The Starting Lineup: DeAndre Jordan Buys Aston Martin, But Can’t Buy Freethrow

DeAndre Jordan bought an Aston Martin with the first paycheck of his new contract.  Assuming he’ll actually be able to fit in the vehicle, it’s a pretty solid purchase.  DeAndre will be able to buy a lot of cool sh!t over the next four years, but there’s something really cool he’d like to acquire that will never be for sale: a stroke from the freethrow line.  He went 1-4 (correction: 3-4) in LA’s win over the Rockets (but he’s still below 50% on the season), and he says his shooting has gotten worse as he’s aged for reasons that he can’t quite wrap his head around.

Stephen Curry has re-injured his ankle again, and one would think he’ll be kept from coming back until he’s 100% this time.  I’m no doctor, but it seems to me that Curry continues to re-aggravate his surgically repaired ankle because he always comes back too soon.  I’m sure it’s extremely frustrating for him, but the best thing he can do for both himself and his team is rest.  Assuming Curry does take a few weeks off this time (which isn’t a safe assumption… he never does, but anyway…), Mark Jackson’s coaching abilities are in for a test.  When Curry left last night’s 95-101 loss to San Antonio, the Warriors led by four late in the third.  Monta Ellis, who was absolutely feeling it last night (38 PTS), was asked to bring it home by himself.  As proficient a scorer as Monta is and as hot as he was, it still didn’t work out.  

Monta Ellis was the only Warrior to make a basket during a stretch of the fourth quarter that lasted over six minutes.  In the fourth, only three Golden State buckets were scored by someone other than Ellis, and two of those were assisted by Ellis.  It was all Ellis, all the time.  Here’s what Coach Jackson had to say about his effort:

“He was incredible and inspiring. Not only was I asking him to make the plays on the offensive end, but I was asking him to defend Tony Parker on the other end. He gave me everything he had.”

This is true.  Monta was incredible… he looked like Allen Iverson out there trying to drag this team to victory.  Is this a winning game plan, though?  I’m not complaining because Monta is on my fantasy team, but I don’t think the Warriors will experience much success if the no-Steph plan is to have Monta shoot 30 times.  Jackson is going to have to come up with some sort of Curry-less attack that brings out the best in the David Lees and Brandon Rushes of the team.  These guys have looked awful without Curry, and that’s a big problem because Steph is going to have to miss games at some point to get this ankle right.  On top of that, the Warriors on a three-game losing streak already.  A season that began with much promise has gone south quickly.

The Grizzlies have acquired Marreese Speights from the Sixers in a three-team deal that doesn’t figure to make an impact on anything.  Speights has seen virtually no playing time over the past few years and plays in a shoot-now pass-later manner that won’t help him get off the bench in Memphis.

Rick Adelman, you can go ahead and hand the keys over to Ricky Rubio now.  By “hand the keys over” I mean insert him into the starting lineup, if that wasn’t clear to you.  Rubio ended up playing a minute more than starter Luke Ridnour last night, and most importantly he was still in the game with the ball in his hands during the closing minutes.  He made some things happen that, with all due respect to Luke Ridnour, would not have happened had he been sitting on the bench.  Start at the 9:35 mark of the following video to watch the fourth quarter material…

 

If the kid is ready to finish then he’s ready to start.  It’s time for all-out Rubio mania in Minnesota!  He finished this game with 12 points, 10 assists, and 2 steals on 5-9, by the way.

I keep thinking Brandon Bass is going to fall off, but he doesn’t.  We’re seven games in now and Bass is still averaging about 14 and 7 on 55%.  He just got through putting another 15/13 on the Nets, and I must say, he’s got capabilities that I wasn’t aware of.  Check out the driving dunk at the end of these highlights.  I didn’t realize he had any ability to put the ball on the floor.  I thought Brandon Bass was strictly a finisher and a mid-range jumpshooter.  One thing that he does not do is pass the ball (3 assists on the season).  Meh, I guess that’s not what he’s in there for.

Amare Stoudemire and Iman Shumpert returned for a home game against the Bobcats.  That helped the Knicks get the whole offense thing figured out (kind of) and put 110 points on the board, but they still couldn’t stop the Charlotte Bobcats, who scored 118.  Same ol’ Knicks?  Pretty much.  The offense will be fine, but the defense will be disappointing at best.  How ’bout Charlotte’s Byron Mullens re-setting his career high in scoring for the second game in a row?  He dropped 16 points in 20 minutes.  With Mullens and Bismack Biyombo the Bobcats have a pretty promising future at the center position.  Biyombo hardly played against the Knicks, but in four minutes he managed to completely stifle an Iman Shumpert dunk attempt.  It was a two-handed denial that officials deemed a foul (Biyombo’s only statistic), but replays clearly showed that it was nothing but a spectacular block. 

Box Score Observations: Dwight Howard scored 28 points and grabbed 20 boards against the Wizards.  John Wall went 6 for 16.  The Clippers put 41 points on the Rockets in the first quarter, and 117 total.  Nets rookie MarShon Brooks scored 17 in a loss to the Celtics.  Andrea Bargnani had his second 30 point game of the season and has scored 20 or more in five consecutive games.  Rip Hamilton had 14 points and 5 assists in his return to The Palace.  Greg Monroe had a solid double-double of 19 points and 13 boards.  LeBron gave the Pacers 33/8/13.

Highlight Recap, Lob City Edition:

Highlight Recap, Everyone Else Edition: Chandler Parsons catches Blake Griffin’s attention with a putback dunkA better-known Chandler catches an alley-oopChris Bosh is doing all sorts of good things this seasonCole to LeBron in “Lob City East.”  Pretty finger roll by LBJRubio lobs to BeasleyRubio finds Randolph for a jamKenneth Faried tells Travis Outlaw to GTFOAndre Iguodala re-directs a missed jumper with his off handDeMaR DeRoZaN drops the HaMmEr.

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2 Responses to The Starting Lineup: DeAndre Jordan Buys Aston Martin, But Can’t Buy Freethrow

  1. jerry says:

    You may want to check your facts, DJ was 3 for 4 on the free throw line last night and his shot looks greatly improved. My calculator like brain says thats 75%, what are the rest of the big men shooting from the charity stripe?

    • Stephen Coston says:

      I fixed my error, but my point stands. He’s still shooting below 50% on the season, and the article I cited quotes him as saying he feels that he shot better when he was younger.

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