I hate it when I roll into the office on Monday morning and I'm already up to my armpits in stuff to do.
'Nuff said.
In league news, Eric Musselman pulls a Jim Bakker.
I'm gonna catch up on some stuff from this weekend.
Percy warns about shoddy defense ... the D was pretty bad at the Portland game on Friday night, but it's only mitigated by the fact that the rotation Hill played isn't going to be the one he'll use in the regular season. I'm going to lean on Jack Sikma a little bit here ... if you're going to be working with the big men even I, Joe Dumb Fan, can tell you that the guys need to have their arms raised at ALL times when defending the paint. Not at their sides. I'm not seeing the defensive effort I should be seeing out of the PFs and Cs including Nick.
Defending the painted area, squeezing points out of low post and limiting turnovers continue to be problems. The centers have failed to make noticeable gains and Chris Wilcox, the $24 million free-agent signee, has yet to find a consistent rhythm along with every other role player.
I'm going to make one excuse for CW -- he didn't fit well in the starting unit Friday night ... They paid the guy $24 million and then expect him to fill Reggie Evans role -- he's the 4th or 5th option on the floor and as he's not a natural post up player they have to find other ways to get him going offensively. When CW's got it working the Sonics are a tough team to stop.
David Locke is impressed with Robert Swift:
“We were late coming out of the half because it took me 10 minutes to get my foot out of Robert’s butt.†- Bob Hill
The good news is he responded. Robert Swift was great to open the third quarter. For the first five minutes of the quarter he was a force. He had 6 points and 2 blocked shots. The Sonics went to Swift on four straight possessions and he won the battle each possession.
Some great audio on that page with Nick about playing center. Check it out.
Let’s finish back on Swift. What happened tonight is the reality of a 20-year-old player. He wasn’t as focused as he needed to be due to the travel, etc. When he got prodded he showed all the skills that make everyone get excited about his talent and game. When he mentally reaches the point where he can maintain the focus, his game will come along. My guess is that when this happens has more to do with his off-the-court development than his on-the-court development.
Hill spotlights defense in the P-I. Says here they had a better defensive game in LA than they did vs. Portland, which isn't saying much ... but I guess that's encouraging. Hopefully it translates once the games start counting.
"I left the game feeling really good about our team," Hill said. "And watching tape (Sunday) morning, defensively we did a lot of good things. We just couldn't get the ball in the basket."
Frank Hughes overrates Brandon Roy, then does a Weezy profile, then tries to start some hay about a Bob Hill contract extension. Doesn't look like Bob took the bait, Frank.
Friendly Daily Roundup reminder: If you haven't got your Halloween costume by now, better hurry up because the costume stores are going to be buck wild crazy busy this week. Quit procrastinating and figure out what you're going to be already!
So let me get this straight. The same morons who want to spend at least $100 million in tax money for "tourism development" if/when the team leaves town spent $200,000 to come up with this half-assed "Metronatural" slogan? That's f'd up. These are the people you want spending $130 million of your money? I know a great way to promote tourism development and bring people here ... how about a basketball team?