J.R. Smith called it quits on his basketball career after the Lakers’ championship in 2020, but if all goes well, his competitive sports days won’t be over.
While participating in a pro-am at the Wyndham Championship this week in North Carolina, Smith discussed his plans to go to college and pursue a degree. Smith, who was drafted by the Hornets out of high school in 2004, has enrolled at North Carolina A&T. He is in the process of joining the golf team, but he is still waiting on the NCAA to make its clearance decision about that.
Still, Smith seemed genuinely excited about the opportunity.
According to the 35-year-old Smith, he plays a 5 handicap and started playing golf 12 years ago.
But regardless of the NCAA’s decision, Smith says that he’s going to pursue a liberal studies degree at North Carolina A&T as he steps into a classroom for the first time in about 18 years.
JR Smith took to Instagram Live to document the Los Angeles Lakers leaving something very important at the arena: Quinn Cook was missing.
Championship trophy? Check. Finals MVP and his trophy? Yep. New shirts and hats? Got it.
Nothing else left behind? Great, let’s get out of here.
It turns out the Los Angeles Lakers did leave something at the arena after the team bus departed following their 17th championship, a 106-93 win in Game 6 over the Miami Heat.
It wasn’t a something. It was a someone. The Lakers forgot a person.
Quinn Cook, now a two-time champion, was not among the players as they left the facility.
Lakers guard J.R. Smith went onto Instagram Live to document the moment as the bus was turning around to get the young guard.
Content warning: video contains explicit language
How are you gonna leave Quinn Cook back at the arena? That man is a 2 time champ!! đ pic.twitter.com/YEWn9WIGie
Cook himself was in the comment section, complaining about how he’d have to walk back after winning a championship and telling them to make a U-turn.
The Lakers certainly have a tight-knit group, but apparently Cook’s bus buddy (does this NBA have those? Is this like a field trip to them?) wasn’t paying proper attention when the bus was taking off.
Maybe Cook just didn’t want to leave Disney World.
The Lakers are sitting pretty as the number one seed in the Western Conference right now, but everything isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Los Angeles.
Their loss on Wednesday night to the Oklahoma City Thunder put a giant spotlight on their biggest weakness â their shooting. They shot a terrible 5-37 from 3-point range in the 105-86 loss.
That’s an extremely terrible shooting night for any team in the NBA, but unfortunately for the Lakers that’s been the norm during their stay in the NBA’s bubble.
Overall, they’ve shot the ball extremely poorly and it’s spreading throughout the rest of their offense.
Yes, they’re only three games in. No, this isn’t enough to say they can’t win an NBA championship. But this is absolutely a cause for concern. Here’s why.
This is closer to the norm than not for the Lakers
There are two things that make a team great at shooting threes â volume and percentage.
Some teams (looking at you, Rockets) hoist up so many threes that, if they just get to the league average mark of 36% or even hit slightly below it, it’s a big plus for their offense.
Other teams don’t shoot as many in volume, but they’re so good at making them that it ends up being the same plus. The Miami Heat (38% from 3-point range) are a perfect example of this.
The Lakers don’t fall into either category. They don’t take a lot and they don’t make a lot, relatively speaking. Here’s where they stand:
23rd in 3-point makes with 11 per game
22nd in 3-point attempts at 31.6 per game
23rd in 3-point percentage at 34.8% per game.
They’re just not a very good shooting team. That’s what they’ve been all year. Here’s the problem, though.
In the bubble, they’ve gotten worse
The sample is extremely small, but the Lakers are easily the worst shooting team in the NBA’s bubble.
They only make 23% of their threes which is good for dead last. However, they’re shooting them a bit more at 34 attempts per game so far. None of that is good.
On top of that, they lost one of their best 3-point shooters this season in Avery Bradley who hit 36% of his threes. His replacements in Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith are shooting a combined 3-23 from deep and Danny Green can’t hit the broad side of a barn right now.
Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Anthony Davis are the only Lakers shooting above 30% from deep right now with Kuzma (46.7%) being the best of them.
Their defense can’t fix this one
The Lakers still have a top three defense in the league, but they’re going to need more to get out of this jam. A great defense can overcome a mediocre offense â not an awful one.
Their 95.5 offensive rating is dead last in the league by far. For context, it’s just about seven points worse than the winless Washington Wizards at 102.4. And they don’t have Bradley Beal or Davis Bertans, who are their two best players.
Now, it’s early. And things can change. LeBron James will play better. Danny Green and J.R. Smith will start hitting.
