Hooped Up

From the outside looking in, the Clippers organization seems like the greatest reality not produced by Mark Burnett, so nothing I hear about them is remotely shocking anymore. So the fact that Mike Dunleavy (who a real team would have fired ages ago) was fired after being promoted to General Manager a few months back, sounds just about right. Here is the statement the Clippers released after they canned Dunleavy.

“The organization has determined that the goal of building a winning team is best served by making this decision at this time.

“The team has simply not made sufficient progress during Dunleavy’s seven-year tenure. The Clippers want to win now. This transition, in conjunction with a full commitment to dedicate unlimited resources, is designed to accomplish that objective.”

Good grief Charlie Brown. As far as bad jobs go, being apart of the losing machine that is the Clippers front office has got to be up there with passing out flyers, telemarketing and cleaning up after Snoopy. Read More »

The Los Angeles Clippers today announced that Head Coach and General Manager Mike Dunleavy will step away from his day to day coaching responsibilities and focus exclusively on the team’s personnel matters. The decision was reached mutually during a meeting at the team’s Playa Vista Training Center earlier today.

In attendance at that meeting were Clippers’ President Andy Roeser, Dunleavy and Assistant General Manager Neil Olshey, who will continue in his role as Dunleavy’s top aide in Basketball Operations.

Current Clippers’ Assistant Coach Kim Hughes will immediately assume the role of Interim Head Coach, and will retain the position through the remainder of the ’09-’10 season.

Press Release

The NBA has fined Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers $25,000 for an argument with officials that led to two quick technicals and an ejection. The fine was announced Wednesday by NBA disciplinarian Stu Jackson.

Rivers was irate over a flagrant foul called on Glen “Big Baby” Davis with 6:16 left in Monday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks. The Celtics coach drew back-to-back technicals when he didn’t stop yelling at referee Bennett Salvatore; a third “T” was called on soft-spoken assistant Armond Hill.

Thanks in part to the four-point play, Atlanta won 102-96.

Rivers had last been ejected against Chicago in March. He was also fined $25,000, and referee Bill Kennedy was fined an undisclosed amount.

Press Release

Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman criticized the NBA on Monday for setting up an “utterly ridiculous” schedule for his team that includes four back-to-back games over the next two weeks.

The Rockets face Detroit at home on Tuesday, then must fly to Denver to play the first-place Nuggets on Wednesday. They visit Dallas on Friday and return home to face Oklahoma City on Saturday — then have to play two games on consecutive nights twice more during Christmas week.

“We have a horrendous stretch here,” Adelman said. “I don’t know if the league really understands that they gave us four straight back-to-backs. It’s awful.” Read More »

Controversy brewed during the Orlando Magic’s 120-111 loss to the Utah Jazz on Thursday night when power forward Rashard Lewis said he declined to go back in the game during the second quarter. Coach Stan Van Gundy was upset and said he had never had a player overrule him. “(Lewis) didn’t want to go back in. I wanted to put him back in with six minutes to go in the second quarter and he didn’t want to go back in,” Van Gundy said after the Magic (17-5) had their six-game winning streak broken. “He said it was because he had two fouls, and so if you have a guy who doesn’t want to play, I’m not going to get in an argument and put him back in if he doesn’t want to play at that time.

Orlando Sentinel

The most famous Jamaican to play in the NBA and former New York Knicks legend Patrick Ewing says he would “love to coach the Nets”, who just axed Lawrence Frank. I’m still amazed that Ewing is an assistant coach because he doesn’t really say much, but with his experience this might be an idea worth tossing around if you’re the Nets brass.

In an interview with the New York Post after the Magic’s 112-104 win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday Ewing said that he hopes that New Jersey’s management will consider him for the coaching vacancy. Assistant coach Tom Barrise is filling in on an interim basis.

“I would be back home,” said Ewing, who has a home in Englewood, New Jersey. “I just want an opportunity. Yes, I would love to coach the Nets.”

Ewing has served as an assistant coach on both Jeff and Stan Van Gundy’s staff over the last seven years.

via Staten Island Advance

After beating the Knicks 121-107 on Friday night, Nelson stands only 21 wins shy of becoming the NBA’s all-time winningest coach. But his insistence on alienating and humiliating his best players — which continued at Madison Square Garden even in victory — could soon lead to a coaching change, a high-level coaching source told CBSSports.com.

With no realistic trade scenarios emerging for Stephen Jackson – and with the team’s other miserable star,Monta Ellis, wanting out, too — Nelson’s last option to keep the team from blowing up already is under consideration. Nelson, 69, would assume a consultant role, with top assistant Keith Smart taking over as head coach.

“It could happen by next week,” the source said.

CBS Sports

The 09-10′ season will go down as one of the best in NBA history, strictly based on the superstar free agent class of 2010, auditioning for a huge pay day. The deep pocket Knicks are fully aware of that and if it was up to them they would rather hit fast forward on this season, so they could pay a superstar player to fix their team in 09-10. But in the meantime, they’ll just concern themselves with losing at a franchise record pace. Read More »

After a dreadful 3-6 start, according to ESPN the New Orleans Hornets have decided to fire Byron Scott instead of admitting that they need to spend more money on their team. Sure, they got moidered last night by the Phoenix Suns 124-104, but what does the Hornets ownership expect? Chris Paul can only do so much on his own and I would say that Byron Scott is technically their best shooting guard in the organization.

The more tools they take away from Paul and refuse to sign quality free agents, CP3 and his band of Hornets will only be a first round causality in the playoffs at best. Sure, you could argue that the players gave up on Scott and it was time for him to bounce too, seriously other than Chris Paul what is the upside in New Orleans anyways these days.

All Byron Scott did was coach a 3-6 team to a 3-6 record. He should have been fired for that.

Another reason why the NBA is the most progressive league in the world. Basketball legend Nancy Lieberman aka “Lady Magic” will get a shot to coach in the D-League in 2010 and will become the first women to ever achieve that feat in the process. Currently an ESPN television analyst, Lieberman will coach the Dallas’ D-League co-owed by Mavericks Donnie Nelson.

According to ESPN, Nelson’s ownership group has secured approval from the NBA to hire Lieberman to coach the yet-to-be-named team based in Frisco, Texas, which will serve as the Mavericks’ D-League affiliate next season. In 1998, Lieberman served as General Manager and Head Coach of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock.