SB Nation User Blog: thelettere

Yahoo! Rookie Rankings

thelettere — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:12:40 -0000

Yahoo! Rookie Rankings

Tyreke and Omri rank in at #4 and #9 respectively.

Omri Casspi Profiled in the NY Times

thelettere — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:57:51 -0000

Omri Casspi Profiled in the NY Times

Byron Scott to Return to N.O.

thelettere — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:37:01 -0000

What Would Eddie Jordan Do?

thelettere — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:55:03 -0000

(Note: I'm from Jersey and Jordan's role in the Net's success in the early 2000's should not be overlooked. This is more of a fanshot, but the archives of the Star Ledger are N/A)

EDIT FROM TZ: Though the Star-Ledger's archives are forked, I'm not comfortable posting an entire copyright-covered article. Snips below. It's a 2003 article on Byron Scott and Eddie Jordan.

[S]omehow, there is a perception Scott can't coach. It's a school of thought that says Scott was merely a front man, Jordan was the brains behind the team's motion offense, and Scott will now be exposed.

Nets president Rod Thorn calls that a "misperception," calls the idea that Jordan really ran the team a "misconception" and says Scott hasn't gotten enough credit. Scott says the Jordan talk, "sounds like backstabbing to me" and says the Byron-can't-coach movement was started by people within the organization - people he will not name - who resented his rapid success.

"I've been pretty successful since I've been in the league. I've won some championships and done some pretty good things," Scott said. "A lot of it is envy, a lot of it is jealousy, and probably a lot of it is started by people who were close to me - people in the organization. But I don't allow that stuff to bother me." [...]

"The guys are looking at him pretty closely," forward Rodney Rogers said. "Last year when we had pregame talks it was Eddie doing all the talking. Now it's Byron doing all the talking. It's a different approach. Last year guys were sometimes wondering if he could talk. People were wondering if he could handle the team without Eddie around. Now we'll find out." [...]

Scott said the final 20 minutes, where [Lawrence] Frank does most of the talking, are not a representative sample of his practices.

"You can ask the players: Ninety percent of the practice I run," Scott said. "they hear my voice most of the time."

In single-blind poll of four players - single-blind in that the players were not told about what Scott said about his practices - Jefferson, Rogers, Collins and Harris indicated they heard Frank's voice the most in practice. [...]

"He wasn't the brains of everything we did," Scott said. "Defensively, we're the same as we were three years ago. Our players just got better. Offensively, with the Princeton offense, I was with Pete Carril (the offense's creator) in Sacramento before I came here.

New York Times -- The No-Stats All-Star

thelettere — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:36:09 -0000

New York Times -- The No-Stats All-Star

Article about Shane Battier - but includes tons of fascinating info about the game and how badly the box score reflects what really goes on on the court.

Justin Williams Makes a Kingly Impression

thelettere — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:03:25 -0000

A link to a feature story on Williams performance at the summer games is below. Nice to see him getting some attention - which will hopefully translate into playing time this coming year.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_22770.shtml

P.S. If we just ignore Shareef, Kenny and Brad for a moment, a starting frontcourt of Mikki and Justin with Spencer as a backup sounds fairly exciting (if Mikki can repeat last years performance, that is)

On a more realistic level, though, Mikki and Justin will serve as a nice set of energy subs. (Still, the Kings still have at least one too many big men. I almost think the Kings should just cut Kenny. The only role Kenny plays effectively these days is as a source of humor.)