With so many talented point guards looking to make it into Team USA and only so much room on the roster, Jerry Colangelo and the coaching staff have some tough decisions to make.
Colangelo did specify the number of point guards he wants on the team, though, and that somewhat narrows down the choices he’s going to have. Sam Amick of USA Today has details:
As Colangelo detailed in an interview with USA TODAY Sports, the most likely plan would be to have two pure point guards and three shooting guards who also have the ability to play the other wing positions. If that tentative plan holds true, then – per Colangelo’s descriptions of the roster that he’ll form with coach Mike Krzyzewski and his staff – it appears that Wall or Irving are likely to be on the outside looking in.
Rose, who has played just 10 games in the last two seasons because of ACL and meniscus tears in his knees, has looked like his former MVP self thus far and is looking very much like a lock.
“It’s hard to create more than two pure points (on the roster),” Colangelo said. “Kyrie is a pure point. John Wall is a point. Derrick is a point. Curry can play point, but he’s a two (shooting guard). Harden is a two-three (shooting guard-small forward). Damian is a tweener also – he goes both ways.
“It’s hard to carry three pure points unless we felt we were very unsure. For example, if Rose had come in and hasn’t looked the way he has, we would’ve said, ‘Geesh, maybe we have to carry three points, but it appears that we don’t have to.'”
It sure seems like the only certain thing at point guard for the time being is Rose as the starter, which says a lot about what we should expect from him not only for Team USA, but also for the Chicago Bulls in the upcoming season. Here are some reviews about Rose, from Nick Friedell of ESPN Chicago:
“Injuries, no one wants to go through that, but they do one of two things,” Calipari told ESPNChicago.com. “They make you stronger or they break you down, and it’s pretty obvious what it’s done to him. … I said (to him), ‘You look great. Your explosiveness is even maybe beyond where it was, which is scary.’ And I said, ‘You’re doing great.’
“He said: ‘I’m on a mission.'”
[…]
“He looks better,” Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George said. “He looks like he’s coming off the MVP year. He’s really been aggressive. He’s been flying across the court. We’ve seen him last year in the regular season; it still looked like he was holding back a little bit. It doesn’t look like that here.”
In George’s mind, the difference in Rose’s game is simple.
“I think he’s just healthy,” George said. “His body is feeling good. His legs is feeling good, and he’s healthy in camp.”
“I feel great, man,” Rose said with a smile. “I don’t have any aches. My body, knock on wood, I feel good, man. For real. I’m really taking care of my body. I really feel like a pro.”
A lot of this sounds much like what we heard about Rose prior to the start of last season. He looked terrific in training camp and looked even better in the preseason, before seemingly falling apart once the regular season started. He shot a disastrous 35.4 percent from the field in 10 games before being lost for the season again due to a meniscus tear in his knee.
At this point, the only way to know for sure about how far Rose has come along since last season is to see him play in meaningful games again. And from the sound of things, we’ll see him play a vital role soon enough for Team USA.
Oh, and while this is to be expected, it was reiterated on Wednesday that Anthony Davis looks to be a starter on the team:
On the big man front, USAT director Jerry Colangelo said today that – if their first game was now – Anthony Davis would be a starter.
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) July 31, 2014
And to cap it off, here is a fun article showing why the team is in good hands.
PAT RILEY OPENS UP ABOUT LOSING LEBRON JAMES, STILL FEELING GOOD ABOUT HIS ROSTER:
Needless to say, it was a tough summer for Pat Riley and the Miami Heat after getting run over by the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals, then unexpectedly losing LeBron James to free agency.
While the loss of the greatest thing ever to happen to their franchise will certainly be felt, Riley is happy with everything else that happened and still strongly believes in Dwyane Wade and especially Chris Bosh. Ira Winderman of Sun Sentinel has details:
“I feel very good about where we are right now, at this moment, with the 12 guys under contract,” Riley said. “Unlike the prognosticators who judge where we might be or not be, I feel we are up to the challenge.”
— On James’ departure: “You recover. I don’t want to go back in history, but after 45 years of being in the league, I think I’ve been around 15 transcendent players that walked out the door . . . and you move on. That’s what happens. We were shocked, but we recovered.
“It was a tough blow to take, but we’ve recovered very well, and I think we will continue to recover.”
