LeBron James confident of NBA finals comeback: 'I'm the best in the world'

The Cleveland Cavaliers need to win both remaining games to clinch the NBA title, but LeBron James is confident his team can do it. Why? Because he’s the best player in the world.
The Cavs lost 91-104 in Game 5 in Oakland on Sunday night, after the Golden State Warriors accelerated away from their opponents in the fourth quarter. Steph Curry scored 37 points and made seven three-pointers to put Golden State 3-2 up in the series – and just one win from a first NBA championship in 40 years.

But James, who produced another scintillating performance at the Oracle Arena, assisting in 70 of the Cavs’ 91 points, has backed his team to come back on Tuesday night in Cleveland. “I feel confident because I’m the best player in the world,” James said on Sunday night. “It’s that simple.”
James, a four-time MVP, had 40 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in game five, becoming only the second player to record a 40-point triple-double in the championship finals after Jerry West in 1969. James, in this finals series, is averaging 36.6 points per game.
Cavs coach David Blatt was gushing in his praise of his main man: “LeBron has been tremendous - [that is] even an understatement for how he’s played in the series. Under the current set of circumstances, that’s what we’ve got to get, and he’s bringing it. You don’t see that every day, what he’s doing. You’ve got to take your hat off to him.”
The Warriors will try to win their first title since 1975 on Tuesday night in Cleveland at the Quicken Loans Arena. Game 7, if necessary, would be in Oakland on Friday night. But LeBron said his team weren’t thinking about Friday.
“We’re going home with a game six and we’ve got enough to win it,” James said. “We protect home, we come [back to Oakland]. We’ll worry about Tuesday first. But if we protect home like we’re capable of doing, we force a Game 7.”
Golden State coach Steve Kerr had only admiration for his star, Curry: “I thought from the very beginning when they went small, had their shooters out there, I thought: this is Steph’s night.
“This is going to be a big one for him because he has all that room. He took over the game down the stretch and was fantastic.”
“We didn’t turn it over, we were patient,” Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson said. “And two words: Stephen Curry.”

Why Stephen Curry, not James Harden, is this year's NBA MVP

The rare MBA in the NBA, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey not only embraces inflammatory statements, he offers them up with gusto. The inventor of the revered MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and driving force behind the new wave of analytical player evaluation, Morey is a data-driven GM and an engaging Twitter presence whose vibrant personality has an irreverent flair. He’s candid enough to compare being an NBA general manager to being a gynecologist (“You never get tired of it”) and publicly deride prominent media personalities for questioning his philosophies (see: Barkley, Charles). Last week, perhaps for kicks, he claimed his Rockets can beat any team in a seven-game series.

So when Morey said “If James Harden weren’t on our team, we’d be nowhere,” as the primary reason his hirsute star player should be named Most Valuable Player, it wasn’t on the greatest hits of Morey-isms. His simplistic reasoning was, however, quite unlike Daryl Morey. Inherent bias aside, Morey has staked his reputation as one of the game’s most progressive general managers because of his aggressive roster reconstructions and acute data crunching. Claiming Harden should win MVP for being the primary arbiter for his team’s 53 wins wasn’t just trivializing the ethos of the award, it was an indirect indictment of himself.

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry is this year’s NBA MVP. The race shouldn’t be close. To believe that requires a hearty embrace of the analytical whirlwind consuming the NBA – on another day, we’ll discuss Sam Hinkie’s Philadelphia 76ers – with a healthy dose of skepticism of how those stats are manipulated. But above all, anointing Harden the top player ahead of Curry betrays Morey’s beloved metrics.

The Warriors sit at 63-15 with a 35-2 home record, arguably the most dominant NBA regular season since the 1996 Chicago Bulls finished 72-10. (To all you weary Lakers fans, go ahead and make your case.) Along with a stunning average margin of victory of 10.2 points (the Spurs rank second at 6.4), the Warriors entered last weekend riding a 12-game winning streak with nine of those wins coming by 13 points or more. Most of those have come with their star players (Curry, Klay Thompson) resting in the fourth quarter. If the games aren’t won by halftime, they’re won in the third quarter, and Curry is the engine behind their offensive brilliance.

If you prefer to keep your head out of the data sheet and fixed on the television, Curry offers plenty of MVP credentials. He bombs threes from across the Bay, his dribbling skills appear to be honed from sorcery, and his no-look passes recall the likes Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson. He’s Wayne Gretzky without the skates. I’d link to his highlights, but the YouTube rabbit hole that awaits would keep you from finishing the article.

Take this humiliation of Los Angeles Clippers’ star Chris Paul on Monday night.

Stephen Curry and the clip that launched a thousand memes.

Even Paul was impressed enough to post one of the resulting memes on his own Instagram.

Tune into any Warriors game in the first half and notice opposing defenses try to surround Curry at the top of the perimeter, only to leave his teammates open in the corner, on the elbow of the key or in the post. His versatility has helped unlock career-best seasons from budding stars like Thompson, now one of the NBA’s most feared offensive threats, and journeymen like Marresse Speights, who two years ago was unceremoniously released by a Cleveland team that finished 24-58. When Curry has the ball, they have a better chance to score. And he’s already the most feared shooter in the NBA. Curry’s spindly constitution and lateral agility keep defenses permanently on their heels. If they lunge, he’ll bolt by them for a close-range shot. If they sag off, he’ll knock down a three-pointer. Not since Steve Nash’s MVP seasons in Phoenix has a point guard helmed an offense with such fluidity, and more importantly, speed.

