Your Main Boy C-Ro

Check out my Chris Rodgers story and my interview with Oleksiy Pecherov, as well as a Long Beach Summer League recap

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2006/07/19/Sports/Rodgers.Far.From.Dream-2132809.shtml?norewrite200607200446&sourcedomain=wildcat.arizona.edu

http://www.nbadraft.net/veytsman001.asp

Quick summer league thought:
Watch out for Washington Wizards forward Andre Blatche. He may still be a year away and the summer league is of course just the summer league with inferior talent, but Blatche possesses a nice set of skills. He can shoot the perimeter shot with range and at 6'11 with long arms he can get his shot off against anyone. He can put the ball on the floor, playing a little bit of point guard even, and finishes strong inside. No one has dominated that summer league since Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels two years ago. And if you check their bank accounts, recently, they're not doing so bad.

ESPY's Diary

First of all check out my NBAdraft.net interview
http://www.nbadraft.net/budingerinterview001.asp

ESPY's Diary
Welcome to the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles with your host Roman Veytsman. Refreshments are out back where I will be selling them for $10.

4:05 I arrive fashionably early only to find that none of the 350 people in black suits have a clue of where anything is. I hope Terrell Owens didn’t have the same problems.
4:25 Jeanette Lee, or someone who resembles her (It’s actually Angela Sun) interviews Mike Metzger and Aaron Rowand, who says you go out there and do all you can, dig deep, insert 8 more clichés here. Lee has no clue who either of those guys are until someone radios into her. Then she asks Rowand how he feels about the Phillies struggling. I thought she was gonna pull put the will Charlie Manuel be fired question.
4:30LaLa or LaLa’s look–a-like (I’m not sure it’s her at all actually) interviews Greg Oden and the women’s prep basketball player of the year Tina Charles who looks menacing. She’s about 6’8 and looks to have a physique similar to Oden. She asks Oden what it’s like to be at the ESPY’s for the first time. “It’s my second time, I’m a veteran he counters.” Which college are you going to”? she asks. Are you serious, has this girl been hiding behind a rock. This man (and I do mean man, he looks like he’s 40) is the best high school player since Lebron James and would have easily been the No.1 player picked the in the draft.
4:40 Reggie Bush appears on the red carpet to do an interview with Stuart Scott. First, Scott’s producer brings over Antoine Randle El, to which Scott says “No the other black guy in the white suit.” Meanwhile, Bush is rocking Kobe Bryant gear, a beige sweater vest with a shirt and tie underneath. Who knew Kobe would start the preppy look after all that happened. Can I shake his publicist’s hand?
443: Stuart Scott announces that Tedy Bruschi has won and is not here. Let me remind you this is more than an hour before the ESPY’s. Thanks to the Wildcat for sending me. Next I’ll be going to cover Steve Kerr in Chicago. Oh wait, what, he doesn’t play there anymore. My fault.
4:48 Lala calls Julius Jones… Julius Erving, and then tries to defend herself by saying that she just spoke with Erving. She also asked him what position he played. I think ESPN is trying to beat out Fox for most hot girls with absolutely zero knowledge of sports and zero journalistic skills. My 14 year old sister knows more sports than these girls. What a shame.
