HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

Despite last night’s impressive win over the Los Angeles Lakers, the Houston Rockets are a team in turmoil. The chemistry that has so defined the team over the last few seasons is missing, and its absence is as noticeable as that of the team’s missing 7’5" center, Yao Ming. Defense has been a foreign concept for the team early on, which is also a radical change in behavior, and the pouting of point guard Kyle Lowry is starting to become the elephant in the room. Meanwhile, the Rockets aren’t happy with the lack of consistent production off the bench, and would like to have another option behind Luis Scola in the front court.

Meanwhile, there is also trouble brewing with on of Houston’s recent trading partners: the Sacramento Kings. After some promising early signs, the Kings are back to their old habit of losing every night, and it hasn’t helped that head coach Paul Westphal is having issues dealing with headstrong rookie DeMarcus Cousins.  Rumors are now starting to surface that Westphal, the lowest bidder for the job opening at the time, may be on his way out as the team’s coach.

Today our good friend Sam Amick from AOL FanHouse suggests that trade talks are brewing between the Rockets and Kings that could help resolve issues for both teams.

The Rockets have had designs on Cousins, but the Kings are insistent that he’s not on the block. Now Amick tells us that the Rockets have also acquired about the possibility of bringing Carl Landry back to Houston. The Rockets hated to trade Landry, but did so to unload Tracy McGrady and acquire a premier scoring option in the backcourt in the form of former King Kevin Martin. If they could somehow manage to get the best of both worlds, with Landry and Martin both in the lineup, they would happily do it. The question becomes what the Rockets would send back to Sacramento to make the deal work, and it turns out that what the Kings most is something the Rockets have to spare. Namely, a starting point guard.

The Kings would like nothing better than to acquire Aaron Brooks from Houston, but until recently the Rockets have been reluctant to part with their budding young point guard. Since Brooks went down with a severe ankle sprain, however, the Rockets have enjoyed the superior defensive play of Lowry and the fiery impact of rookie Ishmael Smith off the bench. Neither Lowry nor Smith can score the ball like Brooks, but the reality is that with Lowry at the point the Rockets have gone from allowing 107 points per game to just 103. It’s a far cry from where Rick Adelman wants his team to be defensively, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.

Brooks is close enough in salary to make a deal for Landry work with minimal additional effort. Perhaps the Rockets decide to send Jermaine Taylor to Sacramento as part of the deal, giving him a chance to play and giving the Kings another young player with loads up upside to grow along with the rest of the team. Meanwhile, adding Landry would give Houston some additional offensive punch as well as another active body on the glass and on the defensive end. Lowry becomes the permanent starter, dramatically improving his outlook, and both teams come out ahead. It seems less likely that the Kings would part with Cousins, but if they decided to go that rout, there’s little question that Adelman is the kind of coach who could get the most out of the troubled young big man.

It’s also been suggested that with Landry or Cousins in place the Rockets would consider moving Scola as a means of acquiring Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets, though that’s a conversation that is unlikely to yield fruit this far ahead of the trade deadline.

The Kings and Rockets have helped each other before, and there’s a very real possibility that they could help each other again. They certain each have assets that could help the other make immediate improvements, and those are the deals that usually get done in the NBA.

Tough "Love" in Minnesota

Wins and (especially) losses aside, one of the biggest stories coming out of Minnesota this season has been the play of forward Kevin Love. First it was the fact that he wasn’t getting playing time, particularly at the end of games, then there were the rumors of feuding between Love and head coach Kurt Rambis, and then it became the rebound watch – how many will Kevin get tonight? 

"Our job, a coaches, is to get the most out of our players," Rambis tells HOOPSWORLD of his methods of motivating Love. "Players have to be willing to be coached and they have to be willing to work hard. We have a responsibility to teach them, to get the most out of them, and to expect a lot out of them. We see that Kevin has a lot of potential to have an impact on a game in multiple areas, and that’s all we were doing was pushing Kevin to be the best player that he can be, and I still don’t think he’s there. I think he can still get better. We told all of our players from the very beginning, players who are playing well, players who are doing the right things, those are the guys who are going to stay out there on the floor. That sort of competition helps push players to do the right things out there on the floor. With a young, inexperienced team we’re all learning how to do things better professionally, and learning about all the things you have to do to be successful in this league."

Love took his reduction in minutes personally, but attacked the issue professionally. After the last game in which Rambis benched him early, Love pulled down 31 rebounds, and has been averaging over 17 boards a game ever since. He’s recorded games of 14 and 15 boards, and two games each with 17 and 22.

