Pat Riley’s Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings



In case, you haven’t heard the whole country has gone crazy. For example we have an entire generation that aspires to be like Snooki and Pauly D from Jersey Shore, including, but not limited to, the way they dress, speak, wear their hair, and the hours that they keep. So, what does this have to do with the NBA? The media world in the NBA has gone just as nuts. All anyone wants to pay attention to is the Miami Heat. (The Heat Index?? Really??) It’s almost like the Heat are the Harlem Globetrotters and the rest of the league is the Washington Generals.

For the most part, I’m just as crazy as the next guy. So, what does that mean for the purposes of this column? No, I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning and leave the house dressed like “The Situation.” (His abs are tighter than mine.) What I am going to do is follow the herd and use the beginning part of my inaugural random thoughts column of the 2010-2011 season to address what I’ve seen out of the Miami Heat, or as I like to call them…Pat Riley’s Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. In the words of J-Wow, Ronny, and the rest of the Jersey Shore gang…its T-shirt time….



I’ve been extremely impressed with the Heat’s team defense early on. For the exception of the clinic that Rajon Rondo put on against them opening night, they have done a much better job than I ever expected in guarding on the perimeter.

There’s a scene in the movie Caddyshack, where the lead character, Danny Noonan, is campaigning to Judge Smails, (played brilliantly by Ted Knight) to be awarded the coveted Caddy Scholarship. As Danny finishes shamelessly groveling, the Judge turns to him and declares, “the world needs ditch diggers too..”

So, why do I impart this sweet little anecdote, you ask? Because I had legitimate concerns that the Heat had not employed qualified ditch diggers to caddy for Lebron “Superman” James and Dwyane “Batman” Wade. Granted it’s been an insanely small sample size, but it appears that Chris “Aquaman” Bosh is not only resolved to do the grunt work, he’s downright determined to do so. He’s been tough, aggressive, and a physical presence inside. Because of Bosh’s willingness to mix it up underneath, the heat have been extremely effective early on playing Bosh and Udonis Haslem as their bigs.

One of my favorite rants of the Heat apologists is that they don’t need a point guard because Lebron can be the point guard. I wonder if anything about Lebron’s 25 turnovers in his first four games indicate that point guard may not be Lebron’s most efficient position on the floor.

It’s actually been refreshing to see Wade recommit himself to the defensive end. The instincts are all there after a two year sabbatical.

Spoelstra’s halftime adjustments on defense have been excellent, especially on Dwight Howard and to a lesser extent, Rondo. But he better start defining some roles for his non Super heroes.

Do I have to keep doing this? If I type the word Lebron anymore, I’m going to light my eye brows on fire. There’s far too much going on with the rest of the league. Newsflash: The Heat are good. Lets just move on.

Derrick Rose is a special young player. He is excellent now and has unlimited upside. But 30 field goal attempts are far too many attempts to play his position efficiently. And whether Rose realizes it or not, the Bulls have a much better chance to win games where Rose is not leading the Bulls in shot attempts.

Dwight Howard looks like the work he did in the off season is paying off. His post moves look refined and he looks unstoppable with single coverage. Now if the rest of his team can pull their own collective weight……

On the surface it appears as though the Hawks didn’t blow their chance to sign Al Horford by committing $127 million over 6 years to Joe Johnson. Horford got his 5 year extension for $60 million, which was a no brainer for the Hawks, but didn’t appear to be. However, if signing Horford means that they are going to start shopping young big Josh Smith, then this Johnson contract is a much deeper disaster than I ever thought it would be.

Rajon Rondo is off to a great start. But let’s not get seduced by his gaudy assist numbers. I’m not going to say that the Celtics statistician is liberal in giving Rondo assists, but he did give him one the other night for tipping the pizza delivery guy.

John Wall is the fastest player I’ve seen on a basketball court since the early years of Allen Iverson.

I understand Kurt Rambis’ frustration with Kevin Love’s lack of defense. But the underlying problem with Rambis limiting Love’s minutes is that the alternatives are Kosta Koufos and Nikola Pekovic. Neither of them could guard a crosswalk. And Rambis also should take note that it’s never a great idea to bench your best player when you’re job security is tenuous at best.

