The Clippers signed center Chris Kaman to a multiyear contract extension Saturday that begins with the 2007-08 season. The 7-footer averaged 11.9 points, 9.6 rebounds (ninth in the league) and 1.38 blocks in 78 games last season. In 11 playoff games, he averaged 10.7 points and 8.0 rebounds. The deal is for a reported 5 years and $52 million…The Mavs have reportedly signed swingman Josh Howard to a contract extension. Terms of the deal were not announced, but ESPN.com reported last week that Howard agreed to a four-year deal worth more than $40 million…The Sonics have signed Luke Ridnour to an undisclosed extension…

Erstwhile Raptors training camp PG Andre Barrett has finally stuck with an NBA team, making the cut as the last guy on the Chicago Bulls roster…

Brendan Haywood is the new jack Benoit Benjamin…Etan Thomas beat out Haywood for the Wizards starting center job… “It was close. It wasn’t a landslide,” said coach Eddie Jordan in the Washington Post. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, but Brendan kicked Etan’s butt up and down the floor today. That’s a good thing because that was what this whole thing was about. Competition. Making each other better.”

Amazing…Sam Ashaolu, the Duquene recruit from Toronto who was shot twice in the head back in August, actually attended practice and shot around a bit yesterday…dude, we are all pulling for you…

Apparently Larry Brown and the Knicks have settled…no terms announced…settled? Yeah, settled the fact that Brown can no longer coach, Thomas is intellectually impaired as a GM and…oh yeah, the Knicks suck…

Monday cuts: James White (Pacers), Kevin Burleson (Bobcats), Luke Schenscher (Bulls), Jalen Rose (Knicks)…Jalen to the Heat, that’s my predictions…or maybe the Lakers…

1) For big Rob Killen, Bill Simmons take on Red for ESPN.com:

After his death on Saturday night, Red Auerbach was remembered as the greatest basketball coach/executive who ever lived. He built 16 championship teams and coached nine of them. He was the first to start five black players at the same time. He invented the victory cigar. He was competitive enough that he announced his coaching retirement before the '65-66 season so every team would have one last crack at him. He drafted Bird, Cowens and Havlicek, traded for Russell, traded for McHale and Parish, lucked into Cousy. He's arguably the most important non-player in NBA history -- really, it's either him or David Stern -- the one person who transcended a franchise and became a one-man Mount Rushmore. But it went deeper than that. For every Celtic fan growing up in New England in the '70s and '80s, Red became part of our families, the crusty old grandfather, the patriarch, the guy who made everyone else feel safe. As long as Red was around, the Celts were in good hands. That's just the way it was. He was our ace in the hole. He was Yoda before Yoda was Yoda. He was like a shark at a poker table raking in huge hands every 20 minutes, puffing on that damned cigar, making everyone else feel inferior. He was the ultimate winner. He gave us a competitive advantage. He was smarter than everyone else. And I can't remember life without him. My father started carrying me into Celtics games when I was 4 years old, the year he purchased a single season ticket behind the opponent's bench. My memories don't kick in until the '76 season, when I was 6. Back then, the Celtics allowed me on the court before games. I stood under the basket as everyone launched jumpers, praying for airballs that I could chase down and toss back to the offending parties. Sometimes I'd amble over to the Celtics' bench and stand next to the coaches and ask them questions. They all knew my name. I even made the front page of the Globe's sports section once -- a big picture of me gazing up at an injured John Havlicek during the Buffalo series. He was standing on crutches with a dumb smile on his face. I was chewing my nails and looking confused that he wasn't wearing a uniform. They ran a caption like, "Why aren't you playing tonight, John?" My father bought about 10,000 copies of that paper. You can't imagine what this team meant to me as a little kid. And Red was always the most important person with the Celtics, by far -- the architect, the leader, the father of Celtic Pride. I met him once, and only once, but he will always be family to me. Like with any family member, you have memories. These are mine.

1976 - We're playing somebody in a big playoff game, that's all I remember. Tommy Heinsohn coached the Celtics in those years like the real-life Oscar Madison, looking constantly disheveled, screaming at officials with a booming voice, waving in disgust at every other call, a constant threat to be ejected from every game. Of course, he ends up getting tossed from this one. His only assistant takes over, a tall, aging, pot-bellied guy who looked like an overmatched police sergeant. This isn't good. Even at the age of 6, I know this isn't good. Suddenly, the crowd starts rumbling. Red Auerbach is getting out of his seat. Sitting across from the benches in Section 12, about eight rows up, right on the aisle, everyone sees him moving toward the court. People are cheering. People are yelling. Red is going to save the day. He reaches the floor, circles behind the bench, says some encouraging words to the players, then sits at the press table next to the Celtics' bench. And he remains there for the rest of the game. Thirty years later, I can't remember any of the details -- just a hazy memory of Heinsohn getting kicked out and feeling worried, then Red moving near the bench and diffusing the tension. Red was there. We were safe. And we ended up winning the game. That's all I could remember. Like anything else that happens when you're a kid, sometimes you wonder if things happened like you remember them, or even if they happened at all. But NBA TV showed Game 5 of the Cavs-Celtics series from '76 this summer, and wouldn't you know it? Same game. Heinsohn got kicked out; Red moved over to the press table; Musburger played it up on CBS like the pope just emerged from the Vatican; they showed Red sitting at the table about 50 times; and the Celtics ended up pulling out a hard-fought win. Just like I remembered. You always remember the things that made you feel safe as a little kid.

1978 - Red is leaving. That's the rumor. He's tired of butting heads with an audacious new owner named John Y. Brown, a cocky Kentuckian who doesn't understand what Red means to Boston. Things bottom out when Brown trades three No. 1 picks for Bob McAdoo without consulting his mortified GM. It's the ultimate anti-Red trade. He hates giving up first-round picks. He hates me-first scorers. Brown should have just dragged Red to midcourt of the Garden and slapped him across the face in front of 15,000 people. Bob McAdoo? A Celtic? For three first-round picks? Red can't take it anymore. Now he's leaving to take the Knicks' job. It's the worst-kept secret in town. Only one problem: We won't let him leave. For two weeks, everywhere he goes, the locals implore him to stay. Cabbies reason with him at stoplights. Restaurant patrons interrupt his dinners. Radio hosts beg for him to reconsider. He cannot go anywhere in Boston without someone pleading with him to stay. Meanwhile, I'm only 8 and completely petrified. Red can't leave. You can't have the Celtics without Red. WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT RED??? (Note: This was the same year that my parents separated, and I'm telling you, the thought of Red leaving Boston was nearly as traumatic as the thought of my parents splitting up. Each event carried the same "Good God, what happens now?" ramifications. I am not ashamed to admit this.) Everyone in Massachusetts feels this way, so we make the collective decision to change his mind. It's a guilt trip for the ages. Red Auerbach can't do this to us. He can't leave, and he especially can't leave for the Knicks. This can't happen. He can't leave. He's not leaving. What happens? He stays. Like he had any other choice. Seeing the writing on the wall, Brown avoids becoming a local pariah by switching franchises with Buffalo's owner and moving the Braves to San Diego. So long, John Y., Red wins again. Red always wins.

1983 - We're playing the Sixers in October. We hate the Sixers. They hate us. And even though it's a preseason game, Sixers thug Marc Iavaroni goads Bird into a fistfight that turns into a full-fledged brawl involving Moses, Parish, Toney, Maxwell and others. Just as everything is settling down, Red comes barreling down the stairs in Section 12, furious that a stiff like Iavaroni started the whole thing and endangered his franchise player. He goes right for Sixers coach Billy Cunningham, shoves him and rips his blazer before they're separated. Then Moses says something to him, and before we know it, 66-year-old Red is jamming a finger in Moses Malone's chest and threatening to throw down with the toughest center in the league. You'd think everyone in the Garden would react like someone was dangling a baby over the balcony, right? Nope. They're cheering for Red to get Moses. Fortunately, some of the players hold Red back and nothing else happens. But you know what? Twenty-three years later, I still believe Red would have landed one good punch. Moses Malone was lucky.

1984 - The Celtics have just outlasted the Lakers for their 15th world championship. It ends up being the Finals widely credited with turning the NBA around -- Bird vs. Magic, Gerald Henderson's steal, McHale's clothesline, the unparalleled Heat game and, of course, the Celtics prevailing in at the Garden in another Game 7 -- as well as the most satisfying title of the post-Russell era. Everyone said the Lakers were better. Everyone said Showtime was unstoppable. But the Celtics were tougher. They turned the series into a street fight, reduced the sport to its simplest terms (fast breaks, offensive rebounds and defensive stops) and broke the Lakers down. And when they had nothing left, the Garden fans carried them the rest of the way. Now the Celtics are celebrating in their locker room and pouring champagne on one another. Everyone crams onto a makeshift podium so the commissioner can present the NBA trophy. He makes a little speech and hands the trophy to Red, who's sucking on a victory cigar, as always. And after hearing about the Lakers' "dynasty" from every broadcaster and writer for two weeks, good ol' Red can't resist rubbing it in. "Everyone keeps talking about the Lakers dynasty!" Red yells at Brent Musburger. "Well, here's your dynasty, right here!!!!!!" He holds the trophy up as the locker room explodes. He's holding it like a hunter would display a deer's head. Here's your dynasty. Right here.

1986 - Lenny Bias is a member of the Boston Celtics. At the news conference, Red puffs a cigar and grins from ear to ear. He just added the best college player to the best NBA team ever. This was the kid we wanted all along, he says. One year shy of 70, Red has a realistic chance to dominate the NBA for four consecutive decades. It's a foolproof plan. Bias saves the legs of the Big Three (Bird, McHale and Parish). The presence of the Big Three allows Bias to develop at his own pace. Bird will teach Bias everything he knows and, eventually, pass the torch to him. The Celtics will keep winning and winning. Lenny Bias will lead the way. Lenny Bias is the chosen one. That's the plan. Two days later, Bias is gone. Cocaine overdose. And when he meets the press later that week, for the first time ever, Red Auerbach looks like an old man. Little does he know that the Celtics will never be the same. Or maybe he does.

1987 - Game 4, 1987 Finals, Boston Garden. We're watching one of those larger-than-life games that seems surreal even as it's happening -- the defending champs holding on in a must-win game against the Lakers. After surviving Bias' death, a fleet of injuries and two Game 7s in earlier rounds, they aren't going away. We won't let them. With 12 seconds left, Bird drains a 3-pointer for the lead and nearly causes the roof to collapse. Timeout, Lakers. Magic responds with a baby sky hook for the lead. Timeout, Celtics. Two seconds left. Bird breaks free from Worthy, chases down the inbounds pass, sets his feet and launches a 3 in front of the Lakers bench ... it's dead-on ... everyone holds their breath ... and just as it's going in, it glances off the back of the rim and bounces out. Game over. Series probably over. Dynasty in major trouble. It's so hushed in the Garden, we can only hear the Lakers celebrating and the basketball bouncing away. Everyone is standing in shock. How did that not go in? How the #$^@ did that not go in? Suddenly, there's Red hustling down from his seat and storming across the court. He's furious. The officials cost the Celtics this game. Or so he thinks. He's trying to catch referee Earl Strom before Strom heads into the tunnel and into the safety of the locker room. As it happens, my father and I happen to be sitting right along that tunnel. Here comes Red, screaming and hollering, madder than mad, his face turning maroon. Strom turns around, sees him and screams something like, "Don't start me with me, Arnold!" That's followed by Red ranting and raving and Strom screaming something like, "You're showing all the class I always knew you had!" And that's how the game ends -- 15,000 people standing there in disbelief, 70-year-old Red Auerbach chasing an old nemesis through a tunnel. The Lakers couldn't have beaten us fair and square. No way. We were robbed.

1989 - I make the 45-minute drive from college to catch a home game with my father. In that summer's draft, Red spent his first rounder on a BYU forward named Michael Smith, with Tim Hardaway going one pick later. It was a curious decision -- after all, we needed a point guard much more than we needed another slow white forward. Red maintained that Smith was special. Smith reminded him of Larry Bird. That's what he said. And since he's Red Auerbach, nobody questions him. Of course, Hardaway starts out in Golden State like gangbusters, while Smith can't even get off Boston's bench. In this particular game, the Celtics throw him out there to see what they have. He's gawky and awkward. He can't guard anybody. He looks like one of those dorky guys in intramurals who keeps bumping into everybody and making everyone angry. Quite simply, he's terrible. Fifteen years earlier, maybe he makes it. Not now. The league has become too quick, too fast, too athletic. It's a different era. We watch Smith head back to the bench, his confidence completely demolished. On the other coast, Tim Hardaway is averaging 14.7 points and 8.7 assists per game as a rookie. It's impossible to look at Michael Smith and not think of Tim Hardaway. "Might be time to take the car keys away from Red," my father says finally.