Curry is the real MVP. Photograph: AP

Here’s where the argument gets a bit stat-heavy. Be patient. We’ll make it through together.

The Warriors average slightly over 100 possessions per game, the quickest pace in the NBA. Logically, that’s a risky gambit. More possessions offer more opportunities for points as well as turnovers. Under Curry’s direction (predominantly), the Warriors are averaging 19.8 assists per game (tops in the NBA) against 13 turnovers, a staggeringly good ratio eclipsed only by the Clippers, whose offense is guided by an eight-time All-Star in Paul. Curry himself is averaging 7.7 per game while reducing his turnover percentage (turnovers per 100 plays) by almost two per game from last season. Thus, Curry is not only distributing the ball to players with a high likelihood of scoring, he’s protecting it better than he has in his career.

Perhaps most shocking is that Curry, sometimes criticized as a weak defender, is a key part of a unit that leads the NBA in defensive rating (measured by points allowed per 100 possessions). Lest you think that’s due to Golden State’s burly interior defenders, the perimeter defenders are holding opponents to 33.6% from three-point range, good for fifth in the NBA. Curry isn’t a defensive liability. And if he still is, then coach Steve Kerr has minimized opponents’ chances to exploit him.

Harden, the only reasonable challenger* to Curry in the MVP race – the Pelicans’ Anthony Davis would be another if not for a midseason injury – has compiled an outstanding season with 10 40-point games, markedly improved defense, decreased turnovers and countless clutch baskets. His dizzying crossover dribble and step-back jumper have established him as one of the game’s finest individual scorers, and his notoriously lazy defense appears to be a bygone criticism, with Houston a top-five team in defensive efficiency. His true shooting percentage (a measure of efficiency that calculates 2-point shots, 3-point shots and free throws) sits at 60.7, his offensive rating (an estimate of how many points the player produces per 100 possessions) sits at 118.5, and his team has won 53 games. These are MVP credentials.

Curry ranks better Harden in all of those categories and more.

For further proof, peek into their shot charts.

Curry’s shot chart indicates proficiency from all spots on the floor. Illustration: StatMuse

Harden’s chart reflects Illustration: Statmuse

Curry is shooting far above league average virtually everywhere on the floor. The only places he isn’t is right around the bucket, where percentages are already high.

So if you seek an abstract, a case to present to your friends, then I offer this: Stephen Curry eclipses James Harden in every relevant offensive statistical category outside of points per game. He makes up for that loss with his passing. He orchestrates the NBA’s superlative offense while aiding the league’s best statistical defense. He is the most exciting player to watch in the NBA, and one of its finest ambassadors. He’s played over 300 fewer minutes than Harden because he’s often controls the first three quarters of the game and allows himself to rest during the fourth. If you think that’s due to Kerr and the Golden State front office’s savvy roster construction, fine; but the offense never reaches this kind of efficiency and dominance without Curry’s presence and direction.

When Kerr was asked about Morey’s hamfisted Harden campaign, the affable coach answered “We have bigger things to worry about.”

Kerr knows he has the league MVP. Now it’s on the voting committee to let Curry hoist the trophy.

* Yes, I ignored Russell Westbrook as an MVP candidate and will continue to do so. No MVP struggles to get his team to the playoffs no matter how many gaudy triple-doubles he has. He’s had a wonderful individual season, but doesn’t come close to affecting his team the way Curry, Harden, Davis or even his injured teammate Kevin Durant does.

The Forgotten Story of … Claude Williams, the Rabbitohs' sport-hopper

It was a warm Saturday afternoon, Match of the Day, May 1973. A huge crowd had packed into the Sydney Cricket Ground to see South Sydney Rabbitohs against St George.

A titanic battle between two great rivals saw the scores locked at 11-11, and with just three minutes remaining South Sydney were granted a penalty on the halfway line. Eric Simms, arguably rugby league’s greatest goal-kicker, couldn’t make the distance. Rabbitohs captain Bob McCarthy took a gamble and threw the ball to the 21-year- old rookie Claude Williams.

A strapping young Wiradjuri Aboriginal man with a smile as broad as his shoulders, a shock of wavy black hair and a Zapata moustache, Williams was a surprise inclusion in the starting line-up. According to the match report in the Sydney Morning Herald, he was “hardly sighted in general play”, but Williams nonchalantly caught McCarthy’s pass and slowly fashioned a kicking mound out of the turf.

“The crowd were getting impatient, but I needed to build it high to make the distance,” remembers Williams. “I wasn’t nervous, because it was so far out nobody expected me to make it.”

How the sports pages reacted to that kick. Photograph: Claude Williams

After a long run-up, Williams put his right boot firmly through the ball and sent it sailing majestically between the uprights to a rapturous roar from the Rabbitohs supporters. The first man to embrace him was Simms, and in the dressing room after the match, Channel Nine television personality and fanatical Rabbitohs fan Don Lane grabbed him by the collar, drew him close and planted a kiss firmly on his forehead. “Thank God Bobby gave Claude the kick,” said Simms, “I never would have made it that far.” Williams was asked to appear on rugby league’s weekly television show. A star, it seemed, was in the making.

