You might have forgotten Alan Strickland’s name by now, but Raptors president Masai Ujiri hasn’t. Nor has karma, apparently. Strickland is the would-be opportunist and an Alameda County sheriff’s deputy whose attempted lawsuit against Ujiri following a Game 6 altercation last June never saw the light of day. In the lawsuit, Strickland claimed Ujiri “hit […]
You might have forgotten Alan Strickland’s name by now, but Raptors president Masai Ujiri hasn’t.
Nor has karma, apparently.
Strickland is the would-be opportunist and an Alameda County sheriff’s deputy whose attempted lawsuit against Ujiri following a Game 6 altercation last June never saw the light of day.
In the lawsuit, Strickland claimed Ujiri “hit him in the face and chest with both fists” as he was trying to check Ujiri’s security credentials following Toronto’s 114-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championship.
The lawsuit died when Alameda County District Attorney’s Office declined to press charges.
Now Strickland is back in the news, this time because the County wants the money back they paid him in workers’ compensation as he tried to sell his suit to the public.
The County is seeking the return of $142,000 in compensation Strickland collected following the incident as he remained off work claiming physical, mental, emotional and psychological injury from the incident.
Ujiri had steadfastly denied the allegations that he was in any way the aggressor in this incident.
The NBA set to resume the 2019-2020 NBA season on July 30th after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the season to be postponed back in March. There will be 22 teams who will play in Orlando, Florida who will play to determine playoff seeding then progress with the NBA playoffs to crown the 2020 NBA Champions. […]
The NBA set to resume the 2019-2020 NBA season on July 30th after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the season to be postponed back in March. There will be 22 teams who will play in Orlando, Florida who will play to determine playoff seeding then progress with the NBA playoffs to crown the 2020 NBA Champions.
Among those teams heading to Orlando for the resumed season will be the Indiana Pacers who are currently tied for fifth place in the Eastern Conference with the Philadelphia 76ers holding a 39-26 record. The Pacers will be without All-Star guard Victor Oladipo who announced he will miss the reboot to focus on rehabbing.
Last season, on January 23rd, Victor Oladipo suffered a ruptured quad tendon that forced him to miss the remainder of the 2018-2019 season and the first 47 games (52 games overall) of the 2019-2020 season. In the 13 games he played after returning from injury, he averaged 13.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists.
Jeremy Lamb, who filled in for Victor Oladipo while he was out recovering from his quad injury, will also miss the season restart after tearing his ACL in February.
Victor Oladipo is one of many players that have announced that they will be missing the season’s restart later this month. These players include: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, DeAndre Jordan, Trevor Ariza, John Wall, Avery Bradley, Willie Cauley-Stein and Davis Bertans.
Indiana’s Victor Oladipo has decided to sit out the NBA restart.
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers have all but guaranteed themselves the top two playoff seeds and face a balancing act when the NBA returns to action. While other teams will be fighting for a postseason berth or playoff seedings when they play the final eight regular-season games in Florida, the Lakers […]
by Dustin Brewer The issues continue to mount for the NBA as they fight to get to their scheduled July 30th restart of the season in Orlando at Disney World. Here is a list of all the teams attending and the players that will not be attending.
Ja Morant has taken advantage of the NBA’s hiatus, adding 12 pounds of muscle to help absorb contact when the NBA’s likely rookie of the year fearlessly attacks the basketball. And the Memphis Grizzlies point guard knows exactly what he wants when he leads his team to Orlando. “Going out there to win, prove people […]
For just about four months, Anthony Davis lived with the pain. After an injury during the opening slate of games last fall when he jammed his right shoulder, it was common, even for months afterward, to see the 6-foot-10 forward rolling the joint while wincing in pain. Davis gets these nagging injuries that are difficult…
The rookie season Terence Davis has been working through had already reached unbelievable status well before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
An undrafted first-year playing substantial minutes on the roster of the defending NBA champions — even getting the odd start — certainly qualifies for the unbelievable category.
But then to have your first go-around at professional basketball stopped in its tracks and put on hold by the pandemic for almost four months is definitely out of the norm.
The stoppage was problematic for a 14-year vet like Kyle Lowry, let alone a first-year player still trying to navigate the trials and tribulations of an entirely new experience.