1991 - Red has stepped down at this point, handing the team over to a handpicked successor named Dave Gavitt. He's firmly entrenched in the "Vito Corleone in the last hour of 'The Godfather'" stage of his career, an advisor and nothing more. But his legacy lives on. In Faneuil Hall, a tourist trap in downtown Boston, they now have a statue of Red Auerbach. He's sitting on a bench and holding a cigar, a small smile on his face. Would any other city erect a statue of a coach/executive? Of course not. Walking around with my girlfriend from college, we stumble across the statue. She ends up taking a picture of me proudly standing next to Red. A few days later, I frame the picture and place it on a nightstand next to my bed in college. I have three pictures on that nightstand: one of me with my parents; one of me with my girlfriend; and one of me with Red's statue. For the rest of my senior year, those are the three pictures next to my bed.

1995 - The Celtics haven't won a title in nine years. The Garden has been torn down, replaced by the generic Fleet Center. With the franchise floundering under coach M.L. Carr, Red spends most of his time in Washington now. And maybe that's a good thing. Meanwhile, I'm covering high school sports and answering phones for the Boston Herald. Perusing the computer files in the sports system one night, I find an entire section devoted to prewritten obituaries of older Boston sports legends like Ted Williams, Harry Sinden, Bob Cousy, Johnny Pesky, Bill Russell and, of course, Red Auerbach. It's the weirdest thing ever. None of these people are dead yet. It's downright creepy. I end up reading Red's obituary from beginning to end. Where it says his "age" at the time of death, they have "age XX" in there. I find this to be deeply disturbing. How can you write an obituary of someone who's not dead yet? So when Red dies, they'll just fill in the "age XX" and run this thing in the paper? I glance around the news room. Nobody's looking. I'm going to delete Red's obituary from the system. That's the decision. It's the only way. Of course, I don't have proper clearance to delete anything. I'm just a lowly intern. So Red Auerbach's obituary keeps staring at me, pulsating in green letters on a crappy computer, and part of me wants to flip the computer over and be done with this lousy job once and for all.

2001 - I stop by the Celtics offices to see a friend who works for them. There's a lobby outside the front desk with trophies and pictures hanging everywhere, including year-by-year photos of every Celtics team. So I'm following the photos through the years, seeing players that I hadn't thought of in years, and there's one constant in every photo: Red Auerbach sitting in the middle of the first row, holding a basketball and smiling at the camera. Pick a year and you'll see him: 1956, 1962, 1974. It doesn't matter. And I'm going through the photos and, suddenly, we get to 1998, and there's Rick Pitino and Red sitting in the middle together, awkwardly holding the basketball, and by 1999, Pitino is holding the basketball by himself and Red has been pushed off to the side. Out of all the injustices over the past few years -- Pitino taking Red's team presidency, Pitino ignoring the old man's advice and treating him like yesterday's news, Pitino ultimately running the franchise into the ground with a series of impetuous moves -- this series of framed photos captured everything. You can see Red getting pushed out. Literally. Well, until you get to the 2001 team photo. Pitino is long gone. Red Auerbach is back where he belongs, right in the middle of that season's photo, sitting in the front row, holding that basketball again. Everything is right in the world. As I'm staring at that photo, my friend comes out. "What are you looking at?" he asks me. I point to the 2001 photo. He understands right away. "Isn't that great?" he says. Yes. It's great. That's the perfect word.

2002 - I'm sitting at my kitchen table in Charlestown, trying to start a column that can't be started. A few days before, I had spent 90 minutes hanging with Red in his Washington, D.C., office. Rightfully, the Celtics were protective of his time. The guy running the franchise back then, for all intent and purpose, was a good man named Rich Pond. The past two regimes had pushed Red aside; the current regime made an effort to include Red in everything, even including him in the decision-making process for the 2001 draft. Still, they worried about having writers spend time with him. They were extremely selective. "We're going to let you do it," Rich Pond told me. "But if you make him look bad in any way, I'm going to kill you." He was serious. Like I would ever make Red look bad. As it turned out, the old man was as sharp as ever -- we talked hoops for an hour and he even gave me a ride back into town. It remains one of the greatest thrills of my life. It was like meeting God. Right down to what you would imagine God looks like. And now? I have to write about it. And I'm staring at an empty laptop screen, thinking to myself, "You are not good enough to write this column," even though my whole life had specifically played out for me to write that column. I keep staring at that empty screen, waiting for the words to come. I have never stared at an empty screen longer in my life.

2005 - The call finally comes, the one I had always been dreading. My friend with the Celtics tells me that the rumors are true: Red Auerbach is dying. He's on his last legs. His lungs have filled with fluid. He's not making it through the weekend. He promises to keep me posted and we hang up. Coincidentally, I have a magazine column due the next day. My editor calls and wonders if I should write about Red. Yeah, that seems like the right idea. A couple of beats pass. I can't help but remember that freaking Herald obit and the "age XX" section. "You know what?" I tell him. "I'm not writing about Red until he's actually gone. I don't feel right about it." I pick another topic. And guess what? Red holds on. Red gets better. Red makes it to Opening Day. Red makes it to Thanksgiving. Red makes it to Hannukah and Christmas. Red makes it back to the Fleet Center for another standing ovation. Red makes it through the season. In fact, Red is doing well enough that the team asks for his blessing to have cheerleaders. Every other team has cheerleaders but Boston. And why? Because Red always maintained that the Celtics would have cheerleaders over his dead body. Those were the exact words. Over my dead body. Unfortunately for Red, it's a different league now. You don't need one assistant coach anymore; you need five. You don't need one scout anymore; you need 10. You don't need a scoreboard anymore; you need a Jumbotron with an HDTV picture; you need a good stereo system that plays hip-hop songs during timeouts; and you definitely need cheerleaders. They call it "in-game entertainment." Red never understood this; he always thought the game should be the entertainment. Eventually, he accepted the fact that the world was changing around him, that he couldn't stop it anymore. Sure, the Celtics could have cheerleaders. He wouldn't like it. But they could have them. The cheerleaders were scheduled to debut at Wednesday night's home opener against New Orleans. Not anymore. Red Auerbach stole their thunder by passing away. I will always believe that this wasn't a coincidence. It's just too crazy. The old man waited until the last possible moment ... and then he called it quits. He lived and died without ever seeing a Celtics cheerleader. What a way to go out. Instead of breaking out their dance squad, the Celtics will mourn the soul of their franchise on Wednesday night. Red's seat in Section 12 will remain empty. Old players will show up. Bagpipes will be played. A tribute video will run on the brand-new Jumbotron that Red would have hated. People will cheer, people will clap, people will cry. It's going to be an emotional night. For one final game, 21 years after our last championship, the Boston Celtics will seem more special than every other NBA team. After that? Bring on the cheerleaders. We're going to need them

2) James will love this, from Mike Kahn of Foxsports.com:

Spurs are favorites to win NBA title

The buzz always comes around the same way in the NBA preseason. The wise guys love to name the San Antonio Spurs as the favorites to win the title because they're the safe pick. The other reason might also be that they're also the smartest pick, particularly this season — despite the return of virtually everyone for the defending NBA champion Miami Heat and the Western Conference champion Dallas Mavericks. And here's why ... they were within an eyelash of winning three of the four games they lost to the Mavs in the thrilling Western Conference semifinals, and this was in a season during which both Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili were hurt most of the year trying to defend their 2005 title. Plus, Duncan, Ginobili and Tony Parker did not play into June in 2006, nor go through the rigorous international play they had experienced in previous seasons. In other words, this team is irritated about what happened last season and healthier than any of the recent years. "Every year there are about three or four teams that can win a championship, and the three that we won, I didn't know we were going to win those," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of titles won in 1999, 2003 and '05. "There could have been other teams that wanted them. We could have easily won last year's and so could Dallas or some other team ... Detroit or whoever you want to plug in there. You lose to someone and I think what's important is how you lose and what the series was like. You don't just change willy-nilly because you lost." So the Spurs didn't. Oh, they added more athletic big men Francisco Elson and Fabricio Oberto to support Duncan (with Nazr Mohammed leaving), plus Matt Bonner, Jackie Butler and Jacque Vaughn. But that isn't the point considering they are ancillary players anyway. There are misconceptions about the Spurs, and that is part of what is driving them. With Duncan inside featuring his brilliant all-around game, Parker emerging as perhaps the best point guard in the game at getting to the rim, and Ginobili still a very tough, multi-dimensional shooting guard, they have three players who can dominate offensively. Plus that's on a team that is also a top-three defensive team, with perennial All-Defense first team forward Bruce Bowen added to the brilliance of Duncan and constant thieving hands of Ginobili and Parker. The concept that this team is old and does not have the athleticism to play with the Mavs anymore may very well be precisely what motivates the Spurs to regain what they lost. "People have to have definitions and people have to describe winners and losers, but that Dallas series could have easily gone the other way," Popovich said. "Nobody would have mentioned that we looked a little old. I guess when you lose, I guess you do and when you win you look real experienced. I think we are as good as anybody, but in the end it takes a lot of things to win a championship; Good fortune is important, getting some good calls here and there, being on a run, having a player that is playing great. We feel good about our team. We have probably become a little bit more athletic inside, but other than that, we are pretty much the same." Most favor the Heat to repeat in the East, but they are old and Dwyane Wade is already exhausted from the off-season before the 2006-07 season even tips off. The Pistons still are tough and dangerous but lacking depth and Ben Wallace. The Chicago Bulls are the vogue pick to watch out for because they signed Wallace, but they lack a go-to player to win the big game. And of course any time LeBron James leads the Cleveland Cavaliers — everyone is in love with the opportunity they may have to turn the world upside down despite the obvious lack of championship quality players around him. Of course, the Mavs remain one of the favorites, and rightfully so. Avery Johnson did a brilliant job in his first full season, helping further evolve Dirk Nowitzki's game, and a defense that was previously a joke suddenly became a factor. It's easy to be excited about the possibilities for the Phoenix Suns to return to the conference finals for a third consecutive year with the return of Amare Stoudemire — with the caveat that his knees really have healed, which is still unproven. And it's fun to fall in love with the Los Angeles Clippers for a second year because they have been so dismal forever, along with the fact that the core of Elton Brand, Sam Cassell and youngsters Chris Kaman and Shaun Livingston are so intriguing. Nonetheless, they are still the Clippers. Besides, this is a reality check, and that's why the Spurs have always been so good and so consistent. They are about reality. They are about defensive toughness and consistency — no easy shots are allowed because they are always there in the half-court and transition. Offensively, they push the ball for easy baskets at every moment — with Parker flowing up the floor more than running, and Ginobili and/or Duncan coming off the wing. They hit big 3-pointers and have clutch veterans, such as Robert Horry, Michael Finley and Brent Barry, to knock down shots from the bench. "I think," Popovich stressed, "that people tend to oversimplify teams." And that's impossible when it comes to the Spurs because they have been for the past seven seasons, they do indeed break down the game to its simplest form. This season will be no different in that regard, with one difference. They have something to prove, and beware of the lion-hearted who believe they've been wronged. They won't be pretty ... just effective on the way to their fourth title in eight years. That's the San Antonio Spurs' way of life, and why the wise guys know that the efficiency of the champions is all that really matters. Because even if the whining and TV ratings say Duncan will bore everybody all the way to the title as opposed to James, Wade or even the Mavs, who cares? Certainly the Spurs don't and won't throughout the 2006-07 season. Get used to it.

3) Chad Ford of ESPN.com rates the rooks:

Rookie report: The good, the bad and the solid

On draft night, I handed out grades based on potential and fit. Four months later, with summer league and most of the preseason behind us, let's reevaluate the rookies based on what we know now. So far, we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of the freshman class, with a few in-between guys who deserve a "solid" label.

The Good

Brandon Roy, G, Trail Blazers - Since the draft, I've pegged Roy as having the best shot at the Rookie of the Year award, and his strong play in the summer league and preseason indicate that he's still the leading candidate to bring home the trophy. He's poised to have a big year for the Blazers. It appears that he's won the starting two guard position and even will play some point guard for the Blazers.

Rudy Gay, F, Grizzlies - Pau Gasol's injury in the World Championship was devastating to the Grizzlies but good for getting Gay's career going. Without Gasol, the Grizzlies will look for Gay to give them scoring punch. After a lackluster sophomore season at UConn, Gay's performance in the summer league and preseason seem to indicate that he might live up to his limitless potential.

Rajon Rondo, PG, Celtics - I had Rondo ranked at the top point guard in the draft almost all year and thought he should be a top 10 pick. He became the steal of the draft when he fell into the Celtics' lap at No. 21 (via trade from Phoenix). So far in the preseason, Rondo has played as well as, if not better than, Boston starting point guard Sebastian Telfair. Only time will tell whether Rondo will be able to beat out Telfair for the starting job, but the facts are in his favor: Rondo is a much better defender and rebounder, and he has played virtually mistake-free basketball so far. If he can learn to consistently knock down the mid-range jumper, he's got a chance to be a star.

