It has been tough sledding the last two
seasons for the WNBA’s New York Liberty winning a total of 17 games. With the
additions made with a new head coach; relocating the team to Brooklyn on a
full-time basis and with what they did in the 2020 Draft, there is a sense of
better seasons ahead. That especially the case with whom they selected with the
No. 1 overall pick, the first time they have done so in franchise history.
On Friday night, the Liberty selected with
that No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, the first time choosing at No.
1 overall in franchise Sabrina Ionescu out of the University of Oregon.
Ionescu, who was with her family at their
home in Walnut Creek, CA when she got drafted No. 1 overall had been the
presumptive top pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft since she decided to return to play
her senior season with the Lady Ducks. A dream that she has had since the age
of 12.
“I mean, it’s a blessing. I’m just blessed
to spend this time with my family, my coach in Bill Duffy,” Ionescu, who has 43
postseason awards to her name in her college career said to ESPN’s Ryan Ruocco,
Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe after being drafted on Friday night. “So, I’m just really
blessed to be able to be in this position that I’ve worked so hard for in my
entire life.”
Ionescu became the first player from the
University of Oregon to be selected as the Top Pick in the WNBA draft, and
joined former USC Lady Trojans and four-time WNBA champion with Houston Comets
Tina Thompson (1997); current Los Angeles Sparks in former Stanford Lady
Cardinals in Nneka (2012, Sparks) and Chiney (2014, Connecticut Sun) Ogwumike
and former Washington Lady Husky Kelsey Plum (2017, San Antonio Stars, now Las
Vegas Aces) as the only Pac-12 players to be selected No. 1 overall in the
draft.
Before drafting who the Liberty hope will
be the face of their franchise for a decade-plus, their offseason began with
their new owner Joseph Tsai, who also owns the Brooklyn Nets purchasing the
team and relocating them to play on a full-tie basis at the Barclays Center in
Brooklyn, NY.
The Liberty then made a change with the
leadership on their sidelines with the hire of new head coach Walt Hopkins, who
had spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach for the Minnesota
Lynx, where he was a part of their title team in 2017, their fourth WNBA title
in franchise history. Hopkins replaced Hall of Famer Katie Smith, who compiled just
a 17-51 record in her two seasons as head coach of the Liberty.
Prior to his time with the Lynx, Hopkins
basketball journey began as the Director of Basketball Operations and Player Development
wit the then Tulsa Shock in 2013. From 2013-14, he was an assistant coach for
the Utah Valley Lady Wolverines and for University of California, Berkley Lady
Golden Bears.
Through two three-team trades that involved
the Las Vegas Aces, Washington Mystics, Dallas Wings, the Liberty were able to
acquire the No. 9, 12 (WAS) and 15 (DAL) overall picks, brought in some
championship experience in guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Tayler Hill, and
three draft picks in the 2021 draft. The Liberty also in free agency signed
veteran All-Star guard Layshia Clarendon, whose played for the Indian Fever,
Atlanta Dream and Connecticut Sun in her first seven WNBA seasons.
At No. 9, the Liberty selected junior
Megan Walker, the 2020 American Athletic Conference Player of the Year and
Conference Tournament Most Outstanding Player Megan Walker out of the
University of Connecticut.
At No. 10, the Phoenix Mercury selected
Jocelyn Willoughby out of the University of Virginia, who they traded the draft
rights of the now former Lady Cavalier to the Liberty for Walker-Kimbrough.
With the 12th and final pick of
the opening-round of the draft, the Liberty selected out of the University of
Louisville, 2020 First Team All-ACC guard Jazmine Jones.
Coach Hopkins and General Manager Jonathan
Kolb hopes with the new additions via the draft and trades can play a style
offensively where the floor can be spread and make shots consistently from the
perimeter of drives to the hoop and gets out in the open court, while also
being able to switch and be versatile as well at the a defensive end.
That shift in offensive philosophy was a
big reason why they traded Charles earlier in the week is because they wanted to
find more mobility from their front court players, according to Rowe.
Ionescu, who will be the real key into how
this works is a versatile as they come on both ends and is just as selfless in
sharing the offensive load.
Walker, a 2020 “Associated Press” First
Team All-American rose her scoring average from 12.1 points to 19.7 points by
shooting 45 percent from three-point range, which was No. 8 in D-1 Women’s Basketball
last season, to along with were exceptional ability to score off the bounce,
which is how she was one of five D-1 players to score 19-plus points and grab
eight-plus boards this past season. Walker was also a solid defender in college,
especially in the post.
“Really it was just my work that I put in
over the summer. Just being consistent. Trusting everything that I did,” Walker
said to Rowe about her improved scoring production and three-point prowess for
head coach Geno Auriemma and the Lady Huskies this past season. “The biggest
thing for me was preparation.”
Willoughby, who led the Atlantic Coastal
Conference at 19.2 points per game this past season on her way to being First
Team All-ACC and is the most by a UVA player in a decade.
She brings an ability to score in the
paint, in transition, from three-point range, where she shot 42 percent and at
the free throw line which is how she registered 14 games of 20-plus points for
the Cavaliers in 2019-20. She also brings a versatility at the defensive end
being able to guard four positions and can rebound with the best of them as demonstrated
by her 20 double-doubles that she had the last two seasons.
Versatility at the defensive end, with the
ability to switch on the perimeter is what Jones will bring to the Liberty, along
with the ability to score and finish in the paint, and to make threes, which
she did at a 38 percent clip this past season. She will also bring like Ionescu
a competitive will to the floor, as demonstrated by the school record she set
by playing in 144 career games for the Lady Cardinals.
In said senior season, the Walnut Creek,
CA native registered in her four-year college career at Oregon an NCAA-record
26 triple-doubles, which is 14 more than the next closest player in Division I history.
To put into context how major it was for
head coach Kelly Graves squad when Ionescu register a triple-double in her
collegiate career, the Lady Ducks went a perfect 26-0 when she had double figures
in points, rebounds and assists, which is the longest winning streak of a
player registering a triple-double in not just Division I history, but in NBA
and WNBA history as well.
Ionescu also became the first player in
men’s or women’s collegiate basketball history to reach the 2,000-1,000-1,000
plateau in points (2,562-school record), rebounds (1,040) and assists (1,091-Pac-12
record and 4th most in NCAA history).
“There’s so many different words to
describe Sabrina. She’s an incredible athlete, incredible competitor,” Coach
Graves said of Ionescu.
Her teammate Satou Sabally, who went No. 2
overall in the draft to the Wings called echoed those same feelings saying that
Ionescu was “relentless” on the hardwood, who can do “whatever she wants” and
is “always there for her teammates.
Former Oregon forward Ruthy Hebard, who went
No. 8 overall in the draft to the Chicago Sky also said of Ionescu that when
she took the hardwood that she was “focused, determined” player who was on a
mission and a “great teammate.”
Ionescu reached this exceptional
milestone, when she eclipsed the 1,000-rebound mark in the Lady Ducks victory
at the Stanford Lady Cardinal on Feb. 24. This was on the heels of speaking at
the memorial service of her friend and mentor in five-time NBA champion and
future Hall of Famer to be of the Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant, who along
with his daughter Gianna and seven other individuals were killed in a
helicopter crash outside of L.A. early Sunday morning, Jan. 26.
