Player Leadership defined, in the NBA

Filed precisely under the category of … Not [really, truly] knowing what you’ve got [exactly] until it’s gone …

A tremendous piece by Steve Aschburner, On the Man, the Mission, and the Meaning, of KG.

Garnett gone from the Wolves without a trace

[Randy] Foye, in overlapping with [Kevin] Garnett for one season here, says he learned plenty from the veteran. It goes beyond the seating protocol on the team’s charters that he mentions at first, or a pecking order of who eats first or last on those flights. It’s the sort of stuff that, if Foye preserves it and pays it forward, truly can be a Garnett legacy within the Wolves. Right now, though, the guard from Villanova mostly pines for it.my rookie year,” said Foye, who has sputtered in the season-plus since. “No matter what happened, if I made a mistake, I’d look at him and he’d go [Foye balls up a fist and pumps it], like ‘It’s all right. Keep your head up.’

“One thing I miss about him is, he just let me go. That’s why I was so successful

“It makes you feel better. It’d be like that for anyone in their work, if there was a legend who pumped you up. For a young player, that just boosted my confidence. Sometimes, in my rookie year, I felt like an All-Star out there because he let me do what I wanted and when I got it going, he let me go.”

In games, Foye said, it was like having your big brother there to hold your coat in a schoolyard fight. “There was a swagger,” he said. “KG would come out and hit a shot, and it was like, ‘Everybody, we’re in this together. I’m patrolling it, but everybody who’s got a white jersey on, we’re in it together.’ ”

——————————–

From Farragut Academy, in Chicago …

——————————–

It is going to be a bitter-sweet moment this evening, for one and all, at the Target Center.

THE MAN has come back to his birthplace, in the NBA … this time, Fully Certified.

—————–

Filling in the gaps for the Suns

Further to: Whither the Suns in the Western Conference 

A report yesterday indicates that a new ‘Starting 5’ is on the way, in Phoenix, this season …

======================

Barnes expected to start; Hill to come off the bench
” … in a roundabout way, Matt Barnes adds depth to the team, as he will be starting and Grant Hill will move to the bench this season.

This last point just about floored everyone in attendance [at the Suns’ Fantasy Camp], but it sounds like this is what Coach Porter and Hill want to do [according to Suns’ President Rick Welts, who addressed the campers directly].”

======================

If accurate … it’s another step in the right direction for the Suns, by the Terry Porter/Steve Kerr tandem, as the following new line-up:

STARTERS:
1 – Nash
2 – Bell
3 – Barnes
4 – Stoudemire
5 – O’Neal

SUBS:
1 – Singeletary
1 – Dragic
1/2 – Leandro Barbosa
2/3 – Hill
3/2 – Tucker
4/3 – Diaw
4 – Amundson
5 – Lopez

is a better balanced set-up than Mike D’Antoni’s prior alternative versions.

UPDATE: Confirmation that Grant Hill would be on-board with this proposed shift in Phoenix. [Wed Sep 24 2008]

Touching all the bases

Intriguing stories today about Toronto’s ‘pro sports’ environment …

Ticket scandel rocks MLSE

A senior executive at Maple Leafs’ parent company Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has resigned and five other employees have been fired after the company learned of ticket irregularities …

News of the scandal comes in the wake of an already sour week for MLSE. The Toronto Raptors are struggling and may miss out on the chance for home-court advantage in the NBA playoffs, while the Leafs will miss the playoffs for the third straight season. Both developments could cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Struggling Raptors starting to take on scent of Leafs

Last night, it was as if the stink of the Maple Leafs’ despicable performance against the Ottawa Melnyks 24 hours earlier was wafting up through the floorboards, infecting the efforts of the Raptors as they attempted to nail down a playoff spot through their own efforts against the still expansion-like Charlotte Bobcats …

 

For MLSE, this is troubling, for the Raps are their crown jewel at the moment, given the state of the Leafs and the fact the corp’s sophomore soccer squad [TFC] declined to aggressively improve itself after a predictably awful debut campaign.

Glory days recalled at home plate

We were all young together, once, when major league baseball was itself a wildly popular neophyte ’round these parts. When the park was always full to capacity. When the Jays seemed always to make the playoffs and it appeared the fun, the swagger, would never end …

Now, the ball team makes a low-decibel debut on home turf, parenthetically on the same weekend the Maple Leafs slink out of town for their season wrap in Montreal, two chronically non-post-season franchises passing in the night.

————————————

UPDATE:
– Bottom of the 4th … the Blue Jays (Litsch/+117) strike back for 3 runs to regain the lead (4-2) against the World Champion, Boston Red Sox (Buchholtz)
– FINAL SCORE: TOR 10, Bos 2

Gender wars 101 (1)

Courtesy of A Natural Deficiency Of Moral Fiber 

… comes an all-time classic

It is Madness for sure

Have you removed the ear-to-ear smile yet from your face?

Didn’t think so.

Trap game for the Raptors

As the Raptors take the floor this evening versus the Bobcats they need to be aware that Charlotte has been playing good basketball of late … with the exception of their home-court Loss earlier this week to Toronto (Mar 31).

Wed Apr 02 CHA +3 Cle (CHA 114, Cle 118), CHA – W 
Mon Mar 31 CHA +2.5 Tor (CHA 100, Tor 104), CHA – L 
Sat Mar 29 POR -6 Cha (POR 85, Cha 93), Cha – W
Fri Mar 28 SEA +2.5 Cha (SEA 93, Cha 96), Cha – W
Wed Mar 26 LAL -14 Cha (LAL 95, 108), Cha – W
Tue Mar 25 UTA -13 Cha (UTA 128, Cha 106) Cha – L

Fully recovered from the re-aclimatization process linked with an extended Western Conference road-trip and a 1st home game malaise, the Bobcats should be operating at maximum capacity this evening.

In the aftermath of Toronto’s controversial loss at Atlanta, the Raptors (-9) need to take Charlotte seriously and ensure that (i) Offensively, Chris Bosh is the focal point of their attack, abusing the individual match-up advantage he has vs his Bobcats’ counterpart, Emeka Okafor (C), and (ii) Defensively, not allowing Jason Richardson & Matt Carroll to light them up from behind the arc, and Gerald Wallace to take the ball hard to the rim unimpeded.

If the Raptors attend to their business earnestly, this should be a hard-fought W for the Dinos.

If not, this is the type of home game that could very easily slip out of Toronto’s grasp.