NBA At 2: Bobcats Go All In
Holding two of the top 19 picks in the 2011 NBA Draft, the Charlotte Bobcats decided that wasn’t enough to initiate a full-fledged youth movement.
In dealing Stephen Jackson, Shaun Livingston and the number 19 overall pick in a blockbuster deal that involved three teams and brought back the Milwaukee Bucks’ seventh overall pick (and swingman Corey Maggette); Charlotte secured two of the top 10 overall picks in the draft.
In gaining the rights to select Bismack Biyombo with the seventh overall pick in the draft, Charlotte gave away not only it’s top scorer from last season but the leader of the team and one of the few remaining Bobcats that exude a veteran presence. This marks the second time over the course of just four months that the Bobcats have shipped away their best player in order to gain younger players and/or draft choices to put themselves in better position for the future, albeit at the sacrifice of the present.
“We made the [Gerald] Wallace trade [at the regular season trading deadline] so that we could get these young assets to get into position to, as Rich [Cho] would always say, try to sustain success over a long period of time,” Newly appointed President of Basketball Operations Rod Higgins said after the draft. “That success, hopefully it’s not far away…
“There are going to be opportunities for a lot of players to pick up the slack. We’re looking forward to getting those guys on the court and I’m sure Coach Silas and his staff will have them in a good position.”
Gerald Henderson, who came into his own after Larry Brown’s exodus last season, looks to be one of those players that can shoulder the offensive burden. The ninth overall pick, U-Conn point guard Kemba Walker, will also be expected to carry some of the load as he and incumbent starter D.J. Augustin will likely compete in training camp for the starting job; while also playing together some during the regular season.
This young nucleus is going to have it’s chance to grow together and gain valuable experience over the course of the next few seasons.
“You look at our team, yeah you can say we’re a young team, but I don’t think you can go into that locker room when we have our team together and say that we’re rebuilding,” Higgins said. “If you say that to one of our players like Gerald Henderson or D.J. Augustin, Tyrus Thomas or any of those young vets: they feel that they’re capable of competing every night.”
The Bobcats now feature one of the youngest rosters in basketball, which is something newly hired general manager Rich Cho seemed intent on setting up, as the former Trail Blazers GM doesn’t believe being a “middle of the pack” team is worth holding onto to. Even though this team has clearly taken a step back since late February of the 2010-2011 season and gone from playoff-fringe team striving for the eighth spot in the convoluted Eastern Conference to a likely cellar-dweller in 2012, Cho believes this young team has an opportunity to compete.
“I wouldn’t necessarily view it as a step back,” Cho said. “We got two of the top 10 picks and a guy that won the National Championship last year. He’s a proven winner. [Bismack Biyombo] is a real young and up-and-coming player. When I was with Oklahoma City and we drafted Serge Ibaka, nobody knew who he was. [Biyombo] has a long way to go before he’s the player Serge is but he’s got a lot of physical tools. One thing that you’ll find is that he’s going to be one of the first guys in the gym and the last one out. Guys like that have a tendency to improve.”
Charlotte had a chance to select Kentucky point guard Brandon Knight with the seventh overall pick Thursday night, but passed in order to select Bismack — whom the Bobcats’ brass believes has the chance to be a significant impact player in this league. Time will only tell if there is only a marginal talent difference between Knight and the recently drafted Walker, but this has the possibility of being something that this team could really second-guess in future seasons.
In terms of making these moves to get younger and possibly better; it’s hard to disagree with the premise. While Charlotte is giving up the possibility of struggling just to eek into the playoffs every season as the eight seed, the core nucleus of Wallace, Jackson and Tyson Chandler that led the Bobcats to the first playoff berth in team history was not championship-material.
That’s not to say this is going to be easy by any means, a total of around 20 wins would not be out of the question next season, but a core change like this never is.
These moves are designed to accumulate enough young talent so that at least a handful of these guys develop into key contributors on a contending team. Charlotte is now in the position to be a force to reckon with in the next two or three seasons, that is, as long as they continue to make the right decisions both in the draft and personnel-wise.