“I grew up watching Kobe Bryant game after
game, ring after ring. Living his greatness without apology,” Ionescu said when
she spoke at his and Gianna’s memorial at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA earlier
in the day two months back. “I wanted to be just like him. To love every part
of the competition. To be the first to show up and the last to leave. To love
the grind. To be your best when you don’t feel your best and make other people
around you the best version of themselves. And to wake up and do it again the
next day. So that’s what I did. Wake up, grind, and get better. Wake up, grind
and get better.”
Ionescu added about her friend and mentor
in what he meant to her and women’s basketball, “I would say the most important
imprint he’s left is just having us feel equal. He believed in women’s sports.”
This past season, the 2020 Associated Press
Player of the Year averaged 17.5 points, 9.1 assists and 8.6 rebounds on 51.8
percent shooting from the field; 39.2 percent from three-point range and 92.1
percent from the free throw line as she capped a remarkable career that saw her
become in the all-time scoring and assists leader in Pac-12 history; and be
named Pac-12 Player of the Year three times.
Along with the great numbers that Ionescu
put up in her collegiate career, she also displayed a competitive spirit and a will
to win that harnessed a togetherness and united spirit that made the Lady Ducks
a championship contender.
A high basketball IQ that made here an
exceptional player in the pick-and-roll with the ability to score from the
mid-range or at the bucket, while also the uncanny ability and vision to find
open teammates when she got doubled.
The three-time “Associated Press” First-Team
All-America also displayed that IQ at the defensive end with her ability to use
her 5-foot-11 frame to rebound in traffic.
She started all 33 games last season in
helping the Lady Ducks to a 31-2 mark and the Pac-12 regular-season and
tournament titles respectively.
The Lady Ducks seemed to be on the verge
of finally climbing that national title mountain after reaching the Elite Eight
twice and the Final Four once in the first three years of Ionescu’s career.
That chance to compete for a national
title never came due to the cancellation of the NCAA Basketball Tournament last
month due to the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
It was a disappointing conclusion to the
2019-20 NCAA Basketball season for both the men and women, especially the
seniors across the nation, but it allowed the chance for players like Ionescu
to look forward to the next chapter of their careers in the WNBA, if or when
the 24th season of the “W,” which was slated to begin on May 15, but
due to the COVID-19 Pandemic has been postponed with no rescheduled date
announced.
When the 24th WNBA season does
begin for the Liberty, Ionescu will already have a head start on most of the
2020 Rookie class as back in November 2019 the Lady Ducks played and defeated
the U.S. Women’s national team in an exhibition contest in Eugene, OR,
defeating them 93-86.
Even though the entire Team U.S.A. squad
did not participate in the game, Ionescu showed out well against a collection
of the best women’s basketball players in the world registering 30 points and
seven assists.
Her play on that evening and throughout
her career has earned the respect of some of the best currently in the NBA.
“She’s blazing a trail that nobody’s step
foot in,” two-time Kia MVP and three-time champion of the Golden State Warriors
Stephen Curry said earlier this year when the Lady Ducks played against the Lady
Cardinal. “So, pretty amazing to see her just set new levels of expectation of what
greatness is in not just women’s basketball but basketball in general.”
Curry’s former teammate in two-time Finals
MVP and four-time scoring champion in now Brooklyn Nets’ forward Kevin Durant
tweeted @KDTrey5 to Ionescu @sabrina_i20, “Welcome to Brooklyn.”
Soon to be teammate and former UConn Lady
Husky in All-Star Kia Nurse tweeted @KayNurse 11, tweeted “Welcome to the Big
Apple @sabrina_i20! can’t wait to get to work #BrooklynLoud.”
NBATV Studio analyst, WNBA champion and
former No. 1 overall pick in Candace Parker said the most impressive thing
about Ionescu’s game is her ability to “play with great players and still distribute
the ball.”
“I mean if you look at the way she plays,
she’s been surrounded by great players at Oregon and I think a lot of people
will look at her points per game and say, ‘If you’re a dominant player you need
to score more… Sabrina Ionescu makes plays when she has to. And she makes the
correct play, and that’s what makes her so special.”
While she has only been in New York twice
in her young life, she said to Ruocco, Lobo and Rowe that she is excited to get
to Brooklyn, get to know the city and star the next chapter of her basketball
journey.
The other identifying part of Ionescu’s
life that will endear her to Liberty nation is the fact that she is a first-generation
Romanian American of a family that immigrated from Romania to the U.S. many
years ago. Also, she has something that who was also a No. 1 overall pick after
a decorated collegiate career in WNBA champion Diana Taurasi. That is a hunger
to compete.
“She plays with a will to win that crosses
over into league,” Taurasi said. “When you play with that type of competitive
spirit, all those other things, which you know, when you start in the WNBA those
are going to be hard regardless. But if you can overcome that with how hard you
play and how bad you want to win, which Sabrina does every single time she touches
the court the skies, the limit for the kid.”
During the broadcast of the draft on Friday
night, Rowe shared that when Ionescu and here twin brother Eddy, who started
playing basketball on the playgrounds at a very young age in California where
their father would drop them off in the morning on his way to work and they play
games against other players for money that they used to buy slurpees.
It was during this time that Ionescu
developed that hunger and love to beat others on the hardwood developed and the
Liberty hope will continue in the Brooklyn and earn support, respect and love
from the fanbase, especially from close to 22,000 folks of Romanian decent that
reside in the New York area, along with earning plenty of money to by the
occasional slurpee from a “7-Eleven” or any other convenient store.
“I know that she going to have a built in
fanbase there with the people that love her, and she will get a lot of support
there, and congratulations to Sabrina,” Rowe said. “She’s been hungry for this.
She loves basketball so much and we cannot wait to she what she does in the ‘Big
Apple.’”
One very important aspect that Ionescu
said to Ruocco, Lobo and Rowe on Friday night that she felt her greatest
improvement in this past season was in her ability to lead. With the All-Star
centerpiece of the Liberty in Tina Charles being dealt on Wednesday to the defending
WNBA champion Washington Mystics in a three-team deal, acquiring Shatori
Walker-Kimbrough and Tayler Hill, Ionescu will be the face of the team as well
as the leader.
Ionescu said though that the on the job training
of becoming a leader in her four years at Oregon and will “continue” her growth
in that category as she progresses in what she hopes will be a long and
successful pro career, especially at the beginning where all eyes will be on
her playing in the biggest media market in the country.
“I don’t think I’m worried about it,” Ionescu
said to ESPN’s Rachel Nichols on “NBA: The Jump” on Friday about the likely resentment
from veterans in the WNBA. “Obviously, it’s going to hold its own challenges of
entering a new league with veterans that have been there for many years. But I’m
just excited for the opportunity to learn from them.”
“You know, I think me as a person, I’m
going to reach out to all of them and just thank them for the opportunity to
grow and hopefully having my teammates there understanding that, you know,
coming from Oregon and coming to New York, I’m just excited to learn from them
and kind of enter that new stage of my life. And so, hopefully they’ll be no
jealousy and I’m just excited to kind of ride that roller coaster of being a
professional.”
Over the past two seasons, the New York
Liberty averaged 8.5 wins after registering an average of 22.0 wins the previous
three seasons under now head coach of the Aces and former two-time champion
with the Detroit Pistons Bill Laimbeer.