Tyrus Thomas, PF, Bulls - Thomas had the most upside of anyone in the draft, but I thought he was a year or two away from being an NBA contributor. However, his energy, shot-blocking and athleticism in the preseason indicate that he'll be a solid rotation player this season.

Marcus Williams, PG, New Jersey Nets - Williams took a shocking draft night nosedive but found the perfect home in New Jersey.
The Nets will try to limit Jason Kidd's minutes this season, and Williams has shown in the preseason and the summer league that he's ready to handle the team 15-to-20 minutes a night. He really should rack up the assists in Jersey.

The Solid

Andrea Bargnani, F, Raptors - GM Bryan Colangelo took a pretty big risk taking Bargnani No. 1, and so far the results have been inconclusive. He's looked good in a few games, but lost in others. Right now he's spending most of his time on the perimeter. If he's going to be a star, he's eventually going to have to grab some rebounds and block some shots.

Randy Foye, SG, Timberwolves - Foye was awesome in the summer league, but his role in the preseason has been limited. Part of the reason is fit. With Mike James gunning away from the point guard position, they can't really play Foye a lot. Second, Foye has been struggling with his shot and committing too many turnovers. It might take him a little longer to get going than we originally thought.

Shawne Williams, F, Pacers - I wasn't very high on the Pacers pick on draft night, but he's been very solid in preseason play. He won't get much run for the Pacers this year, but so far the word out of Indiana is that everyone's impressed.

Renaldo Balkman, F, Knicks - Isiah Thomas was blasted by me and just about everyone else on draft night for taking Balkman at No. 20. I still think it was the wrong move, given what the two guys taken directly after him (Rondo and Marcus Williams) have been doing. But Balkman hasn't been the bust everyone expected, either. He's hustled, played good defense and brought some passion to the Knicks.

The Bad

Adam Morrison, F, Bobcats - Morrison looked good in the summer league, but he's struggled mightily with his shot in the preseason, shooting just 32 percent from the field. Considering he doesn't play much defense, grab rebounds or do much in the assist department, he'd better start making his shots. The early word out of Bobcats camp is that the team likes him, but he's going to have make big adjustments to his college game to thrive in the pros.

Shelden Williams, F, Hawks - The Hawks reached big-time for Williams at No. 5. Yes, they needed rebounding and shotblocking, and Williams has provided some of that. But his awful shooting percentage, combined with the stellar play of several players taken after him in the draft, continues to make this pick the shakiest one in the draft.

Kyle Lowry, PG, Grizzlies - I was a big fan of this pick for the Grizzlies on draft night and Lowry has shown the Grizzlies his trademark hustle and grittiness. But his high turnover rate and low shooting percentage make you wonder how much he'll play this year.

The Ugly

LaMarcus Aldridge, F, Blazers - Shoulder surgery has kept Aldridge out of the preseason and he'll likely miss the first month of the season. That's usually the kiss of death for rookies. Combine that with the solid play of Tyrus Thomas in the early going and you have to start wondering whether the Blazers made the right call on draft night.

Mouhamed Sene, C, Sonics - On draft night I said Sene had great talent but was years away. So far, his play in the preseason hasn't shown much of the talent, but has lended credence to the idea that he's years away.

J.J. Redick, SG, Magic - Back injuries, DWIs and then a foot injury in the summer have limited Redick's time on the court to just one preseason game. The summer and preseason are vital times for the development of rookies and it appears that Redick might end up missing the boat.

Quincy Douby, G, Kings - I thought this was a questionable pick for the Kings on draft night and I haven't seen anything from Douby to suggest the Kings made the right call here. With Mike Bibby out at least three weeks with a thumb injury, I'm sure Rondo and Marcus Williams are looking better and better to the Kings.

The Sleepers

Steve Novak, F, Rockets - Novak is pretty one-dimensional, but he's been a red-hot shooter in the preseason from just about anywhere on the floor. With Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady commanding double teams all year, this second-round pick could end up having a bigger year than Redick.

Alexander Johnson, F, Grizzlies - It's hard to understand why so many teams passed on Johnson late in the first round, and so far he's made them really second guess themselves with his solid play on both ends of the floor. With Gasol out for a while, he could be another sleeper who makes a surprising impact his rookie year.

Leon Powe, F, Celtics - It's doubtful that Powe will see much run on a stacked Celtics squad this year, but the C's have to be happy about his early play. The last few games he's been a force on the boards and in the paint. Powe has first-round talent. If the knee holds up, he could be a player down the road.

Red Auerbach has passed away this past Saturday at age 89…

Here are a few highlights:

• Coached the now-defunct Washington Capitols to two division titles in 1947 and 1949.

• The 1947 Capitols' .817 winning percentage remained the NBA's highest for the next 20 years. The team also won 17 straight games at one point during the season, a streak that would remain a league record until 1969.

• Coached the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for the 1949-50 season.

• Coached Boston Celtics from 1950 to 1966 winning nine championships, including a stretch from 1959 to 1966 when the Celtics won eight straight NBA championships.

• In 20 years as a coach, he won 938 regular season games, a record that would stand until Lenny Wilkens broke it in the 1994-95 season.

• Led Boston to 99 playoff victories, fourth all-time behind Phil Jackson, Pat Riley and Larry Brown.

• Finished with nine NBA championship rings, later tied by Phil Jackson.

• NBA Coach of the Year in 1965.

• Coached 11 Hall of Famers.

• NBA 25th Anniversary All-Time team coach. (1970)

• Coached in the NBA East-West All-Star Game 11 consecutive years (1957-67) and compiled a 7-4 record.

• Enshrined as a coach on April 13, 1969 in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

• Won the NBA Executive of the Year award with the Celtics in the 1979-1980 season.

• Named the greatest coach in the history of the NBA by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America in 1980.

1) From the AP:

Passing of a legend - Celtics patriarch, Hall of Famer Auerbach dead at 89

WASHINGTON (AP) -- His genius was building a basketball dynasty in Boston, his gift was straight talk, his signature was the pungent cigar he lit up and savored after every victory. Red Auerbach, the Hall of Famer who guided the Celtics to 16 championships -- first as a coach and later as general manager -- died Saturday. He was 89. Auerbach died of a heart attack near his home in Washington, according to an NBA official, who didn't want to be identified. His last public appearance was on Wednesday, when he received the Navy's Lone Sailor Award during a ceremony in the nation's capital. Auerbach's death was announced by the Celtics, who still employed him as team president. Next season will be dedicated to him, they said. "He was relentless and produced the greatest basketball dynasty so far that this country has ever seen and certainly that the NBA has ever seen," said Bob Cousy, the point guard for many of Auerbach's championship teams, who referred to his coach by his given name. "This is a personal loss for me. Arnold and I have been together since 1950. I was fortunate that I was able to attend a function with him Wednesday night. ... I am so glad now that I took the time to be there and spend a few more moments with him." Tom Heinsohn, who played under Auerbach and then coached the Celtics when he was their general manager, remembered his personal side. "He was exceptional at listening and motivating people to put out their very best," Heinsohn said. "In my playing days he once gave me a loaded cigar and six months later I gave him one. That was our relationship. We had a tremendous amount of fun and the game of basketball will never see anyone else like him." Auerbach's 938 victories made him the winningest coach in NBA history until Lenny Wilkens overtook him during the 1994-95 season. "Beyond his incomparable achievements, Red had come to be our basketball soul and our basketball conscience," NBA commissioner David Stern said, "the void left by his death will never be filled." Auerbach's nine titles as a coach came in the 1950s and 1960s -- including eight straight from 1959 through 1966 -- and then through shrewd deals and foresight he became the architect of Celtics teams that won seven more championships in the 1970s and 1980s. Phil Jackson matched those record nine championships when the Los Angeles Lakers won the title in 2001-02. "Red was a true champion and one whose legacy transcends the Celtics and basketball," Sen. Ted Kennedy said. "He was the gold standard in coaching and in civic leadership, and he set an example that continues today. We all knew and loved Red in the Kennedy family." Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. The jersey No. 2 was retired by the Celtics in his honor during the 1984-85 season. "He was a unique personality, a combination of toughness and great, great caring about people," said author John Feinstein, who last year collaborated on a book with Auerbach on the coach's reflections of seven decades in basketball. "He cared about people much more than it showed in his public face, and that's why people cared about him." With the Celtics, he made deals that brought Bill Russell, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to Boston. He drafted Larry Bird a year early when the Indiana State star was a junior to make sure Bird would come to Boston. "Red Auerbach was one of the most influential people in my life," Bird said. "Not only was he an inspiration to me throughout my career, he became a close friend as well. There could only be one Red Auerbach and I'll always be grateful for having the opportunity to experience his genius and his dedication to winning through teamwork." Auerbach coached championship teams that featured players such as Russell, Cousy, Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones, all inducted into the Hall of Fame. After stepping down as general manager in 1984, Auerbach served as president of the Celtics and occasionally attended team practices into the mid-1990s, although his role in the draft and personnel decisions had diminished. "Red was a guy who always introduced new things," Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca told The Associated Press in an interview this month. "He had some of the first black players in the league and some people didn't like that, but you've got to do what's right for the fans." When Rick Pitino took the president's title when he became coach in 1997, Auerbach became vice chairman of the board. After Pitino resigned in 2001, Auerbach regained the title of president and remained vice chairman. When the team was sold in 2002 to a group headed by Wyc Grousbeck, Auerbach stayed on as president. Through all those changes and titles, Auerbach didn't lose his direct manner of speaking, such as when he discussed the parquet floor of the Boston Garden shortly before the Celtics' longtime home closed in September 1995. "The whole thing was a myth," Auerbach said. "People thought not only that there were dead spots, but that we knew where every one was and we could play accordingly. "Now, did you ever watch a ballplayer go up and down the court at that speed and pick out a dead spot?" he asked. "If our players worried about that, thinking that's going to help them win, they're out of their cotton-picking mind. But if the other team thought that: Hey, good for us." As Celtics president, Auerbach shuttled between Boston and his home in the nation's capital, where he led an active lifestyle that included playing racquetball and tennis into his mid-70s. Auerbach underwent two procedures in May 1993 to clear blocked arteries. He had been bothered by chest discomfort at various times beginning in 1986.
Auerbach was also hospitalized a year ago, but he was soon active again and attended the Celtics' home opener. Asked that night what his thoughts were, he replied in his usual blunt manner: "What goes through your mind is, 'When the hell are we going to win another one? I mean, it's as simple as that." Auerbach had planned to be at the Celtics' opener this season, in Boston next Wednesday against the New Orleans Hornets. In his 16 seasons as the Celtics' coach, Auerbach berated referees and paced the sideline with a rolled-up program in his clenched fist. The cigar came out when he was sure of another Celtic triumph. He had a 938-479 regular-season coaching record and a 99-69 playoff mark. Auerbach had a reputation as a keen judge of talent, seemingly always getting the best of trades with fellow coaches and general managers. In 1956, he traded Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to St. Louis for the Hawks' first-round pick and ended up with Russell -- probably the greatest defensive center of all time and the heart of 11 championship teams.
In 1978, he drafted Bird in the first round even though he would have to wait a year before Bird could become a professional.
Before the 1980 draft, the Celtics traded the No. 1 overall selection to Golden State for Parish and the No. 3 pick. The Warriors took Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics chose McHale. In 1981, Boston chose Brigham Young guard Danny Ainge in the second round. Ainge was playing baseball in the Toronto Blue Jays organization at the time, but was freed after a court battle to play for the Celtics. In June 1983, another one-sided deal brought guard Dennis Johnson from Phoenix for seldom-used backup center Rick Robey. Born Arnold Auerbach in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sept. 20, 1917, he attended Seth Low Junior College in New York and George Washington University. His playing career was undistinguished. In three seasons at George Washington he scored 334 points in 56 games. He would often attend games at GW's Smith Center, where the court is named in his honor. As a coach, he was an instant success, posting the best record of his career in his first season. He led the Washington Capitols to a 49-11 mark in 1946-47, the NBA's debut season, and took them to the playoff semifinals. The Capitols had winning records the next two seasons under Auerbach, who moved on to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for one season in 1949-50. They had a 28-29 mark, Auerbach's only losing record in 20 years as an NBA coach. In the NBA's first four seasons, the Celtics never had a winning record. But Auerbach changed that dramatically when he succeeded Alvin "Doggy" Julian as Boston's coach for the 1950-51 campaign. They went 39-30 that year, and the Celtics never had a losing record in his 16 seasons on the bench. Boston's lowest winning percentage was .611 in his last 10 seasons. His last game as coach was on April 28, 1966, when Boston edged the Lakers 95-93 in Game 7 of the finals to win the NBA title. He was just 48 years old, but ready to move on. On Feb. 13 of that season, Auerbach was honored at halftime of a loss to Los Angeles at Boston Garden.
"They say that losing comes easier as you grow older," he said after the game. "But losing keeps getting harder for me. I just can't take it like I used to. It's time for me to step out." Russell became player-coach the next season, while Auerbach concentrated on his job as general manager. Russell was the first of five Boston coaches who had played for Auerbach. Auerbach is survived by his two daughters, Nancy Auerbach Collins and Randy Auerbach; his granddaughter, Julie Auerbach Flieger, and three great-grandchildren.

