Archive for November, 2005

FreeDarko hits the big time

Published by Matt Watson on November 30, 2005 in Around the Internets. 0 Comments

About a week or so ago I pointed you guys over to FreeDarko . The site features some great writing that’s, well, different. If you didn’t check it out then, you missed your chance to be cutting edge, since the “mainstream media” is starting to catch on. Peter Schrager from FoxSports.com interviewed Bethlehem Shoals, one of the guys behind FreeDarko:

PS: What exactly are you freeing Darko from?

Shoals: Solitude. Adversity. The burden of history. The endless mockery of a thousand under-informed miscreants. Chad Ford’s watchful gaze. Sure, we’d like to see him freed in a basketball sense, for the good of the league. But there’s also a spiritual, almost political, dimension to our mission.

And my favorite:

PS: What can we expect from Darko in 2005-06?

Shoals: Hopefully he won’t be completely freed, or else we’ll be out one incredibly catchy name. But if he can’t be one of those “valuable bench contributors down the stretch,” we’re looking at a Slavic version of Kwame Brown. And then, my friend, freeing Darko might be a dark, personal matter best left to the man himself.

Plenty more where that came from.

The truth behind freedarko.com [Fox Sports]

Alex Acker pinches pennies

Published by Matt Watson on November 30, 2005 in Puff Pieces. 4 Comments

It’s time to catch up with Alex Acker in his latest Free Press rookie diary!

As a young NBA player living in a strange city with strange driving habits, Acker has a lot of spare time on his hands. How does he pass his time? Apparently by hanging out with Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell at the mall:

Mostly, we go to the mall. That’s about it. Anytime we go out, we go out together, though. We never go out one at a time. It’s always two or three. We go to Somerset, or the other mall that’s way out there — Great Lakes Crossing. That’s it. We go to that one, too.

Some people recognize us, and they ask for autographs and stuff. Some people just point because we’re tall. That’s about it. They did that to me in college, but it’s less now. In college, everyone knew who I was. In the NBA, they see you and think you’re a star, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re in the NBA.’ That’s a lot different.

I’m not spending my money, though, I’m just up there buying hats, T-shirts, and stuff like that. Nothing big. And you can’t really spend anything with the dress code. You have to get the right attire. That’s what I’m spending my money on.

You know, this is the second time he’s mentioned being thrifty — last time he was talking about saving his per diem. That got me thinking: the new NBA dress code is a little unfair — the guys stuck on the end of the bench aren’t the ones making the big bucks, but they’re the ones that need to buy the most suits for each game. Do you think Acker cuts corners with the dress code, sporting a little more Jos. A. Banks and Hush Puppy than Gucci and Kenneth Cole? Is he always the last one to reach for the check after dinner, hoping that Maxiell, who makes more than twice as much, picks it up? Hmmm….

ROOKIE DIARY: Alex Acker [Detroit Free Press]

Pistons-Pacers-Knicks hate triangle

Published by Matt Watson on November 30, 2005 in From the news. 2 Comments

Tayshaun Prince blocks Reggie Miller\'s layupLarry Brown is coming to town, and I will be booing him from my couch. I’ve never been a huge Knicks fan in the first place, and Brown’s turncoat act was one of the most despicable dramas that a coach could ever put his team through — in the playoffs, no less!).

I’ve never liked the Pacers, either. I’ve also found Reggie Miller’s trash-talk schtick to be very annoying, especially since all he really ever did was catch and shoot.At least guys like Gary Payton played devestating defense. In fact, the only time I ever remember actually cheering for the Pacers was when Reggie emasculated the Knicks with eight points in 16.4 seconds in 1995. In recent years, the Pacers have been given far more respect than they’ve actually deserved, which is one of the reasons that Tayshaun Prince’s block is one of my favorite memories of the 2004 playoffs.

But while I don’t like the Knicks and I don’t like the Pacers, I never stopped to realize that the Knicks and Pacers also don’t like each other. I mean, I definitely knew this, but I hadn’t thought about a “Pistons-Pacers-Knicks hate triangle” until Michael Rosenberg’s column in today’s Free Press:

INDIANA

• Company line: “Ron Artest was certainly wrong to go into the stands at the Palace, but no more than Ben Wallace, or the guy who threw the beer, or the guy who designed such an aerodynamic beer cup, or the fans who kept piling on Ron, or Joe Dumars, who stupidly fired Rick Carlisle, allowing Rick to come to Indiana and help Artest improve so much that he drove Ben Wallace crazy.”

DETROIT

• Company line: “We’re not afraid to run this year, and we’re not worried about getting benched after we miss a shot, and we know our coach is going to use our bench, and we won’t have any distractions or sideshows. But it’s not about Larry Brown.”

