Heat Notes: O. Robinson, Adebayo, Richardson, Jaquez
Heat center Orlando Robinson didn’t expect to be an NBA starter so soon, but he’s taking advantage of the opportunity created by Bam Adebayo‘s injury, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Adebayo will miss his fourth straight game tonight in Charlotte with a left hip contusion, so Robinson will likely be in the starting lineup again.
The 23-year-old posted the best game of his brief NBA career last Wednesday with 15 points and 12 rebounds at Toronto, but that was followed by a rough outing against Cleveland on Friday in which he was a minus-18 in 20 minutes. Coach Erik Spoelstra said Robinson continues to improve as he deals with the increased responsibility.
“He makes you absolutely respect his fortitude and his grit,” Spoelstra said. “He is relentless with his work, with his approach, with his commitment to earn trust from everybody and he does it with a competitive spirit. He gets better each month. He goes to school on everything. If he makes a mistake in any kind of game, he gets to work with the film, with [Heat assistant coach] Malik [Allen] and then he wants to drill it 10,000 times, which is what we love.”
Robinson, who has $850K of his $1.8MM salary for this season already guaranteed, wasn’t in the team’s rotation when the season began. He played in just four of the first 18 games and spent time in the G League late last month. Robinson may fall out of the rotation again when Adebayo returns, with Kevin Love likely to be the primary backup center, but this latest stretch confirms his belief that he’s a legitimate NBA player.
“I knew,” Robinson said. “It was just waiting on the opportunity and making the most of it.”
There’s more on the Heat:
- Josh Richardson expressed frustration after being called for his third flopping violation of the season in Friday’s game, Chiang adds in a separate story. The NBA has placed a renewed emphasis on getting rid of flopping, fining players $2K for each violation, but Richardson doesn’t believe officials are doing a good job of policing it. “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Maybe I just need to start running people over and stop falling or do something. But I don’t know, I think it’s terrible.”
- Jaime Jaquez isn’t bitter about falling to 18th in this year’s draft, but he tells Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel that he’s “definitely aware” of all the players who were selected ahead of him. Jaquez, who was chosen as the league’s Rookie of the Month for November, said the long wait paid off when he learned that he was headed to Miami. “So as long as I came here, I was good,” he said. “So it ended up working out for me. To the teams that passed, sorry, but this is where I wanted to go, anyway.”
- The Lakers’ in-season tournament dominance could make the Heat think about adding more size to their roster, Winderman states in a mailbag column.
Vote On Mavericks Sale Reportedly Set For December 20
A vote on the proposed sale of the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families will take place next week, writes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. A source familiar with the sale informs Townsend that commissioner Adam Silver has notified the 30 members of the league’s Board of Governors that the vote will be taken at a December 20 meeting.
Townsend’s source also says there will be only two parties remaining as shareholders once the sale is finalized. The Adelsons and Dumonts will serve as majority owners, with Mark Cuban holding a “sizeable stake” as the minority owner.
That means the five current minority owners have decided to cash out, Townsend explains. That list includes two previous majority owners, Ross Perot Jr. and the family of franchise co-founder Donald Carter.
Scheduling the vote indicates that the league has already finished vetting the new ownership group, which is led by Sands Corp. majority shareholder Miriam Adelson and her son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, who is president of the Sands Corp., Townsend adds.
The new owners are expected to be approved by a comfortable margin, according to Townsend. He notes that Adelson and Dumont have an estimated worth of about $33 billion, which would rank them among the wealthiest owners in U.S. professional sports, trailing only Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and the Walton family, which owns the NFL’s Denver Broncos.
The Adelson-Dumont family will need support from at least three-fourths of the Board of Governors for the sale to be approved.
Knicks Notes: Robinson, Brunson, DiVincenzo, Trade Options
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson has been ruled out for tonight’s game with inflammation in his left ankle and will undergo further testing, writes Mark W. Sanchez of The New York Post. Robinson injured the ankle in the first half Friday at Boston. He had an X-ray – which was negative, according to coach Tom Thibodeau – and was able to play five minutes in the third quarter before sitting out the rest of the game.
Thibodeau didn’t provide any details on the upcoming tests for Robinson and declined to estimate how much time he might miss. “Until we get the report, it’s just speculation,” Thibodeau told reporters.