In taking Biyombo and Walker in this years draft, Charlotte’s not off to a bad start.
NBA Champs Credit Man In Charge
In winning the coaching chess match against one of the greatest coaches in NBA history in Phil Jackson and taking to task two up-and-comers in Scott Brooks and Erik Spoelstra en route to an NBA Championship; Dallas Mavericks’ head coach Rick Carlisle has proved his mettle as one of the league’s best coaches.
Throughout the 2011 postseason, the Mavericks have seemed to be a step ahead of every team they’ve faced, with Carlisle seemingly pressing all the right buttons on this veteran Mavericks’ team.
“Well, I think he’s an experienced coach, and he pushed all the right buttons,” NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki said. “It took us a while to find a good mix,”
The regular season was no different.
During the regular season, Carlisle had to deal with injuries to his two best players (with Caron Butler ending up missing the entire season) and still found a way to get his team into the postseason playing its best basketball of the season. Nowitzki, one of the first to publicly praise his coach after the Mavs won the NBA Finals, gave a laundry list of reasons why Carlise has been so successful with Dallas.
“Still keeping our defensive principles that Avery [Johnson] installed and also giving Kidd a little more freedom on the offensive end, letting him run the show a little bit, letting him create and letting him call some plays on the fly and push the pace up a little bit,” Nowitzki said. “So I think that he did a great job doing that, and during the course of the season, we had to adjust to some stuff.”
{AUTHOR_BOX}Fans may forget, but a rocky start to this postseason had many questioning whether or not Carlisle was the right man to coach this Mavericks’ squad.
At the start of the 2011 postseason, the Mavericks’ head coach found himself on the hot seat after the Mavericks’ 84-82 loss in Game Four of the first round against the Portland Trail Blazers tied the series at 2-2. After blowing a 23-point second half lead in that game, Carlisle turned things around over the final three rounds of the NBA Playoffs, establishing himself as one of the best coaches in basketball along the way.
Dallas would go on to lose just three more games over the course of the postseason on the way to winning the first NBA Championship in franchise history
“He’s one of the best coaches in this league and sometimes it might go unnoticed,” Mavericks’ point guard Jason Kidd said, “but he’s definitely done the things that have put us in position to win.”
With the NBA Finals getting out of hand and the Miami HEAT up 2-1 in the best of seven series, Carlisle was pressed with some key issues with this Dallas team. Player-appointed starter DeShawn Stevenson was struggling to get his offense going and Peja Stojakovic — a key in the Mavs’ sweep of the L.A. Lakers — seemed to be completely withering on the game’s biggest stage.
Carlisle handled each of these issues just about as well as any coach could have. By inserting J.J. Barea into the starting lineup, Carlisle injected a penetration presence that Dallas had lacked all series, while jump starting both Barea’s and Stevenson’s offensive game. In benching Stojakovic and promoting Brian Cardinal into that role, Carlisle inserted some toughness and size while keeping the 3-point threat that was so imperative for this team throughout the playoffs.
“I thought in The Finals he did some phenomenal adjustments here to start J.J. [Barea], and then decide to let Peja [Stojakovic] really sit for the series, bring [Brian] Cardinal in, who has been phenomenal for us this series,” Nowitzki said.
Mavericks’ starting center Tyson Chandler said before Dallas won the championship that Carlisle would get his due.
“He will get the credit he deserves, he will,” Chandler prophetically said before Game Six. “His time will come. We just have to make sure we finish the job first.”
Now having joined the elite group of NBA players to have won an NBA Title as both a player and a coach, Carlisle is finally getting some much warranted praise as one of the top coaches in basketball. Inside the Mavericks’ locker room, there wasn’t much doubt of that fact all season long.
Metta World Peace
It’s official: the legal papers have been filed and Ron Artest is now known as Metta World Peace.
It’s unknown whether the back of his jersey will be printed as “Peace” or “World Peace”
That is all.
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