4:50 Jones on Terrell Owens: “I don’t think there’s gonna be any problems but there could be. At least he’s being honest.
5:15 I walked down the red carpet, but no interview with Angela Sun. If there was one it would have gone something like this: Angela: Great to see you, Robert. You did a great job in the World Bowl, how do you feel about Terrell Owens joining the Dallas Mavericks, isn’t it great. I like your shirt by the way, I know the designer.
Me: Um…it’s Roman and I’m just walking through, do you know where the press area is?
Angela: Yeah, you were great scoring on the full court press, congratulations on the season…Get the makeup lady in here ASAP.
5:20 Kobe Bryant walks down the red carpet and in a comical scene, Lisa Guerrero begins to shout her name at him. It went something like this: “Kobe, it’s Lisa…Lisa Guerrero, Kobe, it’s LISA GUERRERO.” That’s followed by Kobe doing an interview with the ABC affiliate and turning to Guerrero who’s standing next to ABC, and saying “sorry, it’s almost 6 o’clock, I gotta go.” I’m not making this up.
5:25 Lisa has better luck when Chris Berman comes by and gives her a kiss on the lips. (Insert you’re with me leather joke here). I was itching to yell it out, but thought better of it. For those of you who don’t know, Guerrero is married to former Arizona Wildcat pitcher Scott Erickson.
6:08 Lance makes a joke about his nuts, a tasteful start to the award show. Comment from media member next to me: “this isn’t your father’s Lance Armstrong. Note: after the show, when asked if he was a little bit too edgy, Armstrong said “If they knew me they would know that it was actually a step down.”
6:10 Lance: “Bode Miller is here, and he’s totally sober.” (Best joke of the night, already, this won’t be topped.
6:13 Lance makes a joke about Jake Gyllenhaal sitting toward the front of the theatre instead of the rear. I’m not even sure we’re allowed to print that one. Jimmy Kimmel follows shortly by asking TO if there’s any gay stuff in his book.
6:21 Vince Young wins the first ESPY. He looks as confused as he did when he took the Wonderlic Test but makes a quick recovery with a joke about Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. Those are going to stop real quick when he finds himself on the bench for his first two seasons.
6:37 Vince Young admits he likes TI and gospel music. What a combination.
6:40 Ludacris says he keeps his phone on vibrate and doesn’t have any ring tones. I have to admit I watched Crash last night and have a whole new respect for his talents. But then I think of the song “Move Bitch.”
6:46 Shaun Alexander is asked how he proposed to his wife and before answering he takes a long glance at his ESPY.
7:44 Lance wins best male athlete, this show is rigged. (Lance says “The show isn’t rigged.”) ESPN has more power than you think. As Lance is accepting, Will Ferrell comes out to serenade Lance and brings out a man posing as Neil Armstrong, Lance’s long lost father. Just when Will Ferrell was tiring me out with his stupid antics, he makes a comeback reminiscent of Alonzo Mourning, who was also in attendance.
8:09 Jason McElwain wins best moment. Kobe’s wife Vanessa is visibly upset.
8:13 Elizabeth Banks, from 40 year old Virgin, a gorgeously stunning blonde trips and almost eats it. Mark Wahlberg makes fun of her then proceeds to book her and 10 other celebrities for the next season of Entourage.
8:30 Mariah Carey comes out in a long pink dress that leaves little to the imagination on top
8:40 I’m not going to lie, this is becoming really boring. Cue Lance, let’s end this before we all fall asleep.

