Monday Bolts – 12.7.09

A good story on Latavious Williams, the 66ers and the Thunder by Yahoo!’s Marc Spears: “The D-League offers players

a chance to play for teams run by NBA franchises. Oftentimes, the teams have a coach who is appointed by their NBA affiliate and who runs a system similar to that of the NBA team. Presti met with Williams at the Thunder practice facility after the D-League draft and attended the 66ers’ first team meeting and practice. The 66ers also will attend several Thunder games in Oklahoma City.”

This writer on Bleacher Report lists out all the Thunder’s problems: “Although the Thunder are advanced on the defensive end (fifth in defensive rating), they allow great defensive teams to control the tempo of the game. They run an undeveloped offense, one that lacks the creativity most NBA teams possess. Great defensive teams expose that and when opponents also have a greater range of offensive plays, they exploit them as well. Their other fatal flaw is the need for a big man.”

Ziller at FanHouse recaps the 60 Minutes Donaghy interview: “One particular anecdote, which is recounted by Donaghy roughly midway through the clip below, tells of the time Allen Iverson, then with the Nuggets, drew the ire of the entire referee corps by threatening an official. The league fined Iverson $25,000, but officials, Donaghy says, didn’t think that was enough of a punishment. So they doled out their own sentence, and explicitly conspired before a Jazz-Nuggets game to give A.I. some tough love with the whistle.”

Mike Baldwin writing about plus/minus: “Denver coach George Karl thinks so much of it, he uses it to structure game plans. Lakers coach Phil Jackson, the Zen Master himself, tells his staff to toss it in the shredder. He’d rather substitute on sight and feel. The statistic is an old hockey stat that’s now included in expanded NBA box scores. It’s called plus/minus. And it’s reshaping the way some franchises evaluate and deploy players.

The Magic have ripped off seven straight road wins. The last time they lost? You know it: “The last time Orlando lost on the road was back on Nov. 8 — a 102-74 blowout loss at Oklahoma City.”

Tony Durant says KD’s Twitter page was hacked and now he’s getting a new one or something.

Matt Moore of HP on the Oden/Durant thing: “Greg Oden has had multiple injuries since being drafted by Kevin Pritchard and during the same time, Kevin Durant has evolved into one of the best players in the league. This is a coincidence. The two are not outlined in the stars. They’re not bound by that draft. It was just a coincidence. And to consistently compare the two is madness, like comparing a barn fire in Jersey and a stock jump in California. Assess each within the context of themselves.”

John Hollinger on the same thing: “In a roundabout way, it’s unfair to Pritchard too. I know what you’re all thinking, so before we go any further: All you second-guessers out there, just stop it. All 30 NBA general managers were prepared to take Greg Oden over Kevin Durant. All of them. There wasn’t even any question about it. One can fairly ask whether this consensus was borne more of the hope that infects every personnel evaluator upon seeing a talented 7-footer than of common sense. That said, it’s hard to single out a front office for doing what everybody else would have done too.”

David Stern thinks it’s probably, not possible, that we’ll see a female player in the NBA.

This is good. Rockets color man Matt Bullard yells at the officials.

I’ve got a Bowl Pick ‘Em group right here if you’d like to participate. Maybe we’ll treat the winner with some kind of prize. No promises, but we’ll see.

Notice anything different? Check out the new header! Big time thanks to Colin Butler for making it for me. The old one was nice and it held a special place in my heart because it came from my friend and very talented artist Val. Thanks again to Colin.