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The Portland Trail Blazers’ hard-to-believe harm luck went from dangerous to worse over the weekend, when CJ McCollum suffered a sprained left foot in a Saturday night time win over the Atlanta Hawks.
It wasn’t dangerous sufficient that Zach Collins had one more surgical process on his left ankle in December or that Jusuf Nurkic suffered a fractured proper wrist on Thursday. The harm gods additionally had to remove McCollum in the course of one of the best stretch of his profession.
Preliminary indications are that McCollum gained’t miss an excessive amount of time, however it’s one other blow for the Blazers (8-5), who gave the impression to be rounding into kind final week after an up-and-down begin to the season. Now they need to keep afloat with out two starters.
Coach Terry Stotts advised reporters Monday morning that Rodney Hood — who continues to be easing his means again from his personal harm rehabilitation — would substitute McCollum within the beginning lineup when the Blazers’ host the San Antonio Spurs Monday afternoon. Gary Trent Jr. and Anfernee Simons will see prolonged taking part in time, too.
Sadly, the Blazers, who’ve endured greater than their fare share of accidents over time, have been right here earlier than. Luckily, it’s nonetheless comparatively early within the season they usually have sufficient depth to persevere.
However, as Damian Lillard stated final week within the aftermath of Nurkic’s miserable harm: “It’s all the time one thing.”
Right here’s a take a look at what’s occurring across the NBA:
• The record of postponed NBA video games has swelled to 14 — together with 13 during the last eight days — and NBA.com is keeping a running tally.
• I lengthy for the day once we not have to speak intimately about disgruntled former MVP James Harden, however that day will not be immediately. The Athletic takes us “inside the final days of Harden’s era with the Houston Rockets,” which included a fate-sealing workforce assembly throughout which teammates questioned Harden and his dedication:
“The group was fed up with the antics, bored with the headlines and the fixed questions on Harden’s frame of mind and the place this was all going. And with each day that Harden remained in Houston, his presence turned more and more burdensome for a workforce that simply wished a way of readability and understanding.
“Would he purchase in or not?
“Harden’s effort in his final 4 video games had waned significantly, marking a night-and-day distinction from these first three video games of the season, by which the previous MVP had seemed like his particular self, whilst he labored his means again into form.
“Throughout the assembly, which was led by Silas, and which sealed his resolution to maintain Harden out of subsequent workforce actions till a commerce was full, sources say a number of teammates expressed displeasure with Harden’s current physique language and energy. Silas had requested if anybody wished to share their unfiltered views, and the dialogue about their dysfunction started from there. John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins each spoke through the assembly, sources stated, looking for a direct response on Harden’s degree of dedication and preaching concerning the significance of accountability. For many who had been with the Rockets again when Westbrook preached the identical message to anybody who would pay attention, these uncomfortable dynamics had been all too acquainted.”
• Rockets GM Rafael Stone touted his franchise’s ‘flexibility’ within the wake of the Harden commerce, in line with ESPN:
“Within the four-team commerce formally finalized Saturday, Houston obtained three unprotected first-round picks (2022, 2024, 2026) from the Nets, the Milwaukee Bucks’ 2022 first-rounder by way of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the rights to swap first-round picks with Brooklyn in 4 different years. Former All-Star capturing guard Victor Oladipo, guard Dante Exum and ahead Rodions Kurucs additionally went to Houston within the deal.
Sources stated the Rockets additionally had in-depth discussions with the Philadelphia 76ers, who provided a bundle with All-NBA guard Ben Simmons because the centerpiece, within the hours earlier than agreeing to ship Harden to Brooklyn on Wednesday.
“‘I don’t suppose it’s acceptable to speak concerning the different [offers],’ Stone stated in a digital media availability Sunday. ‘I’d say what’s tremendous thrilling about this deal is it provides us flexibility. Within the NBA, picks, particularly excessive picks, are one of the best forex. All people likes them. All people values them. That was nice organizationally. It gave us flexibility to do several types of offers as they arrive up this 12 months, subsequent 12 months or no matter.’”
