Our last three home games have all gone into overtime!   After our overtime win on Sunday, Coach Casey came into the locker room and said something like, "OK guys we're going to practice tommorrow."  The locker room went silent....most of the guys were hoping for a day off given how well we've been playing as well as how busy our schedule has been.  Then he smiled and said "Just kidding....take tommorrow off and stay away from each other!"  He was joking but made a good point because we've been together so much as a team lately I think he wanted all of us to rejuvenate a little bit and come back on Tuesday mentally refreshed. 

Lately, our team has been playing very well.  Mark Blount is having an all-star like season this year and has been shooting incredible percentages from the field.  Now our opposing teams have to decide how to cope with our frontcourt of KG and Mark Blount along with trying to slow down our perimeter players who are also playing great.

After the Houston game I saw Charlie Ward in the "family and friends" section of the Target Center.  Charlie Ward is now Coach Charlie Ward as he is one of Jeff Van Gundy's top assistant coaches for the Houston Rockets.  I keep telling charlie that he should still be playing in the NBA as good as a player as he was. 

Here's a question I wanted to address from the "comments" section found below.  This question is from Rachel.

Mark,

With the word that just came down from Stern that Melo would be suspended for 15 games, are you surprised? Do you think that the punishment fits the "crime"? Do you think that he (and/or the others) should have gotten harsher suspensions and/or fines? And, lastly, do you think that the Nuggets and the Knicks should also fine their players that were involved?

Thanks and Happy Holidays.

Let me begin by saying that when we first heard about the brawl, we were at the Milwaukee Bucks game in Wisconsin.  We weren't able to see it because there was no TV in the Buck's visitor's locker room, so when we got to our charter that night we tried to download it using a Verizon Wireless internet card.  We only got bits and pieces but the entire team was huddled around KG's plane seat trying to see a little bit of what happened.  I think universally, all of us felt bad about the incident and the players, fans and coaches that were involved.

What happened out there was wrong and I think that every player involved would tell you that.  Carmello got the most of the punishment.   Carmello also came out immediately and issued a public apology.  (see below).

I think the NBA is basically saying, hey, if you are going to throw a punch, there is going to be a big consequence.  After the Detroit incident, there was talk of doing away with courtside seating.  Personally, I think that the courtside seating is one of the biggest differentiators between NBA games and most other major sports leagues. 

As far as each team fining their own players, that could get awkward for a few reasons.  First the player is already getting fined a huge sum because they go on "unpaid" leave from all games.  Secondly, their punishment in the media is incalculable.  It would be tough for a GM to come into the locker room and give the player a third tier of punishment.  That's just my opinion though.


Here is Carmello's public apology:

"Last night's altercation with the Knicks escalated further than it should have.  I take full responsibility for my actions in the matter.  In the heat of the moment I let my emotions get the best of me. I apologize to the fans, the Denver Nuggets, the NBA, my mother, and my family for the embarrassment I have caused them. I ask you all for your forgiveness.

I also want to make a personal apology to Mardy Collins and his family.  My actions were inexcusable, and I am sorry for making this an even more embarrassing situation.

What makes this all the more painful is that this was one of the most important weeks of my life.  I just realized one of my biggest dreams when we opened the Youth Center in Baltimore that bares (sic) my name.  To see the community excited and hundreds of kids smiling was an incredible feeling. Now the thought of thousands of kids seeing this incident on TV pains me. This is not the example I want to set.

It's my hope that we work to move forward from this event, and never let something like this happen again."

I wanted to thank Adam for his comment (see below).  His input poses a great question about our locker room dynamics.

Is anyone in the lockeroom hurt from ticket's [Kevin Garnett's] excitement over the chance to bring in [Allen iverson]?   

10:16:01 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I got the phone call I have been waiting for all season long this morning!!  Michael Curry of the N.B.A. administrative offices called me on my way to practice and told me that the old leather ball is coming back.....THIS SEASON!!   He asked me to go into the locker room and find out how long it would take the guys to adjust back to the leather ball.  Troy Hudson said it would take him "one practice" to re-adjust to the leather ball.  Kevin Garnett said, "Let me practice with it (The old leather) three or four days and I'll be ready to go again."   I can't tell you how happy the guys on the team were!  It was a great day.  