“I never went on that program,” says Williams. For all the accolades he received in the press after the winning kick, his memory is of returning to work on the Monday. A storeman at a cosmetics company in Surry Hills, he was feted by his colleagues. “I walked in and all of them came round to our section and said ‘good onya Claude, fantastic kick’. You know for me, it was no big deal. I was never one to blow my own trumpet or act the poser. I had confidence in myself, but I didn’t talk myself up.”

It’s characteristic of Williams that he skipped the scheduled television appearance to spend the day with his mate and two girls on a harbour ferry. “You know, it was in the paper about me scoring that kick,” he says. “My mate was telling the girls that I was the bloke that scored the kick. I was just 21, a shy kind of kid, in those days I wasn’t a talker. I wasn’t confident speaking to the media – in those days there was no media training. I never had that experience and confidence to get in front of a TV camera and talk about it. There weren’t too many players who were media savvy in those days.”

Self-promoter he was not, but from a young age Claude Williams was destined to be a sportsman. At 15 he was opening both the bowling and the batting for the Sydney Cricket Club in the AW Green Shield competition. Indeed several years before that kick for the Rabbitohs, he made his debut at the SCG in a City vs Country representative cricket match. “It was like hallowed turf,” he remembers fondly.

The Sydney Cricket Ground - where it all started for Williams. Photograph: Claude Williams

Rugby league, however, became the focus after Williams helped Zetland win the 1969 C grade grand final against La Perouse at Redfern Oval. As Williams tells it, the legendary Rabbitohs captain John Sattler picked him out of the pack, silencing the rowdy dressing room as he entered to congratulate them on their victory.

“I was sitting in the corner of the change room, and he came over, put his hand over and said, ‘Hi, I’m John Sattler’. I was a really quiet kid in those days, you know I was very reserved and introverted. I said ‘Yes, how are you John, I’m Claude’. He said, ‘Yes, I know who you are Claude, I just watched you play and I was very impressed with your game. I’m here to ask you if you’d like to play senior grade next year.’.

Williams’s father encouraged his son to seize the opportunity. “I was in two minds,” he says. “I was only 16, and it wasn’t as if I lacked confidence, but I thought I wouldn’t mind playing another year or two and mature a bit. But Dad said, ‘No I think you should give it a go.’” His father, of course, was the iconic country and western singer Claude ‘Candy’ Williams. Mates with the great Aboriginal leaders Chika Dixon and Charlie Perkins and a regular performer at the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, Candy was a star in his own right, yet he could be found at all of his son’s matches, no matter the level.

It was the kind of support that Williams needed, but didn’t get from rugby league. In one Rabbitohs game, when he lined up against a childhood hero, Williams was shocked by what he heard. “I was on the wing, I got the ball and as I ran inside he yelled out ‘kill that black cunt!’ I thought, fuck! It sort of threw me. It stung me. It really hurt inside – it affected me that. When he got the ball I’d chase him to try and get a square-up, but he was quick and I never got the chance.”

Williams only played a handful of top-flight rugby league matches, but he refuses to dwell on the possibilities. He freely admits that Clive Churchill’s Rabbitohs – “that fantastic team” he calls them – was near impossible to break into as a young player.

“The career depends on what you produce on the field,” he says firmly when I ask him whether he lacked the requisite streak of self-interest. And the racism? “It was just as bad for the Chinese,” he says. “They were called chinks, the Europeans – the Italians and the Greeks – they were called wogs and dagoes, so they copped it just as much.”

Williams leads celebrations on Souths’ bench, flanked by Clive Churchill and John Sattler. Photograph: Claude Williams

Williams walked away from rugby league to pursue his great love – basketball. From a multitalented family (his first cousin Harry was the first Indigenous man to represent the Socceroos at a World Cup in 1974), throughout his short career at the Rabbitohs he had moonlighted as a guard with Eastern Suburbs in Sydney’s premier basketball competition. Monday and Friday basketball training bookended Wednesday night games, while Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends were dedicated to rugby league. “My whole week – basically six days – was taken up with basketball or rugby league,” he says. All, of course, while drawing his wage on the factory floor.

In 1974 and 1975 Williams was selected for the New South Wales basketball team in the Nationals, but his contract with South Sydney prevented him from participating. “I wasn’t getting paid much, but I was still contracted,” he explains. “For two years I said, ‘I can’t go, I’m sorry.’”

Walking away from rugby league to pursue a career in basketball might have seemed like a step backwards, but it connected him to something far bigger than sport.

Williams felt more at home on the basketball court than on the football field. Photograph: Claude Williams

The 1970s was a time of enormous change in the consciousness of Indigenous people. A group of young black radicals including Gary Foley, Bruce McGuiness, Paul Coe, Bob Maza, Denis Walker and Bobbi Sykes were at the crest of a new Black Power movement in Brisbane, Redfern and Fitzroy. Black empowerment was the call, self-determination was the aim. Williams was never involved in the politics – “mate, I was too busy playing sport,” he grins – however just as the nascent Aboriginal Black Power movement looked to the United States for inspiration and fraternal support, Williams was influenced by a trip to the west coast of America.

