Tag: Luis Scola

Rockets 101, Spurs 87 – final

Veteran T.J. Ford and rookies Cory Joseph and Kawhi Leonard made their Spurs debut. The Spurs opened the preseason with a 101-87 loss to the Rockets on Saturday in Houston.

Ford started and played 25 minutes and finished with eight points and six assists. Leonard played 22 minutes and had two points and five rebounds. Joseph, who practice with the team for the first time earlier in the day, played 19 minutes and had four points and two assists.

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Gary Neal did not play. DeJuan Blair and Manu Ginobili led the Spurs with 16 points each, Tiago Splitter had 13 and Matt Bonner had 12. Luis Scola led the Rockets with 20 points.

The Spurs shot poorly, hitting 29 of 82 from the field (35.4 percent). They actually shot much better the second half at 21 of 42 (50.0 percent).

Fourth quarter: The Rockets lead by seven points with 2:42 left. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich likes those close preseason games to see how the young guys respond in those situations.

Spurs try to make a late run with Cory Joseph, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Steve Novak and DeJuan Blair.

Third quarter – Rockets 71, Spurs 65: T.J. Ford is showing his experience in his first appearance in a Spurs uniform. He has eight points and six assists.

DeJuan Blair is working on a double-double. He has 12 points and six rebounds. The Rockets lead 69-57 with 2:57 left in the third quarter.

Though none of the Spurs are shooting well, Manu Ginobili is’t doing too bad. He is 6 of 14 from the field and has a team-high 16 points.

Halftime – Rockets 51, Spurs 36: The Spurs are shooting like they haven’t played in more than seven months – 8 of 40 from field in half. DeJuan Blair has nine points and five rebounds.

The Spurs missed their first seven shots of the second quarter. With lots of young guys and no Tony and Tim, there are some unusual lineups.

First quarter – Rockets 24, Spurs 20: Matt Bonner has 7 points and 3 rebounds. Spurs rookies Kawhi Leonard and Cory Joseph both see action.

Matt Bonner hits his first shot of the year, or at least the preseason, hitting a 3-pointer. The Rockets’ Luis Scola follows with a basket and he has 10 points.

We’re about to get our first game-action look at Kawhi Leonard as a Spur late in the first quarter.

The Rockets lead the Spurs 18-6 at the first timeout midway through the first quarter. The Spurs missed eight of their first 11 shots.

The Rockets opened the game with an 11-2 run. Houston’s Luis Scola (remember him?) made his first four shots. Richard Jefferson hit a long jumper for the Spurs’ first basket.

Spurs starters: T.J. Ford, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, DeJuan Blair and Tiago Splitter. Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Gary Neal are not playing tonight.

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Saturday notes: Cory Joseph finally is on the job:

Shootaround notes: Joseph finally on the job

HOUSTON — Nobody was happier to be on the  Toyota Center court for this morning’s shootaround than Spurs rookie Cory Joseph.

After missing the first eight days of his first NBA training camp while clearing up immigration issues with his native Canada, the former Texas point guard was finally able to slip on some workout gear for his first practice as a professional.

He might even play tonight, when the Spurs open the preseason against the Rockets.

“You get anxious to get out there on the court and start playing,” said Joseph, the 29th pick in the June draft. “I’m happy it’s over and I’m on the court again.”

Joseph, 20, filed paperwork to receive a work visa as soon as the lockout officially ended Dec. 9. It took a little more than a week for his request to be processed by Canada’s Citizen and Immigration department.

“It was just slow,” Joseph said. “I couldn’t tell you why. I guess it was just taking a little bit longer than we  thought.”

On Thursday, Joseph flew to Toronto to pick up the visa. He met the Spurs in Houston on Friday afternoon, at long last signed his rookie-scale contract, and was on the floor at the Toyota Center this morning.

Joseph is expected to be in uniform for tonight’s game. With Tony Parker not on the trip, the rookie could be in line to see some minutes backing up T.J. Ford at the point.

“I’m excited,” Joseph said. “This is what every kid waits for.”

Some, it seems, just wait longer than others.

Other bullets from this morning’s shoot:

* , Parker and fellow All-Star Tim Duncan are at home in San Antonio and will skip tonight’s game. Between Les Bleus and ASVEL Villeurbanne, Parker has been playing more or less non-stop since late August. Duncan, apparently, is just old.