Davis though returned to supervised individual workouts last week in Naples, Fla. as the team prepares to enter the NBA bubble in at Disney World in Orlando next week, anxious to get going, again looking to continue what he started.
“I do come into this season, as you say, the second season, I would come into this more mature, being that I went through three-fourths of a season,” Davis said. “Just growing up, man, maturing, taking the steps in the right direction. These guys, Fred (VanVleet), Kyle (Lowry), Marc (Gasol), Norm (Powell), all these guys man, they make sure the young guys are where they need to be, because to them, it’s everything. These guys are defending their title. You wanna be a part of that, so definitely.”
And while he may still feel like this is his rookie year those veteran teammates he looks to for guidance and advice no longer view him that way, at least not from what Davis can see.
“I definitely don’t think so, man,” he said. “These guys, if I make a mistake, I’m not a rookie anymore. I think I heard someone say that. So definitely, man. These guys are in tune. I think (Gasol) is already in playoff mode right now. That right there’s your anchor, you get everyone in playoff mode. We’re locked in over here, man, for sure.”
Davis wound up playing in all 64 games the Raptors played, the only Raptor who can make that claim. He started two games and over the year averaged 17 minutes. Not bad for a guy who was passed over by every team in the league on draft day.
But Davis doesn’t measure himself that way. His entire approach is to earn and keep the trust of his coaching staff and his teammates so that there is no hesitation to put him in any situation that arises.
Raptors’ assistant coach Adrian Griffin says there’s no doubt in his mind, or any of the other coaches that Davis accomplished that goal.
“If you went back and watched some of our games, Coach Nurse has unbelievable trust in him and so does the entire coaching staff,” Griffin said. “ As I mentioned before, he started in a couple games, he started in the Charlotte game and had one of his career-highs, he had an excellent game at home where he shot the ball very well. He’s just a complete, all-around player and he’s still improving. And I think that’s the scary part about it, I think he’s already positioning himself as one of the elite scorers and shooters in this league as a 2-guard and he has a phenomenal attitude. He’s fun to work with, has a great work ethic with all our coaching staff.”
So yes, he has that trust now but he says he continues to work every day to expand on it and become a guy no one else on the team even thinks of as a rookie.
“I had to gain these guys’ trust and I would say it means a lot,” he said. “I wouldn’t say this is something that’s normal, but for me being an undrafted guy playing with the defending champions it’s just unbelievable. So I honestly don’t know what to say, it’s just like you can’t make it up. That’s something that you want as a young guy. You want these guys to be able to trust you and that’s something that I’m working towards every day. So I’m excited about the process, going to Orlando and really finishing out the season because we really have a chance to do it again, for sure.”
The one area Davis has yet to perform is in the playoffs. He’s very much looking forward to that chance once the Raptors get to Orlando.
GASOL LEANER, STRONGER
If there is one guy getting plenty of attention and second looks in the Raptors’ temporary home in Florida, it is big man Marc Gasol.
Or maybe we should say not-so-big Marc Gasol.
Yes, he’s still 6-foot-11 but Gasol has returned from Spain a leaner, stronger player than he was when he left.
Raptors assistant coach Adrian Griffin wasn’t even sure he was looking at the same player when he first came across him in Florida last week.
“I had to do a double take. I won’t lie,” Griffin said. “I was so impressed about the way he looks. He just looks phenomenal. I know that it’s not easy. As someone, myself, who as a player always struggled to maintain a certain weight, it’s not easy. It really isn’t. He could have been doing anything during the quarantine, during the pandemic. That shows you what kind of person he is, a high-character guy, that he took it upon himself to get in the best shape possible.”
And Griffin said that transformation could be the difference for the Raptors once they get to Orlando and start taking on the rest of the NBA.
“Truth be told, I think the team that wins this championship is going to be the team that’s in the best physical shape,” Griffin said. “You’re not going to have those months, ideally during an NBA season, where you can work yourself into shape. The team that comes in the best conditioning is going to give themselves a competitive advantage. My hat goes off to Marc. I kind of miss the big fella, though. He was just so likeable, but I’m getting used to the new Marc.” — Mike Ganter
The 22 NBA teams set to participate in the resumed regular season will relocate to Disney World in Orlando next week to enter the NBA’s bubble and begin training camp – and players will begin training camp on July 9th playing on the same surfaces they used back home.