NEW YORK

• Company line: “It’s true that we love one another; L.B. loves Isiah like a little brother, if you can picture a little brother who keeps making stupid trades and stockpiles little guys who shoot too much and gives way too much money to low-effort centers, the kinds of guys who would normally drive Larry Brown insane, but not this time, because he loves Isiah, dammit, he really does, and they are getting along great. Now go away.”

Go ahead and read the rest of it, if for no other reason than to see the little map that they put together — good stuff.


MICHAEL ROSENBERG: Tri-state soap opera [Detroit Free Press]

Flip on Darko Milicic’s late-game effort

Published by Matt Watson on November 30, 2005 in From the news. 0 Comments

Flip Saunders didn’t take kindly to Darko’s suggestion that one of the reasons he doesn’t play as hard late in games is because he’s coming in cold:

“Your bottom line, when you step on the floor, you’ve got to produce,” Saunders said. “Your job is to stay loose. Do whatever you have to do. Stretches during time-outs, or whatever you have to do, that’s part of your job. I understand the difficulties of it, but I’m not going to let them use that as an excuse when you’re 20 years old. When I was 20 years old, I could get out of bed at 6 a.m. and go run and jump and do whatever.”

Why is it so important for Darko to play hard every single minute? Because he has the skills to be a productive offensive player and the talent to be a game-changing defensive player with his blocked shots. Case in point his performance in the last game — he was credited with just two blocks, even though many peopleNot me — I missed this game. are saying that he actually altered four or five:

Anyone concerned that the scorekeepers in Milwaukee shorted Milicic a block or two Saturday, fret not. Saunders said his staff will review the game tape and chart his blocks. If they count more than two — the number on the official box score — they will alert the NBA in hopes that the missing blocks would be credited to the records. “I think the guy was writing down blocks like this,” said Saunders as he looked down and scratched an imaginary block on an imaginary stat sheet, “and he was out there blocking two more.”

DARKO’S EFFORT [Detroit Free Press]

Rip Hamilton’s plethora of iPods

Published by Matt Watson on November 30, 2005 in Puff Pieces. 7 Comments

Rip Hamilton\'s iPodsThe Free Press continues their weekly tradition of “getting personal” with Pistons players. Today, Rip Hamilton is up to bat:

On his 10 iPods: “Music is everything. Just a guy like Tupac Shakur, he’s a poet. You can listen to it before a game, at home, in your car, whenever. I have so many iPods just for the fact that I need one in every car, I need one in every room. Because I hate picking one up, taking it with me, then all of a sudden, I leave it in a bag or a hotel.”

I wish they went a little more in depth on this one, because as a fan of technology this just amazes me. Does he have different music on each one? Are they all synched? Who fills them up? How big are they all? How many has he just left in a hotel? Does he even bother trying to get it back? Does he use the same ol’ ear buds that came with the iPod, or does he go nuts on a $300 pair of headphones?

Does he pay a guy to keep track of them all and fill them up? And if that guy accidentally give him Kenny Chesney instead of Young Jeezy on a long road trip, does he get automatically canned? How can I get that job? Forget learning the finer points of the game, this is the info I want to know!

Check out the rest of the article for other nuggets like this:

On Rip City, his signature gear: “It was just something I wanted to do. Every kid wants to wear something that says their name on it. I think Rip City means a lot. It’s not just a name, it’s a movement. It can represent so many different things, and I just enjoy it.”

Are you a part of the Rip City movement? Because I am.

GETTING PERSONAL WITH … Richard (Rip) Hamilton [Detroit Free Press]

Who are the real rumor mongers?

Published by Matt Watson on November 29, 2005 in Rumors and The Media. 2 Comments

With three days between games, it’s slow going for Pistons news. Chris McCosky took this time to address the ever-present Kevin Garnett trade rumors:

Q. Why won’t all these Kevin Garnett trade rumors go away?

A. Here’s my theory on rumors and human nature. Fantasy is more fun than reality. It’s why blogs and chatrooms are so popular. People sit in there and weave all kinds of dreams and scenarios. And if enough people talk about something, it takes on life.

And once it has life, people don’t want reality to intercede.

The Timberwolves owner came out and said, emphatically, he wasn’t trading Garnett and never had any plans to do so. Kevin McHale, vice president of basketball operations, said he had no talks with any team regarding Garnett and wouldn’t entertain them anyway.

Garnett came out and said he “was” Minnesota and saw himself playing his entire career there. Pistons president Joe Dumars said he hadn’t had any discussions with the Timberwolves regarding Garnett. He went so far as to say that, barring an unforeseen crisis, he would not trade any of the starting players this season.

