I’m going away from the beat writers and leading off today’s roundup with a couple of great pieces by Kevin Pelton and David Locke.
At Supersonics.com Pelton delivers a great assortment of post game quotes from players and coaches of both Cleveland and Seattle. I’m going to assume that this will be a regular feature and say that it’s just a hell of a lot of content in a quick read. Reading the official website it’s hard to get a lot of editorial or comments but for sheer hard quotes and data there really is no better place.
Speaking of data you can hardly utter the term without thinking about KJR 950’s David Locke. Locke is continuing to develop his blog into a really nice game day resource with live game blogs, breakdowns of all the nights games in the NBA, and yesterday a really nice article about the negative affect Flip Murray is having on the lineup.
This is simply a great piece that is almost incontrovertible. I’ve been a big fan of Flip and come away shaking my head and thinking the Sonics were crazy to rely on him. This is a must read.
Back to the beat guys:
The stories this morning focused primarily on the injury to Rashard Lewis, and previews for tonight’s game against Washington. For such an early season game tonight’s match up is becoming extremely important. Just imagine if we face another 30 point blowout.
John McGrath in the News Tribune has an entertaining little editorial piece about Vladimir Radmanovic. Not a lot of new information but still an interesting spin.
Frank Hughes has a piece about the injury to Rashard Lewis and the potential that he can play tonight. There are several really key points to this article. First it sounds like he will play and that is good news. Second Vladimir Radmanovic will start if Lewis can’t go and that should alleviate some of his complaining. Third and in my mind most interesting this is the first article where I have heard Rashard Lewis directly mention the possibility of season ending shoulder surgery. The fact that he’s acknowledging the possibility may indicate that there have been other problems we do not know about. This may in fact be good news for Sonics fans long term because Lewis’ refusal to have surgery has always left a concern about his left shoulder. If we want him to carry our franchise for the next 8-10 years it may be best to fix this problem once and for all.
The Seattle PI’s Gary Washburn covers most of the same ground with Lewis but then has a nice little section about Vladi Radmanovic in which Vladi’s agent describes the situation as “turning the cornerâ€. It does seem as if the problem with Vladi is settling down and I’m starting to be hopeful that the coach and franchise has weathered the current storm. The next step is for the coach to commit to a regular rotation and put this confusion behind him.
Finally Percy Allen of the Seattle Times highlights the struggles of PG Luke Ridnour. I went over this in yesterday’s column and feel that Ridnour is a really major part of our problem right now. I did really enjoy this quote from Ray Allen:
“I remember the point when they figured me out. My shots became tougher," Allen said. "Everybody knows that this is his move and this is what he does. That's all it is. They are going through a period where they are starting to figure him out and now he has to adjust and figure them out."