Final Note: Lance’s opening monologue is hysterical and a definite must watch. TIVO it, go to You Tube, do whatever you have to do. Ferrell coming on stage with a drink in his hand and singing also must see TV. Aside from those two moments and a few other skits with Lance, Danica Patrick was the only interesting presenter when she shook her ass at Ludacris’ request.

One on One with Mitch Kupchak, Lakers general manager:

Roman: You talked about signing another guard with your veteran’s exception, who are some of the guys you are looking at?
Kupchak: I’m not going to share that right now but we will be signing someone next week. It will be a ball-handling guard.
Roman: Andrew Bynum has been in the gym all summer, how is he progressing?
Kupchak: We’re looking to see what kind of quantitative progress he’s made in this summer league. I remember 30 years ago when I did it, you’re a rookie and everything is new to you, but you go away after your rookie year and you come back that summer and step on the floor, you have a totally different feel. One thing I noticed in the last week or so, he seems to have gained more assurance and confidence. He’s grown an inch in the last year, his body looks more mature. Initially, he took about three weeks off and you see that everyday, and you don’t notice changes. He took three weeks off at the end of the season and he came back in May with a renewed confidence and maturity. That’s great but we want to see progress on the floor.
Roman: How important is to sign guys who fit into the triangle offense?
Kupchak: We take into consideration, the draft included, although you don’t want to get a guy who’s not very talented but can run the offense. Sometimes you just have to take a guy who’s talented because you just have to. In terms of free agency and getting a player who can play right away, that’s a big part of what we do.
Roman: You’ve played in the summer league for 37 years as an organization, do you see yourself staying at the Long Beach summer league or will you reconsider after this season?
Kupchak: I can’t imagine why we’d ever leave, can you? Our guys get to practice within walking distance of the hotel, they can use our locker room, lift in our weight room. We can schedule practices any time.
The support that we get here is off the charts. If we went to Orlando or Las Vegas, there’s about 100 people in the stands. Why would we do that? Our fans are so passionate. Coupled with the other things I talked about, it makes complete sense to play every year in Southern California. If other teams don’t want to do that, that’s their choice. I have no idea why you wanna do that. Our fan base is incredibly spirited and maybe we’ll get some new fans because we’re the only team here.

Press Conference:
Kupchak on Radmanovic: We’re limited as to what we can say about Radmanovic…it’s our intention to sign him as soon as we can which is next Wednesday.
On Farmar: We didn’t draft him because he was in Los Angeles…that was more of a tactic to not draft him than to draft him…he’s a very unique person, he’s very articulate, he has a great feel for the position, he’s a true point guard. He’s a young player, but he has the ability to lead.

Note: Ronny Turiaf is trying out for the French National Team and will not participate in the summer league. Turiaf has made the 15 man cut. There will be another cut down to 12, but he expects to make the team. Sasha Vujacic will also not play in the summer league for unspecified reasons.

One on One with Sean Rooks:
Rooks, who played from 1989-92 at Arizona, was an All-Pacific 10 conference performer and honorable mention All-American in 1992 and is now coaching a free agent team at the Long Beach Summer Pro League. Rooks played 13 seasons in the NBA including stints with the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers. He said he plans to make a trip to Tucson next week after receiving a call from Tucson summer league director and former Wildcat Corey Williams.

Roman Veytsman: Is this a stepping stone for you to become an NBA coach or assistant?
Sean Rooks: Once I get involved it’s more about the kids, and that’s what I wanna do. I feel that every opportunity I get to work with kids and improve my skills in dealing with them. It definitely can help me because (coaching) is what I wanna get into.

RV: Have you received any coaching offers?
Rooks: I talked to a lot of people but it’s a fraternity and people are rotating all the time. There’s a lot of times when you’ll talk to people (about getting a coaching job) and they’ll be like ‘oh, that’s nice.’ It’s like anything else, like your first time playing ball, back to that first time when you were a free agent.
I just have to keep pushing and keep improving myself. If someone does give me an opportunity, instead of me stepping into a lot of things I don’t know, I’ve been working with a lot of people, I have a great understanding and now I look more attractive as far as giving a coach a chance…I think I’ll be good at it and I’m gonna pay my dues.

RV: What about coaching got you interested?
Rooks: I’ve always been the type of dude who understood the guys’ frustrations. I’ve always been a guy who could understand like a point guard. You look at guy’s like Jason Terry, Steve Nash, they all play off of instincts and they already know the game. There’s guys that don’t know the game and there’s guys that do.
I know the game…when you have so many coaches and played on so many different teams, I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge, under coach Olson, that’s the foundation. I give him more credit than anybody, so just coming out of his program, being with all kinds of coaches and having the passion and I just think I have the talent to relate to players.