2) SI.com’s Jack McCallum reflects:

Seeing Red - Auerbach was one of a kind and earned respect of all

The thing about Red Auerbach is that he remained relevant. It's a neat trick to pull off in the sports world where guys who hang around for a long time eventually get treated like the crazy uncle from Ipswich. Red, who died of a heart attack at 89 on Saturday night, had some of that crazy-uncle in him, to be sure. He growled and grumped his way through life, immune to irony, seeing the world in blacks and whites and no grays. I interviewed him on, oh, 37 different occasions and had to re-introduce myself each time; I'm sure that, had I stopped an interview to use the bathroom, I would've had to re-introduce myself upon re-entry. I was around a lot during the Bird Era, but that wasn't the same as being there in the '50s and '60s, when Red ran the Green and the Green ran the NBA. It was like that with anyone who wasn't in the inner sanctum to which Red held the key. After he hired Dave Gavitt to run Boston's basketball operations in the summer of 1990, Red did a television interview during which he was asked about the Celtics' still unresolved head coaching situation. "I'll hear from -- What's-his name, Dave -- about it," he told a broadcaster. Even by 1985, the year I began covering the league (the Celtics' last championship season by the way), Red was spending much of his time in Washington, and by my reckoning was a titular figure only, iconic but ultimately inconsequential. Not the case. I still remember the excitement in Kevin McHale's voice before a preseason practice. "Hey, Red's here today!" You could get McHale to goof on almost anybody at any time, but he had only the most respectful things to say about Red. It was the same with all the Celtics, Larry Bird included. Bird always had (still has, even though he wears designer suits as the Indiana Pacers' president of basketball operations) a kind of blue-collar resistance to bosses. He didn't snuggle up to owners or team execs. But when Red came around, Bird always treated him with deference. I can still see them huddled together after practice, Bird leaning over and laughing as Red gestured with his cigar, at times, in the later years, unlit. There was always an attempt around Celtic Land to sell the idea that Red was involved in every decision, even into the 1990s. That wasn't the case. Red was a guy who had bamboozled the rest of the league for years with his knack for recognizing talent and motivating his guys, and he simply didn't have the patience to sit in his office and study, say, the ramifications of the salary cap. But he was consulted on major issues, for, on certain matters, there is nothing that beats seat-of-the-pants instincts; for over three decades, Red's were as good as anyone's. An outsider can only guess, ultimately, what the latter-day Celtics got from this man who won his first championship when cities like Fort Wayne and Rochester and Syracuse had pro franchises. But I think it was a sense of bravado. Red never lost it. He walked in a building -- any building -- and it was 1957 all over again and he was going to smirk at you, turn his boys loose, kick your ass, then light a victory cigar in your face. His self-confidence was contagious, and if the current Celtics weren't rolling over the opposition like the old Celtics did, well, their feeling was: Red is still here and we just might do it again. Red is not there anymore and, already, the Celtics -- and the game itself -- feels a little less special.

3) From Ken Shouler of ESPN.com

"One night, during a bad snowstorm in Boston, [player-coach Bill] Russell wasn't able to get to the game. So Red was the substitute coach that night. "Early in the game I missed a few shots in a row that I normally expect to make. My head was kind of hangin' a little bit. "Red called a timeout and he says to me, 'Howell, forget about missing those shots. I will worry about you missing those shots. You just remember if you get any more like that, if you don't take them, you gonna be over here on the bench with me.' "So I went out and started callin' for the ball; I thought I had a hot hand. "He was a master at handling people -- a master psychologist." Time and again you hear Celtics describing Red as "a player's coach." To the world outside his own huddles and locker room he was ornery and miserable, a boisterous dynamo who peered at you through cigar smoke after his troops had impaled yours. But not with his own players. He supported them. He had their backs. They knew it, so they did everything to please him. He emphasized people far more than X's and O's. "Red Auerbach convinced his players that he loved them," said Earl Lloyd, the NBA's first African-American player. "So all they wanted to do was please him." It was the best way of getting the maximum from his squad. He did it to squeeze even the slightest of advantages from situations. Sure, he could be the consummate actor on the sidelines -- waving his arms, stomping his feet, tearing at his hair. He received more fines and was thrown out of more games than any other NBA coach. He was even tossed out while coaching the All-Star Game in San Francisco's Cow Palace in 1967, Rick Barry recalled with a laugh. What does Lloyd remember most about Auerbach's teams? "That they won more than anybody else," he laughs. "That about sums it up." Before Auerbach's nine championships in 10 years (1957-66), before the signature victory cigar on the bench that signaled the enemy was somewhere between simmering and cooked, before Celtic mystique and the parquet floors, there was Brooklyn. Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born on Sept. 20, 1917, the son of Marie Thompson and Hyman Auerbach, a Russian immigrant. Red grew up in the familiar and hardscrabble Brooklyn neighborhood called Williamsburg, where his father ran a dry cleaners. Red helped out with some of the pressing duties and also earned nickels washing taxi cabs. He was a teenager during the Depression, when unemployment in New York rose as high as 50 percent. "I appreciated the fact that my father was a hard-working man," Red once recalled, explaining his father's influence. "Also that he was well liked." Auerbach gravitated to basketball because that's what he had. "In my area of Brooklyn there was no football, no baseball," he said. "They were too expensive. They didn't have the practice fields. We played basketball and handball and some softball in the street." Red, who stood 5-foot-9, went to Eastern District High School and began courting basketball. As a senior, he made all-Brooklyn, second team. After Seth Low Junior College (part of Columbia University) closed in Brooklyn during his freshman year, he transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. It was there at GW, under coach Bill Reinhart, that he learned the running game that would later become a Celtics trademark. With Reinhart's recommendation, Auerbach landed a position as basketball director at prestigious St. Albans Prep in suburban Washington. Coaching, not playing, was his future. He married Dorothy Lewis in the spring of 1941. He also got his master's degree and joined the faculty at Roosevelt High School in Washington, teaching history, health and physical education. An article that he wrote on indoor obstacle courses for the Journal of Health and Physical Education was the beginning of a publishing career that eventually included five basketball books, translated into a half-dozen languages. To make extra money, he refereed basketball games. In 1943 he enlisted in the Navy. By the time Auerbach was discharged in 1946, Walter Brown had helped start the Basketball Association of America. Mike Uline, owner of the Washington Caps, wanted to hire Auerbach as coach. But Auerbach was married and soon to start a family, so the move was risky for him. "I had a permanent job already, but I felt I could always get a job if it didn't work out," he recalled. He took the job, filling a roster with the names of players he remembered from his days in the Navy. Red was only 29. "Some of the guys on the team were older than me," he said. "I just sold the guy a bill of goods to get the job. A lot of guys had better credentials." He paid no one on the team more than $8,500 and insisted on defense and conditioning from his players. In the 1946-47 season, his team finished 49-11. After three years of coaching the Washington Capitols and the Tri-Cities Blackhawks of Iowa in the BAA, and winning 143 of 225 games, he was hired by Brown to coach the NBA's Boston Celtics. Brown was in debt and looking for a head coach for one last go-around with Boston. Fortunately, Auerbach had Bob Cousy during his first year at the helm, helping him turn the Celtics from a 22-46 team in 1949 into a 39-30 team in 1950. Cousy was good right out of the box, scoring 15.6 points and averaging nearly five assists a game in his rookie year. But Auerbach almost didn't get him. Auerbach wasn't short on opinions about who should play on his team. "Am I supposed to win here, or take care of local yokels?" he asked, suggesting that Cousy was touted merely because he played at nearby Holy Cross. Auerbach passed on Cousy in the draft, instead selecting 6-11 center Charlie Share. Local fans were irate. Due to outrageous fortune -- several teams had folded -- Brown offered Cousy $9,000 a year. He signed. Had Cousy taken umbrage at Auerbach's "local yokel" remark and not signed, things might have turned out very differently. Celtic luck may have been born right there. Besides Cousy, the Celtics had a 20-point scorer in Ed Macauley. "We had a good team, but we would get tired in the end and couldn't get the ball," Red recalled. A big man was sorely lacking. "We were good, but hadn't won yet," Cousy said. "But I remember one day in 1956, Red said, 'I think I'm getting a guy that will change things.'" To get Bill Russell required some legendary maneuvering that would take its place in Celtics lore. Rochester was drafting first, with St. Louis second, and the whole world knew about Russell's exploits at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and at the University of San Francisco, where his team won 55 straight. Rochester was strong up front and looked to draft Sihugo Green. Brown gave Rochester team manager Les Harrison additional incentive to avoid Russell. If Harrison passed on Russell, Brown would arrange for Rochester to get the touring Ice Capades two weeks later. Recalled Auerbach: "Walter got him the Ice Capades, and Harrison said, 'I give you my word that we'll stay away from Russell.'" But all this would have been for naught if St. Louis had picked Russell second. Auerbach called Ben Kerner to see if he would make a deal. Auerbach offered All-Star Macauley. Kerner badly needed stars to keep his franchise afloat, so he asked for Cliff Hagan, too. Auerbach agreed. With Russell in the pivot, the Celtics had a spider-armed, tireless intimidator. He had run track in college and could outrun everyone on the team. "Russell could change a game without scoring," says Don Nelson, a teammate of Russell's in the 1960s. Cousy recalled how Russell would deliberately goal-tend a few shots at the outset of the game -- just to intimidate the other team. He also recalls that Russell's fury on the court was owed in part to the racial slurs he endured. "What made him special was his fantastic reactions," Red remembered. "He was a brilliant guy; you couldn't fool him twice. He had long arms. He was interested in defense. Most big men were interested in scoring. Russell was the opposite; he'd let the other guys shoot the ball." In his first year, Russell led the team in rebounding. Behind rookie Tommy Heinsohn's 37 points, the Celtics won their first world championship that year, winning Game 7 in an agonizing three overtimes, 125-123. In 1958, Russell injured his ankle in the Finals against St. Louis and the Hawks won in six games. It was the last time any team other than Boston would win the title for eight straight years. Former NBA coach Hubie Brown remembered what worked so well: "[Red] had a relentless fast break, pressure defense and Bill Russell in the back that allowed him to play this style. They were also very organized in their play sets. Then, I feel he had the ability to motivate them individually, because it is extremely difficult to maintain excellence. It comes down to that ability to maintain excellence. He knew how to push the right button on each guy to get him to be subservient to the team." Through it all, Red typically ate Chinese food in his room between games, conserving his energy for the grueling travel demands that included more trains and cars than planes. The 1960-61 squad may have been the Celtics' finest under Auerbach. The team went 57-22 and, amazingly, had six scorers averaging between 15 and 21 points a game without one finishing in the top 10. As Brown observed, under Auerbach, the Celtics understood the maxim "There is no 'I' in team." "In any good coach is the ability to communicate," Auerbach explained. "In other words, a lot of coaches know their X's and O's, but the players must absorb it. Team was important. We didn't care who the starting five was. The sixth-man concept was my idea." Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek were the first two players to perform in that role. Auerbach could be a taskmaster in practice. Sure, the Celtics were knee-deep in talent, but they also worked harder than other teams. "Defense and conditioning were the best parts of those teams," says former Celtic Tom "Satch" Sanders. "In those days you had eight teams, 10 guys, 80 players altogether," Brown said. "Nobody had a two-year contract. Everybody played year-to-year." Boston took on all comers, but Los Angeles in particular was victimized more than the rest. In the 1960s, the Lakers never quite had enough to get them over the top. Six different times in the playoffs (1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969) the Lakers ran out of gas against Boston. Three of those series went the full seven games. As the Celtics' routinely whipped the opposition, Red would frequently sit back and enjoy the end of the game -- with a cigar. Hence, the "victory cigar." "It all boils down to this," Auerbach said. "I used to hate these college coaches or any coach that was 25 points ahead with three minutes left to go, and they're up pacing and they're yelling and coaching because they're on TV, and they want their picture on, and they get recognition. To me, the game was over. The day's work is done. Worry about the next game. "So I would light a cigar and sit on the bench and just watch it. The game was over, for all intents and purposes. I didn't want to rub anything in or show anybody what a great coach I was when I was 25 points ahead. Why? I gotta win by 30? What the hell difference does it make? "The commissioner [Maurice Podoloff] said you can't smoke the cigars on the bench. But there were guys smoking cigarettes on the bench. I said, 'What is this, an airplane -- you can smoke cigarettes but not cigars?' No way. I wouldn't do it." Sanders didn't mind the smoke on the bench, "but the locker room was another story; it was close quarters in there!" Would Red put out his cigar? "Are you kidding?" Sanders snaps. "I smoked all different cigars at that time," Auerbach says. "Sometimes fans would give me some. I did TV promotions for King Edwards." On April 28, 1966, Auerbach, who earlier in the season had announced he'd be retiring, coached his last official game. Appropriately, it was a Game 7, at Boston Garden, against Los Angeles. Russell had 25 points and 32 rebounds, enough to offset Jerry West's 36 points, and the Celtics narrowly won, 95-93. Red's victory cigar was knocked from his mouth by the surging crowd. He lit up another in the dressing room and Russell pointed to Auerbach, saying, "There is the man. This is his team. He puts it together. He makes us win." The Celtics had copped nine world championships in the Auerbach era, and he retired with a record 938 wins. After Russell's 11th title and retirement in 1969, word around the league was that Red had won with Russell, but wouldn't without him. Hubie Brown is unimpressed with that view. "He had Russell, and he won. You think about this," Brown said. "Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor never won. That's the answer to that. Go up to when Red retired [when he appointed Russell as player-coach]. Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit, Oscar Robertson, West and Chamberlain were the best all-time at that point. Los Angeles got three of them and couldn't win." And win again, Red would. With Havlicek, Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens leading the way, the Celtics, with Auerbach as general manager, won two world championships in the 1970s -- the only team besides New York to accomplish that feat. However, after Havlicek departed in 1978, the Celtics went through lean times again. In two years, the Celtics won 61 games and lost 103. So Auerbach went to work on a player from Indiana State named Larry Bird. Five teams had passed on drafting Bird in the first round in his junior year. "They didn't know he'd be that good, and I didn't either," Auerbach said. "I only saw him play once." But Auerbach didn't pass on him. Picking sixth, he thought Bird would be impressed with the Celtics' history and mystique and would eventually sign without re-entering the draft. It is due to this kind of maneuvering that Auerbach is often regarded as the greatest NBA executive of all time, in addition to his coaching achievements. He scouted talent, recognized it, saw how it would aid his team and signed the player. The Celtics won only 29 games in the 1978-1979 season but leapt to 61 wins the following year with Bird, who averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds a game. In Bird's second year, the Celtics took their 14th NBA title, first knocking off Julius Erving's 76ers and then Moses Malone's Rockets. Two more titles in 1984 and 1986 ran Red's total to 16. Auerbach's singular managerial greatness was again evidenced in 1986. He was plotting the future, even while the Celtics had become what Bird called "the best team I ever played with." Red had been following the fortunes of the Seattle SuperSonics. In the previous two years they had won only 31 games, and Red knew he could trade a respectable player for a draft pick or two. He gave up Gerald Henderson to acquire Seattle's first-round pick, which turned out to be the second pick in the draft. He snapped up a most unusual athlete. In Maryland's Len Bias, Auerbach acquired the size of a young Karl Malone and the ball handling and perimeter shooting skills of a guard in one package. When Bias came to Boston for a visit, he said to Celtics executive vice president Jan Volk, "Please draft me." As commissioner David Stern announced the selection of Bias on national television, the young man beamed and wore a Celtics hat to the podium. Hours later he would be dead of a cocaine overdose. "I was shocked," Red recalled, saying no more.
"It's the cruelest thing I ever heard," Bird added. Beginning with Bias' death and then the early retirements of Kevin McHale and Bird and the sudden death of Reggie Lewis in the summer of 1993, Boston endured a most un-Celtic-like string of bad luck. Now no one dared to speak about the lucky leprechauns who slept beneath the floorboards to tilt the game. Forget Irish fable. The Celtics set off on a Greek tragedy, as if paying off a debt for all their hubris and good fortune. Had Bias lived, his presence might well have extended the careers of Bird and McHale and would have given Boston a good shot at another title or two in the late 1980s. Now, it's been almost 20 years since the team won it all. By the early 1990s, Red was not as active in the day-to-day operations as he once was. "I don't have the desire and the say anymore," once Red told me in a Chinese restaurant, surrounded by shrimp and lobster sauce, fried rice and a platter of fish and beef goodies. "In other words, I can't see myself getting on the phone three and four hours a day and calling this owner and wheeling and dealing. I don't want to do that. To make a deal, you gotta be on the phone all the time." Even while recovering from heart surgery, Red explained that he still enjoyed racquetball and his favorite Nicaraguan Hoyo de Monterrey cigars -- two a day. At Legal Sea Foods restaurant in Boston, a note on the menu read: "No cigar or pipe smoking, except for Red Auerbach." Despite retreating from the basketball scene, Red could still fire off in-your-face opinions. In June he told me, in earnest, that a "Dream Team" made up of players from the late 1940s to mid-'70s could beat a new dream team. "If I was starting a team, I would take Russell," he said. Auerbach's loyalty to his own players, who emerged victorious in 16 NBA seasons, is understandable, and it went both ways. He once told the story about his 75th birthday party, when about 45 of his players showed up from all over the country. "When you treat people good, they will want to reciprocate," Red said. "We're the only team with alumni like that. We're a real group." Then he continued picking his team. "If I was picking 12 all-time guys, I would include Russell, [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Bird, Baylor, Pettit, Dr. J [Erving], Magic [Earvin Johnson], Michael Jordan, Oscar [Robertson], Cousy and Havlicek. You can make a case for about five or six guys being the greatest of all time: Bird, Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, Jordan, Russell, Oscar."
But since his 30-year team (dividing the 59-year history of the game in half) would include Russell, Pettit, Baylor, Robertson and West -- with Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Havlicek, Cousy and Erving off the bench -- it's hard to argue that the newer guys would run away with it. But who would guard Jordan, I asked. "We'd wear him down with Havlicek and West," Red insisted, noting the need for two fresh defenders. "Besides, who would outrebound our front line of Chamberlain and Russell and Pettit? We would get a load of offensive rebounds and control our defensive boards." There he was, full throttle into this contest of his own conjuring. He was envisioning the competition in his mind, perhaps seeing it played out on some distant court. You could see him coaching his dream team, see him imploring Russell to get a defensive stop, encouraging Chamberlain to take care of the defensive boards, shouting at Mendy Rudolph to let the contact go on Jordan. Who would be better for the task? Who could get more out of his team? Who better to work for an edge, to milk every advantage right to the end? None better than Red.