According to ESPN‘s Rachel Nichols, the NBA had teams ship their own courts to Orlando, where they are being installed. The teams will also be in relatively close proximity – a photo of a gigantic open ballroom shows the Indiana Pacers’ court is adjacent to the Miami Heat’s court, and there’s still room for a couple more in the building.
When the Philadelphia 76ers take the court on Aug. 1 against the Indiana Pacers in Disney World, they will have their All-star point guard back in the starting lineup.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sixers head coach Brett Brown told reporters that Ben Simmons is fully recovered from his back injury, which he suffered on Feb. 22 against the Bucks.
“He’s good to go. He’s put in a tremendous amount of work for me to be able to confidently say that,” he said on a conference call (h/t Tim Bontemps of ESPN).
“As you search for silver linings with this pandemic and the way things have shaped up, it would be hard-pressed for me to find something more obvious than this: It’s enabled Ben to reclaim his health. He’s good to go, and we look forward to watching him with what I’m told is effectively 100 percent health.”
Back in April, ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan reported that the former first-round pick would be ready to go if the 2019/20 season resumed.
Additionally, MacMullan also mentioned that the Sixers plan was to bring back Simmons towards the end of the regular season, to get prepared for the NBA playoffs.
However, as we all know, the NBA had their season suspended on Mar. 11, which allowed Simmons and other players to recover from their respective injuries.
With Simmons back in the fold, the Sixers should be in good shape heading down to the bubble in Orlando, Florida, barring any other foreseen circumstances.
When healthy, Simmons is one of the best two-way players in the league and adds another dimension to the Sixers’ offense. This season, the former LSU standout is averaging 16.7 points, 8.2 assists, and 7.8 rebounds per game.
[ad_1] The Denver Nuggets expect to have All-Star center Nikola Jokic at their disposal for the NBA’s restart, head coach Michael Malone said. Jokic remains in his native Serbia having reportedly tested positive for coronavirus as the NBA plans to resume after the 2019-20 season was suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The […]
The Denver Nuggets expect to have All-Star center Nikola Jokic at their disposal for the NBA’s restart, head coach Michael Malone said.
Jokic remains in his native Serbia having reportedly tested positive for coronavirus as the NBA plans to resume after the 2019-20 season was suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The league is set to return via a 22-team format at the Disney World complex in Orlando, Fla., on July 30, with the New Orleans Pelicans, Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers in action on the first day back.
Denver is scheduled to resume its campaign against the Miami Heat in the Orlando bubble on August 1, and the Nuggets expect Jokic to return to the United States in time.
“Nikola feels great,” Malone told reporters via a Zoom call on Wednesday. “We are working on getting him back here.
“Next Tuesday we depart for Orlando; the hope and expectation is that Nikola Jokic will be with us on that plane.
“From everything that I have heard and talked to him, he feels great, he feels fine and is excited to get back.”
Prior to the coronavirus crisis, Jokic was averaging 20.2 points, 10.2 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game for the Nuggets.
The Nuggets were third in the Western Conference with a 43-22 record, behind leaders the Lakers (49-14) and the Clippers (44-20).
Denver, meanwhile, opted to close down their practice facility following COVID-19 cases.
“We have closed down the facility,” Malone confirmed. “We felt it was the right thing to do. Today was supposed to be the first day of Phase 3 where all our players were required to be back in the gym and we are allowed to work with them albeit just 1-on-0.
“We have put the safety of our team ahead of this Phase 3. There is a chance we can open the gym up before we leave, depending upon results in the coming days. I am not going to get into who tested but we have had multiple people in our travel party test positive.”
Amid the unprecedented situation, Malone feels this season’s NBA championship will be the toughest ever contested.
“There has been this ongoing dialogue and conversation that whoever wins it this year, there will be an asterisk by their name and I don’t buy that at all,” Malone later added.
“If you are able to go into a bubble and be isolated from your friends and family, to have no home-court advantage, to have a league interruption of four months and you are able to spend 90 days and come out of there a champion, I think this will be the toughest championship ever won. There is no asterisk.”
[ad_1] Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo believes the 2020 NBA title will be the “toughest championship you could ever win” due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2019-20 NBA season is set to return via a 22-team format at the Disney World complex in Orlando, Fla., on July 30 after the campaign was halted due to […]
The view from left field 