Here’s a nice peek into an NBA rookie’s life. There’s a lot to learn about this business, and the Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan gives some good insights, including his reaction to comments from LeBron James that the Raptors didn’t want to make the playoffs (“that’s his opinion”), how he and a teammate once took a night drive 40 miles outside of Toronto just to explore, and rookie hazing (or lack thereof).

Especially as an historic NBA Draft approaches, I’ve become more and more amazed how these young players, often times barely legal as far as walking into a bar, are forced to make multi-million-dollar business decisions that even 35-year-olds working in the bustling high-tech Silicon Valley or the rigors of Wall Street like us, would have a hard time sorting out. Here’s an excerpt from DeRozan on that note, but the entire article is worth the read. There’s also another post by the New Jersey Nets’ Terrence Williams that precedes DeRozan’s post.

The tough stuff about the league is just realizing very quickly that you are expected to be grown. In college they make you run when you mess up. Here, they fine you! It’s your money. It’s really a business. No one is going to baby you and you have to be accountable for all of your actions. Being away from my family was tough when I was frustrated on the court. I wished they were there just to ease it up a bit, but I got through it. There was a period where I went through what y’all call the rookie wall. Nothing was going my way and that was tough for me. Chris Bosh really helped me out with that. He told me you can’t let your last game affect your next game. You have to learn how to brush it off and keeping going. He told me he went through the same thing. He really helped me out a lot with that.

 Read the whole article: http://rookiechronicles.com/2010/05/demar-derozan-blog-wrapping-up-my-rookie-year/ 

Jeremy Lin was not invited to the Portland Trailblazers’ recent workout, but in case you got the news second-hand (e.g., through another cut-up job by RealGM), that is actually good news for him and many other point guard draft prospects. In one fell swoop, and in recognition of the NCAA’s self-serving deadline of May 8, the Blazers did many people a favor by telling these invites that they ought to go back to college. Here were the key take-aways from the article by Joe Freeman of The Oregonian…

“The draft in general is quite strong, to be honest with you,” said Chad Buchanan, the Blazers’ director of college scouting. “I think there are a couple stars at the top and a lot of very good potential starters and rotation guys down to the early second round. It’s a deep draft.” 

I might even add that we could see the landscape of the NBA change with this draft. The 2010 NBA Draft is so deep with big men, that we should see a return to more traditional lineups with either two 4’s or a 4 and a 5 in the frontcourt, instead of situations like the post-devoid Golden State Warriors or Atlanta Hawks where you have 6′9″ Al Horford playing center in the 2nd round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

I might add that the Draft is also well-stocked with athletic wings. So, the demand (and supply) with point guards and shooters is very low this year.

Here’s another take-away from the article…

Note: The underclassmen who worked out Friday were E’Twaun Moore of Purdue, Lavoy Allen of Temple, Talor Battle of Penn State, Malcolm Delaney of Virginia Tech, Eniel Polynice of Mississippi, Alex Tyus of Florida and Mike Davis of Illinois. Others working out were Dominic Waters of Portland State, Devan Downey of South Carolina, NBDL player Jeremy Wise, Donald Sloan of Texas A&M and Connecticut’s Gavin Edwards.

Here are my brief scouting reports on each of these players…

Moore — A tallish ballhandler who I really like, but he’s definitely one more year away. Really good passing skills. The return of Robbie Hummel to Purdue’s lineup next year will enhance Moore’s draft stock. He’s the only one in this group that really has a shot for making the NBA in 2011. Also, this is good news for Jeremy Lin fans, as one more pg has fallen off the radar, albeit probably ranked lower than Jeremy to begin with.

Allen, Tyus, Davis, Waters, Wise — Never heard of these guys. And believe me, I cast my net far and wide this season with respect to draftable point guards in competition with Jeremy. I hope to write more about these in the coming weeks before the Draft.

Battle — Too small for the NBA.