A lot of change has taken place going from
playing their home games at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY to
now playing full-time at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.
Having a new head coach in Walt Hopkins,
who hopes to build a winning team around a new offensive style that is predicated
on shooting and transition and a defensive style that consists of a lot of
switching around the new face of the franchise in No. 1 overall pick Sabrina
Ionescu and fellow rookies in Megan Walker and Jazmine Jones and supporting cast
of Bria Hartley, Brittney Boyd, Kia Nurse, Rebecca Allen, Asia Durr, Tanisha
Wright, Amanda Zahui B. and Layshia Clarendon.
The key to all of this working is Ionescu,
who the Liberty hope can be the player that she was for her four-year
collegiate career in Eugene, OR. If she is, then the future is bright.
“So, I’m just excited to learn from the
players that are there and make new friendships and continue to grow in every aspect
of the game,” she said.
“I’m just excited for the opportunity,”
Ionescu said. “I’m gonna enjoy this for a couple of days. But I’m just excited
to get out there and start working and get to know my team. Get to know the
coaching staff, and really just get to work.”
Information,
statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 4/15/2020 7 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “Gametime,”
with Casey Stern, Greg Anthony, and Candace Parker; 4/16/2020 7 p.m. edition of
NBATV’s “Gametime,” with Matt Winer, Stan Van Gundy, and Reggie Miller;
4/17/2020 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Paul
Pierce, and Jay Williams; 4/17/2020 7 p.m. “2020 WNBA Draft,” presented by
State Farm on ESPN with Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, Holly Rowe and Sue Bird of
the Seattle Storm; 4/17/20 www.espn.com
story, “Oregon Superstar Sabrina Ionescu Goes No. 1 to New York Liberty,” by
Mechelle Voepel; 4/18/2020 9 a.m. edition of ESPN’s “Sportscenter: AM” with Antonietta
Collins and David Lloyd; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_York_Liberty_season;
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Liberty#Season-by-season_records.
It has been a long time since the six-time
NBA champion Chicago Bulls had a major front office shake up. It has not taken
place in 35 years. But in the midst of another disappointing season, which has been
suspended because of the COVID-19 Pandemic and having missed the playoffs in
two of the last three seasons coming into this one, the organization felt new
leadership was necessary.
On Monday, the Bulls (22-43) announced that
they hired Arturas Karnisovas, the replacement for John Paxson as Executive
Vice President of Basketball Operations. The team also announced the firing of
General Manager Gar Forman after a decade in that role and 22 years in total
with the Bulls.
The Bulls did say that Paxson, who had
been the team’s EVP since 2003 after replacing longtime GM Jerry Krause will
remain with the team in his new role as senior advisor of basketball
operations.
“Gar Forman worked tirelessly for the Chicago
Bulls organization, first as a scout and then as an executive,” Bulls owner
Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement on Monday. “He made many significant
contributions during his time here and helped to bring some of the brightest
young basketball talent to our team from Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Taj
Gibson to Jimmy Butler and Coby White. He has been a trusted advisor and friend
to me over the years, and on behalf of everyone I want to thank him for his commitment
to the organization. Gar will always be a part of our Bulls family.”
The 48-year-old Karnisovas, who had been
serving as the GM of the Denver Nuggets since 2018 and the Bulls according to
ESPN’s NBA Senior Insider Adrian Wojnarowski, were finalizing the details on a
multiyear contract late into the night of Apr. 8 after he was offered after a
second round of interviews done by the organization was completed.
The first round of virtual interviews for
the open GM spot by the younger Reinsdorf on Apr. 8 were completed following an
interview with former Atlanta Hawks GM Wes Wilcox, who currently works as a studio
analyst for NBATV.
“Our ultimate goal is clearly to bring an
NBA championship to the city of Chicago. That is what every team in the NBA strives
for,” Karnisovas, said on Apr. 11. “All we can control is our approach and the
process behind every decision. A firm foundation is absolutely vital. I’ll
build that here in Chicago. No skipping steps.”
Karnisovas had a lengthy virtual interview
with Bulls Chief Operating Officer Michael Reinsdorf, the son of Jerry and the
leader of the Bulls search for their vacant position on Apr. 7, according to
ESPN. The next day, the younger Reinsdorf introduced Karnisovas to his father
and got Mr. Reinsdorf’s blessing to offer him the position of general manager.
It is hard to fathom that the Bulls are in
this position when you consider that back in 2011 Forman and Hall of Famer Pat
Riley tied for NBA Executive of the Year in 2011, the season where Riley’s Heat
signed now Los Angeles Lakers’ four-time league MVP and three-time Finals MVP
LeBron James and Chris Bosh, and re-signed the recently retired Dwyane Wade in
the summer of 2010.
Since that 2010-11 season, where the Heat
defeated the Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals in five games, the Heat went
on to win two titles in the next three seasons, making The Finals in four
straight seasons, while the Bulls despite making the playoffs the next three
seasons were bounced out of the postseason in the First-Round twice in the next
three seasons, and lost in the 2013 East Semifinals to the Heat in five games
once again.
What impressed the Bulls about Karnisovas
was his solid history to evaluating talent and the strong endorsement of the
48-year-old’s leadership, ability to be organized, his organizational skills by
the Nuggets from their Governor Josh Kroenke and their President of Basketball
Operations Tim Connelly.
Karnisovas’ diverse basketball background
in the game also intrigued the Bulls right from the start of this process, including
the role he played alongside Connelly and Kroenke in building the current Nuggets roster, which consisted the
drafting of now All-NBA center and All-Star Nikola Jokic; the starting backcourt
of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris and current Portland Trail Blazers starting center
Jusuf Nurkic.
Along with his time with the Nuggets,
Karnisovas also worked in the Houston Rockets front office as well as the NBA
league office in New York, NY after a decorated EuroLeague and Olympic-medal-winning
career on the hardwood, that began for the Lithuanian native collegiately at Seton
Hall University.
Karnisovas will be in charge of reshaping
a Bulls squad back that has since the 2013-14 campaign entering this current
one has missed the playoffs in three of the last five seasons, and had gone
just 2-23 against teams .500 or better this season before the suspension due to
the COVID-19 Pandemic. Also, has made many questionable roster additions in this
period that looked good on paper but did not work on the court.
On May 28, 2015, the organization gave the
axe to then head coach Tom Thibodeau, who in three of his five seasons guided
the Bulls to 62 victories in his first season in 2010-11 and two 50 wins
exactly in his second and fifth season respectably. Thibodeau complied a .647
winning percentage in his five seasons on the Bulls’ sidelines, despite Rose,
the 2010-11 Kia MVP missing 213 games because of injury.
Also, Thibodeau’s squads fell as
previously mentioned three times in the postseason to James (with both the Heat
and Cleveland Cavaliers).
That said, the civil war that had developed
between Coach Thibodeau and the front office, which axed the previous head
coach in Vinny Del Negro. Thibodeau faced the same fate as Del Negro did.
Forman had said back then that after
firing Coach Thibodeau that the search for his replacement would be extended to
“anyone around the country we want to talk to.”
That extended search took less than a week
as the Bulls had hired then Iowa State head coach and former NBA sharp-shooter
Fred Hoiberg on a $25 million deal back in early June 2015.
