Richard Jefferson tried to illustrate the correlation between his not getting the ball and the T-Wolves running riot over the Nets last Wednesday night. Lawrence Frank didn’t take kindly to the assertion, and the Newark Star-Ledger’s Dave D’Allesandro observed a tense situation being diffused.
RJ pitched a bitch about the offense in the second quarter at Target, implying that he didn™t get enough touches after his 5-for-5 first quarter, and it was hard to misinterpret what he meant: œWe didn™t (go) through the people we should have, he said. œYou have to look at what . . .was successful, who was successful in that first quarter, and were we doing the same in the second quarter? We didn™t do that.
They weren™t defending either, but don™t change the subject.
Anyway, Frank asked him where it was all coming from, and RJ told him what he told us today:
œI wasn™t mad about shot attempts in that game, I was more mad about the flow we had in the game, he said. œWe had just lost three games in a row, we had another bad second quarter which was putting us down the last three games.
œHe just wanted to make sure we™re on the same page. I told him it wasn™t really the way it was put down, it wasn™t the way I meant. It was more the frustration of the last few games. And he was like, ˜Richard, I understand that.™ It was really no big deal.
The conversation took two minutes, he said, though it™s hard to imagine any conversation between these two lasting less than two hours.
Jefferson’s eloquence works against him in that way: Even when he™s being discreet, you tend to think he™s leaving something out “ in this case, a more pervasive dissatisfaction with his role.
He swears that isn™t true and dusted off Lecture 6-B yesterday, the one in which he is in a far better place than some All-Star stuck on a bad team, and how the Shareefs of this world would trade their careers for his in a heartbeat. And he concluded, fervently, with œI™m happy, I™m happy where I am.
Nice to have everybody happy.
Jefferson scored 30 points in the Nets’ 105-100 overtime win over Toronto this afternoon. Vince Carter added 31, and Jason Kidd had his third triple double of the season — the 72nd of his career, with 14 points, 13 rebounds and 15 assists. Though I didn’t think much for the Raptors’ lack of poise in the 4th quarter, I’m gonna think twice before sneering again at Toronto, who certainly have a brighter future than the Knicks (the same could be said of Peter Falk, however). If the Raptors manage to hang on to Chris Bosh and Mike James —- and the much maligned Charlie Villenueva continues to emerge , if nothing else Rob Babcock’s resume will look a little better.
The raptors have been playing 500 ball for a few months now. The Arjaulo drafting aside, Babcock did a nice job rebuilding the team. He doesn’t deserve most of the shit he got. I’d rather have Toronto’s team and future then 2/3rds of the NBA who have similar records but no young players or cap space.
James and Peterson are pretty good role players and Bosh, CV, Calderon and Graham all are young kids with talent. I think they could be the Clippers of 06-07.
I’ve gotta eat crow where the Raptors are concerned. Villenueva is much better than I’d figured he’d be. I’m just wondering if Bosh will stick around, or James for that matter.
Toronto might be another example of how rebuilding need not be a 5+ year process if you draft well and are patient enough to suck like crazy for a couple of seasons. Too often, teams get one or both of those parts of the equation wrong. Stockpiling lottery picks is all well and good…until you select Yinka Dare.
The Clippers’ turnaround has so much to do with a break from longstanding Donald Sterling tradition of letting their emerging talent walk after a couple of years. Though in the case of Michael Olowokandi, perhaps that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Think it might be a touch early to expect the Raptors to even be a playoff team next year, never mind the Clips, but yeah, definitely heading in the right direction.
You weren’t alone re:Villenueva. EVERYONE thought he’d be a blown choice, and his time at UConn didn’t provide much evidence to suggest that he’d ever be anything other than a frustrating tease who played hard 10% of the time.
The biggest problem Toronto will always have, IMO, is that players will never love the idea of the tax rate they pay while playing there. Yes, drafting well makes a huge difference, but you always need to be a viable player in free agency to really make a jump. Or, at the very least, not be such an undesireable locale as to screw with trades, etc. They seem to have struck gold with Bosh, but I guess I’ll believe he’s committed to the long haul there when he signs a long term renewal. James is great…maybe Chauncey Billups-Lite. Just needed someone to let him play big minutes. I thought he was fantastic as a reserve for the Pistons two years ago, and he’s gotten better with more PT.