The Knicks have been more fun to watch, and certainly look to be significantly improved. Head coach Mike D’Antoni has made a few clever moves. Bringing Wilson Chandler off the bench takes advantage of Chandler’s versatility, and he appears to have Chandler’s chucking under control. He also has used second year guard Toney Douglas very effectively. However, he better realize quickly that Raymond Felton is not Steve Nash, and he needs to be a little more creative in helping Felton get Amare Stoudemire the ball where Stoudemire needs it. D’Antoni also uses young forward Danilo Gallinari exclusively on the wing offensively. Gallo is a big strong kid who scores equally well inside and out. D’Antoni has reduced him to Kyle Korver. Currently, he’s only as good as his perimeter shot. If D’Antoni put him on the high post with Stoudemire on the low post, he’d get a lot out of Gallo every night and take some heat off of Felton and Stoudemire. With a guy like Gallo, the three point opportunities will always be there. Stuff like this is symptomatic of D’Antoni’s tenure with the Knicks. For every guy he handles well to maximize production, there’s a guy who underachieves because D’Antoni didn’t put him in the best spot to succeed.



Mike Conley’s surprise extension in Memphis most likely insures that they will not be bringing Zach Randolph back. Memphis owner Michael Heisley is taking a lot of heat in the media for overpaying Conley. I’m not sure it’s warranted. Conley, in a vacuum, is not worth $8 million a year. But he has developed very good chemistry with Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo, who are the Grizzlies two most important building blocks. Sometimes the sum of the parts can outperform the whole. Besides, Conley looks better than Ray Felton and Felton makes more than $8 million a year.


Golden State has a problem that I’m not sure they’ve realized yet. I do not believe there is any way that Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis can coexist productively together. They both are at their best when the ball is in their respective hands. In the end, the Warriors will be better off keeping Curry and trading Ellis. This is where it gets a little dicey. Ellis is a shameless chucker who never met a shot he didn’t like. Ellis, Ben Gordon, and Jamal Crawford are in a stratosphere all their own when it comes to chucking, but I digress. Because of Ellis’ chucking, the trade market for him is a little limited. The Warriors can get something, but not even close to as much as they think they deserve. On the other hand, if they decided to shop Curry, there would be a wealth of quality offers to choose from. So, their choices have become to either trade their best player, move their 2nd best player at a discount, or persist in trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Nellie left them a mess the EPA couldn’t clean up.

Portland has been a team that has impressed me early on. They have an athletic foursome in LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicholas Batum, Andre Miller, and Brandon Roy that can match up with almost anyone. However, in the absence of a trade, their biggest need makes them sound desperate. With all due respect to Marcus Camby, who still is immensely effective at age 36, he can’t cut it as Portland’s only quality big man if they are going to go anywhere. They need Greg Oden to be healthy. Their story ends before it ever has a chance to begin. Better start scouring the trade market.

Very frankly, I did not see a great start coming from the New Orleans Hornets. And they shut me up. I am still not a fan of swapping Darren Collison for Trevor Ariza considering that Chris Paul is leaving sooner rather than later and Collison could ably replace him. In spite of Ariza’s slightly bloated contract, he fits in well. He gets to focus on his strengths playing with offensive players like Paul and David West. Also, who woke Emeka Okafor? He looks like a different player this season. He went from a guy who played close to the rim like he didn’t want to offend anyone, to a guy who uses his rather chiseled frame quite aggressively. Their new head coach Monty Williams seems to have instilled a defensive discipline where they aggressively protect the paint. It may not last, but the Hornets are a good story right now.

Before I wrap up, I feel compelled to express my opinion about the purposeless absurd interview that ESPN New York’s Ian O’Connor did with current Florida International head coach, Isiah Thomas. Not only does Thomas shamelessly campaign for Donnie Walsh’s job, he recites a tale of revisionist history that makes me contemplate the possibility that he may actually believe some of this nonsense he spews. Isiah should make sure every time he chooses to recount his splendid draft record, that he include the fact that he traded two lottery picks for Eddy Curry. These two picks resulted in LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah. Either Isiah doesn’t believe that really happened or he’s not self aware enough to be embarrassed by it. Either way, he needs to keep Donnie Walsh out of it. Regardless of the fact that Donnie has done an admirable job in getting this thing moving in the right direction, he deserves more respect that to have this worm publicly campaign for his job while attempting to smear his tenure using convoluted rationale not based on fact or logic. Shame on Ian O’Connor for giving Thomas that forum. At this point, I only want to hear about Isiah Thomas if we’re talking about the Bad Boy Pistons….or if Florida International makes the final four.

Giddyap, Y’all be cool.