Phil Jackson released a statement Monday that said he was awakened at midnight Sunday by a phone call from Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and told that Mike D’Antoni had been hired as coach. Jackson said he met with Kupchak and Lakers executive Jim Buss for 90 minutes on Saturday, during which no contract issues were discussed. His statement implies that his next contact with the team was Kupchak’s call. From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: “Saturday morning,
By now, you have to have heard: Everyone involved with the Lakers seems to want Phil Jackson and the Triangle offense back. Here at Sheridan Hoops, we’ve got wall-to-wall coverage of this saga: the original piece on Brown’s firing, and the reaction from NBA players, plus one one podcast asking if this is more about Jackson or Jim Buss, and another podcast with some strong statements from Jackson’s friend, Roland Lazenby, that he fully expects the quest for ring No. 12 to
There’s two schools of thought on what may be wrong with the Los Angeles Lakers. The first is that the offseason acquisitions of Dwight Howard and Steve Nash created the customary overreaction from NBA fans – specifically Lakers fans – who had visions of 70-win seasons and dynastic dominance dancing in their heads. When the Lakers followed a winless preseason by losing their first three games – pretty much scuttling any talk of 70 wins – there was another obligatory overreaction. This
Los Angeles Lakers guard Steve Blake was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Tuesday for inappropriate language toward a fan. The fine was announced by NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson. With 29 seconds remaining in Friday’s 105-95 loss to the rival Clippers at Staples Center, Blake apparently had a nasty exchange with a fan. Blake has been pressed into a starting role following the injury to point guard Steve Nash. He is averaging 5.3 points, 4.3 assists and 2.0
You can point to a handful of reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of panic. Dwight Howard missed all of training camp and most of preseason recovering from back surgery. Kobe Bryant has a sprained foot that requires him to wear a walking boot. Steve Nash is out for a while with a fracture in his fibula. That lack of continuity led to 11 straight losses – all eight in the preseason, which the Lakers dismissed as games that don’t count,
In the Sunday matinee, Carmelo Anthony scored 27 points and J.R. Smith was red-hot — 20 PTS, 9 REB in 35 minutes — to lead the Knicks to an easy win. In a great example of the new “position-less NBA,” Melo (admittedly a tall SF) actually played the 5 for a while, surrounded by guards. Jason Kidd had a nice afternoon: 12 PTS, 6 AST, 3 STL and two 3-pointers. The Sixers lost Jason Richardson to an ankle injury in the
The James Harden trade is a week old now, and while the book is obviously not yet written on what it’ll mean for everyone involved, we have a bit of a clearer picture than we did last Sunday. Harden has looked like a true superstar in Houston, dropping 82 points over his first two games, including a career-high 45. The outlook for the Thunder is a little more murky, but they haven’t shown a disastrous dropoff so far. We’ve got several
If Steve Nash had a different set of skills, it wouldn’t be a reach to suggest he might have been David Copperfield. Nash is perhaps the most unlikely looking franchise player in NBA history – a 6-3, 195-pound guard who seems much shorter and slighter when mingling with the giants who usually dominate NBA games. Nash is so slick that he makes us forget how good he is. It seems, for example, that a long time has passed since the Phoenix Suns