Robinson posted a message about the injury on Snapchat (Twitter link from New York Basketball), writing, “Been battling stuff my whole life; some days I feel like I take 10 steps ahead, and others feel like I took 20 steps back; even when I do what I’m supposed to god throws these battles at me that feel like they’re unbeatable no matter what I do I know. I shouldn’t be letting this stuff get to my mental but over time it just takes over. Always going to be an uphill battle.”
Injuries have plagued Robinson throughout his career, Sanchez points out, as he has managed to play 72 games only once in his six years in the NBA. He was limited to 59 appearances last season, missing two and a half weeks with a knee injury in November and then undergoing surgery on a fractured right thumb in January, which kept him out for 14 games.
There’s more from New York:
- The outlook is more positive for Jalen Brunson, who suffered an ankle sprain late in Friday’s game and limped off the court, Sanchez adds. Brunson made an appearance Saturday at a Villanova game and appeared to be walking normally. He was able to practice Sunday and Thibodeau expects him to play tonight, tweets Fred Katz of The Athletic.
- Donte DiVincenzo saw a reduced role in the offense as he moved into the starting lineup Friday night, Sanchez adds in a separate story. Spending more time on the court with ball-dominant teammates, DiVincenzo took just six shots and scored six points in 22 minutes. “I didn’t really feel a difference to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m just a basketball player. Put me with any lineup, I’m gonna be me. I’m gonna cut, I’m gonna shoot some shots, I’m gonna play defense. No matter what unit I’m with, that’s who I am and what I’m going to continue to be.”
- There was a lot of talk in the national media this week about the Knicks’ need for a star player, but Steve Popper of Newsday doesn’t believe anyone who might currently be available would make a difference. He questions how Chicago’s Zach LaVine or DeMar DeRozan or even Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns would get their normal usage rate with the current roster in New York.
Southeast Notes: Magic, Martin, Young, Coulibaly
Three starters and another rotation player sat out Friday’s game with injuries, but the Magic barely missed them in a 32-point win over Detroit, writes Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. With Markelle Fultz, Jalen Suggs, Wendell Carter Jr. and Jonathan Isaac all unavailable, Orlando got production from Caleb Houstan, Chuma Okeke, Anthony Black and Goga Bitadze, who made his 17th straight start since Carter fractured the third metacarpal in left hand.
“We’ve said it from training camp and on, it’s a ‘we.’ No matter who it is, no matter who steps on that floor, they’re ready to go,” coach Jamahl Mosley said. “That’s what it says about our coaching staff, about these guys taking ownership of who we are.”
The Magic have shown tremendous depth and resilience in response to the bad injury luck, posting a 15-7 record that has them tied for second in the Eastern Conference. Mosley has been particularly impressed with Black, a rookie guard who was moved into the starting lineup when Fultz began experiencing left knee tendinitis in early November.
“He’s a kid that wants to take on every challenge,” Mosley said. “He does things that I haven’t seen certain guys do in a while with his length and size. That’s where his confidence comes from.”
Mosley didn’t provide many details about Suggs’ right ankle sprain, Beede tweets, saying team doctors are going to monitor how much he improves from game to game.
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
- Injuries have also been an issue for the Heat, who were missing three starters in Friday’s loss to Cleveland, notes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Miami has dropped five of its last seven games, but Caleb Martin doesn’t believe being short-handed should be used as an excuse. “It doesn’t matter who’s out there and who’s playing, who’s not,” Martin said. “We know what we should be doing, we just got to be better.”
- Hawks guard Trae Young has been fined $25K for “confronting and directing inappropriate language toward a game official,” the league announced (via Twitter). The incident took place after Wednesday’s one-point loss to Brooklyn as Young thought he was fouled by Dennis Smith Jr. while trying to get off a potential game-winning shot (Twitter video link). The league’s last-two-minute review confirmed that Smith’s play was legal, tweets Kevin Chouinard of Hawks.com.
- Wizards rookie Bilal Coulibaly studies a lot of game film to see where he can improve, and he concentrates on Kyle Kuzma as much as himself, according to Chase Hughes of Monumental Sports. “I watch the whole game to see how he plays. There’s a lot to take,” Coulibaly said of his teammate. “He’s been talking to me a lot about eventually going through the guy when going up for the layup. He’s got some great advice for me.”
