I agree - Wesley is accepting role player status - Jackson wanted to get his shots (he is learning now about that role though) remember earlier in the year JVG said that all the PFs wanted to start - so that was a cause of tension.
Sticking Mo-Tay on the IL for "flu," though, must mean that nobody was biting when CD dangled that hook: "Hey, he's only got two more years left on his deal anyway, whadda you care? (pause) OK, are you recording this conversation? How much? I'll give you $500K and a McDonald's gift certificate and all I ask for is a 2nd round pick. You've got the cap space. (pause) Hello? Hello?"
I crack up everytime i see MoT on the sidelines in a suit... what happend to him? He used to be money from 18' and money with his baby hook and he'd geta few monster slams here and there, this year he raised concerns of him "sucking on purpose" to get JVG fired, then it looked like he was short arming shots on purpose to miss to lower his trade value. It feels just like yesterday when JVG said he wanted MoT to shoot 100 3s a day to increase his range.. MoT has been very dissappointing this year.
Maybe this is a reason why he's still on the IL. link By Marc Stein ESPN.com It is still a shade too early to know exactly how Shaquille O'Neal would react to the prospect of Phil Jackson returning to the Lakers to coach Kobe Bryant. However, he does have a ready response to the question his play had been generating before his old soap-opera pals in Hollywood reclaimed their usual spot at the forefront of the NBA news The question: Are you pacing yourself for the playoffs, Shaq? Shaquille O'Neal Slow burn: Shaq knows the second season is where his rep is made. Shaq's answer: Don't ask. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," Shaq told me the other night. "I know what I'm doing. "I'm a cigar. Everyone else is a cigarette. I burn slower." Translation: He's not going to change his approach, no matter who asks. That includes Stan Van Gundy, although Shaq is at least willing to discuss the matter with his coach. They met face-to-face recently after O'Neal announced that his only concern in the regular-season is securing a top-four seed, assuring home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Van Gundy urged him not to make such proclamations, insisting that the Heat have no grounds to be so loose because "we've never been together" and thus have "no idea how good or bad we can be." You suspect Van Gundy's not fretting over Shaq's playoff-readiness. He knows O'Neal, at nearly 32, knows his body -- and how long the season can be -- better than anyone else in Miami. The coach's fear is that the rest of the Heat will embrace the flip-a-switch mentality that used to be such an issue in Lakerland. O'Neal acknowledges Van Gundy's concerns but explains that he knows no other way to get through 82 games. "I'm a cigar," he repeated. "I don't want to burn out fast." Said teammate Damon Jones, resurrecting the argument that O'Neal takes more punishment than we mortals can imagine: "I think (the criticism about coasting) irritates him a little bit only because he's not playing basketball out there, he's playing football. He has a wonderful life, on and off the basketball floor, but I would hate to be in his body. "If you watch him, he's getting up and down the floor. On at least 65, 70 percent of our possessions, he's trying to get great position down there. And the scheme we have defensively has him doing a lot of moving around and he's done a great job there, because defensively we're all right." The weird part is the numbers, which suggest even Van Gundy is trying to make sure O'Neal saves something for the postseason. After missing 15 games in each of the past three seasons, O'Neal has missed only one game with the Heat, but he's averaging just 35.2 minutes, the second-lowest minutes-per-game figure in his career. Weirder still, Miami is 17-1 when Shaq grabs fewer than 10 rebounds . . . and only 15-13 when he rebounds in double-digits. # I'm hearing ... That Houston and Portland have discussed a Maurice Taylor-for-Derek Anderson swap. ... And that Mo Cheeks was indeed prepared to resign when the Blazers originally resisted suspending Darius Miles for insubordination. Team president Steve Patterson stepped in, according to sources, and hit Miles with the two-game penalty. And that LeBron James would be highly disappointed if the Cavaliers elected not to re-sign center Zydrunas Ilgauskas ... and greatly thrilled if they can pull off the Michael Redd free-agent heist from Milwaukee