But right now? That’s straight up awful and the Lakers should be better than that. Period.
The biggest headlines from Disney World and the NBA bubble have been about the quarantine meals players are receiving, mostly because they look like food you’d get on an airplane.
There’s good news for them after they get through this, however, and we’ll get to that.
Jr Smith is a national treasure. Imagine watching him pull this out on his insta live. Dude wasnât having itđđđđ pic.twitter.com/QukFVFfUbn
This is also a good time to remind you that this won’t be the food for the next few months there. From USA TODAY Sports’ Jeff Zillgitt:
Executive chef Shawn Loving, who has worked with USA Basketball at the Olympics and other international competitions, will oversee a commercial kitchen where each team can provide one culinary staffer to help prepare additional meals.
Also, the league has partnered with six restaurants â Del Friscoâs, Joeâs Crab Shack, Mortonâs, The Oceanaire, Palm and Saltgrass â to provide delivery service to team hotels. Those restaurants are part Landryâs, Inc., a restaurant, entertainment and gaming company owned by Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta.
In addition, each team will have a culinary team on campus to provide meals, a personal chef can prepare meals off-campus and have them delivered to players, room service is available and multiple restaurants at each of the three resorts where teams are staying will have restaurants open.
You can expect some social media posts coming where players share the good stuff that’s ahead.
LeBron James and JR Smith are back together after the former Cleveland Cavaliers guard joined the Los Angeles Lakers as the replacement for Avery Bradley.
And, as I wrote this week, it’s the reunion we never expected but it’s the best for so many reasons — it’s good from a basketball perspective, it’s amazing that James forgave him for the 2018 Game 1 of the Finals gaffe and there are endless memes.
Speaking of those last two! People are taking the old photo of James yelling at Smith from that wild moment and putting it in a new light. Here are few examples:
El reencuentro que quizĂĄ jamĂĄs imaginamos que sucederĂa. Pero aquĂ estĂĄ. Y es glorioso. De acuerdo con distintas fuentes, JR Smith serĂĄ el jugador que firmarĂĄ con Los Angeles Lakers para reemplazar a Avery Bradley, uno de los jugadores que no …
El reencuentro que quizĂĄ jamĂĄs imaginamos que sucederĂa.
Pero aquĂ estĂĄ. Y es glorioso.
De acuerdo con distintas fuentes, JR Smith serĂĄ el jugador que firmarĂĄ con Los Angeles Lakers para reemplazar a Avery Bradley, uno de los jugadores que no participarĂa en el reinicio de la NBA en Orlando.
Esto significa que lo veremos nuevamente junto a LeBron James, luego de que en 2016 ganaran juntos un tĂtulo en Cleveland (y Smith pasara meses sin usar una playera).
Hay muchas cosas malas sucediendo en este momento, pero el hecho de saber que volveremos a ver a Smith y James jugando juntos por otro tĂtulo es simplemente lo mejor.
It’s the reunion we might have never expected to happen.
But it’s here. And it’s glorious.
Per multiple reports, JR Smith will be the player signing with the Los Angeles Lakers to replace Avery Bradley, who is among the players opting out of the NBA restart in Orlando.
That means we get to see him and LeBron James back together again after the pair won a title in Cleveland in 2016, when Smith went months without wearing a shirt.
It also means that we get to relive one of the last times the two played on the same Cavs team and this happened in Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals:
What I love so much is that if Smith is joining the Lakers, it’s a sign that absolutely awful screw-up didn’t destroy how James felt about playing with Smith and trusting him. I don’t know if I could do that after the gaffe, but I’m not LeBron!
From a hoops perspective, it’s smart — Bradley was shooting 36.4 percent from beyond the arc this season hitting over one trey per game. Smith is a career 37.3 percent shooter from distance, so the Lakers will get a good replacement, and again, if James trusts him, that’s a big deal.
Your reminder that JR Smith is 4th all-time in 3-pointers made during the NBA Finals. https://t.co/fKU9cuu6Ji
There’s a lot of bad stuff happening right now, but the fact that we’re going to watch Smith and James get together and go for another title again is just the best.
The NBA will allow teams to sign a replacement player if there’s an injury, a positive COVID-19 test or a player who chooses to sit out.
