Tuesday Bolts – 11.22.16
Russell Westbrook, great person: “There’s a spirit inside the gymnasium at Jesse Owens Park, at the corner of Century and Western in South Los Angeles. It’s not the fanciest building. The floor isn’t shiny. The walls aren’t covered in artwork. But when the people from the neighborhood squeaked their shoes across the court on Monday night, there was something much more irreplaceable in the room – a community.”
What’s going on with Steven Adams?: “The Thunder’s season started and much of the national talk (non-Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant related) was about Steven Adams. His postseason plus a preseason of impressive performances had multiple media outlets ranking him as a Top 50 NBA player. But rankings are subjective. Adams is just 23 and still with room to grow offensively. “For people to say ‘this is the expectation, he’s gonna be a 16 (points) and 10 (rebounds) guy now when that’s not who he’s ever been,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “We need Steven to be who Steven’s always been. When he does that, it really impacts our team.” Through 14 games, he’s shown his acute passing and ability to guard multiple positions. But he’s also had a recurring hand injury, turnovers, and defensive lapses.”
Marc Stein’s Power Rankings: “Three teams could make a convincing argument on this Rankings Monday that they deserve the top spot in ESPN.com’s weekly power poll. As you know, though, your faithful Committee (of One) does not do ties. So we crunched the numbers in the Power Rankings dungeon all weekend, considered a wide range of possibilities … and ultimately decided to leave our top three in the same order we had them a week ago. Golden State certainly continues be impressive offensively, having averaged a gaudy 120.7 points per game during its current seven-game winning streak, but the Cleveland Cavaliers and the LA Clippers convinced us they should stay right where they were with their own strong weeks. The Cavaliers improved to 2-0 this season against their Eastern Conference finals foes from Toronto and thumped Detroit to offset a loss at Indiana in which LeBron James was rested.”
This came out on Friday and I forgot to link it yesterday but it’s so good: “IN A LOW-SLUNG building in Oklahoma City’s Bricktown neighborhood, just a day before the injury-riddled Mavericks began their playoff series against a Thunder team that would dismiss them in five games, a surreal scene unfolded at the Dollhouse Lounge, a burlesque-themed nightclub. (The club’s Facebook page: “Win or lose, we still booze.”) Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was hanging out with a group that included two of his injured players — Chandler Parsons and David Lee — as well as comedian Amy Schumer and her entourage. Schumer had headlined at Chesapeake Energy Arena that night, and knew Lee from his time in New York. She would later share a photo of the Mavs headliners, her friend and opening act Rachel Feinstein and herself, captioning it “Pals” on Instagram.”