According to an ESPN.com article though,
this move had already been in the works because Hoiberg, who was the head coach
at Iowa State University, where Forman as an assistant coach.
After playing his first four seasons with
the Bulls, Forman bought the home Hoiberg was living in after he signed with
the Minnesota Timberwolves in free agency in 2003.
While the team got off to a decent start
in Hoiberg’s first season at 15-10, signs of trouble came after a 107-91 loss
at the New York Knicks on Dec. 19, 2015, which was on the heels of a 147-144
loss in quadruple overtime loss versus the Detroit Pistons the night before.
It was here where the mild-mannered
approach of Hoiberg was not meshing with a squad that had a serious cohesion
with the demanding, defensive-minded, kick you in the paints style of Coach Thibodeau.
Two specific players that were not on the
same accord with Hoiberg were current Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler and then All-Star
center Joakim Noah.
“I’m sorry, I know Fred’s a laid-back guy,
and I really respect him for that. But these guys aren’t doing what they’re
supposed to do, you got to get on guys, myself included,” Butler said after
that loss at the Knicks. “You got to do what you’re supposed to do when you’re out
there playing basketball. … We weren’t doing what we were supposed to be doing,
what we wrote up on that board before the game. And nobody spoke up about it.”
That constructive criticism by Butler of
Hoiberg fractured the locker room even more and the Bulls went 1-6 their next
seven games, falling to 27-25 heading into that season’s All-Star break, and
led to Forman issuing that dreaded vote of confidence to his hand-picked coach
just months into his tenure.
“Under the circumstances, Fred has done
well. … [Hoiberg] has an extremely bright future here,” Forman said.
The tide did not turn for the Bulls as they
finished the season 42-40 missing the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.
Paxson and Forman took the blame for the
team’s performance and declared that overhauling the roster was necessary to make
the team better.
That summer of 2016, they dealt Rose, who
was just the league’s MVP five years earlier to the Knicks for Robin Lopez (now
with the Milwaukee Bucks), Jose Calderon and then young prospect Jerian Grant.
Moving on from Rose, whose now with the
Pistons is understandable as the Chicago native was not showing the same
explosion following a series of knee injuries and how he talked about wanting a
new contract the previous season.
Forman said following the trade though that
he wanted to reconstruct the Bulls into a “younger and more athletic” squad.
The next moves the Bulls made though was
signing a then 34-year-old Wade, to a pricy two-year, $47 million deal and a
then 30-year-old Rajon Rondo.
The issue with those signings was that
Wade was at the end of his career, while dealing with knee issues.
Also, when the Bulls hired Hoiberg, they
had plans to be a high-octane offensive squad that played up-tempo. Had players
that were versatile and can spread the floor with their ability to shoot. The acquisitions
of Lopez, Wade and Rondo made the Bulls a slower paced team on offense, with
constant questions about their ability to make outside shots consistently.
There was also a clash of approach in leadership
amongst the vets in Wade, a three-time NBA champion. Butler, one of the most competitive
players in the league. And Rondo, who can be stubborn at times.
It all came to a serious boil after a
119-114 loss versus the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 25, 2017, where they Bulls were
outscored 41-31 in the fourth quarter, that dropped them to 23-24 on the
season, and the veterans, who on paper did not fit from a scheme standpoint
offensively not only sniped at each other. Wade and Butler also after that loss
spoke about the younger players’ poor practice habits when he was not able to
practice because of those aforementioned knee issues.
Wade said of his team after the loss
versus the Hawks: “These games are supposed to hurt. I don’t know if that is in
guys in this locker room. Hopefully, they can prove me wrong. But I will
challenge them to see if losses like this hurt. … This just can’t be acceptable
if you want to do something besides have an NBA jersey on and make some money.
That’s all we’re doing around here.”
Butler added to that saying postgame by
his locker: “Motherf—ers just got to care if we win or lose. At the end of the
day, do whatever it takes to help the team win. You play your role the T. Be a
star in your role, man. That’s how you win in this league.”
Rondo followed that by saying postgame: “My
vets [with Celtics] would never go to the media. They would come to the team.
My goal is to pass what I learned along. The young guys work. They show up. They
don’t deserve blame. If anything is questionable, it’s the leadership.”
The Bulls managed to make the playoffs as
the No. 8 Seed in the East by winning a tiebreaker on the final day of that
regular season. But their streak of six consecutive winning seasons ended as
they finished Hoiberg’s second season as head coach at 41-41.
They did put a scare into the No. 1 Seeded
Boston Celtics winning the first two games of that series, but Rondo broke his
thumb and the Bulls lost four straight games to fall in that opening-round series
in six games. As Game 6 was winding down, the fans in the United Center chanted,
“Fire Hoiberg.”
After another disappointing season, the Bulls
front office remade the roster again beginning on the night of June 22, 2017
where on draft night they traded Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the
No. 7 overall pick Lauri Markkanen out the University of Arizona, Zach LaVine,
and Kris Dunn. Rondo received $3 million as the Bulls waived him and following
weeks of posturing and negotiations conceded $9 million to Wade of his $24
million salary for that season in a buyout and he took his talents to team back
up with James with the Cavaliers.
“I guess being called the face of an
organization isn’t as good as I thought,” Butler said in a shot at the Bulls to
the Chicago Sun-Times. “We all see where being the so-called face of the
Chicago Bulls got me. … You know what I’ve learned? Face of the team,
eventually you’re going to see the back of his head as he’s leaving town, so no
thanks.”
Paxson was singing a different tune about presenting
Hoiberg with his third different roster in as many years saying at that time, “It’s
an exciting day for us. We’ve defined our direction and we’re going to make
decisions based on that direction from this day forward…. We made the playoffs
nine out of 10 years and it wasn’t good enough. We have now reset what we’re
about. … I’m not worried about perception. We understand this will take time
and is a process. … Our fans, if they give us time and are patient, we’ll show them
results.”
Hoiberg finally got the roster that he had
always wanted to work with and yet the disfunction that clouded the Bulls the previous
season followed them into the 2017-18 year, which was marked by a fight during
the preseason between two key players.
On Oct. 17, 2017, now Knicks forward Bobby
Portis and Nikola Mirotic got into a fight, which resulted in Mirotic suffering
two broken bones in his face and a concussion where he had to be hospitalized.
“I’m wrong for what I did,” Portis said in
an apology. “I want to publicly apologize to Niko. I feel like I let my fans,
the Bulls organization and, most importantly, my teammates down. This is not
who Bobby Portis is.”
Paxson said about the fight: “Both players
owned responsibility in the incident itself. But only one player threw a punch
[Ports]. And that punch connected, and for us, that is inexcusable.”
Mirotic, who was eventually traded to the
New Orleans Pelicans later that season missed the Bulls first 23 games of that
season, while the Bulls suspended Portis for eight games for his role in the skirmish.
“It was really hard for me. Especially
because he was my teammate,” Mirotic said on Feb. 8, 2018 about the incident. “Especially
the timing, the timing was basically two days before opening night and everything.
After I put all that work in during the summer.”
For the Bulls, this was another situation
that showed Coach Hoiberg, even though this situation had nothing personally to
do with him that his voice was no longer of any value to the players.
