Category: In the News

Rivers wants to build the Celtics with the Spurs as a template

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

There assuredly are a lot of copycats around the NBA. Gregg Popovich said only minutes after the Spurs were eliminated from the playoffs that he couldn’t wait to pluck a few ideas from those teams still playing.

Former Spurs player and television analyst Doc Rivers, a close friend of Popovich, has seen a few things with his old franchise he’d like to replicate with Boston.

And now armed with an NBA-best $7 million yearly contract, Rivers will be aiming to rebuild the Celtics like he’s seen the Spurs and the Utah Jazz do over recent seasons.   

“I look at the Utah situation and Jerry Sloan,” Rivers said on his weekly radio show on Boston radio station WEEI and . “And I look at the situation in San Antonio (with Popovich). (Boston general manager) Danny (Ainge) and I were talking — those are the two more stable franchises, because they’ve had the same coach and the same GM and the same ownership. They’ve been able to draft well, scout well, pick the right players for the system because they’ve known the system. When we talked about it, that’s what we want to do.”

It says something about the Spurs and their respect around the league when the coach of a franchise that has qualified for the last three NBA Finals would like to build his team after one that hasn’t advanced out of the second round in that same period.

Rivers has seen the Spurs franchise built and maintained from the inside as one of the league’s most successful franchises over the Tim Duncan era.

And now, he’d like to do the same thing with his team.

 

Brown’s second chance likely to come on the NBA’s biggest stage

It’s not a shock that former Cleveland coach and former Spurs assistant Mike Brown is returning to the NBA after a season away.

But it’s a little surprising that he apparently is , according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Lakers are the biggest of the big-boy jobs in the league.

Brown led Cleveland to a league-best 61 victories last season before the Cavaliers were eliminating in the Eastern Conference semifinals by Boston. That collapse led to Brown’s eventual dismissal and LeBron James leaving that franchise for Miami.  

During the season before, Brown earned the NBA’s Coach of the Year honors after leading them to a league-best 66-16 record. He earlier took the Cavaliers to the 2007 Finals where they lost to the Spurs. His .663 career winning percentage ranks sixth in NBA history among coaches with at least 100 career victories.  

But in hiring him, it appears that Lakers management will be go against the wishes of key players like Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, who both endorsed Lakers assistant Brian Shaw. Other finalists included former Houston coach Rick Adelman, Lakers assistant coach Chuck Person and former Lakers coach Mike Dunleavy.

A source close to the Lakers told SI.com’s Sam Amick  that , and that he was not a part of the decision-making process.

The choice of Brown appears to be falling in line with the type of coach that Bryant had described during the team’s exit interviews.

“If you’re building a championship team, your DNA always has to start with the defensive end of the floor,” Bryant said earlier this month. ”Always. I’m a firm believer in that. I don’t believe in building a championship team on offense. It has to be built on defense and rebounding. Period.” 

Brown has been the most successful of Gregg Popovich’s proteges.  And he should bring a defensive bent to a Lakers’ franchise that didn’t play with much fervor during the playoffs.

During his time away from basketball, Brown was an assistant coach on his 13-year-old son’s middle-school football team as he bonded with his family and collected on his settlement with the Cavaliers.

It’s given him perspective as he tackles his new job.

Lakers executive vice president of player personnel Jim Buss likes his defensive-minded style. His hiring would also likely mean that Andrew Bynum, another Buss favorite, likely will remain on the roster.

Hiring Brown would enable the Lakers to pinch a few pennies. Team management wants to bring their coaching costs down after playing Phil Jackson the league’s highest coaching salary last season. Brown would likely command about half of Jackson’s rumored $9 million per year salary.

Will Brown be what the Lakers need to return to the form that enabled them to claim the last two NBA titles and has boosted them to the NBA Finals in each of the last three seasons?

It likely will mean the end of Jackson’s preferred “Triangle” offense for a more defensive bent.

It will be interesting to see.

Nowitzki likes the quiet Cuban

Bombastic Dallas owner Mark Cuban faded into the woodwork during the Mavericks’ playoff sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Mavericks leading scorer Dirk Nowitzki prefers for his owner to continue his silence.

The Express-News’ Mike Monroe earlier this week. And the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Nowitzki was happy that a “silent and backed-off” Cuban  during the recent Lakers’ series.  

“Yeah, it should be about the players and not the owner,” Nowitzki said. “We played a great series. We fought hard and battled. That was fun. I haven’t seen Mark since then, and that’s probably a good thing.”

Cuban became a huge storyline during the Mavericks’ loss in the 2006 NBA Finals, bitterly complaining about officiating after his team squandered an early 2-0 lead by losing the final four games to the Miami Heat.

Since then, Nowitzki said that Cuban hasn’t been nearly as vocal.

“He is still fired up,” Nowitzki said. “He is still such a huge fan. He is still in it with his heart. He is positive. Sometimes he yells. He picks his spots better.

“He is not as hands-on as he once was. He is still hands-on for an owner but not as hands-on as he used to be.”

But what about it Spurs Nation?

Would you prefer for Cuban to be a major part of the playoffs, or merely a quiet afterthought?