The additional good news is that the NBA is going to form a committee including a wide range of NBA players getting a cross-section of superstars and role players to be part of any ball decisions in the future.  I think what the league is saying is that if we do away with the leather ball down the road, let's work together to find a solution that works for everyone.  Michael asked me to approach Kevin Garnett to see if he would like to play a major role on the committee.  When I told KG about it, he was excited and regardless of whether or not he is able to make every meeting, I think he is going to be giving a lot of input on the ball situation in the future whether he chooses to do it formally or informally. 

Lastly, I'm waiting for the A.I. situation to be resolved.  This morning in our locker room, we were all kind of aware that if the longshot odds come true and A.I. comes to Minnesota then some of us might be packing our bags.

Allen Iverson Trade Rumors

As a player in the NBA, we live our lives knowing that we can be traded at any time.  Right now is a time when all of us are probably watching the media pretty closely to see if anything will come of the Allen Iverson trade rumors.  My rookie year, we played against Philly in the NBA finals.  That year, we had not lost a single NBA playoff game until Allen came in and stunned us in the Staples Center at Game 1 of the NBA finals.  Ultimately, Shaq proved to be too much for anyone on the Philly team to handle, but clearly Allen Iverson is on the most unique talents to come to the NBA in decades. 

If I could have my way, I wouldn't want to be included in any trade nor would I want to lose any of my teammates, but we know it's a business and that management and ownership has to address things from the business/trade side of things.  That being said, I'm excited to watch the A.I. trade sweepstakes on SportsCenter and Google News. 

The New NBA Ball Update:

Today is honestly one of the happiest days of this NBA season for me.  As I was sitting here at my house, not able to sleep because I'm on the late night NBA shedule, (we fly in places in the AM and our games go late into the evening and after getting so wound up for games it's tough to sleep) I typed in "Billy Hunter" into the Google search engine.  It was a few days ago that our Union leader Billy filed a legal action with the NBA over the new nba ball and i wanted to see if there was any update.  Billy has done an excellent job of getting the feedback from pretty much every single NBA player in the NBA about this issue, so it's safe to say that this legal action was almost unanimous.

Well, Google spit out an article from the New York Times where David Stern was quoted as saying: “I won’t make a spirited defense with respect to the ball,” Stern said. “In hindsight, we could have done a better job. I take responsibility for that.”  He also added that everything was "under review" and that he was really listening to what the players had to say. 

A lot of people might look at the NBA Players Union and say "Why are they complaining so much about a ball?" and "Why did they file a grievance in a court of law over a ball?"   The reason is simple.  This is not only a game that we love to play but it is our employment.   When I compare the old ball to the new ball, it is like comparing Windows XP to the software used on a Commodore 64 over eighteen years ago.   If an accountant at Deloitte was given software that did not perform well or was archaic, that accountant would be stupid not to bring it to the attention of the IT department.  In essence, that is what we are doing as a union. 

I knew all along that David Stern would listen carefully to the feedback of the players.  I've said it here on this blog before and I'll say it again:  When I first joined the NBA, David Stern gave out his email address to every Rookie at our initiation training and he invited us to email him at any time.  I've emailed him maybe five times in my career about various things and he has responded every time. 

I think what happened was this:  Spalding came out w/ a new technology for a synthetic ball.  I truly believe that in the Laboratory the synthetic ball tests came back very positive because the NBA would have never switched balls unless there was some sort of empirical data.  The problem is that the laboratory cannot produce game like conditions of sweaty palms, etc.  A lot of guys have been complaining lately that the New synthetic NBA ball is cutting up their fingertips. Today Trenton Hassell told me that in our locker room.  I guess last week Steve Nash was wearing bandages on his fingers from cuts caused by the new ball. 

I have huge hands and I can barely palm the new ball when it's been broken in.  When it's wet there is no chance of me being able to palm it well.  The old ball, I could palm with ease and swing it around with one hand.  Most big guys in the NBA say that they can't palm it like the old ball.  Mark Blount and Kevin Garnett have pretty much told me the same thing in that it's just much harder to control with one hand.  Even though we don't dribble the ball as much as guards, we have to go up more inside with one hand and need the control of the leather ball.

Most guards say that the ball doesn't bounce right or doesn't go off the backboard right.  Dwayne Wade went as far as speaking out in the Miami Sun-Sentinel:

"My bank shot is no longer existent," said Wade, who feels the ball sticks against the backboard. "My game-winning shots, I'm telling you, it's past. But it's an adjustment we've got to keep trying to make."

Some of the conversations on the team bus are pretty interesting.  On our recent trip to Dallas, while we pulled into the American Airlines arena, I was pretty interested by the topics.  The first topic was the former Russian spy who died from plutonium 200 poisoning in London.  The next topic was a bit more out of People magazine. 