Delaney — A great scorer, but he’s being inserted at the 1 because of his 6-foot height. So, he’s a 2 trapped inside a 1’s body. He doesn’t have the right mentality or size to be an NBA 1. I don’t think it really matters if he returns to college. He could perhaps make decent money playing pro overseas.

Polynice — Spitting in the face of Terrico White ballyhooers, I will say that Polynice was, in my mind, Mississippi’s best player last season. He has nice NBA size for a big guard, but he really doesn’t have much skill beyond hustle. Another year in college to develop that skill will be helpful.

Downey — A terrific leader at the point-scorer position for South Carolina, unfortunately he’s too small for the NBA and he did not stand out at all at Portsmouth.

Sloan — A 2-guard, he showed he could score at Portsmouth, but didn’t do so with any flair or athletic prowess, i.e., he didn’t raise my eyebrows on a consistent basis.

Edwards — This UConn big man is just too slow for the NBA. He doesn’t bring anything of note to the table.

And finally, the best news thus far for Jeremy Lin fans, excerpted from the article…

Buchanan said he expects all seven underclassmen at Friday’s workout to return to school. 

Once again, thanks to the Blazers for saving a lot of heartache on the part of these players.

Read the whole article: Trail Blazers begin NBA draft workouts | OregonLive.com

In addition, the more highly-touted Jimmer Fredette of BYU also returned to school.

Most Grounded Superstar, that’s what I call Kevin Durant. TNT’s Kenny Smith said on the air last week that in three years, he’ll be the best player in the NBA, the Most Valuable Player. I don’t know if that will happen, but I sure hope it does. Here are some quotes that show how well-grounded he is. After a community event where he assisted a family on a grocery shopping spree…

http://www.nba.com/thunder/news/durant_takes_one_lucky_family__2010_03_13.html

“All they were going after was junk food,” Durant said later, grinning. “That’s something I remember when I was growing up. All I wanted was junk food, too. It was pretty funny.” 

And how he gives autographs to kids from his neighborhood who knock on his front door (link is below)…

“A lot of kids come to my door asking for autographs or just want to talk,” Durant said before Friday’s Game 6 of a West first-round series against the Lakers at the Ford Center. “That’s pretty cool, especially around playoff time. A lot of kids like to come around and stuff. I guess they’re on spring break.”

“No,” he said. “Because if I was a little kid and I knew an NBA player lived down the street, I’d do the same thing.”

Read the whole article at: Knock, Knock! Kevin Durant Really Is Here — NBA FanHouse

Have you seen the latest video where the ballboy for the Chicago Bulls is waiting for LeBron James to hand him the sweatpants, and LeBron tosses it to the side so the ballboy has to pick it up off the floor? Shooting shirt A is not too far behind, followed by shooting shirt B. That’s three garments the poor kid had to pick up off the floor, in rapid succession.

Then we learned that, not too long ago, LeBron’s idea of adding cache to his LRMR corporation was to add Chris Paul to the team by having him buy equity in the company. Hmm, at this juncture and in this context, I’m not sure that CP3 was going to be a good fit, ya know?

I guess this wonderfully funny clip showing some Asian-Americans in New York not too fond of the Big Apple’s landing of LBJ as a free agent, is somewhat appropriate?…

If you’re like at least 80% of us, on your rec basketball team you’re probably not the best player, not the go-to guy. Let’s say you just had a playoff game and your team stunk it up. You personally played kinda so-so, maybe even a little subpar, but definitely inconsistently. At the same time, the best guy on your team just exploded for 39 points and 11 rebounds. Then he says this: “I’m not pointing fingers or anything, but I can’t do this by myself, guys.”

Now, let’s turn the tables. Let’s say you are that go-to guy and you’re the one who recorded the 39-and-11, but still lost.

Some of us may have been in those shoes before, despite clearly falling well short of becoming an NBA superstar. Maybe you were the best player on your squad, the only kid who played varsity high school ball on a crappy team in the intramural league. You scored 20 ppg. For the first playoff game, you scored 27 but you guys lost. Maybe your older, veteran point guard couldn’t hit any shots either.
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