Lots of NBA news today, so let’s get right to the latest:
FINALS WON’T DETERMINE LEBRON’S FUTURE
Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com
The Heat’s success or failure in these Finals will not affect LeBron James’ decision on whether to opt out of his contract by the end of this month, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
James and the Heat would be the first team in NBA Finals history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit and come back and win a title. This is the 32nd time the Finals have been 3-1 after four games.
In NBA playoff history, eight teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven series, most recently the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the 2006 Western Conference playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers.
James scored 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting Thursday night, but the Heat got just 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting from Dwyane Wade, 12 points from Chris Bosh and little else from their bench outside of James Jones’ 11 points as the Spurs manhandled them 107-86 in a game that wasn’t close after the second quarter.
After the game, James was remarkably upbeat, saying he didn’t have time to dwell on what coach Erik Spoelstra called “the biggest surprise of the series” because his two boys came into the locker room and took his mind off it.
“Soul searching, there won’t be much of that,” James said in his postgame news conference. “We’re a veteran ballclub that’s won a championship, that’s won a couple of championships, that’s been to four straight Finals. We know what it takes to win. We’ve just got to go out and do it.”
HORNETS PRESIDENT ROD HIGGINS IS OUT
Rod Higgins didn’t have long to serve as Charlotte Hornets president of basketball operations.
Higgins stepped down from his duties as the top basketball decision-maker of the newly rebranded Hornets in a move announced by the team at 12:22 a.m. ET Friday. The news release came shortly after Game 4 of the NBA Finals had ended, an unusual move without much clarification offered for the abruptness.
Rich Cho will remain general manager and assume responsibility for the team’s basketball operations. He will report to Jordan and Vice Chairman Curtis Polk.
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Higgins has been with Charlotte since 2007 when he was hired to replace Bernie Bickerstaff as Bobcats general manager. He was promoted to president in 2011.
DUNCAN AND POPOVICH TIGHT-LIPPED ON FUTURE
Amid rising speculation that Duncan and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich might ultimately be moved to walk away together in the event that the team goes on to win its fifth overall championship, San Antonio’s two faces of the franchise have routinely deflected any questions about their future plans.
But sources say the Spurs, to this point, are quietly operating under the assumption that Duncan and Popovich will indeed be back next season. Both of their current contracts, along with those of fellow Spurs pillars Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, expire after the 2014-15 season, provided Duncan decides to opt in.
“I don’t know when I’m going to retire,” Duncan said at a news conference before Game 1 of the Finals. “I don’t know what the factors are going to be. I don’t know any of that and I don’t care about any of that stuff right now. It will happen when it happens.”
All three of Popovich’s mainstays are playing for what has to be considered major bargains given their stature and ongoing production. Parker, at 32, is earning $12.5 million this season. Ginobili, at 37, makes $7 million.
Ginobili told the San Antonio Express-News before the Finals that he will “for sure” be back next season, which has only added weight to the notion that the hyper-competitive Duncan would play on for at least one more season even if San Antonio wins it all and avenges its devastating seven-game defeat to the Heat in the 2013 Finals.
JACKSON, FISHER MEET WITH MELO
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:
The New York Knicks are sending a high-level delegation – including president Phil Jackson and coach Derek Fisher – to Los Angeles this weekend to sell All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony on a future with the franchise, league sources told Yahoo Sports.For Anthony, who plans to become a free agent July 1, this meeting will include his first chance for a face-to-face with Fisher, sources said.
Fisher is expected to be part of a small Knicks management contingent traveling to Los Angeles, where Anthony has been living and working out this month, league sources said.
Jackson has met with Anthony, 30, to discuss his future with the Knicks, but this will likely be an opportunity for Jackson to finally let a coach sell his vision for a long-term partnership with the Knicks.
Anthony will exercise the Early Termination Option on his contract later this month, becoming an immediate priority target for several teams, including Chicago, Houston, Dallas and the Los Angeles Lakers.
BLATT COMING STATESIDE WITH EITHER CAVS OR WARRIORS
European coaching giant David Blatt is on the brink of making his long-awaited leap to the NBA with either Golden State or Cleveland, according to sources close to the process.
Sources told ESPN.com on Friday that Blatt, an American-Israeli who rose to prominence coaching abroad after playing at Pete Carril’s Princeton, is poised to land either with the Warriors as an assistant or with the Cavaliers as head coach after barging his way into Cleveland’s search in recent days.
“It will be Golden State or Cleveland,” one source said.
On Thursday in Israel, his adopted country after the Boston native played professionally there and became a citizen, Blatt announced he was leaving newly crowned Euroleague champions Maccabi Tel Aviv to pursue his first job in the NBA at 55.
Blatt’s destination won’t be known until next week at the earliest, sources said, after a face-to-face interview with the Cavs. He already has interviewed with Cleveland general manager David Griffin over the phone and joins Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Alvin Gentry and Tyronn Lue in the late stages of a search that initially focused on college titans such as John Calipari, Billy Donovan and the fast-rising Kevin Ollie of freshly minted NCAA champion UConn.
CAVS TO WORK OUT PARKER, WIGGINS; SCARED BY EMBIID’S BACK?
Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Kansas freshman forward Andrew Wiggins will work out for the Cavaliers next Wednesday and Duke freshman forward Jabari Parker will do the same on Friday, an NBA source told The Plain Dealer on Friday.
Those two, along with Kansas freshman center Joel Embiid, who visited this week, are considered the top three players in the June 26 NBA Draft. There have been conflicting reports about how Embiid’s much-discussed back checked out. Some reports indicate there were problems, others that it checked out fine. Neither could be confirmed. The Cavs have not commented.
.@TheRealTRizzo: Sources tell me Joel Embiid’s physical w/ the #Cavs did not go well. Enough red flags that they won’t take him #1 overall.
— ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) June 13, 2014
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Dan Malone has finally finished his journalism degree at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is now a reporter at the Bryan Times in northwest Ohio. He blogs, edits and learns things on the fly for Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on Twitter.