Now that some of the dust has settled behind the Donald Sterling crisis, Ramona Shelburne helps us find clarity: “When you play for the Clippers, you learn to live with Sterling and his history. You tell yourself you play for the city of Los Angeles, your teammates and the fans. He’s the guy who signs the checks, and hopefully stays out of the way. It doesn’t always sit well. Your stomach’s never really settled. But over time the queasiness either goes away or you shove it down deep and resolve to deal with it later. You don’t know, because you haven’t been in the fight with the Clippers all season. Their championship dreams are their own. The peace they’d all made with playing for and taking a check from Sterling was their own, too. “They didn’t want to not play,” one Clippers staffer said. “They worked their ass off to get there.” This was Sterling’s mess, not theirs. Why should they have to throw away their season? Still, they couldn’t carry on as if nothing had happened. This couldn’t be tolerated. A message had to be sent. For them, for their fellow players around the league, for anyone, they thought, who has ever felt the unmistakable blow of racist language. All day Saturday, they held meetings, some formal, some informal. They texted and called each other. In between, they held a brief practice at a gym on the University of San Francisco campus, mostly just to break a sweat and get some shots up. The one thing they all agreed on was that Clippers coach Doc Rivers should be their voice.”
- In an awkward turn of events, it has been released that Donald Sterling has cancer: “Disgraced racist Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is battling cancer — surprising those around him by beating the final buzzer for as long as he has, sources told The Post on Thursday. “They thought he would die two years ago,” one source said of Sterling, who on Tuesday was banned for life from the NBA for his now-infamous recorded racist rant. “People have been predicting his imminent demise. I’m sure he has the best . . . drugs money can buy,” said the source, who works closely with pro sports teams. “He can do anything to keep himself alive.” The source said some of the medication Sterling has been taking is responsible for the puffy appearance of his face. Another source said Sterling, 80, was specifically suffering from prostate cancer. In an ironic twist, Sterling refused to pay for prostate-cancer surgery a decade ago for then-Clippers assistant coach Kim Hughes. “I contacted the Clippers about medical coverage and they said the surgery wouldn’t be covered,” Hughes told The Journal Times of Racine, Wis., in 2011. “They said if they did it for one person, they’d have to do it for everybody else.” Four Clippers players chipped in to cover the $70,000 cost. Meanwhile, Sterling has been phoning friends for support, sources said.”
Barry Tramel of The Oklahoman explains the hectic day he had on Thursday due to a headline he did not write: “It was not an appropriate headline. Durant is absolutely reliable. Heck, he’s been mostly reliable in this limited context of the Memphis series. You knew exactly what you were going to get. It’s just that what you were going to get was not up to Durant’s usual standard, which is why the Thunder was down three games to two in the series. My mention of reliability was that Durant had become unreliable at the foul line in this series, making 28 of 39 (72 percent), after shooting 88 percent for his career. I don’t think some people even read what I wrote. I don’t think they got past the headline. Not that they should have.The headline was not properly vetted. The system failed. People were outraged and you can’t blame them. It meant a busy day for me. Hundreds of emails to be answered. A bunch of media requests, everything from FoxSports1′s pregame show to Fox Sports radio national to OKC television newscasts to radio shows around the country. Nothing but a hassle, but requests I needed to fulfill, because we didn’t want to give the impression we were trying to shirk our responsibility and our corporate culture is one of admitting mistakes. And that was my message. No, I didn’t write the headline, but it was a bad headline that shouldn’t have made print.
The Indystar’s Bob Kravitz explains what the Pacers need to do to put away the pesky Atlanta Hawks: “Vogel needs to remain small in Game 7. That should be abundantly clear by now, even if he starts Hibbert and plays him for a few short minutes. “(Going small) is not something that philosophically I’m really against as a coach,” he said. “It’s just how our team is built and we’ve had success with it. You can have success with small lineups but there’s a risk because you have to change some things with how you play, particularly on the defensive end. You’ve got to get in a lot more rotations; that’s takes work and it’s difficult to do on the fly. But it’s something we’re trying to do.” If and when the Pacers finally put away the Hawks in Game 7 back home, the overwhelming sense will be this: “Good riddance, Hawks. Good riddance, small ball. Bring on the big boys.””