RV: What is it about Lute Olson that he’s developed so many NBA players?
Rooks: He’s a Hall of Famer, he’s taken his knowledge and his structure that he’s been consistent with. It’s almost like being involved in a camp or being involved in a establishment. Once he has everything implemented, you filter through it differently. My story is different from (incoherent name), different from Sean Elliott’s. I don’t even know if I was Lute’s favorite when I was there because I would always find my way to the bench. I was all Fiesta Bowl every year that I was there and I played but I didn’t start…My experiences with Lute (helped).
When I first came in the league, I had to produce points in a short period of time. I got used to it at Arizona, we had so many good big guys…Brian Williams, Anthony Cook, who a lot of people don’t know about but he was the leading shot blocker in the Pac-10 and he was good, Tom Tolbert. We had so many big guys that played.
RV: Does Lute not get enough recognition for developing big guys?
Rooks: There’s a lack of big guys, period. There’s no big guys out here. Channing was even a different build than me and Tom Tolbert. He’s a new millennium big guy, 7-foot-1 120, (he’s joking here). Me and Tom, we’re like the bug guys who put their bodies on you. What’s good about how Lute does it, he lets us play different positions. For example, Tom could shoot, I could shoot, Tom could pass, I could pass…times are different now, and he’s making the adjustments. He picks up a perimeter big guy (Ivan Radenovic) and turns him into a low post guy.
Also what makes him good is he has good assistants. Lute wasn’t always hands on…what I mean by that is Lute can’t be everywhere, but the program is still the program. If Lute never even showed up, you knew what you had to do, school wise, academically, the way you conducted yourself. If you (messed up) you didn’t wanna go see Lute. We all (got in trouble at some point), and we had to look in the mirror.

Is Big Ben Worth It?
Big Ben Wallace signed a four year deal worth $60 million with the Chicago Bulls and nobody seems to be up in arms over one of the worst signings we have seen in years. That's right, this will rank up there with Brian Cardinal and Adonal Foyle. Forget the ESPN reputation Wallace has built over the years by virtue of playing for a great team with other terrific players like Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton. If things go down like I expect and Tyson Chandler is traded then Ben Wallace replaces an almost mirror image of himself. It's like Fresh Prince of Bel Air switching moms and no one even notices. The Bulls will be the same exact team with a bigger name but the same production. You don't believe me? Let's explore the numbers.
2005-2006 stats
points per 40 minutes
Wallace 8.3
Chandler 7.9
rebounds per 40 minutes
Wallace 12.8
Chandler 13.5
FG %
Wallace 51%
Chandler 56.5%
Blocks per 48 minutes
Wallace 2.21
Chandler 2.36
Not enough for you? According to ESPN's resident statistician John Hollinger, Chandler has been the better rebounder for the last three seasons, topping Wallace in the rebound rate category. Moreover, the best comparison he could come up with for Wallace at the same age in his career is Dale Davis. Would you ever give Dale Davis$15 million a year and make him the highest paid player on your team? If you know anything about basketball, you certainly wouldn't pay a hefty price like that for a role player. That's like paying the Hina in National Treasure $15 million dollars to do the movie. Sure she looks hot and ofcourse she makes the movie slightly better but it's Pg13 so she doesn't take her clothes off and the movie still sucks really badly. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Let's move on.
I'm assuming the Bulls are making a championship run. Their lineup will probably look something like this:
PG Duhon
SG Hinrich
SF Deng
PF Nocioni
C Chandler
Key Bench Players: Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas
A pretty good playoff lineup? yes. A championship lineup? NO. The Bulls are one player away and Ben Wallace is not the answer. A good defensive team just got slightly better but with no Prince defending on the perimeter, things just got a lot tougher on Wallace who is a terrific defender but not a huge upgrade over Chandler. Offensively, the Bulls still struggle down the stretch to put the ball in the hole and they still lack a go to guy in crunch time. No offense to Ben Gordon, but he reminds me of an upper middle class man's Tony Delk.
Alright, it's July 4th, and I think I'm already starting to be hungover. Happy Independence Day. NBA General Managers, stop making dumb moves. Aight, thanks.