"I just took it in stride and used it as motivation and everything’s been working out for me so far," says Love. "As a team we’ve kind of been up and down, and our record isn’t where we’d like it to be, but that doesn’t really reflect how well we’ve been playing. We might not be getting the wins yet, but we feel like overall we’ve been playing pretty well."

Timberwolves point guard Jonny Flynn has been forced to watch his team’s proceedings from the sidelines while recovering from offseason surgery, and can’t help but laugh at the tactics his head coach is using to get the most out of Love.

"Kurt is a mind magician," says Flynn. "He learned under Phil Jackson, and the Zen Master knows how the mind works. Psychology is their thing, so Kurt knows which buttons to push and he knows just what to say to people. He definitely did that with Kevin and it worked out."

First and foremost, Rambis is helping Love to understand his role on the team, and that’s a challenge for a team as young and inexperienced as the Timberwolves. As much as winning basketball games is important, that can’t happen until the players get a feel for each other and how they need to play together. So far, that process is coming along nicely for the front court group of Love, Darko Milicic and Michael Beasley.

"We’re all gelling," says Love. "Darko’s really stepped up and is playing well after not having the greatest start in the world. Mike is kind of the same way. He came from a situation where he was playing behind a big-time superstar in Dwyane Wade and now he’s kind of coming into his own, scoring the ball and doing some other things well. For me, it was really just about opportunity and minutes, and I feel like if I get the minutes and can play hard for 35 minutes a game or whatever that number is, that I’m going to be able to produce and help the team win. … I think the biggest positive for us is the way we’re gelling together on and off the court, how we interact with each other. It’s great for the chemistry of the team. We’re all on the same page, and I feel like whether it’s Beasley, Darko, me, or anyone all the way down to the 14 or 15 players that we have, everybody gets it. Everyone understands their role and understands where they fit on this team. For us going forward, having such a young team, having great chemistry is huge."

There are still plenty of challenges ahead for Love, one of which is answering his head coach’s call for a team captain to emerge. As things stand, the Timberwolves have no captain because no one has impressed Rambis enough to earn the title. Love believes that one day in the not-too-distant future he can be the one to earn that respect.

"I definitely think I can be that guy," says Love. "One, it’s a respect thing. It’s about showing up every day and being a consummate professional. I think we have a couple of guys on this team who can step into that role, but right now we’re just all trying to get on the same page and eventually that guy will kind of rise above the rest. I would love for that to be me."

It’s all about constant, daily improvements for the Timberwolves this season, and a big part of their future success will hinge upon the play of Kevin Love. The fact that he and his head coach got on the same so quickly and so throughly bodes well for the franchise going forward. As it turns out, a little tough love goes a long way.

{AUTHOR_BOX}Third Time’s A Charm

Two summers ago one of the most talked-about players in the rumor mill was Portland Trail Blazers guard Jerryd Bayless. He captured the imagination of many with his superb summer league play, but he never really got an opportunity to have an impact on the Blazers themselves. Teams were calling asking about his availability, and then-GM Kevin Pritchard thanked them very much for calling, but was not the least bit interested in moving his young guard.

Blazers assistant coach Monty Williams was so impressed by Bayless’ potential that he engineered a trade for Bayless when he took over the as new head coach of the New Orleans Hornets. Bayless was thrilled to be back with his former mentor, and new Hornets GM Dell Demps was thrilled that they could get him for a draft pick. It seemed Bayless’ potential dropped considerably when Pritchard was dropped as the Blazers’ GM.

Strangely enough, Bayless’ tenure in New Orleans was remarkably short, as he was dealt 11 games into the season in a move that landed him in Toronto along with Peja Stojakovic, and sent Jarrett Jack, David Andersen, and the oft-traded Marcus Banks to the Big Easy. The Hornets wanted more of a true point guard to back up Chris Paul, the Raptors wanted a scoring guard and Stojakovic’s ending contract.

Now it seems as though the third time might be the charm for Bayless, who recorded 16 points, six rebounds and five assists in Toronto’s win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night and is averaging 11.0 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists since moving to Canada. He’s also shooting 48% from the field and 56% from the three-point arch.

Potential can be  scary thing, especially in the world of professional sports, where players aren’t given much time to live up to their perceived potential. Many believe Toronto could be the last stop for Bayless, and if his early play is any indication they could be right. Toronto could be the place where Jerryd Bayless finally finds a home . . .and a permanent spot in his team’s rotation.

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