Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Anthony Davis told ESPN the injury he suffered to his right shoulder while attempting a dunk is something he continues to feel.
Anthony Davis told ESPN the injury he suffered to his right shoulder while attempting a dunk is something he continues to feel.
Rajon Rondo’s return from a calf injury has been a slow and deliberate one, with no clear end in sight.
All things considered, the Los Angeles Lakers are having a great start to the season. When they hit the three-week mark on Tuesday, they will still be 7-2 heading into a game against the Phoenix Suns. But if you were hoping for them to get Rajon Rondo back in the lineup soon, his two-steps-forward-one-step-back recovery from a sore calf, has complicated it.
After being close to playing on Sunday, Rondo’s return was immediately called off after a 5-on-5 workout, according to Yahoo’s Chris Haynes. And the outlook for Rondo doesn’t look any clearer after Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors. Coach Frank Vogel told reporters that it would be “hopefully soon” when Rondo returns but acknowledged that the soft tissue injury has been tricky to deal with.
According to Harrison Faigen for Silver Screen and Roll, Vogel said before the game on Sunday:
It’s tough to say. With a soft tissue injury, you never know how quickly those things are going to heal. You want to have the mindset where you can ramp up activity and get through it with no pain and no soreness. And if that doesn’t happen then it can be delayed. So it’s not that unusual in my mind.
Vogel doesn’t seem too concerned by the injury given its nature as a difficult injury to recover from, let alone for a veteran like Rondo. The Lakers are taking it slow, but their patience doesn’t make Rondo’s slow recovery any less concerning.
LeBron James said that he sees the toll of AAU basketball first-hand, with his two sons, and says the status quo bothers him.
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When it comes to his own load management, LeBron James has a pretty simple approach. But when it comes to the well-being of his children and the thousands of kids that play youth basketball on the summer tournament circuit, James has many more thoughts as a parent of two hoops hopefuls.
In an interview with Yahoo’s Chris Haynes, James tackled the issue of youth players coming into the league rundown and with injuries. He discussed seeing his sons being forced to play three games in one session at an AAU tournament this year and how jarring it was for him to see his kids rundown, explaining:
Because a lot of these tournaments don’t have the best interest of these kids, man. I see it. It’s like one time, they had to play a quarterfinal game, a semifinal game and a championship game starting at 9 a.m., and the championship game was at 12:30 p.m. Three games. I was like, ‘Oh, hell no.’ And my kids were dead tired. My kids were dead tired. This isn’t right. This is an issue.
Over the summer, the issue of youth basketball wearing down the game’s most promising young players was the topic of a phenomenal expose by ESPN’s Baxter Holmes. And as if the topic didn’t need anymore support, No. 1 overall pick Zion Williamson needed knee surgery days before the season began and No. 2 pick Ja Morant had a knee procedure over the summer.
The issue of players entering the league with chronic injuries is not one that will go away soon. And while LeBron can only influence the workloads of his two sons, it’s clear he doesn’t like the non-stop cycle that often chews up and spits out players before they get a chance to be fully-formed.
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After falling to 2-8 on the season, key Knicks executives held an impromptu press conference where they said a lot but nothing at the same time.
FIZDALE’S SEAT GETTING TOASTY: On Sunday, the New York Knicks dropped their eighth game in 10 tries, falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-87 in a game that wasn’t even as close as the final scoreline would indicate. Things got interesting after the contest, when two of the team’s top decision makers, president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry, held an awkward impromptu press conference where they declared their displeasure with New York’s progress this season while maintaining their faith in the plan they put together and in their head coach, David Fizdale. Really, though, it felt like the two executives said a whole lot of nothing, making the entire exercise rather pointless.
Regardless, it goes without saying that if the Knicks continue going down the porous path they currently find themselves on, Fizdale, who feels the pressure, will be gone. At the same time, is that really going to change anything? The team’s management had a terrible offseason, no matter how the Knicks try to spin it, one where they failed to land a marquee free agent despite having loads of cap space, and responded by signing multiple middling power forwards and no point guards. Basically, years and years of poor decision-making out of New York’s front office continued in the summer of 2019.