4) Chris Sheriden of ESPN.com:

Remembering Red

Got word of the passing of Red Auerbach tonight, almost one year to the date from the night when I last saw him. It was opening night in Boston a year ago, and Red was feeling good enough after three separate hospital stays to make the ride up from his home in Washington, D.C., to see his beloved Celtics -- although I'm not sure how beloved they were to him over the past couple of years.
Red was sitting in a chair in the hallway past the visitors' locker room, and the media were invited to come speak to him. We lined up in sort of a semicircle around him, and I found it a bit weird how no one wanted to get too close to him. It was Red in his chair, then 10 feet of space, then the ink-stained wretches and TV types. I asked Red if he had heard from Phil Jackson (whose nine NBA coaching titles equal Red's nine) during his hospital stay. I had always been told there was practically no relationship whatsoever between the two, and I was curious as to whether Phil had reached out to Red when he saw how sick Red had been. But Red's answer was, "No." I'm not old enough to remember Red as a coach. My first exposure to him was during halftime of the old CBS telecasts when "Red on Roundball" would be a weekly segment. I didn't get to see it every week, though, because my dad was a Bucks fan and hated all things about the Celtics, topped only by his distaste for the Bulls (he's still no big fan of Jerry Sloan), and he would often use Red's segment as an opportunity to temporarily turn the channel dial (no remote controls in those days) to an auto race or a golf tournament. I didn't see whether Red had a cigar with him that night a year ago when I last encountered him. Lighting a victory cigar was his trademark during the Celtics' incredible run of titles in the 1960s, and he would have had an opportunity to light one up later that evening after the Celtics defeated the Knicks in overtime. But there undoubtedly would have been a security guard asking Red to extinguish that stogie if he had lighted it up before leaving the building. All smoking is banned up in the new Boston Garden, and they stopped bending the rules for anyone a couple seasons ago after broadcaster and former coach Tommy Heinsohn gave it up. So intolerant are they toward smokers these days in Beantown, I reckon even Red would have been scolded into extinguishing it. But Red is probably free to light one up now, wherever he is, just as Phil Jackson is free to send a stogie -- or at least some flowers -- to the funeral home before Red is buried. I hope he does. Red died still holding a share of the record for the most championships won by a coach, and he passed away just a couple days before the Celtics become the 30th and final NBA franchise to employ a dance team ... a type of entertainment Red abhorred. When the NBA used to have the Celtics fill out a form listing their in-arena entertainment, the front office would always fill in: "Ballboy rolled ball rack to center court." Still holding at least a share of the lead in titles with Phil, along with never having had to witness dancers on his parquet, seems to me like a double victory for Red. I hope he's enjoying both with a nice big cigar.

Here's my Fantasy team:

Guards
Jason Richardson, Golden State Warriors
Raymond Felton, Charlotte Bobcats
Jameer Nelson, Orlando Magic

Comments: Richardson has improved in every category consistently for 5 years…Nelson’s assists will climb with the emergence of Darko and the superstardom of Dwight Howard…Felton was the 2nd best PG in the league over the last 20 games of last year and will supplant Brevin Knight as starter this year…

Forwards
Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves
Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic
Richard Jefferson, New Jersey Nets

Comments: KG is always a top 5 fantasy pick and will be motivated after a sub-par year in 05-06…Howard will post David Robinson numbers this year…Richard Jefferson is a stat stuffer and picked up 10-15 lbs. of muscle in the off-season, so he’ll probably go to the line a lot more…

Centres
Tyson Chandler, New Orleans Hornets
Alonzo Mourning, Miami Heat

Comment: Chandler will improve in every category simply by sharing the same locker room as Chris Paul…Mourning led the league in blocks per 48 minutes (6.4!!!) and will spell Shaq when the inevitable injury occurs…

Bench:
G Randy Foye, Minnesota Timberwolves
G Larry Hughes, Cleveland Cavaliers
G Mike Miller, Memphis Grizzlies
G Smush Parker, Los Angeles Lakers
F Antoine Walker, Miami Heat
C Primoz Brezec, Charlotte Bobcats

Comment: Foye is a can’t miss star and will eventually cause a SG controversy with Mike James and Ricky Davis…Hughes is a steals king if he stays healthy…Miller shoots a lot of threes, Parker also gets a lot of steals when he’s not getting undressed by Steve Nash in the playoffs…Walker fills points, boards, assists and threes…Brezec is a 15 and 7 guy who is good insurance at C…

Weird: Dallas Cowboys passing game coordinator Todd Haley is suing a suburban McDonald's after claiming his wife and their family's au pair found a dead rat in their salad. The lawsuit filed Thursday in state district court seeks $1.7 million in damages, The Dallas Morning News reported on its Web site.

Here is the quote of the year from Raptors rookie Andrea Bargnani: "The three-point shot is the easier shot…I think so, because when you shoot the two-point shot the distance from the basket is always different. Maybe you are 10 feet, maybe you are 15 feet, but you always have to change your shot for the distance. When you shoot the three-point shot, the distance is always the same. The shot is always the same. It's easier to me.''…lets hope so…

Fantasy notes: Sonics C Robert Swift probably out for the season with a knee injury…Hawks SF Marvin Williams out 6-8 weeks with a broken hand…

Fantastic NBA journal on ESPN.com written by Suns SG Raja Bell: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?id=2637076

Did you see this highlight? Wow…Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo got into it with a fan who allegedly yelled racist slurs at him in the third quarter of the Rockets' preseason loss to the Orlando Magic on Thursday night. Mutombo yelled at the man and gestured back. The fan was ejected. No action was taken against Mutombo. "I am not going to take that. He was insulting my race, my family, my integrity. For him to call me a monkey ... that should not happen today," Mutombo said. "If I get fined, I will go straight into the stands the next time." Magic spokesman Joel Glass said the matter was turned over to NBA security…

As you know, NBA refs have received a clear mandate to T up any6 over-the-top whining and gesticulating by players….the T results in an automatic $1,000 fine… T-Wolves PF Kevin Garnett had this to say after watching teammates Mark Blount and Marko Jaric get T’d up in an exhibition against the Bucks: "You can't really speak to the refs. The refs don't want to hear it," That's almost like Communism. That's like Castro." Overstatement is an art they say…

Paul Forrester of SI.com with his 12 burning questions about the upcoming NBA season:

The 12 hottest questions - We sought out expert advice for these dozen answers

1. Who will assert himself as the NBA's best player? Nagging foot injuries aside, Tim Duncan is still the gatekeeper to the NBA title. But this mythical award isn't reserved for the league's most influential player. This is for the league's best overall talent, the player who can fill up a boxscore, hit the game-winner, ice the contest with key free throws and make the game-clinching steal. By our estimation, that leaves three legitimate candidates:

• Kobe Bryant - Says a league scout, "Ask yourself the following: If you had one possession on offense to win, who would you want to have the ball? If you had to have one defensive stop to win, who would you want to cover the ball? It is hard to imagine you would want anyone else, past or present, to answer the call. He is capable of playing multiple positions and dominates both sides of the ball. We ask champions to never back down from a challenge and to step up when it's time to do so, all of which Kobe has accomplished. We recognize greatness because it thrives under pressure, so does Kobe."

