Both Tim Kawakami of Bay Area News Group and Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report believe the Warriors players and coaches made a statement of support for coach Mark Jackson with their effort and emotion in a win against the Grizzlies last night, with both Andrew Bogut and David Lee injured (Twitter links). Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- After the game, Warriors forward Draymond Green told Kawakami that the team is in fact unified behind Jackson. “Coach is a guy we fight for and we’re going to continue to fight for,” said Green. “He’s given his all to us and we’re going to continue to give our all to him.”
- Marcus Thompson of Bay Area News Group thinks that the Warriors would be more at risk by parting ways with Jackson than the coach would be (Twitter link). Thompson says that Jackson would land another job, but the team might not find a suitable replacement as easily.
- The Kings don’t plan to use their open roster spot on a guard yet as they monitor the health of injured Isaiah Thomas, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. The roster spot remains vacant after the team opted not to sign Royce White for the rest of the year following his second 10-day contract with Sacramento.
- The Kings struggled in a loss to the Thunder while Thomas sat another game, but Jones finds a bright side to the situation: opportunity and development for Sacramento’s rookie backcourt pairing of Ben McLemore and Ray McCallum. Both players said they were excited to see more minutes. “I’ll take all the minutes I can get,” McCallum said. “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity all year and getting a good opportunity to go out here and get some good experience and go out there and play.”
- Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders takes a look at the projected cap space for teams in the Pacific, and how each team might use its cap space this summer.
- We looked at the latest with the Lakers in an earlier roundup.