Basketball took him places where rugby league couldn’t. In 1977 Williams travelled to America, Canada and Hawaii with the NSW Basketball team. The bumper crowds, marching bands, orchestras and cheerleaders of college basketball were a shock to the Australians, but for Williams the off-court action was just as enlightening.

“They thought we were English,” he says. “I found the African Americans knew a little bit about Aboriginal Australia, and when I spoke to them it was like an instant bond. Like we’d come from the same footsteps – there was an instant respect. It was the same with the African American players in the NBL, I used to connect with them stronger than most. They had a higher respect for me as an Aboriginal man.”

Returning home, Williams landed a job as a clerk with the council and played with the City of Sydney Astronauts in the early seasons of the National Basketball League, which was launched in 1979. The bulging lump that protrudes from the knuckle on his right hand is a war scar testament to his rough and ready style of play. By 1983, the Astronauts became the Sydney SuperSonics, and the legendary American import Owen Wells signed on as player-coach. Wells fired a rocket up Australian basketball, and with Williams in the team, lead the SuperSonics to a record-breaking 16-game winning streak.

Williams, the centre of attention on the Sydney SuperSonics’ bench. Photograph: Claude Williams

“We connected over music,” says Williams. “He was into a lot of jazz – he was different, most of the African Americans who came out were all r&b. In the dressing rooms it was always ghetto blasters with the latest r&b and soul music, but not many were into jazz. Owen was highly intelligent, highly educated and knew his music. He was very stylish and classy – an inspiration to his team-mates.”

As Williams recounts memories of his old friend, it’s hard to ignore the influence. The wild hair of Williams’s youth has given way to a slicker short-back-and-sides, and his handlebar moustache has been trimmed down to a thin pencil above his upper lip. A comb is always handy in his bag. Gold jewellery adorns his fingers and neck, several rubber bracelets with the words “Deadly Vibe” wrap around each wrist, and he’s wearing a Miles Davis t-shirt. He’s equally comfortable discussing the finer points of Betty Davis, The Undisputed Truth or The Isley Brothers at Lazy Bones Lounge in Marrickville as he is playing snooker in local competitions.

In 1987, Williams became Wells’s assistant coach and as they travelled around the country they roomed together, sharing basketball tactics and listening to Blue Train by John Coltrane. Their friendship was an intellectual bond. After 101 NBL games, Williams was ready for a new challenge.

The composition of Sydney basketball was set to change for a third time within a decade. In October 1987, the owner of the SuperSonics, Mike Wrublewski, formed a new franchise called the Sydney Kings. A merger of the SuperSonics and the West Sydney Westars, the press reported the Kings would be “the saviour of basketball in this city”.

A portrait of Claude Williams, taken at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in March, 2015. Photograph: Phat Ngo for Guardian Australia

Williams was appointed as head coach, becoming one of just a few Australians to take the reigns of an NBL team and the first and only Aboriginal basketball coach. Rugby league commentator and historian Brad Cooke reckons Williams was the second Aboriginal coach in any elite sport (Arthur Beetson coached Easts in rugby league in the 1970s).

Williams played the role of front-man, commenting in 1987 that the creation of the Sydney Kings was “a positive step that we are united”. The reality, however, was rather different. The “one team, one city” concept had been advocated for years by Wrublewski, but it was only after mounting financial losses that West Sydney agreed to the idea. The rivalry inevitably seeped from board level into the dressing room. In one infamous incident, team-mates Damien Keogh and Marc Ridlen – formerly of the Westars and SuperSonics respectively – almost came to blows in a match against Illawarra Hawks.

If coaching is all about managing delicate egos, Williams’s job to funnel the players of two teams into one entity was a crash course in diplomacy. “The better players would be used to playing lots of minutes,” he says. “I was a first year head coach, I had all the strategies in place and I knew exactly what I wanted. It wasn’t particularly the team I wanted – I didn’t have carte blanche. There was a compromise between the two clubs with the selection of players. I knew it would take time for the chemistry to develop.”

As the season wore on and results failed to go their way, the Sydney Morning Herald basketball journalist Ian Cockerill concluded: “Although the Kings have assembled a squad of brilliant individuals this year they have failed to congeal as a team and appear in danger of missing the play-offs.”

Miss the finals they did, and by season’s end Williams had accepted an offer from Newcastle Falcons. Wrublewski was notorious for his hands-on, passionate approach, but Williams was continually frustrated by the intrusion of board members in the coaching of the team. His two seasons at Newcastle, however, weren’t much better. “Like a lot of coaches I personally found it difficult to communicate with board members who are businessmen, not basketballers,” he says.

A little over two decades on since his last involvement in top-flight sport, it seems Claude Williams is remembered in flashes and snippets. Few of the basketball and rugby league scribes of the day recall the man, although they all remember the name. There’s bits and pieces on the Sydney Kings website, and of course a few mentions on basketball and rugby league websites.