• LeBron James - The only player other than Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan to average at least 30 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists for a season, James enters his fourth season as a favorite to win the MVP award this season. This for a man who wasn't legally allowed to order a drink until last December. James' skills set isn't much different than Bryant's or Dwyane Wade's, it's that his 6-foot-8, 240-pound size -- and Cleveland's need -- allows him to use those skills for longer stretches of time. "The big difference was that LeBron played so many more minutes [last season]," a front-office consultant says. "Part of that was probably because Cleveland didn't have as much additional support, so on the nights that LeBron wasn't playing that well, the Cavs lost." Last season, only Gilbert Arenas played more minutes than James, who averaged nearly two more minutes a game than Bryant.

• Dwyane Wade - It's difficult to make a case against Wade after he almost single-handedly dragged the Heat out of an 0-2 hole to win the title in June. "He stepped up and did everything that had to be done," a Western conference scout says of Wade's Finals MVP performance. "Kobe Bryant's a fabulous player, but I don't like what he's done without Shaq, and LeBron hasn't shown me he's capable of leading a team to a championship, but Dwyane Wade has."

Our verdict: Wade's championship credentials have made him the fashionable pick, LeBron is an appearance in the Finals away, but when, as a scout says, "you are the player all others compare themselves to," well, Kobe can take the last shot for us, anytime.

2. Does Shaq have anything left in the tank? After posting career-low averages during the 2005-06 regular season in points and rebounds, Shaquille O'Neal was even less productive in the Finals, averaging 13.7 points and blocking less than a shot a game. All that despite getting unprecedented rest during the regular season, as he averaged less than 31 minutes a game, a career low. Although Wade and a spry Alonzo Mourning helped secure the Diesel's fourth title, the Heat won't be so fortunate should Shaq offer so little over the course of an entire regular season. But Pat Riley's no fool; Shaq's minutes will likely be more limited than ever this season in hopes of guiding an aging O'Neal into shape by the postseason. "Diesels have two tanks," a scout says. "One for long hauls and another for short (28-game playoff) runs. In the regular season, Shaq will show up for the first quarter and average 29.9 minutes per game for roughly 55-60 games. When big games appear on the schedule, so will the dominating Shaq. Nonetheless, the Heat will still clear 55 wins because of wonder boy Wade." But this team, and its repeat chances, still revolves around the big fella. "When you have to gameplan and he's around that basket, that really makes you make a decision," says John Hammond, VP of a Pistons team than knows all too well the dangers inherent in facing O'Neal. "He catches in the post, he kicks out, he re-posts. It's a very, very difficult matchup."

3. Will Isiah Thomas save the Knicks, or even his job? Bad news, Knicks fans -- Isiah Thomas isn't going anywhere this season. Tasked to make progress this year by team owner James Dolan, Isiah should have little problem coaxing this definition of dysfunction to more than the 23 wins they produced last year. "Larry Brown just made that whole atmosphere there so poisonous that you could coach that team to more wins," a team consultant says. "Isiah doesn't have to be the greatest coach in the world, but he can probably get more wins out them by just letting the guys play and have some fun." Thomas likely will employ a wide-open, up-tempo pace that relies heavily on the plethora of versatile guards he has acquired as the club's GM. But will it satisfy the often impatient Dolan? Progress, of course, is a relative term. Will 25 wins keep Isiah employed? 30? No matter, because if Isiah's past work is any indication, any improvement is likely to be a modest one at best. "I scouted Isiah a lot when he was coaching Indiana and, in all honesty, I didn't see him bring a lot to the table," says a former Central Division scout. "I never really had much of an understanding of what he was trying to do and I often had a feeling that he didn't have an understanding of it either. "There was one time they had Reggie Miller bring the ball up the floor on the first possession. He passes the ball to the wing and he goes and posts up. The [scout] next to me throws his pen down and starts cursing. I said, 'What's the matter?' He said, 'I saw them play last night and they did the same thing.' And they did -- every possession in the first half, but not once in the second half." Enjoy, New York -- he's all yours.

4. Will Kobe learn to share? Perhaps an equally important question is: Should Kobe Bryant share? "Nine times out of 10, the formula rings true that a Kobe shot, open or contested, is probably better than most other players open shots," an NBA scout says. "The truth is he might be the best available option on every play he is involved with." Even so, Kobe averaged more than four assists a game last season, a year after he averaged six dimes a night in his first season without Shaq as a teammate. As prolific a passer as he is (4.5 apg for his career), Kobe has rarely been a willing passer, a function in part of his distrust of his teammates but even more because of his supreme confidence in his abilities. "I think the one thing that keeps Kobe from being as great as he could be is a sense with him that every third play down the court, he has to do something that makes the crowd go, 'Wow, nobody else could have hit that shot,'" says a team consultant. "I think Kobe sometimes will pass up an easy opportunity so he can make a more difficult shot." As every superstar has learned -- and Kobe is finding out -- no team can expect to make any legitimate playoff noise off of the hand of one player. Lamar Odom and Vladimir Radmanovic are no Robert Horry and Derek Fisher, but they aren't Von Wafer or Brian Cook, either. After two years of proving he can be "the man," Kobe has an opportunity to burnish his legacy by making the Lakers better than they should be. That will require a level of sacrifice Kobe has yet to demonstrate -- and few expect he ever will.

5. Can the Pistons recover from the loss of Big Ben? Replacing Ben Wallace with Nazr Mohammed is a little like trading in a Range Rover for a Toyota Corolla. The Pistons' new car will work efficiently, but it'll be woefully underpowered when Detroit needs to gain some separation on the road to the playoffs. Mohammed isn't a bad player -- on a per-minute basis, he grabs as many boards and scores twice as much as Big Ben -- but Wallace was the one player Detroit had who was a legitimate difference-maker, a player few teams could effectively counter. Still, the Pistons return 4/5ths of a starting lineup that has reached four consecutive Eastern Conference finals, a safety blanket Detroit will rely on. "We're not going to say, well, Ben's not here, so those four guys are going to play differently," says Pistons VP John Hammond. "We looked at the free-agent class and asked who's a player that we like that we think will help us continue at the same pace that we've been playing at for the last couple of years. We had one guy in mind and that was Nazr." With Flip Saunders calling the shots, that pace has become decidedly open on both sides of the floor. While Detroit's scoring improved to 13th in '05-06 from 24th the season before, the club's defensive field-goal percentage allowed fell from fifth to 13th. The numbers aren't indicative of a team in crisis, but they do suggest a team in slow decline. And with every step the Pistons take further from the title won in 2004, they draw closer to an ugly abyss. "That's one of the dangers of having a real veteran team," a team consultant says. "If things don't go well, then you've got four or five guys who feel like they could coach it themselves, and they can make that a lot tougher for a coach." Though Saunders has the support of management, that means nothing on a bench of players who were quick to point fingers last spring when their playoff end was near. With Wallace now 300 miles to the west, that end may come a lot quicker this season.

6. What do the Mavericks need to get over the top? Not much, considering they won 60 games last season, reached the Western Conference finals and were a quarter away from taking an insurmountable three-games-to-none lead in the Finals. Of course, as we all know, they stumbled while trying to take that final step. So what to do? Well, they tweaked the bench a bit, adding a dash of defense with Greg Buckner and Devean George and a pinch of offense with Anthony Johnson and Austin Croshere. "We wanted to improve our depth and increase our flexibility," Mavs owner Mark Cuban says via an e-mail to SI.com. "Now our defenders can also score and spread the defense." Plus, Cuban has solidified the team's future, with Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard and coach Avery Johnson all signing new deals the last few months. Talent has never been at issue in Dallas during the Cuban era; tenacity has been. "It's all an attitude thing," a Western Conference scout says. "As long as they feel like they're being victimized, I don't feel like they're going to reach their full potential. And I think their owner hurts them that way. "He's at every game, he's on the bench, he's screaming about every call. It's a tremendous distraction and it's got to affect the players. You don't worry about things you can't control; you're wasting your energy and misplacing your focus. "They need to just go out and be aggressive and let the chips fall where they may."

7. Will Amaré Stoudemire's return help the Suns reach the Finals? On paper, the return from injury of a 20-point, nine-rebound 23-year-old talent should be enough to bridge the gap from two-time conference finalist to NBA finalist. "He is a perfect fit for their style of play and is exactly what they were lacking against Dallas last season," one scout says. "The West is flexible enough to adapt to Phoenix's style over a seven-game series. The Suns needed Amaré's versatility to dominate inside and increase their scoring and floor balance." Of course, the Suns still won 54 games without him and extended the Mavs to six games in the West finals, which -- if the MVP vote was any indication -- mostly had to do with having Steve Nash on the floor. Really, though, it had as just as much to do with Shawn Marion. In 41 minutes a night last season, Marion averaged 22 points, 12 boards, two blocks and shot a career-high 52.5 percent from the floor and a respectable 33 percent from behind the arc, all without the protective presence of Stoudemire. "To be able to have a guy like Marion play the 4 radically changes how the Suns can play," a consultant says. "And he does it at both ends. Amaré hasn't quite figured out defense yet; he gives up a lot on the [defensive] end." Until he -- and the Suns -- stop being so generous defensively, Phoenix will remain a Western bridesmaid.

8. Is San Antonio's window of opportunity about to close?

It sure seems that way, doesn't it, what with their second-round playoff exit last spring and all of the preseason love that Dallas and Phoenix are receiving. But don't forget that this team was only a bad foul by Manu Ginobili away from dispatching the Mavs in seven games. Also, don't forget that they've added two promising big men in Jackie Butler and Francisco Elson. Oh, and don't forget this team also has a two-time MVP on the roster named Tim Duncan. Yet there's no denying that age and injuries are creeping up on this team. From Robert Horry to Michael Finley to Brent Barry to Jacque Vaughn, the bench is more than veteran -- it's simply old. Also, Duncan and Ginobili were both at less than full strength as they struggled with the aches and pains of playing an average of 100 games a season over the last four years. When healthy and in form, this club has the smarts and skills to win any game in any venue, which should make for another 55-win or more season. When those bones start to feel every minute of their playing days, though, it makes for a vulnerable team. "Their performance in the playoffs, especially against Dallas, against whom they were just terrible on defense, has to be kind of disturbing because that's what they do -- they're a good defensive team," a front-office consultant says. "They tried to go small against Dallas and just had trouble matching up; that's kind of a concern." With a healthy Duncan (coach Gregg Popovich will undoubtedly limit his minutes to that end), the Spurs will reach the Finals. Without? Eva Longoria shouldn't plan for much screen time come June.

9. Will anyone score on the Bulls? Yes -- but it won't be easy, especially after the league's top defense added the four-time Defensive Player of the Year, Ben Wallace. "Pound for pound, game for game, play for play, possession for possession [the Bulls] are the hardest working team in the NBA," a scout says. "[Now] they have aligned a defensive-minded player with a defensive-minded coach on one of the most resilient teams in the league, which combines the No. 1 individual defender with the league's No. 1 field-goal percentage and two-point field-goal percentage allowed defense. It is like a pre-arranged marriage that should last a lifetime." But is it the power couple GM John Paxson hopes it will become? Not without a little more firepower. Chicago hasn't ranked higher than 22nd in field-goal shooting in three years. And consider this: "The Bulls were among the bottom five in the NBA for points in the paint, field-goal percentage inside five feet and percentage of total points from within five feet," adds the scout. "Chicago was a perimeter-based team that relied on outside shooting to make up for inside scoring. The Bulls also were 28th in percentage of points coming from the free throw line." Now manning the middle will be Wallace, who has averaged fewer than seven points a game and shot 42 percent from the line over his career. "Wallace might even be worse than [Tyson] Chandler," notes a front office insider. "They better hope Ben Gordon doesn't get hurt. He's a good player, but for a guy who's not a superstar, there's probably no team that relies on a player for more scoring than they do for him. It's probably even more critical this year. [Coach Scott] Skiles does have a creative playbook, but he doesn't have a lot to work with there." With the league increasingly protecting offensive players by calling defensive play ever tighter, Chicago may regret not saving a little of the $60 million they spent to get Big Ben to add someone who can put the ball in the hoop, rather than keeping it out.