NBA Free Agency

Vlad to replace Slava as Phil's whipping boy
The Lakers will reportedly sign Vladimir Radmanovic to a 5 year deal worth about $30 million (Lakers' mid-level exception). Considering that the "allergic to the inside of the 3-point line" Radmanovic is the No.12 ranked free agent on ESPN.com, it's safe to say that this isn't the greatest free agent class we have seen. Can the Lakers sign a better player with that mid-level exception? Probably not. But in 5 years the Lakers will deeply regret signing a guy with attitude issues (remember he was kicked off the Serbia&Montenegro national team at one point), absolutely no ability to play any defense to the extent that his name should be Vlaimir Ramonovic, and guy who has a striking resmebelance to Stanislav Medvedenko, or everyone's main boy Slava, for short.

Slava was not only in Phil's doghouse constantly, he was also in Kobe's doghouse...constantly. I've never seen Kobe yell at anyone more than the clueless Slava, who's only NBA talent was shooting the ball. Do you see what I'm getting at? I've always said that Slava would be successful in the NBA in a system that allowed him to freely use his offensive talent. Radmanovic was given that freedom both in Seattle and with the LA Clippers in high octane offensive systems. Radmanovic may have more range on his shot and may have more brainpower to learn the triangle, which Slava wasn't able to do...ever, but Phil won't allow him to shoot unconsciously as he has become accustomed to doing.

Better yet, the Lakers' problems in the playoffs did not start at the offensive end like most analysts suggested but rather at the defensive end where they gave up over 100 points in every loss to the Suns, but allowed less than 100 in every win. Radmanovic in no way helps them defensively, can't score within the offense, and will become a sworn enemy of Phil and Kobe. It's like adding Ja Rule to 50 Cent's label and saying "Well, he might not be a good fit, but at least Ja makes good love songs with Ashanti."
Fugazi coming to LA
The Clippers will reportedly sign Tim "Fugazi" Thomas. How can anyone in Los Angeles be okay with this? It's like the Yankees or Mets signing John Rocker. Or the Yankees signing Johnny Damon. Oh, wait that last one happened. But regardless, this is a guy who shouldn't be allowed to step off the plane at LAX, much less put on an LA uniform.
Sam Cassel will reportedly re-sign with the Clippers for 2 years at $13 million. If the Lakers didn't pursue a sign and trade for Cassel, then Mitch Kupchak should be fired. Sidenote: What has Kupchak done since taking over the general manager position? Someone please tell me why he isn't on the hot seat. He's no Isaiah Thomas, but name one move he's made that's turned out well.
To Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com, how is Cassel your 15th best free agent, behind guys like Nazr Mohamed, Joel Pryzbilla and Jared Jeffries? I undersand that he's old and doesn't play center, but we're talking about a guy who averaged 17.2 points and 6.3 assists per game while leading a young team to the playoffs for the first time since Michael Jackson broke his own color barrier.
Stop Hating on Farmar
What is the deal with haters of Jordan Farmar? Just because he's a local kid you may have played with, doesn't mean he wasn't the best pick for the Lakers. Obviously there's a lot of jealousy seaping through people's skin, but Farmar can shoot the basketball, has a ton of athleticism (40 inch vert) and is smart enough to play for Phil (1250 Sats). Plus he's a local kid who cheered for the Lakers his entire life and the Laakers were lucky that he slipped to No.26.

Kupchak has said Farmar is a year or two away from contributing. Here's my take on those comments: A) Phil hates to play rookies as we've witnessed often in the past and Farmar won't be an exception especially with Vujacic and Parker (if re-signed) ahead of him on the depth chart and the Lakers probably signing Marcus Banks. B) Kupchak has to downplay Farmar's ability from a public relations standpoint so as to not put too much pressure on a local kid people expect to succeed and secretly hope he fails.
Hot Sauce in New Jersey
Drafted No.54 by the Nets, Hassan Adams joins fellow high fliers Vince Carter and UA alum Richard Jefferson as the newest Arizona addition to the NBA. While Adams is not a sure candidate to make the team, with the Nets drafting to rookies in the first round and Adams' work ethic being questionable, Jefferson likes Adams' chances.
“He’s going to make the team. He’s 100 percent going to make the team," Jefferson said. "To be successful, he has to just work hard and listen." (preview of D Wildcat article).