HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

"I think being a part of Team USA has helped me change my work habits," Gay tells HOOPSWORLD. "Seeing those guys work as hard as they do was really something to be a part of. I think improving my work habits is the best thing that came out of that experience for me. It also helped to be part of something bigger. Everybody on that team was a star, so everybody accepted their roles. I think now, coming back, I have a better understanding of what our other guys go through who aren’t star players."

In particular, playing alongside Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star Kevin Durant had an impact on Gay. Despite knowing Durant for years, Gay was struck by his young friend’s incredible work ethic.

"I’ve known KD for years now, and I’ve seen the way he works on his game and he gets everything he deserves," says Gay. "He works harder than a lot of people I know. I work hard, but he works just as hard as I do or maybe even harder. There were times during the summer when we’d be getting ready for games, on game day, and he’s working out and getting ready. If anything, he’s taught me to stay on my heels, because while you’re resting somebody’s working. People talk about his scoring and he was our leading scorer, but he was really the leader of the team, encouraging everyone and pushing us all to be better."

Gay may be sporting a fresh, extremely lucrative five-year contract, but that doesn’t mean he’s arrived as an NBA player. In truth, his head coach believes Gay still has plenty of work to do.

"He has a lot of room to grow . . .a lot of room to grow," says Lionel Hollins, emphatically. "He’s got so much out there . . .he’s coming along. He’s starting to be a little more consistent; his shooting is more consistent, his defense is getting better, he’s rebounding better. I think with young players, especially young players who have a lot of physical ability, their skill level is not where it needs to be to match that physical talent that they have. As a society and in our sport and in the media I think we over-emphasize the physical capability of a person. The game of basketball is about skill, and Rudy’s improved his skill level to where he’s in pick-and-rolls now and he’s making plays off the dribble, which he did not do two years ago. He definitely has a lot of growth left and I think he can be one of the outstanding defensive players in the league along with some of the other guys that are 6’8", 6’9"."

Hollins agrees that Gay learned something from his experience with Team USA, and believes Gay will be a better leader for having had that experience.

"I think he learned that it’s more fun to win than to lose," Hollins says, laughing. "I really believe that the experience of not starting and not being a go-to guy was the best experience. I think it would be the best experience for a lot of young guys who come into the league with all these expectations to learn how to play another role and to see how important the role players are to the team and to still be effective with limited opportunities. I thought Rudy was effective without being the star of the team, and he understood that he still had to play defense, he still had to rebound, and he accepted that they weren’t asking him to shoot every time he touched the ball. I think the majority of these young players who come in at 18, 19, 20 years old could use that lesson . . .even the ones that are very good right off the bat could learn that lesson."

In the wake of Gay’s Olympic experience he’s off to a smashing start, averaging 26.4 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists and even 2.2 steals per game. He’s never been a vocal leader, but he definitely had his coach’s back.

"The way Coach coaches this team, I don’t really have to be the leader," says Gay. "What I try to do is lead by example. These guys, when they’re wrong it’s obvious because of the way we run our team, the way we run our plays and our sets. When we watch tape it’s easy to see what’s wrong. The biggest thing we have to do is, when we see something wrong in practice or during a game we have to point it out and talk about it."

Despite a strong showing in preseason and a couple of nice early wins despite an injury to Zach Randolph, the Grizzlies aren’t on anyone’s playoff radar. They certainly have a playoff-caliber starting lineup, but there are serious questions to be answered when their second unit comes onto the court. Still, Gay says he likes being the underdog, and feels his team will surprise some people this season.

"I like the fact that nobody’s talking about us because it means we don’t have as many expectations placed on us. We’re going to go out there and play hard and get what we deserve. We’re going to work hard to get what we get. Nobody’s going to expect us to be a playoff team, but we don’t care. We’re going to get as many W’s as we can and try to make the playoffs."

The Grizzlies may be a playoff long shot, but it’s clear that they’ll get as far as Rudy Gay can take them. At the rate he’s going early on, that might be farther than people think. It might even have the Grizzlies playing deep into April.

When Jeff Van Gundy is serving as an NBA head coach he is as tight-lipped as they come. Reluctant to speak his mind or even provide a meaningful quote, Van Gundy is a case study in communication . . .or a lack thereof. When he changes into his broadcaster role, however, a remarkable transformation takes place. All of a sudden he has an opinion on everything, and does frequent guest spots on radio and TV to express his take on the hot topic issues of the day. His latest rant, this time on ESPN New York, is about the verbal feud between Kevin Garnett and Charlie Villanueva.