- In order to get there, though, the Pacers better hope Paul George is not suspended for leaving the bench during an altercation: “The incident could lead to suspensions for several Pacers, including All-Star Paul George, who appeared to leave the bench and step onto the court. The league will also look into whether Hill poked Scott in the eye. A shoving match broke out between the Scott and Hill with 19 seconds left in the second quarter after they got tangled up under the basket. Hill confronted Scott and appeared to put his finger in the face of the Hawks player after a play under the Hawks basket. Television replays show Hill initiated the contact. Pacers coach Frank Vogel ran onto the court to separate the players. During the fracas, replays also showed Pacers players George and Rasual Butler stepping onto the court. According to NBA rules a player faces suspension for leaving the bench in the vicinity of an on-court altercation. There is precedent for a suspension in past postseasons. “I haven’t seen it,” Vogel said of the video replay. “Somebody told me about it. I’m not concerned about any suspensions until I hear something. I don’t imagine there would be.” Both Scott and Hill were assessed technical fouls. Officials also assessed Scott a personal foul on the play. “He put his finger in my face,” Scott said. “He put his finger on me and I was defending myself.””
Could Friday night be the last game in a Maverick uniform for Shawn Marion: ““I’m not looking at that right now,” said Marion, whose five-year contract expires this summer. “We’ll talk about that when it’s done.” Regardless of when it ends, Marion’s tenure with the Mavs is worth celebrating. When he arrived in Dallas in the summer of 2009, many considered him a former star on the decline, as he was coming off brief, unsatisfying stints in Miami and Toronto following his glory days in Phoenix. “The Matrix,” a four-time All-Star whose scoring average soared as high as 21.8 points per game with the Suns one season, redefined himself as a great role player in Dallas. Dallas doesn’t win the 2011 championship without Marion’s sensational work as a defensive stopper against a parade of superstars including Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. The fact that Marion has never been named to an All-Defensive team is met with great dismay within the Mavs organization, which lobbied for him to be Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. The defensive versatility of Marion has been on full display again in this series, when he has defended each of the Spurs’ “Big Three” at times, opening games on point guard Tony Parker, occasionally guarding power forward Tim Duncan when Marion shifts to the 4 and spending time on wing Manu Ginobili when the Spurs’ sixth man got hot. Precious few players in NBA history could respond to such a wide variety of defensive assignments by doing a respectable job on three Hall of Famers. “We’d love to have five Marions and put them out there and guard all of their guys,” coach Rick Carlisle said.”
Both the Clippers and Warriors are looking to put drama behind them in Game 7: “”Honest to God, that’s the media that is doing all this,” Lacob told Yahoo Sports. “There is nothing going on until after the season. I refuse to let anyone talk about that. We don’t talk about it. We haven’t had that discussion. Everybody in the entire organization is reviewed after the season and we make decisions.” Jackson has another year left on his contract after this season and would like a contract extension. The Warriors have received negative attention recently after assistant coach Brian Scalabrine was reassigned in late March and fellow assistant Darren Erman was fired in April. There has also been speculation that Jackson’s job could be in jeopardy and that he might be playing for it in this series. But with the Warriors in a Game 7, the earliest Lacob and Co. will discuss Jackson’s future is next week. Much of this Clippers-Warriors series has had more to do with banned Clippers owner Donald Sterling than basketball. But come Saturday at Staples Center in Los Angeles, the focus will be on Game 7, with one team garnering the right to advance to the second round. “That’s why you work so hard to get a high seed as possible and to have home court for situations like these,” Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. Said Jackson: “It’s going to be a lot of fun because a lot of people didn’t think we’d be here.””
Why Carmelo Anthony is way overrated: “Yes, although Anthony had scoring totals that matched Durant and James, his actual production of wins was quite a bit lower. But what would have happened if Anthony were able to shoot as well as James? If Anthony matched James shooting efficiency—and nothing else about Anthony changed—his production of wins would have been 16.3 in 2013-14. So the Knicks could have won 10 more games in 2013-14 if Anthony could have simply shot like LeBron. And if that had happened, the Knicks would have been in the playoffs, and Mike Woodson would probably still be the team’s head coach. It’s important to emphasize, though, that this was not just a problem in 2013-14. In 2012-13, James produced 21.1 wins, Durant produced 19.2 wins, and Anthony only produced 4.1 wins. Again, Anthony can score like James and Durant. But because his shooting efficiency isn’t far removed from average, his production of wins doesn’t come close to what we see from Durant and James. You might be thinking: Okay, Anthony’s not as good as two historically great players, but he’s clearly an elite scorer in the NBA. To see how surprisingly mediocre Anthony’s shooting is, we can compare his shooting efficiency to entire teams’. Again, his effective field goal percentage this year was 50.3 percent. This past season, 14 teams shot better (or nearly half the league’s teams). In his career as a Knick, his EFG has been 49.5 percent; 16 teams shot better this past season (or more than half the league’s teams). When we take into consideration free throws, in true shooting percentage, Anthony looks a bit better, because he’s quite good at drawing fouls and hitting shots at the line. Still, six teams had higher true shooting percentages than Anthony last year (in fact, on the San Antonio Spurs alone, nine of their 12 players with more than 500 minutes on the court this year posted a higher true shooting percentage than Anthony.)”
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