NBA: Shots From Beyond the Arc
The Tracy McGrady situation continues to simmer in Houston. McGrady says he is ready, willing, and able to go, but, head coach Rick Adelman keeps hedging his bets by spouting the vagaries of coachspeak. He told the Houston Chronicle:
“We have to keep talking about it and evaluating it,” Adelman said. “It’s more than just throwing him out there. It’s how is it going to affect our team, how is he going to help us, how many minutes can he play. All those things I feel in my mind I have to be certain about.”
In other words the Rockets are playing better than expected without McGrady, Yao Ming, and Ron Artest on the floor this year and Adelman thinks he his team is developing a good chemistry, and he is afraid inserting McGrady into the lineup will upset the flow of his team. The longer this goes on the more I keep thinking that this is not going to end well for McGrady as it pertains to his playing days in Houston.
T-Mac wants to play and the team refuses to set a target date for his return. He is practicing and traveling with the team only he is not getting a chance to play. This could very well turn on Adelman and he needs to be careful how he handles this.
McGrady is known to be a bit of a moody guy at times and there are sure to be some veterans in the locker room who would like to see McGrady back on the floor leading this team. It could end up dividing the locker room the way Terrell Owens has done with the last two teams he has played with.
Ewing to the Nets?
It sounds as though Patrick Ewing is emerging as a candidate to be the New Jersey Nets next head coach. Ewing has served as an assistant to Stan Van Gundy in Orlando since the beginning of the 2007-08 season and has made his desire to be a NBA head coach publicly known. Ewing has openly expressed an interest in the job as he still lives in New Jersey during the off season.
Ewing will be an interesting choice as those jobs tend to fall to former point guards and bench warmers rather than All Star big men. But, he is getting an endorsement from his boss in Orlando so maybe he does have the chops to get it done. I do not know that General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe will name a permanent head coach until next summer though. He is probably going to want to wait and see how things unfold and what coaches are going to be available in the off season.
The Nets are in a bit of sticky spot when it comes to who they select as their next head coach. They have been fastidiously dumping salaries the past couple of years to ensure that they have enough cap space to make a legit run at one of the blue chip free agents next summer. This will play a huge factor in whether Ewing gets the gig or not and why a permanent coach will not be in place by the end of this season. Will someone like LeBron, D-Wade, or Chris Bosh be interested in playing for an unproven coach like Ewing?
Keep in mind that, all along, the stated goal has been wanting to sign with a team they think has a shot at winning within the next year or so and not four or five years down the road. The one key factor going in the Nets favor in regards to next summer is they have quality young talent like Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, and Chris Douglas-Roberts locked up for the next few seasons.
Lopez is showing signs of being a potential 20/10 guy, Harris showed last season he can be a 20 point per game scorer while, in only his second season, Douglas-Roberts is emerging as the slashing scorer they thought they were getting when they drafted him coming out of Memphis in ’08. Not to mention they are looking at being the odds on favorites to land the jewel of next year’s draft in John Wall.