As the NBA prepares to resume the 2019-20 season in July, more details about the leagueâs plan are coming to light. In the event of an injury or a positive COVID-19 test during training camp or the regular season, teams will be able to sign replacement players from the free-agent pool.Â
The NBA will allow each team to bring 17 players (including their two-way guys) to Disneyâs Wide World of Sports. There wonât be a limit on how many replacement players a team can sign, according to ESPNâs Adrian Wojnarowski. Once the playoffs start on August 17, teams wonât be able to add any replacement players.Â
Every night, players will be tested for COVID-19; if a player tests positive, they must self-quarantine for 10-14 days while their team continues playing.
Not only will replacement players be necessary in the event of positive tests, they also could be called upon if a player is injured. Most teams will arrive in Orlando healthier than usual at this point in the season thanks to the four-month break, but a number of trainers and players have expressed concern that there could be more injuries than usual when the season resumes. After all, players have been working out on their own since mid-March and itâs hard to mimic game movements and intensity while training alone. Ramping back up slowly with a training camp (and potentially two or three exhibition games) should help, but thereâs still increased injury risk.Â
Because this is an unprecedented situation, people around the NBA have no idea how teams will approach this transaction window and how many replacement players will be signed.
âIâm not sure if teams will rush to sign guys,â an agent said. âNBA rosters are already the biggest of any major sport in terms of the ratio of players on the roster to players on the court/field,â the agent explained. âIn the NBA, itâs 15:5 (or 3:1) whereas itâs 25:9 (or 2.8:1) in MLB and 53:22 (or 2.4:1) in the NFL. And that doesnât even include two-way players. Iâm sure every team is aware of all the available G League guys and free agents. But in the playoffs, most rotations shrink to nine or 10 guys anyway. So, if you have 15 players, you should have five extra guys.â
âIâm curious to see if teams will sign free agents,â one Western Conference executive added. âI have no idea what will happen. At the end of the day, weâre just talking about a 15th man most likely, right?âÂ
One Eastern Conference general manager pointed out that some teams may not consider signing replacement players at all, even if there is an injury or a positive COVID-19 test. Since a replacement player would have to quarantine for 10-14 days before playing, the teamâs injured or sick player may be close to returning by the time the replacement player is finally able to take the court.
âI think as long as a team doesnât have multiple players who get sick at the same time, they wonât sign anyone,â the general manager said. âI think most teams will just wait for their sick player to return.âÂ
Some NBA teams with an open roster spot may decide to sign a free agent prior to arriving in Orlando rather than waiting until an injury or positive test occurs to address their depth. Technically, this player wouldnât be a âreplacement player,â but heâd be stashed on their roster in case of emergency. This would allow the player to go through training camp with the team as well as the initial quarantine period in Orlando. Then, if there is an injury or positive test, he would be able to play right away rather than having to quarantine for 10-14 days upon arrival like a replacement player would have to do.
Recently, thereâs been a lot of discussion about how some players may choose not to play when the season resumes in Orlando. In recent weeks, a number of executives brought up this possibility and openly wondered what would happen if their players sit out because they didnât want to be in the bubble for months and risk their health. Now, some players are also concerned that resuming play would shift the publicâs focus away from the Black Lives Matter movement.
While itâs possible that enough NBA players speaking up would force the NBPA to back out of the plan to resume play, it seems more likely that the NBA will just allow each player to make their own decision when it comes to participating. If a player chooses to sit out, their team will resume play without them. These players wouldnât face any consequences (aside from not being paid) and NBA teams would be allowed to sign a replacement player to take their place, according to a recent article by Wojnarowski.Â
Thereâs also some concern that players on fringe playoff teams will opt to play, but then want to leave the bubble or sit out as soon as their team is mathematically eliminated from the postseason. Players wonât want to put their health at risk and stay in the bubble if they arenât playing for something. Some players (such as Damian Lillard) have already said that they wouldnât risk their health to participate in meaningless games, and who could blame them?
âI feel like the eighth seed and the ninth seed could partially be determined by whose schedule sets them up against teams who are âtankingâ at the end,â said one Western Conference executive.
DeMarcus Cousins is one of the free agents who’s eligible to be signed. (Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports)
Interestingly, not all free agents are eligible to be signed as replacement players.
