Tag: San Antonio Spurs

Mavs assistant Dwane Casey in line for Toronto head job

It’s been a whirlwind the last several days for Dallas Mavericks’ lead assistant Dwane Casey.

Last week, the Mavericks claimed their first title. Casey helped celebrate with all of his team once they got back to Dallas later in the week.

And Casey also had what appears to be a successful job interview with Toronto general manager Bryan Colangelo.

Enough that the Dallas Morning News is reporting that Casey  perhaps as soon as later this afternoon.

Casey interviewed with the Raptors twice over the last several days. He apparently has beaten out Boston lead assistant and former New Jersey head coach Lawrence Frank.  

Casey, a former Kentucky standout in college, has most recently served as the top assistant coach under Rick Carlisle for the Mavericks. Earlier, he was the head coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves over 1-1/2 seasons — a span during which the Timberwolves were 53-69. The Timberwolves were 20-20 in the 2006-07 when Casey was fired by then-GM Kevin McHale, who said he believed the team was a playoff contender. Randy Wittman took over, and the team finished 12-30 in its remaining 42 games.

Casey will take over the vacant job created when Jay Triano was demoted after more than two seasons as Toronto’s head coach.

Frank apparently has now emerged as the created when John Kuester’s contract wasn’t renewed, the Toronto Star reports.

Buck Harvey: New call: Someone missed on Joseph

When last seen in public, Cory Joseph looked stunned.

Five seconds?

How was it possible?

That play, in effect, ended Texas’ season.

What comes next is another call, but this one will take years, not seconds.

Someone made a mistake with Joseph.

Joseph won Saturday, at least. He was introduced along with the Spurs’ other first-round draft pick, Kawhi Leonard, and Joseph came across as bright-eyed and professional.

Some of the Spurs’ brass kidded him about wearing a tie and shiny, black shoes to the press gathering. But it was sweet; this is what teenagers wear to their first job.

Joseph is just 19, as is Leonard, and that’s part of the inherent promise both have. That’s also the reason, however, the Spurs’ move last week so risky.

There’s no guarantee either will translate to the NBA game. So why replace George Hill, just entering his prime, with uncertainty?

Hill might not have a full set of point-guard skills, and he sagged against Memphis. But anyone who plays defense and is capable of 29 points in a playoff game will likely be even better in his fourth and fifth seasons.

Money is naturally part of the equation. When the Spurs found there was so much interest for Hill last week, they concluded his price will be high when he becomes a free agent in a year. He’s a nice player at $2 million a year, not so much at $7 million.

Almost everyone in the organization said they would have done this deal no matter the economics, but that’s what they have to say. This is their reality, and adapting to it is their only choice.

Maybe they brilliantly did last week, especially if one fix follows. From what the Spurs have seen already, Leonard’s shooting motion isn’t a tear-down. The Spurs see a workable starting point.

Joseph needs tweaking, but not much. The concern with him has been whether he has NBA quickness, and a spring workout in New Jersey seemed to calm most fears.

Until then, it was unclear why he had chosen to enter the draft. After all, T.J. Ford, Daniel Gibson and D.J. Augustin didn’t leave Texas after one year. Why should someone who often looked like just another guy?

The UT coaches used to joke about how Joseph played hunched over. Did he really play 6-foot-3? More telling, he rarely seemed to create the way an NBA point-guard prospect should.

R.C. Buford joked Saturday that Joseph might keep his Austin apartment and commute. Maybe that’s not a bad idea — if the commute is a short one to the Toros’ gym.

But the Spurs tracked all of this, and they weren’t discouraged. Joseph plays defense. He shot over 40 percent from the college 3-point line. And he had Hill-like dunks.

As for his lack of zip: If Joseph gets an angle, said one Spurs scout, he has enough quickness and size that defenders can’t cut off his driving lane.

The Spurs say they were not alone in this analysis. While most mock drafts rated Joseph somewhere in the middle of the second round, the Spurs insist he was in play from No. 25 to No. 35.

The Spurs also point to what Joseph did in mid-December. Then, in Greensboro, N.C., against North Carolina, in just his 11th college game, Joseph had 21 points and no turnovers in 35 minutes.

Here is how he broke the tie with about three seconds left: He dribbled full-court to the foul line, where he pivoted and made the jumper.

So why didn’t Joseph show more of this over the next few months at Texas? If he becomes a serviceable backup to Tony Parker, Rick Barnes will hear the question.

Barnes will hear about this draft, too. Three of his players went in the first round, with two of them rising higher than anyone expected. Since 1999, eight college teams have had at least three players drafted in the first round, and every team but Texas made at least the Elite Eight.

Five made the national championship game. Three won it.

Coincidentally, a play involving Joseph is a primary reason Texas didn’t advance. On an inbounds play in the final seconds against Arizona, an official quick-counted the critical five-second violation.

“I watched (the replay) a few times,” Joseph said Saturday, “but you have to put it behind you.”

Now, an NBA career is in front, as is a judgment. Either the Spurs made a mistake drafting Joseph, or Barnes made one for not doing more with him.

Both can’t win this.

bharvey@express-news.net

Spurs well positioned to endure the lockout

San Antonio’s unique position as the strongest NBA market in terms of fan interest should make the Spurs less susceptible to fallout from the lockout than other league franchises.

Bill Nielsen, vice president of sales for the Scarborough Sports Marketing Group, said the Spurs have traditionally dominated his company’s measurements of fan awareness and support in the NBA.

And because of that support, Nielsen doesn’t believe that a lengthy lockout will erode local support and interest for the team.

Scarborough’s most recent list indicates that 61 percent of thousands of fans interviewed in the San Antonio area have either watched a Spurs game at the ATT Center, listened to a Spurs game on radio or watched a Spurs game on television in the last year.

That figure is the best of the 29 NBA American markets the company surveys. Toronto isn’t included in the Scarborough list.

“That’s a very healthy number when three out of five persons in San Antonio have that kind of contact with the team,” Nielsen said. “In layman’s terms, it indicates that if you live in San Antonio, you are going to be a Spurs fan.”

Because of that broad-based community awareness and support, Nielsen said the Spurs shouldn’t feel a lockout-related pinch that might be inflicted on other NBA teams once the league’s labor differences are settled.

“It bodes well for them,” Nielsen said. “I wouldn’t expect there to be a hangover (after the lockout) because of that traditional support they have.”

The Spurs ranked at the top of Scarborough’s most recent list of NBA franchises, which was generated for the first half of 2011.

Cleveland is second at 58 percent, followed by Boston (50 percent), Utah (47 percent) and Phoenix (45 percent) among the top five franchises. New Jersey (11 percent) is the lowest.

Scarborough has analyzed sports teams, leagues and markets among other consumer research for more than a decade. The Spurs have traditionally ranked at the top of the NBA’s “watched on television/attended/listened on radio” rankings during that time.

The NBA’s top numbers in that category don’t match those of other teams in other major sports in Scarborough’s “WAL” rankings. The NFL’s New Orleans Saints lead all professional sports franchises at 87 percent. The St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball have a “WAL” ranking of 73 percent to lead franchises in that sport.

But the Spurs’ traditional number at 60 percent is a solid one for any sports franchise, Nielsen said.

“I’m impressed with that number considering they haven’t won a title in several years,” Nielsen said. “When you win a title, it traditionally pushes your numbers to the top. Look at New Orleans. But the Spurs have held solid.”