10. Will Don Nelson's return end the Warriors' playoff drought? It has been 12 years since Golden State reached the NBA's second season. Guess who the coach was? Don Nelson, in his return engagement in Northern California, should feel right at home taking over a club with an oddly fitting collection of talents. Troy Murphy is a long-range shooter in a power forward's body. Jason Richardson is a shooting guard without 3-point range. Baron Davis is one of the game's most dynamic point guards but can't stay healthy. And Mike Dunleavy is, hmmm, we'll get back to you on that. "The thing that Nelson is particularly good at is taking guys who have unusual skills and finding a way to have them play in a manner that best suits those skills,"a front office consultant says.
Indeed, Nelson has already donned his lab coat this fall, shifting Murphy to center and eyeing Dunleavy as a point forward. But it often seems that Nellie is as interested in producing unconventional matchups as he is in winning. "I'm not a big fan of his style," a Western Conference scout says. "I think he distorts the game. He spends too much time trying to tweak the rules instead of just playing meat-and-potatoes basketball: play defense, rebound, bang people and move the ball around so you've got an open guy getting the shot." No amount of matchup juggling can overcome a relatively thin talent pool of Warriors talent in a beastly West. In other words, Golden State may be fun to watch this season, but the playoff drought should hold fast.

11. Which teams are on the rise? Houston Rockets…A healthy Tracy McGrady is back -- at least to start the season -- as is Yao Ming, who averaged almost 26 points, 12 rebounds while shooting nearly 54 percent after the All-Star break last season. And holding it all together is the NBA's ultimate glue guy, Shane Battier, acquired in a draft night trade from Memphis. "Obviously a lot hinges on the health of Yao and, in particular, McGrady," notes a front office consultant. "But I love Battier for this team; he's great off the ball defender; on offense he doesn't score a lot, but he doesn't make any mistakes and never turns the ball over. You've also got to guard him on the 3-point line, which allows him to take his guy away from the other scorers, which is a lot more valuable than a lot of teams realize. "With a healthy McGrady and Battier spreading the floor, it'll be hard for teams to counter Yao, who has stretches where he appears to be almost as dominant as any player in the NBA." Assuming McGrady keeps in touch with his chiropractor and Yao his orthopedist, the Western Conference playoff race should make room for one more….Orlando Magic…With Jameer Nelson running the point and Darko Milicic doing all he could to prove the Pistons were wrong to trade him, the Magic won 16 of their last 20 games to end last season. Of course, they didn't do it alone, not when Dwight Howard was busy becoming the league's second-leading rebounder at the age of 20 and Hedo Turkoglu quietly filling in some of the scoring load (including shooting 40 percent from long range) left vacant yet again by an injured Grant Hill. Undoubtedly, part of the Magic's last season-run came at the expense of veteran teams either playing out the campaign or pacing themselves for the playoffs. But as an Eastern Conference scout notes: "If they can stay healthy and ride the momentum of last year's finish, they will be in the hunt come April."

12. Which teams are on the decline? Memphis Grizzlies…Just bad timing for these guys. After trading and drafting to get younger, the Grizzlies saw the core ingredient who will keep them afloat in the playoff race, Pau Gasol, sidelined for a few months of the season with a broken foot suffered in the World Championships. "They have the most underrated team/coach in the league, but they will struggle due to Pau's injury," an opposing scout predicts. "And their offseason moves for more youth and athleticism might take a few seasons to harvest." That won't make for an easy sell to an increasingly disinterested Memphis community for new owners Brian Davis and Christian Laettner…Detroit Pistons…Not only did they lose the player who defined them, the Pistons now have placed their faith in Rasheed Wallace to play the good soldier through what is likely to be at least a subtle downturn in their regular-season fortunes. Good luck with that, Flip Saunders. Even more daunting is the prospect that the Pistons' luck in keeping their starting five healthy is due to run out. "No team gets as lucky as long as they've gotten lucky," observes an opposing consultant. "If they just have the normal number of injuries, that's going to be something they've never had to deal with before." And that could mean a fall into the middle of a beastly Central Division.

NBA Fantasy Draft is tonight…just another year of chump smackdowns…

This quick Q & A reveals why the commish is the Man:

ESPN: Have you polled the players about their reactions to the new ball?

Stern: We have a pretty good idea of what the reaction would be whenever you do something different. We don't do polling. That's not leadership.

Wow…and I quote: “We don’t do polling. That’s not leadership.” I think that’s my new personal slogan…

Fantasy note: Andre Miller reported to Training Camp weighing around 220 lbs., about 15-20 lbs. over his playing weight…Suns PG Leandro Barbosa may have a case of “turf toe” which will probably bother him all season…Kings PG Mike Bibby has a badly sprained thumb, out 2 weeks at a minimum…

1) Mike Kahn of Foxsports.com with his weekly 10 things:

Lakers will likely get off to slow start

As is always the case in Hollywood, regardless of the validity, the soap opera that is the Los Angeles Lakers always enters an NBA season with great expectations. This one is no different. Make that was no different.

1. Item: The Lakers' woes started with Kobe Bryant's lingering recovery from off-season knee surgery, were followed by center Chris Mihm's slow-healing ankle and now include the shoulder problems of Kwame Brown. And that's not to mention coach Phil Jackson's limited availability due to recent hip surgery. What this really means: For all the expectations coming into this season on the heels of nearly knocking off the Suns in the first round, it's going to be slow going coming out of the blocks for the Lakers. Lamar Odom must establish himself as a leader even more now than ever before, something that may prove difficult in the wake of his infant son's tragic death during the off-season. And then there is Jackson, who is expected back opening night. He unequivocally runs the show and knows this is a very long season that must be based on continued growth. They've added Vladimir Radmanovic for his perimeter shooting, and that should help. And they've got Aaron McKie for leadership. Obviously, they are limited until Bryant comes back, and somewhere along the line, they'll develop young 7-footer Andrew Bynum while figuring out what to do with the underachieving Mihm and Brown. If one of them comes around, then they've got a shot at the playoffs and then with Bryant there, anything is possible. But don't count on it. If their nickname didn't happen to be the Lakers, nobody would be talking about them at all.

2. Item: The NBA office has taken on a zero tolerance approach to excessive protests from players toward officials and will fine them $5,000 for every indiscretion, while accruing further penalties from multiple technical fouls. What this really means: It's about time. The histrionics that have gone on for way too long do nothing but detract from the game and the public's perception of the players — which always needs work. Of course, Rasheed Wallace would say it's targeting him. He's been symptomatic of the problem forever. If he can't control himself and quit acting like an 8-year-old, then he doesn't belong out there anyway. Let's face it, the officials have an impossible job. They are wrong plenty. They are right most of the time. And if guys think they are getting picked on because they moan and groan ... they're probably right. Guys who whine all the time have earned the right to get picked on by officials. Now, if they would just act like adults and play the game, it would be better for everybody. Occasional indiscretions on bad calls will probably be worth the fine — but this complaining on virtually every call has to stop and it has to stop now. Grow up.

3. Item: The road to stardom is always filled with obstacles and Toronto Raptors young star forward Chris Bosh has just met another one — plantar fasciitis. What this really means: All the excitement surrounding the start of the Bryan Colangelo era in Toronto — from the acquisition of T.J. Ford to winning the lottery and using that pick to draft Andrea Bargnani — is great. The additions of Kris Humphries, Fred Jones and Anthony Parker should help too. But if Bosh has a foot problem that drags out the entire season, they've got no shot at raising their level of play. Even with him healthy, they're still a long shot to make the playoffs. This is about the big picture. Sure, Colangelo wants to win now and build. He learned how to do it from one of the best — his dad Jerry — who did just that so often in Phoenix with the Suns. But when your team is so limited in the first place, it's imperative your star is healthy and after seeing what Tim Duncan went through last season, Bosh must take it very slow and consider the big picture — for both the final five months of the season and the rest of his career.

4. Item: Often times it's amazing what one special season can do to the value of a player. Evidently, one season as a key component made Boris Diaw worth a five-year, $45 million extension to the Phoenix Suns. What this really means: It is really rare that a young player — only 24 — has two dormant seasons, then has one outstanding year and is rewarded with a huge contract. But the Suns are banking literally and figuratively on the 6-8, 230-pound native of France to provide the kind of versatility and productivity that made him the surprise Most Improved Player in 2005 after coming over from Atlanta in the controversial Joe Johnson deal. Just because Diaw averaged 13.3 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists doesn't justify the money, even if he did crank it up in the playoffs — particularly with his unknown role following the return of Amare Stoudemire. Then again, his age and talent are captivating and the teams that keep their players together the longest have the best chance of maintaining success. And keeping Diaw in the fold is at the heart of that matter for the Suns.

5. Item: This time it's the Doctor putting together the big bucks to buy an NBA franchise. Julius Erving, 56, has organized a group to buy the Philadelphia 76ers from Comcast for what reportedly could be a league-record $450 million. What this really means: The Sixers need a revival of some form, and who better to do it than their most popular player of all time, Dr. J? Whether he can rally enough money is one issue. Whether the Sixers are actually worth anywhere close to those numbers is quite something else. It was only five years ago that Larry Brown coached Philly to the NBA Finals, starring Allen Iverson, but it's been downhill ever since. They invested huge amounts of money in mediocre players and adding the enormous contract of a broken-down Chris Webber hasn't helped either. That's not to blame all of this on the team Billy King built around Iverson, but if they fail to make the playoffs for the third year in a row, they'll clearly have to blow up the team and start over. Erving is the perfect name to throw into the mix as a key ingredient in the reconstruction.

6. Item: The list of long-term deals handed out by Mark Cuban as owner of the Dallas Mavericks continues to grow. But as he closes the loop for now and the future, it was imperative he not get into the regular season without attending to the contract extension of Josh Howard. What this really means: Cuban is so focused and pragmatic about what needs to get done to win, nothing could have juiced him more than for the Mavs to win the West, have control of the finals against the Heat, then blow it. It would be a 50-50 shot to assume Cuban knows his own big mouth and profile when the Mavs went up 2-0 played a role in the team losing focus. So this time around, he understands his role even better. The key to all of it is what he understands best about business — prioritizing products. He re-signed Jason Terry, extended Dirk Nowitzki, extended coach Avery Johnson and has now extended Howard, the most versatile of all the players. All that did is guarantee they've got a great shot at competing for the title over the next four years — and that's something the Mavs have never had before.

7. Item: The story of Sacramento Kings coach Eric Musselman's arrest over the weekend for DUI was disturbing on a lot of levels, and it begins with what he sensed looking in the mirror after the nightmare of early Saturday a.m. What this really means: To be fair, anybody who has any inclination to celebrate on occasion has had too much drink at least a few times, and maybe even driven their car when they should know better. And they didn't get caught. That's not to justify Musselman's actions — just a reminder for the holier-than-thou set. Now for the reality check. Musselman is an unparalleled worker and lover of the game — just like his late father Bill. He's committed to success and making his players perform at the highest level. But he and his family had a rough time when he was (prematurely) fired at Golden State. It produced a divorce, upset his relationship with his two sons and forced him to battle to stay in the game via broadcast or the bench of the Memphis Grizzlies. And for him to be given this shot with such a successful organization as the Kings was exciting for those who know him. How he could have such a lapse in judgment isn't quite clear, but here's hoping the arrest and the embarrassment will get him to clean up whatever issues there are once and for all. He's much too talented and smart to blow this chance.

8. Item: The beauty of Pat Riley to those who have been around him so long is not about the success he achieves. It's more about the manner in which he goes about it, and last week he was back at it again, explaining to his Miami Heat the approach they should take in defense of their first NBA title. What this really means: Riley is not only gifted in his understanding of basketball, but in the pop psychology of motivation. His perception of what it means to come back after a title has been discussed forever. He has the marketing wizardry to come up with the concept "three-peat" when he was coaching the Lakers — even if his guarantee prompted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to literally stuff a sock in his coach's mouth. But this time around, the coach out-did himself for this group. With 14 of the 15 players from last year's roster returning, his penchant for loyalty and staying on task was very clear. So with the need of one more point guard still apparent, he left his players with this bit of wisdom: "You can either defend the championship or disgrace." One thing is certain in Pat Riley's life it is still dominated by either winning or misery.

9. Item: The plot continues to thicken around the Los Angeles Clippers. Sure, they have Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley signed long-term. Sam Cassell is locked up too, and young Shaun Livingston is one of the most exciting young players in the league. However, life is never dull on a roster whose contracts are controlled by owner Donald Sterling. What this really means: One of the caveats to coach Mike Dunleavy signing his extension was extending young center Chris Kaman, who has been offered a five-year, $50-million extension. It's a fair offer and really right where it should be for Kaman. But the stupid $63-million contract signed by Tyson Chandler and $64-million deal for Samuel Dalembert are lingering over this offer, especially when you consider Kaman is better than both of them. And then there is Dunleavy, who is eradicating the losing culture so embedded in the Clippers organization. A five-year, $30-million deal for Dunleavy is a huge commitment and a lot of money for somebody who hasn't taken his team to the finals in 15 years. But he has done such a masterful job and helped so much in the judgment of talent, it's tough to fathom they wouldn't give him whatever he wants. Of course, this is presuming we're talking about the "New Donald," as opposed to the old one.

