blockbuster stuff.”

LOOKING FOR WARRIORS TICKETS? LOOK NO FURTHER.

DANNY AINGE TALKS SCOUTING THE NCAA TOURNAMENT

This is a really cool look at how one of the NBA’s best GMs watches college basketball. Lots more at the link, so be sure to click through.

Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald:

Danny Ainge will be watching when the NCAA tournament resumes tonight, but he won’t be watching the same way you or I will.

The numbers matter little to the Celtics president of basketball operations.

“I’m looking at the ‘why’ of what’s happening,” Ainge said. “I’m not looking at the box score to determine whether a player is playing well or looking at what people’s expectations might be. I’m looking (at) why is he playing well? Or, why is he not playing well? How is he defending? How is he interacting with his teammates? How does he respond to adversity?

“I’m looking at a whole gamut of things, trying to get the full picture of the player, because so much of it is trying to predict who that player can become, not just who he is right now.”

Ainge has to even look beyond the team for which a player is performing to get a true context of his skills. The Celtics like to watch potential draftees or free agents in different situations.

“We’re typically evaluating players that we’ve watched in international competition, whether it be for the USA or whatever country they may have played on,” he said. “We’re watching guys in summer competition and their college careers and draft workouts. I think you have to see all of it, because sometimes certain guys are restricted by the system they play in for their college team. You might not see the full array of things they can do, and then you see them in a different environment playing for USA Basketball and you see a completely different person.

“I mean, that was the case with (Rajon) Rondo. After the summer before his sophomore year, we had him rated very, very high. And then he had a sub-par sophomore year by everybody’s standards, I think, even by his own. But we still really, really valued him based on numerous games in the summertime with USA Basketball, where he was the best player of that whole group.”

HOW DID BLAKE GRIFFIN GET BETTER?

One of the biggest stories in the NBA this season has been Blake Griffin taking that fabled next step, going from good but limited player to bona fide superstar. Chris Paul is great, but you need more than just one great player to be a great team, and with Griffin shouldering a star’s load, the Clippers might also take that next step.

David Nurse of HoopsHype:

For all the naysayers out there who attest that players can’t develop their skill set once they’re in the NBA like they could in college, I show you exhibit A: Blake Griffin. Griffin came into the league as a liability from anywhere outside of the paint and, quite frankly, from anything other than tomahawking on defenders. Although he still has that in his arsenal, he has expanded his game by developing a consistent mid-range jump shot and even extended his range to be a viable threat from three when left open.

In Griffin’s first two years in the league, more than 67 percent of all his shot attempts were within three feet of the hoop. This year, that number has dropped all the way down below 60 percent. He has proportioned his shot selection to 43 percent of his attempts coming from outside the paint and knocking down a mid-range 15-18 foot jumper at a clip of slightly over 40 percent.

Now I know that’s not setting the world on fire, but from where he came from it’s like comparing Steve Urkel’s swag on Family Matters to Will Smith’s on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Griffin ranks 17th overall in the NBA with a very efficient field goal percentage of 53 percent and third in the league in field goals made, ranking him ahead of LeBron James. Griffin’s points per possession of 1.42 and his PER of 23.9 are both Top 10 in the league.

People love to compare stars today to the stars of the past and most comparisons are disrespectful to the legend. Harold Minor the next Michael Jordan? Yeah, how’d that pan out? But in Griffin’s case, with a developed mid-range jump shot and the way he is currently playing, comparing him to Karl Malone is not a stretch at all.