Tuesday Morning Starting Five: Mark Cuban Apologizes
Cuban issues apology to Martin family. (Blogmaverick)
LeBron and the Cavs sweep the Spirit on outta here. (Cleveland.com)
Dirk (44) and Melo (41) go hard, Dallas prevails. (Star Telegram)
DiLeo crosses name off Sixers coaching list. (Philly.com)
Who is next? Doug Collins or Avery Johnson? (ESPN 950)
Chris Mullin out as Warriors Executive VP. (Mercury News)
Al Davis hates Black athletes from Notre Dame? (Press Democrat)
Declared fit after his recent car accident, Usain Bolt is ready to race. (Jamaica Observer)
Galveston County’s first Black female mayor. (Galveston Daily News)
B has everything on lock. Ashanti gets dropped. (Singersroom.com)
Remember this?
My Goodness!!
Did Mark Cuban apologize to Kenyan Martin and his mom face-to-face?
Maybe it’s just me, but in reading the apology from Mark Cuban, it seems as if he’s trying to paint himself as somewhat of a victim.
Exactly.
Mark Cuban felt the need to make a number of reactionary, defensive statements before he made his way around to apologizing. He should have owned his apology the same way he owns the Mavericks — up front and no holds barred. I’m in no position to accept it — but it smacks of insincerity.
I don’t know what the Sixers are thinking, but they could use Avery more than Collins. Avery is younger, closer to a championship, and better equipped to address Philadelphia’s most fundamental weakness — assuming Andre Miller gets it in the wind. The Sixers will not be able to beat Orlando (with Jamir) or Boston or Cleveland unless they get solid defensive play at the point. There is arguably no one better to teach that than Avery Johnson.
That Al Davis story has to go in one ear and out the other.
As far as Ashanti goes, she’s never been my cup of tea. Perhaps she wasn’t to blame for being a mediocre manifestation of pop music mindlessness. Who knows. Maybe she has some real depth. The jury is already out on Irv. He knows the business and he knows the formula. Anyone who can make money with JaRule deserves to be honored at every business school in America. Best of luck to both of them. It sounds like a parting of the ways was always just beneath the surface.
How bad are the Atlanta Hawks?
When is Mike Woodson getting fired? Does he have another year left? If you were Avery, wouldn’t you rather have the Hawks job than the Sixers job?
Ok — I guess we’re 3 for 3 on Cuban’s bullshit apology. Perception is everything in this business. I’m sure Kenyon’s mother feels exactly the same way.
I’m going with Avery. I would guess the Collins thinking is replacing a Cheeks legend with another Sixers one.
“How bad are the Atlanta Hawks?
When is Mike Woodson getting fired? Does he have another year left? If you were Avery, wouldn’t you rather have the Hawks job than the Sixers job?”
I don’t think the Hawks are not a bad team but they are not a good team either. They’ve made the playoffs the past few years primarily on talent as oppose to coaching and execution. Woody definitely needs to go and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got his walking papers this week. He signed a 2 year extension so he has another year left. It doesn’t matter. If the Hawks are smart, they would pursue Avery Johnson with the quickness.
The Hawks have too many of the same type of players. They need a big man in the post so that they can get easy baskets, keep the defense honest and so that Al Horford can play his natural position. The talk here in the ATL is that they need to trade Marvin Williams, Acie Law and Zaza Pachulia to Phoenix for Amare Stoudimire. But they’d be crazy to trade Zaza because he is a solid back-up off the bench. They may want to think about unloading Solomon Jones and trading the rights to Josh Childress.
They need to re-sign Flip Murray in case Bibby wants crazy money, which he shouldn’t get at this point in his career. It’s gonna be interesting to see what they do in the off-season.
That should be “I don’t think the Hawks are a bad team…..”
Sorry for the typo.
GN:
You haven’t really answered the most fundamental question concerning this team — and I didn’t ask it this morning — but, “What point guard is available (either presently in the league, internatioally or in college) who can run this team?”
The Hawks can trade bigs if they like, but the damage has already been done.
The mistake was drafting Marvin Williams when there were elite point guards on the table. The Hawks will likely only compound the error by trading a young, tall, talented player like Williams. I think they should trade the best, oldest player on their team — the one with the HIGHEST trade value. Frankly, I think it’s Joe Johnson.
Johnson is extremely talented, but he has already peaked statistically. He has many productive years left, but he’ll be 28 and will require the right situation to exceed his peak performance numbers. Two years ago, he averaged 25 a game. He shot 47%. He hasn’t done that since. As talented as JJ is, he can’t just go to any team in the league and drop 28 ppg AND shoot a high percentage. He’s not as good as Wade or LeBron (obviously), so the question is — what can the Hawks get for him?