And what’s the common thread that all of those poor Knicks offseasons have? They have pretty much all occurred over the last 20 years, when James Dolan became the team’s owner. It’s pretty clear what New York’s principal problem is, and until that problem is no longer there, the team won’t escape this purgatory they’ve been in for multiple decades.
David Fizdale is now 19-73 as Knicks head coach.
ON AAU AND LOAD MANAGEMENT: HoopsHype spoke to various NBA players to find out their thoughts on whether young athletes getting overworked during their AAU days is leading to a need for load management when they get older. Some very interesting comments here from Zach LaVine, Myles Turner and others.
ANOTHER OFF-COURT WAITERS INCIDENT: Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters suffered a panic attack on Thursday during the team’s flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles. The cause of the panic attack? A weed gummy given to him by a teammate.
🤦 It’s far from Waiters’ first issue this season, giving Miami little choice but to suspend the mercurial 2-guard for 10 games without pay. This is Waiters’ second suspension of the young season. Waiters never playing another minute for the Heat is quickly becoming a very real possibility.
SUPERMAN BACK IN THE DUNK CONTEST? Dwight Howard is playing the most impactful basketball he’s played in years. We broke down his game here. Howard is feeling so good, in fact, that he told TMZ he’s thought about doing the dunk contest this season. Howard has one dunk contest victory to his name, which came back in 2008.
LUKA MVP CAMPAIGN: Based on his play so far, there’s a very good chance Mavs guard Luka Doncic receives MVP votes at the end of the season. He would be the youngest international player ever to achieve that, beating Hakeem Olajuwon.
CURRY RETURN: Brandon Payne, Stephen Curry’s personal trainer, spoke to NBC Sports’ Tom Haberstroh and told him that Curry wants to return this season, but it’ll depend on how his rehab goes.
HAYWARD GOES DOWN… AGAIN: Celtics swingman Gordon Hayward, who was playing the best basketball he has since his brutal leg injury, got hurt again this weekend, fracturing his left hand against the Spurs. A doctor who spoke to the Boston Sports Journal says he could be out for at least four weeks depending on whether he has surgery or not.
RONDO’S SEASON DEBUT POSTPONED: Rajon Rondo was supposed to make his return against the Raptors on Sunday, but had his season debut postponed yet again. Once he does return, one has to wonder how much playing time he gets. Head coach Frank Vogel will have to determine how much he values Rondo’s defense and ability to run the offense versus his poor three-point shooting.
STAR SET TO RETURN: Pistons forward Blake Griffin has been listed as probable for Detroit’s game against the Timberwolves on Monday. It would be his first game action since April 22.
POTENTIAL TOP PICK INELIGIBLE: On Friday, the NCAA announced 2020 potential No. 1 pick James Wiseman has been deemed ineligible. If he doesn’t play again this season, it’ll be interesting to note how much that affects his draft stock.
GETTING PAPER: According to a report, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has a new five-year contract with the company, one that will pay him $8 million per year. That’s more than all but 150 NBA players, and as much as Lou Williams makes on his Clippers deal.
SALARY QUIZ: WHO’S THIS NBA PLAYER? 🤔
Click here for the answer.
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Los Angeles Lakers superstar Anthony Davis admits he is still feeling discomfort in his right shoulder following loss to the Toronto Raptors.
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The Toronto Raptors snapped the Los Angeles Lakers seven-game winning streak on Sunday. Playing without Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry, the Raptors used a 13-3 run with just over nine minutes left to help secure the 113-104 victory. LeBron James posted his fourth triple-double of the season with 13 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds during the loss, while Anthony Davis paced the Lakers with 27 points, eight rebounds and four blocks.