It showed even more so on the hardwood as
the team began the 2017-18 season 5-23 and finished the season 27-55, their
lowest win total since winning only 33 games in the 2007-08 season.
On Dec. 3, 2018 just 24 games into last season,
the Bulls put the cap on the bottle of the Hoiberg era as he was fired and
replaced by current head coach Jim Boylan, then an assistant. Hoiberg complied
a 115-155 record in his three-plus seasons in the “Windy City,” going just 5-19
in his final 24 games as Bulls coach.
“We were in a similar situation last year
at this time…but the entire energy about this group was different back then,” Paxson
said of firing Hoiberg at that moment. “We felt that here in the last several
weeks, that something is different. What we’re lacking is an energy and a
spirit about our team. And we need to get that back.”
Paxson also said about then interim Coach
Boylen, “[Boylen] has a passion and an energy to him that I think our players will
respond to. It’s different when you’re an assistant when you’re a head coach. I
think he’ll be able to take his personality and get these guys to buy into what
he’s doing.”
Boylen brought that old-school, get-after-it,
determined mentality right from jump he took over as he held two hard practices
that consisted of a lot of running and drill work.
It did no good in helping the team on the
hardwood as in their third game under Boylen, the Bulls lost at home 133-77
versus the Celtics. It was the worst lost in the 54-year history of the team
and tied for the largest margin of defeat in NBA history. The then Seattle
Supersonics in 1986 defeated the Houston Rockets also by 56 points.
To put into perspective how bad the Bulls
played on that night, the starters combined for 27 points, the fewest for a Bulls
starting quintet since Nov. 10, 2007 against the Toronto Raptors. The Bulls’
reserves played the final 21 minutes and they did not have any answers against
the Celtics on that night.
The Bulls did not hide their emotions
after the loss as then rookie center Wendell Carter, Jr., who had three times
as many losses in his first year as a pro (21) then he had in his lone season at
Duke University (8) went straight into the weight room to lift.
LaVine, whose had his disgruntled moments
with Coach Boylen said of the starters benching after the loss, “I felt
embarrassed. I wish I was out there competing.”
He added, “That happens in the NBA sometimes.
We responded in the second quarter. I don’t know. I do not know. There’s a lot
of questions you could ask, but I really don’t know.”
Markkanen, who made the final go-ahead shot
in the Bulls win against the Oklahoma City Thunder the night before, said
without hesitation that the starters “deserve” to be benched given the poor
start they had at the offensive end.
Boylen added to that disappointment by
saying postgame that he was “disappointed” by the “embarrassing effort.”
“We don’t have that internal toughness yet
to play at this level consistently,” he added.
He continued by saying about the mass substitutions
of the starters was done to embarrass them, “I think your play is embarrassing…
I worked for [San Antonio Spurs head coach] Gregg Popovich. He subbed five guys
a ton of times. Nobody said a word to him about it. He felt that was the best
for the team. I felt that was best for the team where we were at.”
“I wanted to give the other guys a chance
to see if they could right the ship a little bit. If I don’t like the five guys
out there, if I don’t like the combination, I’m going to look at a new
combination. Take them all out, let them sit there and think about it.”
The cracking of the whip continued as
Boylen stated that the team would practice that Sunday, which is unheard of in
the NBA these days of practicing after a back-to-back.
After hearing of this, a number of the
players got together and had a discussion of not showing up for practice as a
form of protest.
The players did show up at the team
facility where a meeting amongst the team was held to clear the air, and Coach Boylen
said that he had no plans on having the team practice that Sunday.
Despite going 17-41 the final 58 games under
Coach Boylen last season, he was retained and in early May 2018 on a new
multiyear contract.
After they axed Hoiberg back as previously
mentioned back in December and promoted Boylen from associate head coach to the
Bulls’ lead man on the sidelines, they made it clear that they would likely not
do a coaching search and that ownership felt that Boylen is the right teacher that this young roster needs right
now and they love how he has been able to build relationships with the players,
while holding their feet to the fire to get better on the court and in practice.
The basketball operations of the Chicago
Bulls since 2003 has been overseen by John Paxson and Gar Forman. The team
under their guidance made the playoffs in seven of those 10 seasons.
But after compiling, including this season
a 154-235 record, three head coaches in the last four-plus seasons and a series
of missteps in the draft and free agency, it was time for a major change at the
top.
The Bulls hope that change made to Arturas
Karnisovas is the one that can get them back into a playoff perennial and
hopefully a championship contender again.
Karnisovas will have a young talented
roster consisting of 25-year-old Zach LaVine (25.5 ppg-leads team); 22-year-old
Lauri Markkanen (14.7 ppg), 20-year-old rookie Coby White (13.2 ppg);
20-year-old Wendell Carter, Jr. (11.3 ppg), Kris Dunn, Otto Porter, Jr., and
Tomas Satoransky.
“Earning the enthusiasm and excitement
back from the fans of the Chicago Bulls is both a challenge and something I
very much look forward to,” Karnisovas said. “These fans deserve a team that
they can be proud of and my objective is to get us back to relevancy.”
The biggest thing for Karnisovas is to
bring in additional basketball operations personnel and to beef up the scouting
department, to find talent to go alongside the aforementioned top players on
the roster.
Perhaps the biggest question for the Bulls
under their new leader in the front office is will current head coach Jim
Boylen continue to be leader on the sidelines?
“I don’t know if Zach LaVine and Jim Boylen
are on the same page. And this team is committed to Zach LaVine and Lauri
Markkanen. That might speak for itself as it relates to the relationship and
tenor of Jim Boylen,” ESPN’s College Basketball Analyst and former Bulls player
Jay Williams said about the Bulls coaching situation.
Information statistics and quotations are
courtesy of www.nba.com/news; 4/8/2020 www.espn.com story “Sources: Bulls Tab Nuggets
GM Arturas Karnisovas To Lead Basketball Ops,” by Adrian Wojnarowski; 4/14/2020
3 p.m. edition “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Jay Williams, and
Kendrick Perkins; 4/14/2020 www.espn.com
story, “Why The Chicago Bulls Cleaned House, In Their Own Words,” by Brian
Windhorst and Nick Friedell; 4/14/2020 www.espn.com
story, “After Bulls Shake Up Staff Off Court, Zach LaVine Set to Lead Chicago’s
Charge On Court,” by Eric Woodyard; https://www.espn.com/nba/game?gameid=400828287;
https://www.espn.com/nba/game?gameid=400828278;
https://www.espn.com/nba/team/stats/_/name/chi;
https://www.espn.com/nba/standings;
and https://www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chicago_Bulls_seasons.
The National Basketball Association (NBA)
was the first sports league to suspend its season on Mar. 11 once the eventual Coronavirus
(COVID-19) was declared pandemic. In the five weeks since then a lot has
happened in the wake of this pandemic that has had a major impact on all of our
lives both positive and negative. Then there is the question of will the NBA
season finish, and what will happen for the league and all other sports leagues
moving forward?
The night of Wednesday, Mar. 11 when NBA
Commissioner Adam Silver said the NBA season was going to be suspended, there was
a five-game slate that was supposed to take place the next night, which
included a double-header on TNT.
An hour-long pregame show took place
instead on TNT with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal.