‘South Sydney’s lively young utility back’, according to this newspaper report, with Rabbitohs coach Clive Churchill. Photograph: Claude Williams

One of these sites, Rebel Rabbitohs, is particularly revealing. ABC journalist Andrew Denton – a man who led the charge for South Sydney to be returned to the NRL in 2001 – tells his favourite childhood memory of listening to the legendary rugby league radio commentator Frank Hyde calling Williams’s goal-kick in 1973. “A couple of years ago I saw Andrew on the corner of Oxford and Crown Street,” says Williams. “I was going to go up to him and introduce myself, but he approached me and mentioned the kick. We had a good chat.”

Like many Indigenous athletes of yore, Williams is best remembered among his own people – recognised as one of the “Black Diamonds” in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sports Hall of Fame. He comes from a long line of luminaries from the Wiradjuri nation, including Linda Burney, Paul Coe, Mum Shirl, Anita Heiss, Stan Grant, Wally Carr, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley and David Peachey.

Yet Cooke, who used to run a boxing program with Williams on Koori Radio, reckons he’s been under-utilised by the community. “My best memory of Claude, apart from being the legend and a Black Diamond, was from a boxing trip to Vegas in 2009,” he says. “He went from being an “Uncle” and a godlike figure to getting excited for interviews with legends of boxing like [Muhammad Ali’s biographer] Thomas Hauser and Roberto Duran. He talked to Roberto about his fight against the Aboriginal boxer Hector Thompson.”

For the best part of a decade Williams travelled around Australia running basketball programs for Aboriginal kids with Vibe Australia, and he helped Aboriginal people find work during the 2000 Sydney Olympics as an Indigenous liaison officer at Stadium Australia.

When there’s an event in Sydney’s Aboriginal community, you’ll find Williams there. In 2006, while he was running the boxing radio program, a plaque was unveiled in Glebe to commemorate the great Aboriginal middleweight boxer Dave Sands. The plaque, said Williams in his speech as MC, “is a symbol of our commitment to remember and celebrate the great heroes in our community”. In February, he addressed the crowd at Redfern’s National Centre of Indigenous Excellence to mark the anniversary of the Australian Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation.

The National Centre of Indigenous Excellence turned five this month, and “Uncle Claude” works in the after-school program and the Deadly Young leaders program. He was born just up the road in Camperdown, and you’ll find him every other week in his old stomping ground with his good mate Tony Mundine. Tony, of course, is the father of one of Australia’s greatest sportsmen, Anthony, a man who has also traversed two different sports with great success. There are links and deep roots in these friendships – shared memories, shared histories and shared goals. “I want to give back to these kids and this community,” says Williams. “It’s a challenge.”

Basketball remains a burning passion, and Williams hopes to return to coaching sooner rather than later. Like a tactics junkie needing his fix, to this day he’ll watch college basketball over NBA, where the coaching and strategy is more pronounced. “It’s the greatest game I’ve ever played,” he says. “Basketball is an intelligent game – there’s individual skill and the technical side.”

For a man that has been at the top of his game in rugby league, basketball and junior cricket, incredibly there remains one lingering regret. At 15, while he was at Cleveland Street High School, he was scouted by the NSW Lawn Tennis Association to join their elite program at White City in Paddington. “I was excited, and to be honest, in my heart, that’s what I wanted,” he says.

Cost was the barrier to entry, and the exorbitant fee was out of the family budget. His dream was dashed. “I’d have to say if there’s any regrets, that would be the biggest ever in my life, that I wasn’t able to play tennis,” says Williams. “I honestly think I wouldn’t have played cricket, rugby league or basketball. I believed I was the best. I still know to this day that if I could’ve followed that path I could’ve gone all the way.”