He goes on and on, but I’ll let you read it for yourself since he basically just starts repeating himself. Well, repeating himself, and then ripping on everyone that perpetuates this rumor, including “bogus Web sites,” “random blogs,” and even “ESPN.com”, who peddle their wares in the “rumor fantasy-business” while he, as a real journalist, lives in a pretty white castle working in the “reality business.” Not that he’s overly animated on the subject or anything.

Eh, whatever.

Newspapers are hardly innocent when it comes to perpetuating rumors. In today’s Detroit News alone, there’s the above Q&A with McCosky talking about the rumors, not to mention another fluff piece by McCosky talking about how Garnett almost came to U-M. If it’s such a non-issue, why waste so much time talking about Garnett? I mean, the Pistons don’t face the Timberwolves for another two months.

The answer is simple, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it so eloquently expressed until reading this interview with Mark Cuban in yesterday Miami Herald:

You are always holding the media accountable, going after reporters in your blog. What is most unfair about the way you or your sport gets covered?

“Most media coverage is defined by seconds, minutes or column inches. It’s tough to do a good job when they have to work backwards from volume to content. Add to that the competitive nature of media and the fact that most headlines are generated separate from the author with the goal of attracting the maximum amount of attention, and you have a recipe for less than stellar performance.”

With three days between games, I’m at liberty to take it easy with fewer posts than usual. But newspapers, working from the “volume to content” mindset, need to fill space — which is why the Detroit News posted eleven new articles online about the NBA today!

  • One about Lindsey Hunter’s recovery,
  • one on Rip Hamilton’s defense,
  • two on Garnett (well, one and a half — the rest of the “Garnett to U-M” story is about players that went straight from high school to the NBA),
  • a quick piece on the top five rookies so far,
  • a set of power rankings,
  • a fluff Q&A with Flip Saunders,
  • two “around the league” type pieces,
  • a Basketball 101 piece,
  • and a breakdown of the next five games.

Some of those are useful or interesting, but let’s face it, the News is simply trying to fill space. And today much more than usual — perhaps to compete with the Free Press’ weekly content dump on Wednesday. I’m not going to fault the local papers from doing so — it’s the nature of their medium — but they shouldn’t act like they’re above it all.

And hey, I dismissed the Garnet for Wallace and Darko talk early on, so I did my part to stop this rumor cold.

Honestly, I think one of the reasons this story still has legs is because so many beat writers out there keep talking about it on the days between games when they’re scrouging for ideas. Or worse yet, because a small handful of beat writers talk about it and it gets syndicated to seemingly every other newspaper in the nation

As much as I’d like to say otherwise, basketball blogs just don’t have the same reach as the “mainstream media.” So is the rumor still alive because some delusional fan with a Blogger account wants to believe it’s true? Or is it still alive because newspapers need to sell papers:

Google News results

You tell me.

Garnett rumors won’t die [Detroit News]
DETNEWS | Pistons-NBA [Detroit News Pistons home page]
Irreverent, and proud of it, Mavs’ Cuban thriving [Miami Herald]

lowpost.net: a Memeorandum for the NBA

Published by Matt Watson on November 28, 2005 in Around the Internets and The Media. 0 Comments

I’ll admit it, I’m a pretty big techonology geek. I’m just as likely to be checking up on TechCrunch, BoingBoing, Download Squad as I am ESPN, True Hoop or YAYsports!.

Of the tech sites I frequent, Memeorandum has become a daily read. Think of the internet as a conversation, and Memorandum as an eavesdropper that tells you what everyone is saying. It’s automatically updated every five minutes, tracking the news of the day and showing you how it propogates around the web. I know that sounds vague — check it out for yourself for an idea what I’m talking about.

Anyway, Memeorandum’s weakness is that it’s limited to topics about Technology and Politics. I’ve long thought a sports version would be a hit, so today I was pretty excited to stumble across lowpost.net.

From their blog:

This evening I deployed a new version of lowpost.net, which now includes an application that can be used to track NBA-themed weblogs from around the Internet.

It was inspired by the terrific memeorandum application, and designed to enable fans to quickly determine what’s happening in the world of NBA weblogs.