Johnson said on a special edition of NBATV’s
“Open Court: At Home,” that as he was getting ready to go on the air that night
of the hour-long pregame show that he looked on a chart on the internet and saw
that 47 of the 50 states were impacted by the Coronavirus, with a total of
1,587 total confirmed cases, claiming 41 lives on Mar. 12. That number since
has grown to 609, 848 total confirmed cases in the U.S., with 29,730 deaths, according
to Johns Hopkins/NBC News poll on Apr. 15.
One of those to pass from this pandemic is
Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, the mother of All-Star center
from the Minnesota Timberwolves Karl-Anthony Towns on Monday due to complications
from COVID-19. She was 58 years old.
Towns revealed on his Instagram page in a
very emotional video on Mar. 25 that his mom, who worked in the medical
department at Rutgers University in New Jersey for over two decades and his
father Karl Sr. had both contracted Coronavirus and had to be hospitalized. Mr.
Towns Sr. recovered enough to be able to go home, but his wife did not as she fell
into a medically induced coma and was placed on a ventilator towards the end of
last month.
Towns’ former teammate Tyus Jones, now with
the Memphis Grizzlies, tweeted on Monday @1Tyus, “Thoughts and prayers to
@KarlTowns and his family. Can’t believe it. RIP Mrs. Towns.”
Another former teammate Zach LaVine, now
with the Chicago Bulls tweeted @ZachLaVine, “I’m so sorry @KarlTowns love you bro!
Thoughts and prayers to your family.”
Towns former coach at the University of
Kentucky John Calipari tweeted @UKCoachCalipari, “Ms. Jackie was an angel and
we were blessed to have her in our lives. I cannot imagine the heartbreak
@KarlTowns and Karl Sr. are going through right now but my hope is we can lift
them up during this time and get them through this with our thoughts and
prayers.”
On the night of that NBA on TNT pregame
show after the league suspension was announced, Hall of Famer and fellow co-host
with Johnson, Smith and O’Neal in Charles Barkley was getting tested for the
COVID-19 Pandemic, which included a 10-day wait to see if he had tested
positive.
Barkley said from his home in Phoenix of
the test that it was “very uncomfortable,” because he said the person
administering the test takes a 12-inch q tip and stick it to the back of his
nose.
Barkley, who quarantined himself in his
condo for 10 days after taking the test added, “The thing that was weird for me,
it took them 10 days to get my results back. I felt good actually two days
later. I think I was just tired and ran down.”
When this whole pandemic began it was hard
to fathom that we would be looking at numbers of people testing positive and
the number of deaths from that.
When three-time NBA champion with the
Miami Heat Dwyane Wade, who now works for Turner Sports as a studio analyst
first heard of pandemic said that he did not take it as seriously in the early
stage back in the middle of March.
The 13-time All-Star did say though that
once he and the public began to hear about the lives being lost, your mindset
did a complete 180 degree turn on the seriousness of the situation.
Wade said that he was headed to Jamaica
for his sister’s wedding but had to head back home once the COVID-19 Pandemic got
to the level of seriousness it did.
“We knew it was serious,” Wade, father of
four and married to actress Gabrielle Union said. “We had to get back and get
out family prepared for this lockdown.”
For five-time All-Star and five-time
All-NBA selection in his 15-year career with the Golden State Warriors,
Washington Bullets/Wizards, Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit
Pistons, Chris Webber took the pandemic very seriously right from the jump
because he had his parents with him that he had his parents; his wife of nearly
11 years in the former Erika Dates and their three-year-old twins (a boy and
girl).
Webber said that it was all about being
very cautious and talking to family members of his that are nurses, who spoke of
what was going to be on the horizon with COVID-19.
“It’s terrible to hear D-Wade missed his
sister’s wedding and some things for family that I’ve had to miss,” Webber said
from his home in Atlanta, GA on Monday. “But it’s a sacrifice that I’m glad
that, you know, those people who are sacrificing that they’re here and
hopefully we’ll be able to share some really good times when we come out of
this.”
One person who wants to have those good
times when we come on the other side of this is Hall of Famer and two-time NBA
champion with the Detroit Pistons in lead guard Isiah Thomas, whose 29-year-old
daughter Lauren tested positive for COVID-19.
“For us, and for me and my family, you
just didn’t know what was coming next. And you didn’t know how to deal with it
or how to process it or understand,” Thomas, a 12-time All-Star said from his
home in New York, adding, “And also everybody was trying to find out where to
get the right information from.”
“And fortunately, enough, my daughter, she
was very proactive in the situation, and she’s been in, you know, very isolated
now for, you know almost 30 days waiting now to see if she’s negative and can
we be around here.”
Thomas added this has been the longest
period of time that he and his family has not had any physical contact with his
daughter Lauren, who resides in New York.
As difficult of a time that this has been
for Thomas, his wife of three-and-a-half decades the former Lynn Kendall, their
son Joshua and his other son from a previous relationship Marc Dones, it has
also been a moment of inspiration and positivity because they have all come
together and be united in support Lauren in this difficult situation.
So much so that in their daily group chats
on social media, Lauren gives her family a thumbs up sign each morning followed
by heart emojis followed by a smile and keeps the day moving.
One of the things that Thomas and his
family has done to during this time to is that around 4 p.m., which the time
they see Lauren to facetime with here and Joshua during this time is playing
music via DJ for the family via social media.
“Just trying to, you know, stay positive,
you know, for the family. Trying to stay positive as the leader of the family.
As the father of the family, and for so many other, you know, friends in the community,”
Thomas said.
On top of trying to maintain the togetherness
of his own family, Thomas is also trying to keep things well with his
investment holdings organization Isiah International LLC, which runs five companies:
Isiah Real Estate, a development firm that specializes in commercial
properties; TAND Properties, a property management firm, private equity and
asset management firm; Isiah Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations; and
GRE3N Waste Removal; and RE3 Recycling, which he co-owns with Lauren.
Thomas has said he has made sure that all his
employees that work for him have the right information in terms of how they will
be paid during this pandemic and that they are okay in terms of their mental
health.
With no games for Johnson and his
colleagues to broadcast now since the league’s suspension have had a lot of
down time, which is something that Wade, Thomas, Barkley, and Webber have not
had in years.
For Webber, he said that ever since the
age of 14, basketball has been a major part of his life whether it was playing
or now broadcasting after a conversation he had with his father.
This time away from the game has allowed
him to reconnect with his family, especially with his aforementioned
three-year-old twins.
The downside has been that he has not been
working out because he has put that focus on family and the fact that his
discipline of eating healthy has been off, which has resulted as he said of him
gaining about 20 pounds.
The part of getting back to working out is
something that Wade is familiar with because he said that he has had three
injuries during this time of quarantine, which to him let him know that his retirement
from the game last year was a solid decision. One of those injuries occurred
when he strained his calf while running on his treadmill.
Aside from that, this time away from the
game now as a broadcaster with Turner Sports has allowed him to reconnect with
his children, which now includes his newborn daughter.
“My family is getting to know me in a way
they’ve never been able to. And me the same way,” Wade said from his home in
California.
Wade also said that he has also found the
time to do the things that he has had to put to the side because of basketball
like painting.
In the case of Barkley, what he has done since
the pandemic began has get himself into better shape thanks to working out for
about a minimum of an hour every day on a tire bike that he purchased.
Barkley also said that he has given up
drinking Diet Coke, which he drank five to seven of when he was in the studio during
nights of TNT’s NBA coverage.