• In the meantime, Harden’s distinctive basketball skills miraculously returned with a change in surroundings. He not solely broke the Brooklyn assist record with a triple-double in his Nets debut, but additionally showed his ability to adapt, in line with SI.com.
• Harden’s new teammate, the always-dependable Kyrie Irving, is questionable vs. the Milwaukee Bucks after lacking the final six video games. ESPN has the details.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. day is all the time a particular one on the NBA calendar, however it appears much more significant this season. On that observe, a handful of NBA players reflected on social justice and what comes next with ESPN. Lake Oswego native Kevin Love and Blazers heart Enes Kanter had been amongst these interviewed on a spread of matters, together with what they are going to keep in mind most from the previous 12 months. Mentioned Love:
“A lot of what the ’60s taught us nonetheless holds true immediately. [Author] James Baldwin, I really feel like stated it finest: ‘To observe the TV display for any size of time is to be taught some actually scary issues concerning the American sense of actuality. We’re actually trapped between what we want to be and what we really are. And we can not presumably change into what we want to be till we’re keen to ask ourselves simply why the lives we lead on this continent are primarily so empty, so tame and so ugly.’
“It’s so profound what he stated — and he was saying that within the early ’60s. This was earlier than Malcolm X died in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. You even had a president in [John F. Kennedy] and his brother that each received assassinated who had been on the forefront of the Civil Rights motion. And then you definately had Vietnam. You simply had a lot you can be taught from that period, but we’re nonetheless combating quite a lot of these battles.
“I feel folks’s views are perpetually formed by the media — for higher or for worse, actually. And whether or not we care to confess it or not, there’s quite a lot of misinformation on the market and perhaps this 12 months shall be a tipping level the place we’re higher at looking for the reality. And I do hope that this 12 months we now have a significant breakthrough.”
• If the NBA actually desires to honor King, in line with The Athletic, fighting poverty should be the focus:
“How might the NBA even start attempt to stroll within the steps of an enormous? Properly, in some ways the league is already proof of King’s prophecy by advantage of its mere existence. Sports activities being as near a meritocracy as can presumably exist in America, it permits for a setting the place when you have what it takes, you possibly can succeed. NBA is proof of King’s promise that if we gave Black people a good shot at one thing, they’d just do in addition to anybody else and within the NBA’s case black people are dominating the area. However what King understood was that greatness might by no means be a method unto itself. Any greatness or success attained might solely have actual which means in the way it might be harnessed in service of others.”
• The typical NBA franchise is worth almost $2.4 billion, in line with data compiled by Sportico:
“That’s down 2% as a direct results of the pandemic, primarily based on our modeling. Collectively, the fair-market worth of the NBA’s 30 groups, together with possession’s stakes in actual property, regional sports activities networks and extra team-related holdings, is greater than $71 billion. Three franchises—the New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers—are every value greater than $5 billion. (For context, every of these groups has a better fair-market worth than any Nationwide Soccer League workforce aside from the Dallas Cowboys, primarily based on Sportico’s evaluation of soccer workforce valuations final August.)
“To make sure, the cumulative income for the NBA’s 30 groups, $8.3 billion, was down from the earlier, non-COVID-impacted season by almost 10%. Nonetheless, a better look reveals that nationwide revenues (accrued predominantly from the league’s broadcast and sponsorship offers, in addition to its licensing program) dipped solely 2%. That, in massive measure, is due to the NBA’s audacious plan to salvage the season with a playoff bubble at Orlando’s Walt Disney World. In a disrupted COVID atmosphere, such single- and low double-digit declines characterize outstanding stability.”
(In response to the information, the Blazers are value $1.91 billion, which ranks fifteenth within the NBA.)