You see, when you get 15 athletes on the road physically exerting ourselves at away games and away practices we get really tired.  So when we get to the hotel we flop down on the bed and watch a little TV to unwind.  So we all become current event junkies.  

So after the Russian spy situation was analyzed, the conversation turned to a recent interview by Donald Trump.  I must say that I have come to LOVE the interviews that Donald Trump gives.  In the last two years, I've seen two different interviews with Trump on Larry King live--Trump is a great personality and a brilliant business person.  Forget the Real Estate business Donald, you should be an entertainer!  I used to be totally indifferent to Donald Trump but now I love listening to him because everything he says is so full of conviction and so opinionated.

So going over on the bus to the Dallas game, it was KG, Ricky Davis, Trenton, Troy Hudson and me in the back.  The guys were re-hashing the Trump interview.  Here's what they were saying on the bus.  Apparently Trump said a few things of interest including the following:

1) Mark Cuban (Dallas mavericks owner and founder of many companies) is not a "real billionaire."  But somehow I guess Trump later recanted this statement or said he was mis-quoted.  [After all, it is tough to argue with Forbes magazine]

2) His daughter Ivanka (Currently single) who is a model turned Wharton School of Finance graduate (top MBA school in the world) "should date a winner"  according to her father.  Maybe someone who is a professional athlete like Tom Brady. (New England Patriots quarterback).   [I have to admit, I feel like I know the entire Trump family from the various interviews that I've seen on late night TV over the years!]

It's cool to sit there are hear KG talking about what Donald Trump said on TV or what Trenton has learned about the British-Soviet connection in the Spy's death.  Of course within the world of the NBA when someone from the outside world goes at one of our own,  (We consider Mark Cuban one of our own), we always stick with our guy and even though I love Donald Trump, Mark Cuban is well-loved in the NBA fraternity and he's our guy.  Once Trump buys the New York Knicks he'll be on par with Cuban within the circles of NBA players. 

We almost won the Dallas game that night.  Once again, we saw Randy Foye come inches away from leading us to the promised land in the 4th quarter.  After the we lost the game by a few points and we were crossing the court to go to the tunnel Mark Cuban came up to me and said "Hey, come to my blog anytime and post another comment!"  www.blogmaverick.com

I had posted a comment on one of his posts about the new NBA ball a few weeks ago. 

In warmups before the game Sammy told me I needed a haircut.  I told him I would get him a bottle of Rogaine for his bald head.  We both had a good laugh out of it.   Sam Cassell is one of my all-time favorite teammates.  At halftime of tonight's game against the Clippers, he walked by Trenton Hassell and I, grinned and said, "I'm hot fellas."  As if his 20 first half points wasn't evidence enough.  Sam Cassell almost put the Clippers on his back and beat us at the Target Center last night.  Luckily for us, Randy Foye rose to the ocasion and saved us in the fourth quarter.

I wanted to talk about Sam for a second though because not only is he one of the best players this game has ever seen, but he rubs off on his teammates.  From a basketball standpoint, Sam has the ability to raise his teammates' scoring averages by big jumps. He just makes everyone around him better.   When Sam was here in Minnesota, Fred Hoiberg had a great year, Sprewell was at the top of his game and Kevin Garnett was the MVP of the entire NBA.  It was almost like our entire team all had career years.  Now he is doing the same thing with the Clippers.  Sam has such a huge personality, I think the fans loved watching Sam interact with the refs almost as much as watching the game.  When we lost Sam we lost not only a great floor leader but we lost a good friend. 

I was sad to see him go.  I'm not sure Sam could have done anything more to help the Clippers win tonight.  But despite his 31 point night, we got a huge lift from an up and coming future star in Randy Foye. 

Randy has been patiently awaiting his opportunity to perform in the clutch.  Tonight we caught a glimpse of a player who can shoulder some of the load that Kevin Garnett takes on a nightly basis.  Randy is built like a tank and his much stronger than most guards in the NBA but is still quicker than most guards too.  Randy reminds me of a lot of what I see in Chauncy Billups and Dwayne Wade.  Tonight Randy stepped out and hit threes, finished shots around the basket and he came up with some huge rebounds.  Randy scored 15 points in the fourth quarter alone!!!  The thing that makes Randy the most unusual for a rookie though is his calmness and his level of poise in a big game like tonight's.  Composure is one thing that coaches can't teach and Randy Foye has it in spades.