“No. 1, I wanted to quit the Diet Cokes.
And I wanted to make sure I don’t drink every single day, because I could
because I like it,” he said. “But I said, ‘Hey Chuck, you can only drink on
Friday and Saturday.”
The NBA was one of the first sports leagues
to suspend their season as mentioned earlier when the COVID-19 Pandemic had
reached a level where large gatherings were no longer acceptable. The question on
the minds of a lot of us is will the 2019-20 NBA season resume and how will it
be done?
Back on Apr. 6, Commissioner Silver said
to Johnson during NBATV’s “#NBATOGETHER” about the future of the current NBA
season after he and the Commissioner’s of the NFL, NHL and MLB had a conference
call with President Donald Trump, “Essentially I’ve told my folks over the last
week is that we should just accept that at least for the month of April we won’t
be in a position to make any decision.”
“I don’t think that necessarily means on
May 1 we will be. But at least I know I think just to settle everyone down a
little bit. Doesn’t mean that internally both the league and its discussions
with our players and the teams we aren’t looking at many different scenarios
for restarting the season. But I honestly its just too early given what’s
happened right now to be able to project or predict where we’ll be in a few
weeks.”
If there was any time or moment to be
positive to think that we will see pro sports back in our lives it is now
because, the U.S. and the world needs something to be excited about and want to
anticipate returning like pro hoops because of the inclusiveness and togetherness
that it brings for not just the players on all 30 NBA teams but the fans, and
even the community they are from.
The concern of when the NBA does possibly
resume after the all clear comes from those in medical and science world is
will the season be rushed so that the playoff can get started.
One thing that Commissioner Silver has done
a great job the last couple of years is limiting the back-to-back for the teams,
so that players can avoid injury, especially to the star players of the league
like LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers; Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee
Bucks; or James Harden of the Houston Rockets.
Webber brought the idea up that if the remainder
of this season does not resume, that this would be a good time to reset the
amount of games played from 82 to possibly 70.
“I’ve always been a proponent that we
should play 75 or 70 games,” Barkley said about reducing the NBA schedule. “We should
not start till Christmas. I said it five years ago.”
When the had the lockout shortened season
back in 1998-99, when the season was shortened to 50 games, the NBA had their
highest ratings in a long time because they were not competing with College Football
or the NFL, which Barkley called “King Kong” and “King Kong, Jr.”
Along with that there is no clue how long
the Coronavirus will be around. We have no cure for it, and when once is
eventually developed, it will not happen for 12-18 months.
Which makes the idea of having all the
team in one city to play the rest of the NBA schedule is a bad idea to begin
with because even if they take every necessary precaution, the players are
still away from their own families two months.
On top of that, they have to worry about if
the people that work at the hotel if they are infected with COVID-19.
Besides taking care of the players and making
sure they do not put their health in jeopardy, it is also about making sure the
fans do not put their health at risk when they attend a large gathering like a
sporting event in a confined arena or football stadium.
While the NBA was the first league to
suspend play when the COVID-19 Pandemic got the level it has, they do not
necessarily have to be the first one to jump back into the swing of things to
bring our nation together.
What we all have to remember, the numbers
of people you could be around during this pandemic went from about 10, to five
to now everyone has to shelter in place and when you do go outside your home
you have to have a mask and gloves on.
As we begin to get back to some sense of
normalcy, it will likely be done in that same fashion where it could start by
having just 15-30 people in a restaurant to and grow that to 50 people and beyond.
When it comes to sports, you are talking
about bringing 20, 30, sometimes 40,000 people in one arena. Trying to rebuild
that trust is something that for sure is going to come in stages for our society
to feel comfortable that when they decide to attend a basketball game or
football game and feel their health will not be compromised.
“Sports has a responsibility in my opinion
to make sure that when you’re going to put 30, 40 to 50,000 people in a space,
you have to be the leader in terms of saying there’s certainty that we’re going
to be able to handle this right.”
What also has to be handled right is bringing
the players and the teams of the NBA back to the hardwood if the 2019-20 season
is allowed to resume play.
A lot of players currently since the
league has suspended play have said they have barely shot a basketball.
Perennial All-Star lead guard for the
Portland Trail Blazers said to Johnson over the weekend that while he has done
some shooting on his hoop outside of his home, but as far as a real getting a
sweat on the court in a real gym that has not happened for him since the league
said to all teams they are not allowed to go to their respective squads
facilities in late March.
“Because they’re not allowing us to go
into our team facility. No third-party facility. They pretty much got us on
lockdown,” Lillard said to Johnson on Saturday. “Other than shooting outside on
my hoop outside, I haven’t been getting shots up.”
Lillard, who has not played in a game
since the Trail Blazers’ (29-37) 121-105 win versus the Phoenix Suns (26-39) on Mar. 10 added
that he has been keeping in good physical condition by working out at his
fitness center in his home where he lifts weights and recover in his personal
stem room.
Also, that if the season where to resume,
Lillard said that it would take him a week to get in the type of shape
necessary to compete in an NBA game.
One player who has found a way to stay in
shape has been James, who was seen working out lifting weights.
All-Star forward Kevin Love of the
Cleveland Cavaliers was seen in a video working out with heavy ropes.
A video was posted of Chicago Bulls guard
Zach LaVine shooting on his outside court with his dog trying to guard him.
Another social media post had All-Star guard
of the Atlanta Hawks Trae Young working on his dribbling in his home driveway
with his dog.
Another post had Miami Heat All-Star
swingman Jimmy Butler doing squats on his patio in the backyard of his home.
Wade, who spent 13 of his 16 years in the
NBA with the Heat said on Monday that Butler and his teammates are doing team
workouts via “Zoom.”
“I’m sure certain leaders are on their
teammates, on their guys about making sure that their staying in as much shape
as possible,” Wade said.
There was also a video of All-Star
swingman of the Boston Celtics Gordon Hayward working on his ball handling in
his home gym.
His teammate Jayson Tatum on the other
hand said to “NBA: The Jump” host Rachel Nichols on Monday that despite working
on an exercise bike at his home, he has not touched a basketball since the
Celtics (43-21) last game, a 114-111 win at the Indiana Pacers (39-26) on Mar. 9.
“I got stuff to work out at home and cardio
and weights and stuff. But yeah, I haven’t played basketball in a long time,”
Tatum said to Nichols.
Thomas said that he went through something
very similar to this when he had wrist surgery to his right shooting hand in
January of that year, which had him on the shelf until May, right around the
time the 1991 Playoffs began.
He said that he was able keep himself in
shape stamina wise. But his inability to get any rhythm in terms of getting his
shooting touch back had a major impact on his game as the Pistons fell to Michael
Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the eventual NBA champion Chicago Bulls in the 1991
Eastern Conference Finals 4-0.
“If you don’t shoot the basketball for,
you know, 30-40 days, it’s definitely going to effect your touch,” Thomas said.
Thomas said that the only player he feels
that will not be effected by this layoff if the NBA season were to come back is
two-time Kia MVP Stephen Curry of the Warriors. Everyone else that has not
touched and shot with the basketball during this suspension of the season they
will struggle shooting wise.
What we also have come to grips with if
the season does comeback is that we will have some ugly basketball due to this
unprecedented layoff, Webber said that the ugliness will be followed by some of
the best played hoops.