— Of beginning free agency with a plan of rebuilding around James, “I went in with the notion that he was coming back. So I was selling it to players. I let him know that prior to free agency, that was the direction I was going. He never said to me, ‘Don’t do that.’“I don’t think I was misled. But I don’t think I was encouraged either. That’s business.”
— Of his emotional diatribe at season’s end, after the Heat got blown out in the NBA Finals4-1 by the San Antonio Spurs, when he appeared to call out James for even thinking about leaving, “I don’t think I was emotional. I told you I was pissed. . . . I wasn’t thinking that at all. My message that day was borne out of just getting beat by a great team.”— Of possibly being hurt by James’ decision, “I don’t get hurt. Very rarely do I get hurt. My wife will hurt me. My daughter might hurt me. And my son. But this is business.”
— Of believing James would stay when he left his meeting with James in Las Vegas two days before James’ decision, “There wasn’t anything in that meeting that told me that wasn’t going to happen.”
[…]
— On bringing back Wade on a two-year contract that starts at $15 million this coming season, after he missed 28 games last season, “When it comes to Dwyane, we’re just going to see where we are with him. And we think with what he’s done this summer, there’s a possibility Dwyane can turn back into who he was before he ceded a good part of his game to LeBron, and the same thing with Chris.”
— On giving Bosh a maximum five-year, $118 million deal, when Bosh would have settled for less had James returned: “He’s the most versatile big man in the NBA. And that’s what the market was for him, and Micky stepped up to the plate. . . . I’ll be damned if I was going to let him walk out the door.”
It’s not unreasonable to think that the Heat may still be just as good as any of the teams in the East. Both Bosh and Wade sacrificed a great deal while playing with James for the greater good of the team, and it’s easy to forget just how good they used to be when asked to do more. The biggest question mark remains the status of Wade’s knees and whether he will continue to miss time during the regular season just for maintenance purposes, as he did last season.
While they certainly have some questions to answer, there’s no doubt that there is still plenty of talent in Miami. Can they be as good as the Cavaliers? That remains to be seen, but according to Riley, who knows if they’ll even be one of the better teams?
— On the East playoff race, “I’m going to put our team right in the mix with all of those guys. . . . Is Cleveland going to be as good as everybody thinks they are? Nobody really knows.”
Yes, no one really knows. Unless, of course, the latest rumor from Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN about Kevin Love is true:
The Minnesota Timberwolves presently are engaged in serious Kevin Love trade talks with no teams other than the Cleveland Cavaliers, which only adds to the growing belief around the league that Love teaming up with LeBron James is inevitable, according to sources briefed on the situation.
After ESPN.com reported last week that the Cavaliers remain the front-runners to acquire Love in a trade co-headlined by No. 1 overall draft pick Andrew Wiggins, sources this week have described the Cavs as the only team currently in contention for Love. Sources say theChicago Bulls are increasingly pessimistic about their chances of trumping Cleveland’s offer, while the Golden State Warriors remain unwilling to bend on their longstanding refusal to surrender Klay Thompson in a deal for Love.
Wiggins is not eligible to be dealt until Aug. 23 after signing his first contract Thursday, but numerous league insiders — some of whom are gathered in Las Vegas for this week’s Team USA training camp — have begun to describe a Love-to-Cleveland trade as a “when” transaction as opposed to an “if.”
The speculation about Love’s destination can’t end soon enough.
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE:
- Chris Bosh has officially signed his deal with the Miami Heat and will now have a chance to play like a max-level player with LeBron James out of town, from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports:
Chris Bosh finally signed his new contract. Final numbers, source tells Yahoo: 5 years, $118.7M. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 30, 2014
- It may be time to say goodbye to Dick Bavetta, according to Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee:
I am hearing that longtime NBA veteran referee Dick Bavetta is retiring. Not official yet though, according to NBA sources. Bavetta is 74.
— Ailene Voisin (@ailene_voisin) July 29, 2014
The Los Angeles Lakers may be considering the idea of picking up Michael Beasley, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN LA: “The Los Angeles Lakers are considering signing free-agent forward Michael Beasley and brought in the six-year veteran for a workout at their El Segundo, California, practice facility Wednesday, according to multiple sources. “[Beasley] looked very good and he has been working out,” one source said. “A tiny rust from layoff, but [he] did a good job.” The former No. 2 pick in the 2008 draft averaged 7.9 points and 3.1 rebounds in 15.1 minutes per game for the Miami Heat last season. While Beasley showed improvement from his previous season when he played with the Phoenix Suns, upping his shooting percentage from 40.5 to 49.9 percent and his 3-point percentage from 31.3 to 38.9 percent, he was out of Miami’s rotation by the playoffs, appearing in just four of the Heat’s 20 postseason games on their run to the NBA Finals.”