this summer. LeBron is a big Redd fan, but the Cavs aren't likely to have maximum salary-cap room to offer if they re-sign Big Z. # Want more evidence that Allen Iverson is growing up and playing nice with the other kids? Here goes: Five times this season, Kyle Korver has taken a potential game-tying or go-ahead shot for Philadelphia with less than 10 seconds to play and with Iverson on the floor. Korver is 2-for-5 in those situations. Iverson? He has taken the last shot only four times. # With Jason Terry growing steadier and Erick Dampier responding to a recent scolding from interim coach Avery Johnson with four double-doubles in the past five games, Dallas has only one major problem these days. That would be realignment, which will probably force the Mavericks (if current form holds) to play Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs and either San Antonio or Phoenix in Round 2. The Northwest Division winner (probably Seattle) is likely going to get the No. 3 seed and nudge the Mavs into a much tougher playoff path. ... Maybe they still are the Kings of playing hurt. Sacramento is a tidy 7-1 without Chris Webber this season in spite of its ever-thinning bench, and a whopping 46-12 overall minus Webber since November 2003. ... We love that Ben Gordon, who keeps giving us reasons to bring up Cal State Fullerton legend Cedric Ceballos. With his third 30-point game recently, Chicago's Gordon broke the record Ceballos shared with San Diego Clippers-ex Michael Brooks for most 30-pointers off the bench by a rookie. ... The aforementioned Damon Jones guarantees that he will win the Long Distance Shootout at All-Star Weekend. "Guaranteed," Jones repeated. All he needs is an invitation; Jones, who leads the league with 121 3-point makes, has yet to hear if he'll be summoned to Denver. # The cynical among us will undoubtedly suggest that the Lakers forced Rudy Tomjanovich aside with a buyout offer, sensing that the Knicks have a better shot of luring Phil Jackson out of coaching retirement and feeling the need to move fast to make sure they get the first shot at rehiring the Zenmeister. The suspicious among will surmise that Isiah Thomas, while away on his current European scouting trip, will find a way to meet with the vacationing Jackson somewhere abroad, to try to trump the Lakers well removed from our radar. Either way, we feel a lot safer speculating about this theory: The Zenmeister misses basketball more than he expected. Suddenly he's volunteering for ESPN sitdowns during the Australian Open to talk about the Knicks and returning e-mails from the Los Angeles Times about the Lakers' opening in between swimming expeditions with his Aussie former center Luc Longley. Phil clearly wanted to get away for a while, but people wouldn't keep finding him if he didn't want to be found.
Sorry hit the enter button for a new line when I shouldn't have, here's the link. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&id=1983470 Here's the main part, forgot to bold it... "# I'm hearing ... That Houston and Portland have discussed a Maurice Taylor-for-Derek Anderson swap. ..."
Wow, I never realized they have exactly identical contracts. Anderson's time has greatly reduced. I'm wondering though, what kind of rotation would we have if he is added to the abundance of guards (especially combo-guards) we already have? I assume he might play some SF? I wonder if this would be a part of some three-team deal involving one or more of either Abdur-Rahim, Stoudemire and/or Van Exel.
while i'm not sure why portland would want mo t, like mogrod said their contracts are essentially exactly the same so it works nicely. if we're not going to use mo at all, anderson would be nice for a little sg/sf duty though i'm not sure who loses minutes out of wesley, barry, or sura since they all seem to work very well for us. well wesley can't hit the broadside of a barn but it still seems like he's nice to have on the court, though i suppose 36.4% on 3's anderson could take his minutes. plus, anderson doesn't have the baggage mo does as far as i know so maybe he could one day be traded for something half decent and, unlike mo, wouldn't be bad to keep around until his contract expires. that's the biggest thing with mo, he's fairly useless right now but that huge expiring contract in 2 years is a big way for a capped-out team to add talent. if we trade him for someone without that that would hurt. DA allows a minor but nice rearrangement of talent while still providing those benefits. i'd do it if portland would.