Following the game, Davis admitted that he’s still feeling the lingering effects of the shoulder injury he suffered on a dunk attempt earlier this season. He told Dave McMenamin of ESPN that he re-aggravated the injured shoulder on a block of Pascal Siakam during the Toronto loss which increased the level of pain that he played with throughout the night.
“There’s really never a play I don’t feel it,” Davis said of his injured right shoulder. “I’m going to go out there and play. I try not to let it affect my game. I just play through it and then worry about taking care of it after the game.”
A.D. hasn’t missed a game all season despite the ailing shoulder and is averaging 26.6 points and 10.2 rebounds in 35 minutes of work. He’s also been critical in helping to establish the Lakers interior defense while offering a career-high of 3.1 blocks per contest. His treatment for the aggravated shoulder includes wearing a compression T-shirt under his jersey and having a heat pack applied while he’s on the bench. Davis was not removed from the game due to injury on Sunday and logged 38 minutes in defeat.
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LeBron James made more franchise history for the Los Angeles Lakers even in their first loss in eight games.
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Sunday night was the first time in two weeks that the Los Angeles Lakers felt what it was like to lose as the Toronto Raptors used a huge second half to end the Lakers seven-game win-streak. But even in the loss, LeBron James managed to make a small bit of Lakers history with his play.
With 13 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds, James recorded his fourth triple-double of the season. James became the first player in Lakers franchise history to record four triple-doubles in the first 10 games of the season. Interestingly enough, Dallas Mavericks forward Luka Doncic has also accomplished the same feat this season. The Lakers still have one game left before they get to 10 as they sit at 7-2 after nine games.
LeBron James had his 4th triple double of the season, the 5th different player with 4 triple-doubles through his team's first 10 games and the 1st @Lakers to do so.
LeBron & Luka Doncic have each done it this season and have 1 team game remaining to add on.
(h/t @EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/OJtPklIQa5
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 11, 2019
Although James gets into the history books for the Lakers, he had a particularly bad night in his attempts to score the ball against a rangy and athletic Raptors front court. James was 5-15 from the field on Sunday and an uncharacteristic 3-6 from the free-throw line.
LeBron and the Lakers will head to Phoenix on Tuesday for a quick trip before returning to L.A. on Wednesday to face the Golden State Warriors.
The Raptors turned on the afterburners in the second half and showed their championship pedigree in the win over the Los Angeles Lakers.
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Anthony Davis had 27 points and four blocks while LeBron James recorded his fourth triple-double of the season with 13 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds but the defending champion Toronto Raptors snapped the Los Angeles Lakers seven-game win streak on Sunday, 111-102.
Pascal Siakam led the Raptors with 24 points, including a couple of huge transition baskets in the final seconds of the game when the Lakers had cut the Raptors lead to just four points in the final two minutes to seal the game.
After the Lakers jumped out to an 11-point lead in early in the first quarter, the Raptors showed their mettle by coming back to slice the Laker lead to just one point heading into the quarter. Energy plays and big shots by the Raptors bench helped neutralize what had been an otherwise terrible quarter.
The Lakers starters again asserted their dominance towards the end of the first half, with James coming close to a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds at halftime while Anthony Davis and Avery Bradley each scored nine points as well. In addition to the play of the starters, Troy Daniels broke out of a shooting slump to score 11 points off the bench in the first half. With the strong finish, L.A. led by eight at halftime.
The two teams continued to play to a standstill the fourth quarter when the Raptors showed their championship pedigree, going on a 13-3 run to go up by 10 with just over nine minutes left in the games. In addition to the strong play of VanVleet and Siakam, the Raptors got a major lift off the bench from Chris Boucher who had 15 points, three blocks and two steals.
The normally great Lakers bench didn’t make the same impact they have over the course of their seven-game win streak, even against a slightly depleted Raptors group missing both starting point guard Kyle Lowry and power forward Serge Ibaka.
Up next for the Lakers will be an interesting test against a surprisingly strong Suns team in Phoenix on Tuesday night.