• After his historic triple-double in Sunday afternoon’s 117-101 loss to the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic effectively apologized for “being selfish,” writes ESPN:
“Doncic had 36 factors, 16 rebounds and 15 assists to submit the twenty ninth triple-double of his profession, breaking a tie with Michael Jordan to maneuver into fifteenth on the league’s all-time record. Nonetheless, Doncic blamed himself for the loss, suggesting that he received caught up together with his statistics after a spectacular first half.
“‘The second half, I performed horrible,’ Doncic stated. ‘That’s on me, that sport. I used to be being egocentric a bit bit as a result of I had 30 factors within the first half. That wasn’t me within the second half. I’ve received to do means higher within the second half. That’s simply on me. I’ve received to do means higher.’
“Dallas, which was lacking three starters and a complete of six rotation gamers on account of accidents and the NBA’s well being and security protocols, trailed by 15 on the half regardless of Doncic’s 30 factors on 11-of-18 capturing. He completed the sport 13-of-30 from the ground, together with 6-of-11 from 3-point vary, and had 10 of his 15 assists within the second half. However Doncic stated he was ‘taking some pictures I shouldn’t be taking’ within the second half, including that the workforce as a complete must play with higher vitality.”
• The Lakers, Cavaliers, and Mavericks have emerged as defensive forces in different ways amid the NBA’s offensive increase, in line with The Ringer:
“Protection within the NBA in 2020-21 is outrageously tough; the previous 5 seasons, counting this one, characterize the 5 highest-efficiency seasons ever. However by way of a wide range of philosophies, these three groups have up to now succeeded in shutting down opposing scorers — or, at the very least, shutting them down as a lot as doable given the leaguewide scoring increase.”
• Cleveland’s Larry Nance Jr. is using his influence for good, writes SI.com:
“Nance is having a profession 12 months on one of the stunning groups within the NBA. He leads the league in steals, is capturing properly over 40% from behind the three-point line, has already began extra video games than he did all of final season and has recorded extra minutes than all however a tiny handful of different gamers.
“However much more spectacular than something he might ever accomplish on the court docket has been Nance’s season-long effort to prop up native companies in his house state which can be struggling to make it by way of this cruel pandemic. One month in the past, he tweeted out his plan, asking followers to mail him T-shirts, hats or another attire he might put on to a Cavs sport.”
• A brand new variant of the coronavirus has the U.Okay. questioning whether or not it’s time to pause sports activities once more. What does that say about what’s subsequent in the US? SI.com polled infectious disease experts to find out:
“Within the U.S., it was hoped that these points had been left behind final summer season, when leagues emerged from early-pandemic hibernation to renew taking part in in so-called bubbles; as a substitute, just like the virus itself, they’ve been rising in power of late. After failed exams, the Browns misplaced two cornerbacks and their coach, Kevin Stefanski, for a playoff sport; the Packers misplaced an offensive lineman. The NBA, dealing with decimated rosters, postponed 13 video games between Jan. 10 and Jan. 18. And within the NHL, the reigning Western Convention–champion Stars suffered an outbreak of 17 contaminated skaters at coaching camp.
“As dangerous as that will appear, the U.Okay. gives a sobering take a look at what might quickly be coming stateside. Specifically, the speedy worldwide emergence of a number of über-contagious COVID-19 variants—most notably the one wreaking havoc on British life—is predicted to additional threaten the U.S.’s plodding path towards herd immunity. Already, hospital techniques are as soon as once more buckling. New dying information are set each day. Vaccine rollout has been maddeningly gradual and pandemic fatigue rampant, as evidenced in Tuscaloosa, which can quickly really feel the implications of the potential superspreader occasion that unfolded when Alabama followers celebrated the sixth school soccer nationwide title of the Nick Saban period. Even then, the worst would possibly nonetheless be but to return.”
• The LA Clippers are hailing their improved chemistry and ‘guys are buying in’, in line with ESPN.
• The Boston Celtics misplaced by 30 to the New York Knicks Sunday afternoon, however not all information was dangerous. Kemba Walker says he was pain-free in his season debut, writes ESPN.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the newest information and high tales.
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