10. Item: Whither Jeff McInnis ... the New Jersey Nets point guard whose attitude was so disturbing to the team last season after returning from knee surgery that he has not even been a consideration for coach Lawrence Frank for either the rotation or as a member of the roster. What this really means: Nets president Rod Thorn is doing everything he can to buy McInnis out of the $3.6-million contract he has this season. They've offered McInnis $2 million and he reportedly wants $3.4 million. It sounds ridiculous, then again, why should McInnis give up $1.6 million? The bigger question is why McInnis can't see himself for what he is — a selfish and disruptive force. It's a shame because he does have talent and has been productive from time to time in his career. But he's just one of those guys who at some point in time will always revert to form the way he did in Denver, Cleveland, Portland and with the Clippers. It's gotten so bad that you have to wonder if anybody will even sign him for the minimum if they do buy him out. Then again, what would you expect from the guy who was at the root of the class that caused Dean Smith to retire at North Carolina?

2) Fran Blinebury of the Houston Chronicle reports on Robert Horry getting sentimental about Clutch City:

Horry won't forget Rockets - Return to city gives NBA veteran mixed emotions

Robert Horry was going through the layup line when the video screen began to role out the highlight reel of those championship seasons in Houston and he didn't know whether to feel young or old, achy or spry, happy to be looking back or sad to have to squint to see so far. Life is like that. One moment, you're a 20-something kid who can seemingly run forever and the next you're 36 and always looking for an ice pack. "To be honest, it seems like ages ago," said Horry as he continued preparing for his 15th NBA with Sunday night's 93-72 Spurs loss to the Rockets at Toyota Center. "All those years. All those miles. You've got to love the game. "But it's definitely a little harder now. Because you can't bounce back from the injuries as easy." Horry has six championship rings and still burns to add another bauble or two. Which is why in the quiet on the day after the Spurs were eliminated by Dallas in Game 7 of their epic second-round playoff series last spring, he was the one who stood in the locker room and talked to the team. "No big speech or anything," Horry said. "I just told everybody to just take care of themselves, spend time with their families and then go at it harder.
"It comes from being the veteran guy. But also it comes from realizing that we let a golden opportunity slip through our hands. I feel like we have some of the best talent in the league. We all know in our hearts that we should have gone a little bit further than we did."
Horry has constructed an amazing legacy by being willing to be a soldier rather than a general, a role player instead of a star. "That's how Robert's built," said Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. "He's very willing to handle a role on a team. But what people don't understand about him, is behind the scenes, in his own way, without the glare of the public, he's a mentor for a lot of guys. Just very quietly on his own." Quiet until the playoffs, when everything gets loud and crazy and he usually steps up. Except for last year, when age and the years maybe caught up and he had the worst shooting season of his career. Which is why he rededicated himself this summer to turning back the clock. Just maybe not as far as on the video screen. "All the time I'm meeting people who say, 'Rob, you're always gonna be a Rocket,' " he said. "I tell them I only played four years here. I played seven years in L.A. Then I go out there they show all that (championship) stuff up on the (video) board ... It brings it all back. "I guess I could understand it more if I played in this building. That would probably make it different. But there ain't nothing like The Summit. Notice I said The Summit. Not Compaq Center. It's all different now." Robert Horry smiles, looking back and still looking ahead.

3) Ric Bucher of ESPN.com thinks the Warriors are figuring it out under Nellie:

Warriors feeling golden with Nellie at the helm

The body language is loud and clear, even from the vantage of the second-floor observation balcony and to the Warriors on the farthest of their three practice courts. Just as loud and clear as it was last year. It's the message that is starkly different. Then, coach Mike Montgomery had the demeanor of a captain nervously peering through the fog, one eye searching for a landmark to steer by, the other on his crew, checking for signs of a possible mutiny. Now, Don Nelson watches from the sideline as if there's a blueprint overlay on the floor and a mere glance tells him who among the 10 players scrimmaging is in the right place and who isn't. And rest assured, whoever isn't will be put in his place. "It couldn't be more different," says forward Mike Dunleavy. "The main thing is, there is no BS. If he sees something, he's going to tell you. Everything is put out on the table." As with most players desperate to prove they're better than years of failed expectations, the Warriors are eating it up and asking for more. “A person in my position," says point guard Baron Davis, "just wants to be coached and pushed to a higher level. Coach Nelson, one of the sharpest X-and-O's minds with 1,100 victories, a Hall of Famer, you don't even question that he can do that." The Warriors, collectively, questioned Montgomery's capability of doing that from the day he arrived. For good reason. The belief that a life-long college coach can step into the NBA and push all the right buttons is so naïve that it's still hard to fathom VP Chris Mullin, not owner Chris Cohan, made the choice, as Mullin insists was the case. That said, there isn't anyone more suited for the task at hand than Nelson. He's never been able to push a team to the highest level, but that's not the challenge with the league's longest-reigning bottom feeders -- 12 years and counting of lottery trips to Secaucus being their postseason highlight. So what if his last turn at Golden State, as coach and GM, laid the groundwork for that stretch of futility? This is the NBA, where memories are short and who you know is as important as what you know. And while Nelson's coaching style is as direct as ever, watching neophyte coach Avery Johnson do what Nelson has never done (take a team to the Finals), waiting a year for an offer and being under a former player has tempered some of the megalomania that has led to his downfall everywhere he's been. No one's catching him on the team bus poring over the blueprints for his house in Maui, as the Knicks did, or abusing his owner's largesse by hiring a hundred assistant coaches, as he did in Dallas. Now he can be found hunched, all alone, in front of a big screen with a remote control, as he was before Tuesday's overtime exhibition win against the Blazers, freeze-framing and studying Portland's offensive sets. "He's more into it and sharper than he was when I was last around him," says Mullin. "Getting away is always healthy. Coming to the right place helps, too." Right place, right time. For whatever reason, Nelson never had much interest in stressing the hard-nosed defense or mundane post-up offense that won championships in the '80s and '90s. With the defensive rule changes and the crackdown on hand checking, that no longer matters. Offense sells and the league office, noticing an uptick in interest after years of decline, has taken note, so expect more of the same. Small ball, Nelson's forte, is all the rage.
"What the league is going to now, he's been doing for years," Mullin says. The players know it. When a set goes awry, Nelson doesn't even blow his whistle half the time. He just walks onto the court, explaining who needed to go where and when. Every player turns to watch and listen. "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," says one team official. "It's so nice to see it around here again." He also knows how to get the most bang for his bark. When Troy Murphy is late closing out on Matt Barnes' 3-point attempt from the left corner, Nelson doesn't focus on the slow rotation. Instead, he tells Murphy that if he's going to lunge at Barnes, he should at least keep going toward midcourt, so that the Warriors can snatch the rebound or immediately throw a three-quarter pass and hit him for a breakaway layup.
Or when young forward/center Andris Biedrins lobs an ill-advised pass for second-year guard Monta Ellis and Keith McLeod picks it off and starts a fast break the other way, Nelson doesn't say a word to Biedrins. Instead, he gets after Ellis for not slapping the ball away immediately from McLeod to stop the counterattack. Biedrins knows he screwed up and is doubly chagrined that a teammate is being chastised for not cleaning up his mess. Nothing being said, in this case, is both better and worse than being chewed out. Better because Biedrins' focus is on making up for the error instead of bumming out about the tongue-lashing. Worse because he got someone else in trouble. Ellis, meanwhile, learns not to give up and the importance of covering for a teammate. "I learned stuff here and there over the last four years," says Dunleavy. "But it doesn't compare to what I've learned in the last two weeks." Nelson, also having played in the league, understands what makes an NBA player tick. Asking Murphy to play center and Dunleavy to play power forward means taking a lot of physical punishment under the boards. The tradeoff Nelson offers is that bigs are free to put the ball on the floor and dribble up the court if they're not under pressure -- and there isn't a player in the league who doesn't relish the chance to lead a break or at least show he has a handle. "Letting Murphy handle the ball has him going to chase down rebounds, rather than just rebounding his area," says Mullin. In other words, guys will do more of what he wants because he lets them do more of what they want. Conversely, if they don't do what he wants, however subtle, he'll let them know. "He doesn't miss anything," Dunleavy says.
No doubt. As reporters gathered for a post-practice chat on Monday, Nelson gave the once-over to a certain ESPN The Magazine senior writer with whom he hasn't always had the best of relationships. "Your fly's open," he said.

4) Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon Journal thinks the Cavs may have it:

Cavs hope stability will translate into championship

The Cavaliers have been an epic coming-of-age film over the last several years, with you-know-who playing the leading man-child.
Back in 2003, it was as if they'd just gotten their driver's license and the keys to a brand-new muscle car named LeBron James. Of course they didn't exactly know what to do with it. The high jinks and growing pains followed. Three years later the organization feels like an NBA grown-up. And like any newly minted rebuilding graduate, they want to quickly enter the real world of contenders. The chart of progress has been steady. In James' first season, the Cavs won 20 more games than the sickly, lottery-winning outfit from the year before. In Year 2, they put up 42 wins for their first winning season in seven years, but lost a tiebreaker for the last playoff spot.
That made last season the official breakout as James flourished into one of the league's ultra-elite players while pulling his team along. He was named first team All-NBA, All-Star Game MVP and finished second in the MVP voting at the end of the season. The Cavs won 50 games, grabbed their first playoff spot in eight years and won their first playoff series in 13 years. Now they're all back and, as any clichéd movie script would read, looking for more. "I think we can get to the Finals, I think we can win it all," James said. "That's what's on my mind right now, trying to win the whole thing. You shouldn't be in the NBA if you don't want to." You can make a case for it being a realistic cause and for it being foolhardy hubris. But in a town that hasn't won a major professional sports title since 1964 and has a famous self-loathing attitude when it comes to its plight, being able to seriously believe is a major step. Just a season ago, the Cavs were hoping just to get into the postseason. Considering more than half of the NBA's 30 teams make it, that didn't seem like such a heady goal after all this time. But the strong taste of success in April and May, especially the oh-so-close upset of the Pistons in the second round -- be it true or not, most Clevelanders now say they were "a rebound away in Game 6" -- has given everyone wings.
"Last year they just wanted us to make the playoffs, this year they want us to win a championship," said guard Eric Snow, who is James' co-captain and the only player on the Cavs' roster to have played a significant role on a Finals team in his career. "It doesn't sound like much, but that's a major difference. That's what you want, that should be the goal." The Cavs' plan to do it, for the moment, is simple. Not unlike the reigning champs in Miami or the San Antonio model to which general manager Danny Ferry and coach Mike Brown subscribe, the offseason goal was to achieve stability. In his first three seasons, James had three head coaches and a constantly changing lineup. Last season there were eight new players in training camp; the season before there were seven. This summer the Cavs locked up James through 2010 and Drew Gooden through 2009, assuring the same starting lineup will be back. The only free-agent signing expected to be in the rotation is veteran backup guard David Wesley. The aim is for a closer-knit group that has a familiarity with each other and the system. The early season result has been an expansion of James' role as leader. Feeling as comfortable as ever and building off the experience as the co-captain of Team USA over the summer, James has shifted into a new gear. In the early workouts he led the Cavs in wind sprints. He's the one leading the end-of-practice and pregame huddles. All of which dovetails with his already commanding presence on the sideline during games. He's not been afraid to make suggestions to Brown on which plays to run and even what personnel to use in various game situations. "Ultimately when your best player becomes your best example, the better team you will be," said Snow, who played in the same backcourt with Allen Iverson. "It actually makes it easier for the head coach because he's demanding things be done the right way." Or at least that is the plan. The rub is that the lofty expectations could become a weight to the still-developing Cavs. It is hard to believe James can carry any more burden than he did a year ago, when Larry Hughes missed 46 games with two finger surgeries, and free-agent pickups Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones had off years shooting the ball. Even the steady Zydrunas Ilgauskas let down in the playoffs, leaving James to do all the heavy lifting.
James won two games on last-second shots against the Wizards in the first round, when he averaged 35 points and nearly 48 minutes a game. When the Cavs' painfully basic pick-and-roll offense wheezed in Game 7 against the Pistons, James had 27 points and the rest of the team netted a whimpering 34. Brown has installed some new wrinkles into the offense, Jones and Marshall reported to camp in better shape, Hughes has proclaimed himself healthy, and precautions are being taken and promises made to not overplay James. All of that needs to fall in line if the Cavs genuinely expect to contend for an Eastern Conference crown. "We owe it to ourselves to work to help LeBron out and try to get the best out of him, because winning a championship is our goal," said Brown, who won a title as a Spurs assistant. "If we can do that, I like our chances."