Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
Is preseason basketball even worth following? It's nice to see highlights. But it's a warm-up. Show me what Jabari, Wendell, and the rest can do once the games count for something.
Howard Beck, long-time reporter of the NBA, has an extensive article on Kyrie up on Bleacher Report.
Opening passage, on preparing for the dance scene in Uncle Drew:
"He's like: 'I'm good. I don't need a choreographer. I can dance. I promise you guys, I can dance,'" executive producer John Fischer recalled.
But Fischer and his co-executive producer, Marty Bowen, were worried. They'd rented a nightclub in downtown Atlanta and filled it with hundreds of extras. Timing was tight.
"If he can't dance," Bowen said that night, "we're screwed."
They brought in Kyrie's body double, just in case he flopped. It was well after midnight when cameras finally rolled. Lights flashed, beats pulsed, and one by one the other players hit the dance floor. Irving was last.
"And he just steps up and nails it," Fischer said. "The man can dance. He's just a natural performer."
So make that two things the filmmakers learned that night, the second being: Kyrie Irving is profoundly unconventional. Irving thinks differently, speaks differently, plays differently and takes paths that others don't even see, both on and off the court. It's what makes him great. It's what makes him maddening.
Also, he really, really likes messing with people.
The dance routine? Irving had it down cold, long before he walked on set. He'd studied the choreographer's video for 50 minutes. He could have rehearsed and calmed everyone's nerves. He chose suspense for the fun of it.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
It matters a lot if you're a marginal player trying to make a squad or a second-teamer trying to move up in the rotation or a new player trying to mesh with the holdovers.
I've always compared pre-season games to minor league baseball. It doesn't matter all that much who wins the games. But player development matters very much.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
I think it gets a ton of attention because of all the pent-up offseason demand, much like summer league. One unique aspect of it which occurred to me watching an OT game is that it represents, perhaps, the only opportunity for back of the bench players to play crunch time minutes in an NBA game. I was watching Knicks v Wizards at the start of preseason and the guys on the floor at the end will never sniff the floor at the end of a real close NBA game. I felt good and bad for them at the same time.
It's also the only games where the first quarter is all that matters because that's when most of the starters play and the coach is trying out rotations. Most of the rest of the game are, as others have said, tryouts for guys trying to survive the final cuts.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
The Kyrie entry is great. B/R also has an article in that series about Ingram: The Metamorphosis of Brandon Ingram.
EDIT: I see someone linked to it on 10/9. Apologies for the repeat.
Grayson seems to be playing great.
Yeah, Grayson with another nice efficient night, scoring 14 on 5-9 FGs. In pre-season at least, he seems to be a good backup to D. Mitchell.
Bagley and Giles combined for 39 minutes, 29 pts, and and 21 rebs in the loss to Utah.
Frank Jackson also had a nice night for NOLA, scoring 8 on 3-7 shooting, 2-4 from 3.
Justise Winslow and the Miami Heat have reached an extension worth 3yrs/39 million, per Woj https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1050900923420164097
git 'im while he's cheap! If $13M/yr is cheap. His defense has the potential to be all-NBA Defensive Team level, and his 3pt shot improved a bunch last year. If he could figure out how to finish at the rim 50% better he'd be near super-star caliber. Playing the 3&D role to perfection could lead him to a long and profitable career.
The third year of that deal is a team option. I think the Heat paid a slight premium in order to maintain that flexibility, which I think was wise. Justise could well outperform that contract, but if he doesn't, Miami isn't locked into anything that's going to hurt them long term. And Winslow provides so many different things, his value floor is still pretty high.
I'm sure this is the sort of deal Miami wishes it signed with Dion Waiters.
It will be hard to compensate for missing him at Duke, but I'm hoping to watch a lot of Harry Giles highlights over the next few years. There's a good compilation of his preseason assists here: https://deadspin.com/the-sacramento-...-ba-1829759015