“Let me start with Charlie Villanueva," says Van Gundy. "He crossed the line by tweeting it. He had a chance to do something about it during the game. Go to it. If you were that offended, and it is offensive if it was said, go to it right there. Don’t wait to use the social network to not only…because everybody has said something on the court as a player and I know I have as a coach that if it was tweeted postgame that you would be ashamed about. I’m sure if Kevin Garnett said that then he’s ashamed of himself today. To me as shameful is Villanueva tweeting it. If he had a problem, take care of it. If he had a problem that he didn’t want to take care of on the court go confront him when you come out of Detroit. Both buses were right there. You can go stand there and let him know you didn’t appreciate it. There were many other ways to take care of this and I think the way that Villanueva took care of it was as wrong as what he said if he said it, which we don’t know.” 

Van Gundy knows a little something about how to handle situations that happen during a heated contest. After all, we’re talking about the man who, as coach of the New York Knicks, wrapped himself around the leg of Alonzo Mourning to try and prevent a fight between Mourning and Charles Oakley.

“You don’t have to punch," says Van Gundy. "But you can cross him right there and let everybody know that you have a problem with it right there. The disease Villanueva has, I feel very badly for him, I really do. He’s handled himself and he’s taking care of kids with a similar disease very well. I have nothing but praise for how Villanueva has handled his difficult circumstance. In this case though, if Garnett said that to him, Garnett was wrong, Garnett will be ashamed about himself (or he is) and wishes he had a do-over. But again, like there’s so many things that the iconic players in the league have probably said on the court to each other that if tweeting existed they would all be ashamed of what they’ve said and done. If Garnett crossed the line so too did Villanueva about how he went about taking care of his own business.”

First and foremost, Van Gundy understand the fundamental truth that players engaged in a tough, physical battle often say things they don’t mean, and are embarrassed by later.

“Most of them involve cursing so if you take offense to that, you would be really offended," says Van Gundy. "I’ve had some really good players say some not nice things to me. I took it more as that’s the game you know. Now this, because let’s face it every family and every person that is listening right now has been impacted by cancer in some way, a family member or friend, or will be. I have to think out on the court, Garnett absolutely if he said it, wasn’t thinking of the possible ramifications. He’s gonna face them. I think he has to shoulder the blame because everybody has to shoulder the blame for their actions but let’s not let Villanueva off the hook. This whole tweeting is like tattling. Come on now. You’re a bigger man that that. Go to him and let him know that you thought it was wrong. Don’t let the world know first.”

Tweeting as tattling . . .not a bad analogy. Whatever Kevin Garnett said to Charlie Villanueva, it’s clear he was not intentionally taking a shot at cancer victims. The fact that Villanueva didn’t take immediate offense to KG’s words leads one to believe that perhaps it wasn’t until later that Villanueva thought that was the case. Either way, rather than taking the easy way out, Villanueva should have confronted Garnett on the spot, or perhaps after the game . . .or not at all.

Listen to Jeff Van Gundy on ESPN New York by linking here!

The primary reason for Houston’s bout of impotence is their lack of composure down the stretch of games. In each of their four contests they have held the lead at half time, but the closer the fourth quarter clock gets to 0:00 the harder the Rockets made it for themselves. They have lapses on the defensive end, miss simple switches, forget to close out on shooters, and commit silly unforced turnovers. 

“It is just something that is happening,” Luis Scola tells Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “The truth is that we are playing good and then all of a sudden, we got all of those lapses where we just let the game go. We were up nine today. We were up several times against the Lakers. We were up a couple times against Denver. They just keep coming back and, at the end, they make a run and they just beat us. It’s frustrating.” 

Aaron Brooks was so frustrated as the Hornets completed a late-game comeback on Wednesday night that he got himself thrown out of the game for arguing a fairly obvious charge call against Kevin Martin.

“I think guys are trying to do too much,” says Rockets coach Rick Adelman. “They’re trying to make plays that maybe they shouldn’t be making. They’re trying too hard to make something happen. You’ve got to trust your teammates, and I think we get antsy when we’re trying to make something happen. As a result, we hurt ourselves."

Prior to his injury, Yao was the one who took huge shots and made huge plays at the end of games. He was the one who the Rockets looked to when the game was on the line and they simply had to have a basket. Adelman has been carefully managing Yao’s minutes to make sure he’s on the court in those situations, but the team still has to make sure he gets the ball at those crucial times. They also have to make stops to put themselves in a position to win close games. 

“I just wish we are going to win a game before Christmas,” says Yao Ming, always good for keeping things light. “It is a joke, but we need to be positive. It looks like we wasted our training camp.”

It certainly does, and that’s no joke. At the end of the day, though, it’s going to take time for the Rockets to become the team we expect to see by mid-season. Yao Ming has to continue to get better on the court, and his teammates – new and old – have to learn to trust him and get him the ball down the stretch. And most of all, the Rockets must return to playing the kind of defense that has made them one of the best defensive teams in the league for the last five years. Until they do that, they’re going to struggle to put wins on the board.