- Don’t expect to hear from Kevin Durant for a while, at least on twitter.
Dion Waiters is hoping to make the same kind of adjustment Dwyane Wade had to make as LeBron James’ teammate, from Brian Windhorst of ESPN: “I have to make adjustments,” Waiters said. “I like to have the ball, and we have Kyrie, and he likes to have the ball. So I have to find ways to impact the game without having the ball. I’m planning to go watch tape to see what D-Wade did when he played with LeBron. I need to learn how to be effective out there with him.”… “[Wade] is a ball-dominant guard, too, and when LeBron came over, he had to change his game, too,” Waiters said. “He was so efficient, though, and that really helped their game. I think I can learn a lot from what he did.”… “I think it’s good for me at the end of the day,” Waiters said, “because I can prove to people I can do other things than just score. I need to go play the right way, listen to LeBron and be a sponge and try to soak up what he’s going to tell me.”
Magic Johnson said he tried to recruit Carmelo Anthony and took some indirect shots at ex-Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni, from Eric Pincus of Los Angeles Times: “Meanwhile, Johnson also said he tried to convince Carmelo Anthony to leave the New York Knicks in an hourlong phone conversation. Ultimately the high-scoring forward chose to re-sign in New York. Johnson noted that he spoke at length with Pau Gasol, who chose to leave for the Chicago Bulls instead of staying with the Lakers. “We had a great conversation but I think the way he was treated last season, kind of hurt him,” said Johnson. “Here’s a guy 18 [points] and 10 [rebounds], shooting over 50% and you want to bench him? You want to mess with this guy? He could never get over that.”… “The team is better than what we had last season, because we have more guys who can do more things than just shoot three-pointers,” said Johnson. “If I don’t see another three-pointer from a Laker team, I’ll be happy.”
New coach Byron Scott doesn’t think the Lakers are on a path to a long process, from Greg Beacham of The A.P.: “I don’t see this as a long process,” Scott said. “This is Los Angeles. It’s still one of the best organizations in all of sports. Still got a ton of people that would love to play for this organization, and you’ve got (former Lakers) sitting in the front row that are very adamant about that. They’re all advocates for this organization, so I don’t think it’s going to take long.”… “I think the first thing you’ve got to do is get them thinking like we used to think,” Scott said. “If you’re winning, it’s contagious. If you’re losing, it’s contagious. So you’ve got to change that mindset. … When you lose games, you shouldn’t be sitting in the locker room having a good time. It should hurt.”
- Paul George explained why he is a fan of Damian Lillard in this video.
John Wall says his goal for next season is the NBA Finals, from Michael Lee of Washington Post: “The Finals. All you can ask for now is the Finals,” Wall said from Team USA training camp in Las Vegas when asked for his goals for the upcoming season. “We’ve been to the second round. We know what it takes to win. We know what we need to do. We know everybody needs to get better individually, and I think [the front office] just did a great job of adding pieces, great veteran guys that know what it takes to win.”… “It helps us in our division, so we can get a top-three seed and homecourt advantage,” Wall said of James’s move to the Central Division. “We still got to battle it out with Charlotte, but we knew it was always going to be tough getting No. 1 in our division with Miami being at the top the whole time. We know they’re not the same team, but they’re still talented. We got great veteran guys that’s going to come in and push all of us.”
Jeremy Lin knew that his time was up in Houston due to their situation, from Alex Kennedy of Basketballinsiders: ““The writing was kind of on the wall,” Lin said of his time in Houston. “For me, I just felt like they were heading in a different direction, which is okay and I totally understand it from a business standpoint. They want to get that third superstar and so I think guys like me, Omer [Asik] and Chandler [Parsons], we knew that they wanted a third superstar, that was no secret, and we knew it would be hard to keep us if they were to do that. I think maybe the thing I was most shocked by is that they didn’t get the third superstar, but they lost what they traded away anyway. I thought for sure they would get a third superstar, I just didn’t know who. I kind of felt like the writing was on the wall for me and that my time in Houston was winding down.”
James Park is the chief blogger and deputy editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.