Here’s a brief overview of how it works:

* Each hour, it checks the XML (RSS, Atom, or RDF) feeds for several dozen NBA weblogs.
* For each post, it identifies the NBA-related links, players, teams, coaches, executives, broadcasters, and other people referenced.
* Posts are compared using these references in order to identify similar groups. The grouping isn’t always perfect, but it generally yields interesting results.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Is there enough variety in daily NBA news to make a site like this neccesary? I’m not sure, but that may just be because I’m not nearly as exposed to the rest of the sports “blogosphere”Man, do I hate that word. as I am to various tech sites. In any case, it’s an interesting endeavor, and one I’m going to follow.

lowpost.net [lowpost.net]
Introducing lowpost.net NBA Weblog Tracking [lowpost.net/blog]

Finding time for Darko and Delfino

Published by Matt Watson on November 28, 2005 in From the news. 1 Comment

Darko Milicic and Carlos Delfino each had strong exhibition seasons, but now that the games are for real, they haven’t been very involved in the gameplan. Flip Saunders recognizes this, and expects it will change in the near future:

“Sometimes when you are winning games like we are, and you can get one more, you want to squeeze it out,” Saunders said. “But you can lose sight of what you are really trying to accomplish.”

Saunders knows championships aren’t won in November or December. The early months of a season are for building foundations and trust so that when you hit the stretch drive, you know which players you can count on and which you can’t.

It’s time, essentially, to separate the men from the boys on the Pistons bench.

“We have to start playing some of these guys,” Saunders said. “We have to get them some experience so we know where they will be at the end. … We have to make sure we work and develop our bench. Maybe we take a step back in some things to get those guys some more minutes and get them some confidence.”

Saunders also addressed Darko’s waning intensity late in the games:

Saunders wants to break Milicic of a disturbing pattern. When Milicic gets into games early, his intensity is high. When he plays at the end of games, in what is considered mop-up time, he is listless.

“It’s a situation where, do you play well when you get the minutes, or do you get more minutes if you play well?” Saunders said.

Saunders used rookie Jason Maxiell as a contrast to Milicic, and, to a lesser degree, Delfino. Maxiell has 28 points in 21 minutes this season.

“The thing that’s been so impressive about Max, no matter how many minutes he gets, two minutes, six minutes, eight minutes, he utilizes them. Darko hasn’t done that as well.

“He’s going to have opportunities. What do you do with it? He has to be ready to step up and produce.”

Milicic said he’s been ready.

“I have always said that is what I want,” he said. “I want a chance to help the team.”

As for his wavering intensity, he said, it’s a matter of getting his body warm and loose.

“I warm up before the game and when I come in early, I am ready,” he said. “But when I sit and come in late in the fourth quarter, I am cold. Coming in early is much, much better for me.”

I don’t think Darko is in position to be making any excuses. Coming in cold isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but there a lot of guys that have made their living in the NBA by doing just that, and proving yourself late in the game will make it all the more likely that you’ll see action earlier in the future.

The numbers don’t lie — right now, he’s a liability whenever he’s on the court. But that doesn’t have to be the case. He’s already got 11 blocks in 81 minutes — that’s basically 5 per 48. Everytime he gets into the game, whether it’s in the first quarter or in the last few minutes, he should make it a personal goal to block two shots and to putback every offensive rebound he snags. Detroit needs him to get into a groove now because they’re one Antonio McDyess kneecap away from relying on him for 15-20 minutes a game.

I’m less concerned about Delfino. I mean, I want to see him play well, but Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton are such well-conditioned athletes that the minutes just aren’t there, especially with Mo Evans bringing a spark whenever he’s in the game. I guess Saunders could alternate bringing in Delfino and Evans just for the sake of sharing the minutes, but we’ll have to wait and see how Saunders handles that one.

Saunders to test bench strength [Detroit News]
Detroit Pistons stats [82games]

The ball don’t lie

Published by Matt Watson on November 27, 2005 in Sheed said it. 1 Comment

With the game tied, 35-35, Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace protested a foul that was called against him on Milwaukee’s Andrew Bogut.

Bogut missed both free throws, prompting Wallace to utter his signature phrase to the referees, “The ball don’t lie,” he said. “The ball don’t lie.”

Pretty ugly [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

Antonio McDyess appears to be fine

Published by Matt Watson on November 27, 2005 in Injuries. 0 Comments

Like I said before, I didn’t see Saturday’s game, but it’s worth noting that Antonio McDyess played 15 minutes despite banging his knee the night before. He got some extra attention from trainer Arnie Kander before the game, but he was good to go:

Kander had his hands full before Saturday night’s game. The first player on his table was Antonio McDyess. He banged knees with Antawn Jamison with 3:11 left in regulation Friday and limped through the rest of the game.

That the pain was in his right knee, not his surgically repaired left knee, was a good sign. But it didn’t lessen his discomfort.

“It’s sore, but I think it’ll be all right,” said McDyess, who was listed as probable before the game.

Pistons go on late show after loss [Detroit News]

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