Lakers Notes: LeBron, Davis, Reddish, Russell
LeBron James may end up playing with more teammates than anyone in NBA history, but he’s never found a better fit than Anthony Davis, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN. Davis dominated Saturday’s in-season tournament finale against Indiana with 41 points, 20 rebounds, five assists and four blocks, though MVP honors went to James, who averaged 26.4 points, 8.0 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game throughout the competition.
The Lakers acquired Davis from New Orleans in a 2019 trade, and McMenamin points out that James has now played alongside him longer than he did with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami or Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in Cleveland. At the post-game press conference, McMenamin notes, it was clear that their personalities complement each other as much as their styles of play.
“I know who I am, he knows who he is,” James said. “So, there’s no friction. We’re not trying to compete with one another on the court or on a lifestyle basis. He knows who he is, I know who I am. The only thing we’re trying to do is hold each other accountable when we get to work and try to be the best we can be for each other, and when one is not going well, try to pick each other up. There’s no jealousy. There’s not a jealous bone in our bodies. We’re never jealous of one another. Ever.”
There’s more on the Lakers:
- L.A.’s tournament performance provides a blueprint for the team to be successful in the playoffs, observes Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports. The Pacers couldn’t stop the James-Davis pick-and-roll combination, and Davis was even more dominant on the defensive end. “Any time I step on the floor, I know I’m the anchor of the defense,” he said. “Giving guys the freedom to press up and get some ball pressure, and if they get beat, I’m there at the rim to alter the shot or block it.”
- After Saturday’s game, James singled out Cam Reddish, who is finding a role with the Lakers after unsuccessful stints with Atlanta, New York and Portland, tweets Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report. “People were writing him off,” James said. “I’m so happy he got to experience this and perform. I believe in him.”
- The matchup with the Pacers allowed D’Angelo Russell to renew his rivalry with Bruce Brown, per Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times. They faced off in last season’s Western Conference Finals, and Brown, who was with Denver at the time, called Russell “not the best defender.” Russell was animated Saturday night, raising two fingers when Brown picked up his second foul in the first quarter and yelling at Indiana’s bench after he scored. “He was talking s–t all year. Yeah. Talking s–t all year,” Russell said of Brown. “For me, it was just showing it with my play. I don’t have nothing to say to him. I’m a fan of him to be honest. This was just all on the court. Got something to say? Show me on the court. (Nikola) Jokic ain’t there next to you today. It’s different.”
In-Season Tournament Notes: Reaction, Playoffs, Potential Changes, Media Deal
The NBA’s first in-season tournament is being celebrated as a success on every level, and the league will consider changes to make it even better, writes Khobi Price of The Orange County Register. Television ratings have been sharply higher than what NBA games typically get in November and early December, as players and coaches have embraced the idea of having another prize to compete for.
“It’s been incredibly positive,” said Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics. “It’s gone better than we possibly could have hoped or expected, in large part because of the player and team buy-in. We’ve always known that the success of this would ultimately be driven by how much players and teams care about this, and I think the verdict is in and they care about it.
“Between the quality of the competition on the court, the way they’ve talked about it on social media and in their post-game press conferences, it’s clear that there was just a lot of energy and excitement across the board. Even from players who admitted that they were skeptics before the tournament are now bought in. And so that was just really exciting to see and couldn’t have been known until it happened.”
While the NBA will conduct a review of the tournament to see how it could be improved, Wasch said any changes are unlikely to be related to the playoffs. There have been suggestions that the winner should get some benefit involving postseason positioning or the play-in tournament, but Wasch indicated that the league wants to keep those things separate.
“We felt pretty strongly about as we were designing this tournament: if you’re trying to create this new championship, this new tentpole, that the way to build it with the most potential is to make sure that it sits separate and stands on its own in terms of the value,” he said. “We already have a play-in tournament that takes place in April. If you gave the winner of this tournament a guaranteed playoff seat or a guaranteed spot or some sort of benefit, you’ve essentially created another play-in tournament that just happens to take place in November and December.