* Rockets forward Luis Scola and Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, teammates on the Argentine national team, met for dinner in Houston on Friday night. Spurs center Tiago Splitter, Scola’s old Spanish League compadre, joined them. “We broke a rule and invited a Brazilian,” Scola joked.

* Speaking of Splitter, Scola says Spurs fans didn’t get a chance to see every tool in the Brazilian’s arsenal during a forgettable rookie season. “He’s got great post moves,” Scola said. “He’s great around the basket.”

* Rendered jobless by the lockout, Joseph said he split workout time between his old college campus in Austin and Houston, where he worked out with former NBA point guard — and former Spurs coach — John Lucas.

At UT, Joseph’s workout partners included a bevy of former Longhorns such as Kevin Durant, Tristan Thompson and T.J. Ford, who would soon become his teammate with the Spurs. Joseph said he gained the most out of his sessions with Lucas.

“He was a great point guard back in the day,” Joseph said. “He taught me a lot – coming off the screens, decision-making, a whole bunch. Just the pace of the NBA game, as a point guard.”

Buck Harvey: Ex-Spur loses his seat as the GM

Chris Paul lobbing to Blake Griffin will be fun. Knowing the Lakers will be envious in the same city will be, too.

David Stern will receive a few compliments, and the New Orleans franchise will receive a few offers. The Hornets, with both a sensible payroll and a promising future to market, will be easier to sell.

But there’s someone who doesn’t know what his job is after this, or even if he has one. The general manager of the Hornets was off to the side while the NBA ran his team for him, and what happened Wednesday didn’t help him.
Before, Dell Demps’ peers thought he’d gotten a raw deal.

Now, didn’t Stern do a better job than Demps?

Demps knew the NBA ride could be a rough one. He made the Spurs’ roster in 1995 as a free agent; when he took his seat on the team plane for the first road trip that season, he felt a sense of accomplishment.

He felt something give, too. As the plane took off from the San Antonio airport, his seat became untracked along with that of a teammate, Chuck Person.

Both were injured, with Person suffering a herniated disk.

Demps sat back up. He patched together a 10-year playing career that stretched from the Philippines to France and beyond. Later, he took a job in the D-League, then scouted for the Knicks before coming back to the Spurs.

Here, he learned how to run his own operation with the Toros. Those who worked with him in the Spurs’ organization thought this: Demps was competitive and smart, and aggressive in both his thinking and his execution.

Little wonder he teamed with a former Spurs teammate, coach Monty Williams, in New Orleans in the summer of 2010. And from the first day, his challenge was Paul.

Paul was already impatient then, wondering if he should go elsewhere. Demps met with him immediately upon becoming the Hornets’ general manager.

“They made the right choice hiring Dell,” a source close to Paul said then. “We knew the Spurs talked very highly of him, so that’s all we could go off. But (Paul) said it was a great meeting.”

Demps did what every other GM in the league would have tried to do. He massaged his star. He outlined for Paul what was possible, knowing all along that his star might change his mind. Paul did eventually.

But Demps wasn’t any other GM. He didn’t have to answer to one owner, or even a group of owners. He had the league.

Stern should want to get out of this conflict of interest as soon as possible. It looks bad, and it feels worse. Various officials around the league see too many possibilities.

Such as the lottery. It’s always been a moment of game-show paranoia. Now it’s possible an NBA-owned team will have two chances.

This trade was as messy. Stern and Demps tried to frame it Wednesday night in a teleconference as a cooperative effort. When Demps came to the league with the three-way deal that involved the Lakers and Rockets, Stern said they talked in gentle terms.

“OK, let’s see what else we can do?”

In truth, the NBA vetoed Demps’ trade and took over his responsibilities. Demps was crushed.

Many around the league thought a lot of his initial proposal. Demps had gotten three veterans (Lamar Odom, Luis Scola and Kevin Martin) who would have made the Hornets competitive.

Still, it was a middling mix, as well as one whose budget and lack of star power wouldn’t have impressed potential buyers. The NBA accomplished all of that — without Demps’ assistance — when it landed a younger talent in Eric Gordon and the promise of Minnesota’s unprotected lottery pick in a deep draft.

Wednesday night, Demps said he was excited for the Hornets, and maybe he is. But this wasn’t his trade, and he wasn’t running his team. He was untracked again, and likely to be unemployed.

bharvey@express-news.net