In order to be eligible, a player had to be on an NBA or G League roster this season or last season. Players who were overseas as of March 11, 2020 (when the NBA season was suspended) are not eligible to be signed, which rules out some notable free agents such as Lance Stephenson, Donatas Motiejunas, Greg Monroe and Miles Plumlee. If a player started the season overseas but got a FIBA clearance before March 11, they are eligible to be signed as long as they were on an NBA or G League roster in 2019-20 or 2018-19 (like Willie Reed, for example, who was in Greece to start the season but then got his FIBA clearance and signed with a G League team).Â
There are plenty of of notable free agents and former G League players who are eligible to be signed including DeMarcus Cousins, Isaiah Thomas, Darren Collison, Jamal Crawford, Iman Shumpert, JR Smith, Nik Stauskas, Kenneth Faried, Tyler Zeller, Jerian Grant, Corey Brewer, Tyler Johnson, Jodie Meeks, Michael Beasley, Nick Young, Trey Burke, Allen Crabbe, Jordan Bell, Justin Anderson, Tim Frazier, Tyrone Wallace, Ivan Rabb, Jarrod Uthoff, Amile Jefferson, Jonah Bolden, Tyler Ennis, Josh Magette, JP Macura, Ryan Broekhoff and Yante Maten among others.
While itâll be interesting to see how the 22 NBA teams in the bubble utilize the replacement players, the eight teams who arenât resuming play will be allowed to sign players during this transaction window too. Donât be surprised if some of these teams take advantage of this opportunity to add a free agent and acquire their Bird rights.
âI would be on the lookout for a smart non-bubble team to add someone during the transaction window,â one NBA agent said. âAny team can sign guys from that same pool of talent and, I assume, pay guys the same pro-rated amount.âÂ
In Wojnarowskiâs article about replacement players, he confirmed that âthe eight teams left out of the Orlando resumption are allowed to waive or sign players during the transaction window,â although âthey cannot sign a player to a two-way contract.â
Itâs worth noting that a lot of these details are still being worked out and nothing is official as of yet. Several agents and executives pointed out that theyâre receiving these updates through social media, just like the rest of us, and awaiting further instruction from the league or NBPA.
With the NBA reportedly set to expand rosters ahead of the league’s restart, here are five free agents the New Orleans Pelicans could sign.
As the league restarts in Orlando in July, the expectation is that the league will allow for expanded rosters. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Thursday that the league is eyeing an expansion to 17 roster spots, two more than the current 15.
“Teams are allowed to bring as many as 17 players to Orlando, including 14 or 15 players on a standard NBA contract and additional two-way spots.”
While the wording can lead to confusion, the consensus seems to be that the league will allow two more players per team on top of the two-way players. This would allow teams more players to practice with and more players to play with to take some of the physical strain off the current roster of players and, ideally, reduce injuries.
The Pelicans already have a short-staffed roster with Darius Miller out for the season with an Achilles injury. If the NBA does expand the rosters, New Orleans could likely be one of the first teams to take advantage of that opportunity.
But which players are still available and who might be the players the Pelicans would target? Here’s a look at five players New Orleans could sign for the league’s restart.
En un video publicado por TMZ Sports, apareciĂł la estrella de la NBA J.R. Smith propinĂĄndole una tremenda golpiza a una persona enchapuchada. De acuerdo con el reporte del tabloide, la furia del ex jugador de los Cleveland Cavaliers agrediĂł a este …
Mientras que alguien que debe ser amigo de Smith le pide a las personas grabando que por favor dejen de hacerlo, en el fondo se puede ver al basquetbolista, quien actualmente es agente libre, golpear y patear al sujeto con fuerza.
Finalmente dos hombres mĂĄs (probablemente amigos) se acercan a Smith para calmarlo y pararlo. Sin embargo fue demasiado tarde, todo estuvo capturado al momento.
Smith explicĂł que el sujeto estaba haciendo vandalismo en un ĂĄrea residencial donde ni si quiera pasaba la protesta.
Este lunes Smith particiĂł en una entrevista a distancia en el Pat McAfee show. El tema fue tratado desde diferentes ĂĄngulos. Smith se disculpĂł y confesĂł que es un padre de 4 niñas y no le gustarĂa que ellas tengan esta imagen de su padre, estuviese correcto o no lo que hizo.
"I'm 34 years old I have 4 little girls at home.. Regardless of the fact whether it was right or wrong.. I don't want them to have the image of their dad being capable of doing that"@TheRealJRSmith on easing up on his blows to the man vandalizing his car #PatMcAfeeShowLIVEpic.twitter.com/E05ITrjflv
El jugador confesĂł sentirse avergonzado “aunque las personas me han dicho que no deberĂa de sentirme asĂ”. En el show, McAfee resaltĂł que en cualquier otro momento Smith hubierta sido echo pedazos por las redes sociales, sin embargo, en el contexto de la muerte de George Floyd y las protestas por racismo, el acto de Smith fue tomado casi como una justicia.