Josh Smith, to me, is too valuable to trade. Horford is also too valuable. I don’t believe in trading bigs who are capable of scoring on the block. Both can do that — and I think they’d be MUCH better if they had a true PG.
Let Bibby go. He’s an enormous defensive liability at this point. If they can get Flip to shoot more consistently, they won’t miss Bibby at all. I think the Hawks should keep their size, trade their most valuable asset and go hard for a point guard who can really make the difference. The point guard should be able to hit open jumpers and stop penetration on defense, and have some skrenf so that they don’t get run over by Mr. Big Shot and CP3 and Deron.
Who’s out there?
T3:
“What point guard is available (either presently in the league, internatioally or in college) who can run this team?”
That’s the million-dollar question in which I don’t know the answer to. I have no idea who’s out there. Maybe they can try to work something with Orlando being that they’ll have two PGs when J. Nelson comes back. If they’d drafted CP3 or Deron Williams, we wouldn’t be trying to answer that question, right? (lol).
I don’t have a problem with the Hawks trading Joe Johnson but if they do, they will lose the most consistent scorer they have and their best perimeter defender. They will also have to live and die with Josh Smith jackin’ up ill-advised threes during the course of the game. Unless Josh Smith develops an outside shot and continue to work on his post moves and defense, trading JJ would hurt the Hawks if they didn’t get a big man in return.
The Hawks can get good value from Joe Johnson but they need a big presence in the post more than they need a PG at this point. If they get a PG, their scheme will remain the same — ISO and jackin’ up treys. However, if they get a low post presence (i.e. Amare), it changes the dynamics on how teams have to play them. Teams would have to respect Amare’s skills AND the outside threat of the trey.
I guess my thinking was that one of two scenarios is prevailing in ATL right now —
1) Either the bigs that ATL has on the roster CAN play, but are not being utilized properly.
OR
2) They can’t play. They really are as limited as they appeared to be against Cleveland.
If they can play, there is no reason why any one of 3 SIX FOOT 9 INCH players couldn’t go down on the box and score. Horford, Smith and/or Williams should be able to score regularly if they have a point guard who can create proper spacing on the floor; enforce team roles through leadership and effectively distribute the ball to them in their preferred spots on the floor.
If none of those guys can do that OR hit a mid-range jumper, then they can’t actually “play” — they can just run and jump and the team really is that bad and Mike Woodson shouldn’t be fired — he should be canonized (as in Papal). If none of those three guys can do that, the team should be blown up and the GM should be fired — immediately.
I don’t really see a middle ground here. It’s one or the other. I think you’re actually leaning toward the latter. This team is incredibly young. Pachulia just turned 25 in February. These guys are all about to enter their prime years.
I suppose you could look at them like you look at the Fab Five. The talent is there, but Michigan might have been better served if Jalen Rose was able to play the 3 as a classic point forward in tandem with a true point guard. As it was, they had 2 power forwards (Webber and Howard), 2 shooting guards (King and Jackson) and Jalen. It was kinda funky. Like the Hawks, they were fun to watch. They made incredible plays, and they got bogged down on offense in some big games where pressure defense didn’t bail them out; and they had trouble defending traditional point guards.
I’m not a purist, but it seems to me that the benefits of having a pure point guard or dominant combo guard are seen in the work that Chauncey Billups is doing in Denver. I think the Hawks think they have more than enough talent to score on the interior. If they don’t, Marvin Williams isn’t the only guy who should have a long, long offseason of skill building.
I would say that they have 2 bigs on their roster (Horford & Pachulia) who can play the post but doesn’t get plays called for them. Josh Smith showed signs of a decent low post game at times in the series w/ against the Cavs but it was hard to tell if he’s legit being that he’d rather shoot from beyond the arc. Marvin Williams was sanctioned to shoot from the outside, so he hasn’t had the opportunity to play in the post.
Which leads to my reasoning why Woody should be axed. He doesn’t call enough plays for the opposing team’s defense to honor the low-post game. Instead, he allows the team to either free-lance, play one-on-one ball, and/or shoot treys. I can’t remember the last time I actually saw the Hawks run and execute a high-low pick-and-roll play. And he fails miserably when it comes to making half-time adjustments or adjustments during the course of the game. I mean, wouldn’t a decent coach improvise with Joe Johnson to free him up from all those double-teams? And I won’t even mention the lack of consistent team defense.
If they’re going to get another PG, then it needs to be the right PG. But i’m just concerned that getting another PG would be stymied if they’re going to keep the same coach. I think that getting Amare Stoudamire would take a lot of pressure off of Joe Johnson and whoever is running the show at point. A front court of AS, Horford and Josh Smith would cause problems for any team in the NBA.
I feel you. Amare makes everything easier.