“We thought that puts an artificial ceiling on what this tournament could become in terms of the value to players. We won’t rule out tying it into the season in some way, but we think that we’ve created enough meaning behind it in this first iteration without any of those tie-ins. We don’t necessarily think that’s necessary, but absolutely open to the feedback and we’ll have that discussion with our players.”
There’s more on the tournament:
- The event could wind up being longer in the future, sources tell Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports. It’s possible the knockout round may be expanded to include more than eight teams, Fischer adds, because that’s the feature that most differentiates it from normal regular season play.
- The tournament’s ratings success puts the NBA in an even better position as it prepares to negotiate its next media rights deal, observes Bryan Toporek of Forbes. According to the league, viewership increased by 26% during the group play stage and even more once the knockout round began.
- ESPN’s Brian Windhorst sees the Lakers‘ run to the tournament title as proof that having star players is as important as ever, which is why teams go to such great lengths to get them. Tournament MVP LeBron James was brilliant through the competition, and Anthony Davis dominated the title game with 41 points and 20 rebounds.
Adam Silver To Meet With Ja Morant About Suspension
Commissioner Adam Silver will meet this week with Grizzlies star Ja Morant as he nears the end of his suspension, writes Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
In June, Morant was suspended for at least 25 games following a second incident of brandishing a gun in public. When he announced the suspension, Silver said he wants to assess Morant’s readiness to return before reinstating him. He indicated Saturday that the two-time All-Star is moving in the right direction.
“I have been monitoring this situation closely,” Silver told reporters before the in-season tournament finale in Las Vegas. “We together laid out a program for him over the last several weeks, and to the best of my knowledge, he’s complied with everything he’s been asked to do.”
Memphis has gotten off to a rough start without its best player, languishing toward the bottom of the Western Conference standings at 6-15. If Morant’s suspension is limited to 25 games, he will be eligible to return for a December 19 contest at New Orleans.
The two-time All-Star was suspended for eight games last season after an online video clip showed him waving a gun in a nightclub near Denver. A second video was later posted of Morant holding a gun and dancing while riding in a vehicle with friends, leading to his second suspension.
“We’re going to talk directly once, at least this week, before he comes back,” Silver said, “(and) I think we’ll review the program and just make sure the conditions are in place for him to be successful going forward.”
The commissioner addressed several other topics in his press conference:
- Silver clarified comments on load management made before the start of the season by NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars, Vardon states. Explaining the league’s new player participation policy, Dumars indicated there’s no data showing that load management is effective. Silver said resting players can lead to better performances, but there’s no hard evidence that it prevents injuries. “The question is, I think the ultimate notion behind load management isn’t so much that there isn’t a fall for performance when you’re tired and fatigued,” Silver explained. “The question is does it lead to more injuries and especially the way load management is now used?”
- Silver said he was “surprised” that Tamika Tremaglio stepped down as executive director of the NBPA after a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was reached this summer, according to Vardon. “As far as I can tell from the outside, it’s been a very smooth transition there to Andre Iguodala as I guess the interim executive director,” Silver said. “Nothing has changed in terms of our day-to-day relations with them, and I have no other knowledge about why either the players association or Tamika decided to, you know, change the relationship.”
- Colorful courts will remain part of future in-season tournaments, Vardon adds in a separate story. Silver called himself “a big advocate” of the courts, saying they’re an indication that the game is something special. Silver also hinted that specially designed courts could be used in the NBA Finals. Other aspects of the tournament will be reviewed, particularly using point differential as the primary tie-breaker, the commissioner stated.
LeBron James Named MVP As Lakers Win NBA’s First In-Season Tournament
The Lakers pulled away from the Pacers Saturday night in Las Vegas to finish the in-season tournament unbeaten and claim the first-ever NBA Cup.
LeBron James was named tournament MVP after posting 24 points, 11 rebounds and four assists as L.A. secured a 123-109 victory in the title game. Anthony Davis was the night’s biggest star with 41 points, 20 rebounds and five assists, while Austin Reaves contributed 28 points.
James was the MVP choice of 14 of the 20 writers who voted (Twitter link from NBA Communications). Davis got five votes, and one went to Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton.
At the post-game press conference, James said the Lakers showed growth as a team throughout the tournament (video link from Khobi Price of The Orange County Register).