Kevin Love's myriad problems at Cleveland Cavaliers

The New England Patriots have won the Super Bowl. Spring Training is still a month away, as is March Madness. That means you now have no valid excuse for turning your attention to the NBA. Well, OK, other than being a Knicks or Lakers fan. Here’s this week’s biggest basketball stories.
The Atlanta Hawks win streak ends at 19 games
January marked a turning point for the Atlanta Hawks, as the question surrounding the team went from “are the Hawks real?” to “are the Hawks really the best team in the East?” They went 17-0 in the month of January, an immaculate record that helped solidify their status as the favorites to win the Eastern Conference.
In fact, it would eventually take Anthony Davis going full on Anthony Davis to finally stop them. He scored 29 points and snagged 13 rebounds in Monday night’s New Orleans Pelicans’ 115-100 victory over the Hawks, snapping their win streak at a franchise-record 19 games. Even with that loss, the Hawks 40-7 record puts them seven games ahead of the second place Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference standings.
No shame in being beaten by the best.
With the East up in the air after LeBron James’s return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, there was always a chance that an upstart team would capitalize on the opportunity and separate itself from the rest of the pack. It’s just that nobody suspected it would be the Hawks, especially not after an offseason where the only headlines they made were those involving their controlling owner and general manager being pushed out the door after making racially insensitive remarks.
Instead, the star-less Hawks have been playing near-flawless team basketball and are actually drawing in fans. As Yahoo! Sports’ Jay Busbee reports:
    Hawks attendance, always a league joke, is higher than it’s been in five years, and nearing capacity levels. The team touts its increased merchandise sales as a sign of fans’ loyalty beyond just showing up. A demographic cross-section that cuts across age, race and gender now fills Philips Arena. A Hawks game is now a destination, not an obligation.
Maybe the “league joke” line is a key to how many of us missed what the Hawks were poised to do. Sometimes those of us who write about the game are so quick to go for the easy punchlines that we don’t actually see the teams and players that are actually playing. It’s why it took far too long for us to write about how the Golden State Warriors had transformed into one of the best defensive teams in the league or admit that Monta Ellis has become an all-star caliber player with the Dallas Mavericks.
And it’s why that many, including this writer, just assumed during this summer that this Hawks team was destined for another first round playoff exit, played in a half-empty arena and broadcast exclusively on NBA TV. Instead they are now playing like a team that believes it can make the NBA Finals and, amazingly, they may be right.
The NBA All-Star reserves were announced
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Coaches around the NBA kept the success of the Atlanta Hawks in mind when they made their votes for the 2015 All-Star reserves. When the lineups were announced on Thursday, Hawks Al Horford, Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap all made the cut for the Eastern Conference. Even then there were discussions about whether or not Atlanta was sufficiently represented, as Kyle Korver, who might be having the best shooting season of anybody in the NBA, missed the final cut.
Korver has a case, but it’s easy to understand why he didn’t make it. The All-Star Game roster will always be tilted in favor of the bigger names, even when its the coaches and not the fans who do the voting. Yes, maybe this season’s edition of the Miami Heat really didn’t deserve to be represented by both Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade (who might miss the game with a hamstring injury) but it’s not a huge travesty that they get a little extra push after four straight years of representing the East in the NBA Finals.
And yes, perhaps the Cleveland Cavaliers’ slow start should have precluded the presence of guard Kyrie Irving, but Irving’s pivotal role in their recent turnaround has made it difficult to argue against the selection. That just leaves the Chicago Bulls’ Jimmy Butler, who arguably has had a good enough year to start the All-Star Game.
So apologies to Korver, but for the most egregious snub this year we turn to the 2015 Western Conference All-Star roster which, somehow, will not include Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers. Yes, the voters had a much tougher job in the West, which is stacked with great teams with rosters overflowing with great talent, but it’s still annoying that maybe the most clutch performer in the league didn’t get an invite. Even when a move had to be made to replace injured Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, voted in by fans to be a starter, commissioner Adam Silver picked the Sacramento Kings’ DeMarcus Cousins to fill the spot in the lineup.
While Lillard has vowed not to forget the snub, it should appease him a bit that at least teammate LaMarcus Aldridge will be representing Portland in the All-Star Game. Aldridge will join the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, the San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan, the Houston Rockets’ James Harden, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Chris Paul and the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson among the Western Conference all-star reserves.