He used the example of LeBron James who
prior to his first season with the Lakers a year ago, had played in eight
straight Finals beginning in his four seasons with the Heat and his last four
seasons with the Cavaliers.
Counting last season and this league wide
suspension due to the aforementioned COVID-19 Pandemic is the first time the
four-time Kia MVP and three-time Finals MVP has had this much time off from the
court, and a well-rested and motivated LeBron James to go along with a healthy
Anthony Davis is great for the Lakers and bad news for the rest of the league.
It would also mean for the Rockets that
Harden, who over the last couple of postseasons has seen is production drop off
because of the wear and tear of the regular season would be nullified.
“We would have guys that are fresh,
frustrated, passionate and can’t wait to get back out there. And to me, that’s
the perfect storm,” Webber said.
Webber added, “When we do get back, I
think you’ll see and appreciation from the players that we haven’t seen in a
long time and also from the fans.”
While the players are doing their part as best
they can to be ready if the season does resume, the league according to ESPN
Insider Brian Windhorst said on “NBA: The Jump” on Monday that the league is
working on a 25-day plan which would consist first of 11 days of individual
workouts, with social distancing still being enforced.
That would be followed by two weeks of
5-on-5 training camp, if the all-clear comes from health officials.
“Whether those days are exact or not, what’s
important to realize coming out of this is that when we get the all clear, it’s
going to be a while before we can play games. They’ve got to rev everything
back up,” Windhorst said.
That is why we all have to prepare for the
possibility that this season may not resume and that this will go down as the
only time in NBA history that there was no champion.
Six weeks ago, our world changed a great
deal because of the spread of the COVID-19 not just our nation,
but the entire planet Earth. It has had a major impact on the sports world with
the first domino to fall in being the NBA suspending its season, with NCAA Basketball’s
Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments and the 2020 Summer Olympic Games
being cancelled. The MLB season is put on hold and leaving the start of the NFL
season this fall in doubt.
The one thing that has give us an outlet
to escape our troubles in our lives and to give us some joy is not with us for
the time being. For how long we do not know.
If there is one positive that has come out
of the loss of not having sports, accept for replays of some of the best games
from the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB is that it has given us the opportunity to see
the real heroes in action from our police, firefighters and most important of
all the doctors, nurses, school teachers and all those that are involved in
health care to get the much deserve love and credit.
Firefighters and police officers are ones we
have come to know as people who risk their lives to help save and protect us
from known dangers. In this time, those involved in health care in our hospitals
and doctor’s offices are the ones out there in harms way doing the same thing
to protect us as best they can against this global pandemic. That also includes
those working in grocery stores and gas stations to make sure everyone has
place to go to purchase food and to fuel their cars.
While the basketball world is off the
hardwood because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, they have like our first responders
have stepped up to help others during this pandemic to make the lives of others
a little bit easier.
Barkley has started a fund in his home
state of Alabama called the AL Hospitality Relief Fund, which is raising money
for those that lost their job in the hospitality industry due to the
Coronavirus, which Barkley said is up to $100,000 in raised funds. All 110
percent of the proceeds will go to the workers where they can borrow money against
the fund. To make a donation, you can go to www.arhaonline.com/al-hospitality-workers-relief-fund.
Tatum told Nichols that he along with
Washington Wizards’ All-Star guard Bradley Beal have partnered with Feeding America
in lending a helping-hand in providing meals to those in the Boston area as
well as their hometown of St. Louis, MO hardest hit by the Coronavirus.
“Helping out and using my platform and my
foundation (The Jayson Tatum Foundation) is important, especially for times
like these,” the Celtics All-Star said to Nichols on Monday. “You know, my
foundation partnered with ‘Feeding for America’ to donate $250,000 to Boston
and Bradley Beal jumped on to help donate because were both from St. Louis.”
Tatum’s former teammate in perennial
All-Star Al Hoford, now with the Philadelphia 76ers made a donation of $500,000
to help in the relief efforts, with “beantown” among the cities that will
receive a portion of those funds, while Tatum’s current teammate in guard
Marcus Smart said earlier this month that he plans to donate his blood plasma
after he fully recovers from the Coronavirus.
The Missouri Department of Health and
Senior Services on Apr. 6, according to a “Bleacher Report” article confirmed 2,367
cases of Coronavirus, with 34 of those resulting in death. St. Louis County and
the city of St. Louis have accounted for a large number of COVID-19 cases at 883
and 298 respectably, according to the same article, and 12,500 cases have been
confirmed throughout the state of Massachusetts, according to their Department
of Health.
Their will be games again, like there will
be major gatherings again at some point. It might be a while but they return.
That will only happen if our government, local,
state and federal and ourselves are in lockstep fully with each other does
whatever it takes so we can do the small things like hug our loved ones; be
able to be close without worry; to be in a large venue to see a concert or
major sporting event.
We cannot bring back those that have been
lost to this awful pandemic like the previously mentioned mother of Karl-Anthony
Towns in Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who was as Nichols said in the opening of the
Tuesday’s edition of “NBA: The Jump” more than just a mother to one of the most
talented players in the NBA.
“If you spent anytime around KAT
(Karl-Anthony Towns) at all, you spent time around Jackie. She rarely missed a
game he played in,” Nichols said of Mrs. Towns. “She would often travel with
the team. She was so full of energy, and light and love. She truly became the
second mom to so many of his teammates and friends.”
To put into perspective how close Mrs.
Towns was to her son, when he announced that he was going to go to the
University of Kentucky she was by his side when he made that decision.
Mrs. Towns showed that same excitement and
joy when he was announced as an NBA All-Star for the first time back in 2018.
As a spokesman for the family said to
ESPN.com’s Malika Andrews on Monday in a statement, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns was
many things to many people.
She was “a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother,
sister, aunt, and friend. The matriarch of the Towns family, she was an incredible
source of strength; fiery, caring, and extremely loving person, who touched
everyone she met. Her passion was palpable and her energy will never be
replaced.”
While the loss Mrs. Towns should really
make the NBA think very carefully about continuing this season, it should serve
as a major source of motivation for all of us to do whatever it takes to beat
this pandemic and produce a vaccine and have a government that will make sure
we never go through a pandemic like this ever again.
Information, statistics, and quotations
are courtesy of 4/6/2020 https://www.bleacherreport.com
article, “Jayson Tatum, Bradley Beal Announce COVID-19 Donations for Boston, St.
Louis,” by Joseph Zucker; 4/12/2020 7 p.m. NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie
Johnson” And guest Damian Lillard; 4/13/2020 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump”
on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Brian Windhorst, and Richard Jefferson; 4/13/2020
10 p.m. NBATV’s “Open Court: At Home,” with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Isiah
Thomas, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Webber; 4/13/2020 https://www.espn.com
article, “Mother of Timberwolves Star Karl-Anthony Towns Dies Due to
Complications From Coronavirus,” by Malika Andrews; 4/14/2020 3 p.m. edition of
“NBA: The Jump” with Rachel Nichols, Jay Williams, and Kendrick Perkins; https://www.espn.com/nba/standings; https://answerafrica.com/chris-webber-bio-facts.html;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Webber;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isiah_Thomas;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Anthony_Towns;
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwyane_Wade.