“I feel like guys have felt a lot more comfortable in their roles,” he said. “We’ve had a pretty good understanding of rotations, who we’re going to be playing with, what guys want to do out on the floor. Like AD said, getting (Jarred Vanderbilt) back, getting Rui (Hachimura) back has definitely helped our size. Getting Cam (Reddish) back has helped us out a lot.”
Apart from two games with the Suns, the Lakers weren’t really tested as they posted a 7-0 record in tournament play. Assigned to West Group A, they began with a three-point win at Phoenix on November 10, then followed with comfortable victories over Memphis, Portland and Utah.
Knockout play began Tuesday with another three-point victory over the Suns, followed by a 44-point blowout of the Pelicans in Thursday’s semifinals.
Indiana suffered its first loss of the tournament after advancing out of East Group A, then upsetting the Celtics and Bucks in knockout games.
“We just got outplayed tonight from the start of the game to the end of the game,” Haliburton said (Twitter link from Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star). They just outplayed us.”
Woj: LeBron Already Working Toward Owning Expansion Team In Vegas
LeBron James isn’t just discussing the possibility of owning an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas, he’s already trying to make it happen, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said tonight on NBA Countdown (video link).
“He has been active behind the scenes and on a regular basis now in meetings with his advisors planning with a group about what a franchise would look like, how an organization would run and then obviously the finances,” Wojnarowski said. “It is going to be an expensive proposition to get an expansion team in this next round.”
Wojnarowski adds that one potential obstacle for an ownership group led by James was recently eliminated when the Adelson family reached a tentative agreement to purchase the Mavericks. The Adelsons are involved in the casino business and would have been “a real contender” to become the new owners of a Las Vegas team, according to Wojnarowski.
Woj also confirms that the NBA plans to begin considering expansion once its next media rights deal is finalized and has an eye on adding two teams, with Las Vegas and Seattle considered the current favorites.
“LeBron James is determined to be at the forefront of a Vegas expansion NBA team in the future,” Wojnarowski adds, “and he is putting the work in on it now.”
Pacers Notes: Haliburton, Nembhard, Turner, Two-Way Players
Borrowing a video game analogy, Tyrese Haliburton called Lakers star LeBron James the “final boss” that the Pacers have to defeat to win the in-season tournament, writes Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star.
To reach tonight’s title game, Indiana had to get past a Bucks team that features Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard and a Celtics squad headlined by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Before that, there were group play matchups with Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, Atlanta’s Trae Young, and Detroit’s Cade Cunningham.
None of them has the same mystique as James, who has been one of the league’s elite players for more than two decades. Dopirak points out that Haliburton was just three years old when James played his first NBA game, and the Pacers guard followed him closely until he became a professional himself.
“Like any kid born in 2000, LeBron was my favorite player growing up, and it’s hard for him not to be for a lot of us,” Haliburton said. “Growing up, I was a Cavs fan, then a Heat fan, then a Cavs fan again, then a Lakers fan before I got drafted. It’s just how it went. To be able to compete against him in a championship is kind of like a storybook a little bit, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. But that’s the great part about being in the NBA, getting to compete against your idols on a nightly basis. I really look forward to that.”
There’s more on the Pacers:
- In tonight’s pre-game meeting with the media, coach Rick Carlisle said Andrew Nembhard has a right knee bone bruise and will be sidelined for at least the next seven days, Dopirak tweets. “We’ll see where he is and evaluate it from there, but not viewed as a long-term thing,” Carlisle said. “But we’ll miss him today.”
- Before he agreed to a two-year extension in January, it appeared Myles Turner might not be part of the Pacers’ future, and there were persistent rumors during the summer of 2022 that he was headed to the Lakers. In an interview with Chris Hayes of TNT and Bleacher Report (video link), Turner stated that he’s glad things turned out the way they did and he’s eager for the team to have a high-stakes game in front of a national audience. “People getting to see what we’re about here in Indiana,” Turner said. “It’s fun seeing everything through and to say you didn’t quit.”
- The financial incentive in tonight’s game will be especially important for the two-way players, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. The Pacers’ Kendall Brown, Oscar Tshiebwe and Isaiah Wong will get a half share of the prize money, which means $250K for first place and $100K for second. Two-way contracts pay $559,782 and carry a $279,891 guarantee.