Admitting that Lillard was snubbed means removing one of the above players from the list, and they all deserve to make the trip to New York. Perhaps the real problem lies in the fact that the Western Conference right now is too loaded with talent to be properly represented by the current NBA structure.
Unlike the discussion about revamping the playoff structure, there seems to be a relatively simple solution here. Silver has said he’s open to the idea of expanding the All-Star rosters which, honestly, feels like something of a no-brainer considering the absolute surplus of amazing basketball players out there.
This isn’t the Pro Bowl in the NFL, where somehow an Andy Dalton makes the roster every year, or the MLB All-Star Game where the rules end up forcing coaches to include a player from every team, even the Arizona Diamondbacks. There’s no good reason that there’s no room for Lillard or Korver on the NBA All-Star roster.
The Injury Report
The Western Conference is so brutal that it seems quite likely that the final seedings will be determined by which contending teams end the season with the fewest major injuries. If so, this has been a bad week for the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks.
In Houston, Dwight Howard is out indefinitely with a right knee injury. The good news for the Rockets is that they have been playing consistently with or without their star center, who has been missing games or playing hurt throughout much of the season.
Can that continue though? Can the Rockets system keep humming even without the Last Of The “True” Centers on the floor? Can James Harden channel his inner Kevin Durant and keep up his MVP caliber of play long enough for Howard to get right? Or is this line of questioning just blatant concern trolling from those of us who find the Rockets’ style of play annoying and hate the fact that it seems to be working?
Meanwhile the Mavericks’ decision to go all-in and trade away valuable bench assets in exchange for Boston Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo has hit a pretty major snag. Rondo will be out indefinitely after an eye injury suffered in a collision with his own team-mate, Richard Jefferson. It’s yet another freak injury in a career that seems to be full of them for Rondo, and Dallas has to hope that the point guard’s unique stubbornness means that he will be back on the court sooner rather than later.
Oh there is good news in the Western Conference though: Ricky Rubio made his return to the Minnesota Timberwolves lineup on Monday after missing most of the season with an ankle injury. Since this is Minnesota, Rubio’s return won’t really make much of a difference in the standings, the Timberwolves fell to the Mavericks in his first game back, but still: the game is more fun when Rubio’s around.
The Cleveland Cavaliers can’t lose, Kevin Love can’t win
When the New Orleans Pelicans handed the Atlanta Hawks their first loss of 2015, that meant that the Cleveland Cavaliers now had the NBA’s longest active winning streak. The Cavaliers have won their last 11 games and maybe, just maybe, are finally start to coalesce into something resembling the team they should be on paper.
The biggest reason that the Cavaliers have started to put things together has been that LeBron James has looked more like himself after that two week stretch of missed games. The second biggest reason is that Kyrie Irving has been justifying his All-Star selection. When the Cavaliers played against the Portland Trail Blazers last Wednesday, Irving put up a career high 55 points in the 99-94 Cleveland victory.
Power forward Kevin Love has not been getting the same amount of credit. It’s been a bad week for Love, in fact. First he didn’t make the All-Star team, while Klay Thompson, the Golden State Warriors player he could have been traded for during the offseason break breezed in.
Then, in his first game playing in Minnesota since being traded, the Timberwolves organization declined to give him the traditional video tribute, preferring to honor Mike Miller instead (although Timberwolves head coach Flip Saunders was not amused at the prank). Finally, in the midst of the Cavaliers going on their first huge win streak, the main headlines are all about … LeBron James maybe sorta kinda calling him out for being too passive. One shudders to think of the atrocious Love puns that would be making the headlines if the Cavaliers were on an 11 game losing streak.
Other things we’ve learned
• Admission: If the Cavaliers were struggling my atrocious Kevin Love pun would have been either “Love will tear us apart” or “Love --> building on fire.”
• The biggest transaction of the previous week has been the Oklahoma City Thunder signing Nick Collison to a two-year extension. No, not the sexiest of weeks for industry gossip fodder. Nobody could have even floated a Brook Lopez trade rumor or something?
• A writer once predicted that Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins would be arrested in five years’ time. Five years later, Cousins called him out. Awesome.
• Because we’re obligated to include at least one Super Bowl related item this week: The great Jackie MacMullan wonders if the New England Patriots are the San Antonio Spurs of the NFL. Now I’m trying to imagine Gregg Popovich and Bill Belichick in the same press conference. It would be like a Samuel Beckett play except without all the warmth and cheer.
• Dunk of the week: Damian Lillard states his all-star case to a receptive Rudy Gobert.

Everyone calm down, LeBron James is not leaving Cleveland

The winter holidays are coming to an end.  Those nonstop college football bowls will soon no longer seem bottomless. The NFL is over in a lot of markets, with only the postseason teams remaining. This means that for a lot of casual fans, this is the start of the NBA season. We at 5 Things welcome you all, but if you had the Cleveland Cavaliers facing the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals the start of the season has not done you any favors.
No, LeBron is not leaving Cleveland. David Blatt however...
On Sunday, the lowly Detroit Pistons beat LeBron James, Kevin Love and the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers 103-80. It was the latest, and most embarrassing, setback for a group of players refusing to coalesce into the superteam promised this offseason.
For the first few months of the James/Love/Kyrie Irving experiment, there was talk of patience and an acknowledgment that building a championship team in Cleveland would take some time. Almost every report on the Cavs’ early struggles was moderate and temperate when compared to the instant media reaction that accompanied every Miami Heat win and loss in the months that followed The Decision.
Apparently, in the last few days the statue of limitations against panicky hyperbolic declarations lapsed. It’s mostly baseless speculation time. James turned 30 this week. HE’S IN TERMINAL DECLINE!
When asked about reported tensions with head coach David Blatt, James replied with a not-entirely committal “He’s our coach. What other coach do we have?” LEBRON JAMES WANTS DAVID BLATT FIRED!
When asked about the state of his team after losing to the Pistons, one of the worst teams in the NBA, James correctly noted that “right now we’re just not very good in every aspect of the game that we need to be to compete every night.’’ Obviously that means LEBRON JAMES IS GOING TO LEAVE CLEVELAND!
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No. No it doesn’t.
James is not leaving Cleveland any time soon. While his contract gives him the option to leave the Cavaliers at the end of this season, his “I’m Coming Home” letter was a statement to the fans, to the entire world really, that he was in Cleveland for the long run. Unless he’s working on the biggest heel turn in basketball history, it’s hard to see him screwing over his home state once again.
Yes, James might have already peaked – it’s not impossible given the sheer number of minutes he’s played in the regular season and playoffs. At the very least, he clearly isn’t fully healthy, as evidenced by the fact that he sat out Tuesday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks with a sore knee. Right now though, he only looks bad in comparison to the James of two years ago. He has spoiled us.
Now, the rumour that Blatt’s days might be numbered if the Cavaliers don’t start going on a major winning streak? That may have some basis in reality.
The Cavaliers hired Blatt, in his first head coaching job in the NBA, before they knew they were getting James back. Given the amount of say that LeBron (rightfully) has in the organization, this is essentially a “GM inheriting a head coach he didn’t hire” situation.
Because of this, Blatt’s situation is more precarious than it otherwise might be. While fifth place in the Eastern Conference isn’t an awful result – the Kobe Bryant/Dwight Howard/Steve Nash Lakers could only dream of such a record – it’s an appropriately mediocre accomplishment for an equally mediocre team. Rightly or wrongly, it’s likely Blatt will be the fall guy if they don’t start making up lost ground.
“Meet Me In Temecula:” A Christmas Story
Ah Christmas Day, a day to gather around the Christmas tree, unwrap presents, spend time with loved ones and drive 35 minutes to fight someone because they’ve dissed your favorite athlete on the internet. At least, that’s what happened this Christmas.
Here’s the short version: On 25 December, two basketball fans got into a Twitter debate about whether or not Bryant has been hurting the Lakers while on the court. Just a standard Twitter sports argument, right? Well, things escalated.
How escalated? The Bryant supporter, @MyTweetsRealAF, expressing the kind of passion and keen judgment of an Eminem song protagonist, decided to drive to Temecula in California to fight the other, @SnottieDrippen, who was actually tweeting from Arizona the entire time. Needless to say, the trip was all for naught, but it did entertain the rest of the sports Twitter world. Or at least the percentage that were spending their Christmas evening on social media.
By the next day, the “meet me in Temecula” incident had already entered NBA lore. ESPN personalities were slyly referencing the incident. There were thinkpieces. It led to a Deadspin debate about whether or not there was any justification for any of this.
Bryant, funnily enough, wasn’t even playing during that night’s 113-93 loss to the Chicago Bulls. It was partly because Bryant was beat up physically but it was also partly because, and this was the point Drippen (let’s avoid calling him Snottie because ... EWWW) was trying to make here, the Lakers offense really had been running better without him.
At this point, even Bryant finally admitted that he could help his team by taking some games off.
    When asked if there was any particular injury hampering him, Bryant cited age and soreness.
    Old age. My knees are sore at this stage of the season,” he said. “My achilles are sore – both of them. My metatarsals are tight, back is tight. I just need to kind of hit the reset button.
Not that this means Bryant doesn’t appreciate that his fans are willing to go the extra mile (and then some) to defend him:
Josh Smith joins the Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets were attempting to trade for Josh Smith during the offseason. Luckily for them, those plans fell through, because it turns out that they could get him for nothing but money a few months later, after the Pistons president, Stan Van Gundy, simply cut the unloved power forward last week.
Smith, apparently, had decided to go with a team that was willing to take the risk of offering him a starting role, which drastically reduced the number of suitors willing to take a chance on a player who might have been the worst shooter in the league. The Rockets, however, were OK with this provision and they rolled the dice.
It’s not an insane gamble, really. Theoretically, Howard and Smith are good friends, so there won’t be a huge locker room issue looming. Even if his presence in the starting lineup does cause some bumps, it’s not like that the Rockets really emphasize team chemistry. As commenter FunctionalAtheist pointed out last week, the addition of Josh Smith with a team led by the divisive duo of Dwight Howard and James Harden “fits into Houston’s all-annoying-team style”.
How has the Smith Experiment been going so far? Well, Smith was a key player in the Rockets’ 117-111 overtime win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, scoring 21 points, eight rebounds and three assists in the contest.
...And then he went 3-for-13 in his next two games, with eight points to go along with eight turnovers. So, it’s still very much in flux in Houston. Luckily, with the way MVP candidate Harden has been scoring, not even this could be enough to sink these Rockets. And worst case scenario, the Rockets will just dispose of him before letting that happen.
We can’t count the San Antonio Spurs in
Some people tell us not to worry about the San Antonio Spurs. They’re probably right. Recent history backs them up. There have been, however, early warning signs that Gregg Popovich’s veteran team can’t take anything for granted this season.
The defending champions have been fighting just to hold on to the seventh seed in the brutal Western Conference. They were stuck in a 1-6 rut, including back-to-back losses in triple overtime, before Sunday’s 110-106 win over the Houston Rockets. Kawhi Leonard, the franchise’s future, is on the sidelines with a hand injury. Cory Joseph has been starting in place of Tony Parker. Patty Mills is still recovering from offseason surgery. The aging duo of Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili have already logged a lot of minutes. (Those triple-overtime games didn’t help.)
The Spurs aren’t dead, but it’s difficult to see them leapfrogging the frightening Golden State Warriors, the surprising Portland Trail Blazers, those pesky Rockets, the lumbering Memphis Grizzlies, the Rondo-infused Dallas Mavericks or the resurgent Los Angeles Clippers unless players like Parker and Leonard are at full-strength. Plus, the Spurs have to fend off the once-left-for-dead Oklahoma City Thunder and the always tenacious Phoenix Suns or risk falling out of the top eight. It’s basically life during wartime.
It’s absurd to think that we’ve hit that season where San Antonio will crumble before our eyes like Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis in Beetlejuice. We can never count the Spurs out, but this time around we also can’t just reflexively count them in either. Not with their competition this relentless.
Other things we’ve learned

• The Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Garnett blows in the ear of the Indiana Pacers’ David West. Perhaps KG and Lance Stephenson were part of a wacky body swap comedy? (Note: Please somebody write this.)
David West’s “how is this acceptable” face says it all.
• The Memphis Grizzlies’ Tony Allen livetweets baby vomit. This image doubles as a birth control device.
    — Tony Allen (@aa000G9) December 28, 2014
    Kodak Moment , Got to Love em, 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/wtuOwdHs8e

• A defense of the Eastern Conference. No seriously. This is very much a “retweets don’t necessarily mean endorsements” thing, but Liam Boylan-Pett’s argument actually makes some sense. The East is no longer just the Miami Heat and a bunch of other teams, there’s actual competition now. So, thank you Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, John Wall of the Washington Wizards and Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls for stepping up while LeBron’s latest team has struggled.
• Sspeaking of Wall: Here’s a 360 layup that you probably missed because they were playing against the Boston Celtics.