NBA High-5
Mike Tokito, The Oregonian 
Bruce Ely/The OregonianNate McMillan has been at the Blazers’ helm for five seasons.The day’s five most interesting stories, rumors and notes in the NBA:
1. The pinwheel turns: Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan is about to begin the final year of his contract, a dynamic that worked well for him previously. In 2004-05, he was in the final year of a contract with the Seattle SuperSonics (as were several key players) when he had maybe his best coaching season, taking that team to a 52-30 record, a Northwest Division title and a first-round playoff series win over Sacramento.
McMillan never did get a respect-confirming deal from the Sonics, and he shocked many by moving south to Portland.
This coming season could be another one of those turning points for McMillan, who on Tuesday introduced his new assistant coaches, Bernie Bickerstaff, Bob Ociepka and Buck Williams. The key quote came from Bickerstaff, McMillan’s first NBA coach and a guy with 36 years of NBA coaching and executive experience.
“What we’ve been telling Nate is, that this is a good basketball team,” Bickerstaff said. “I think the changes have to be really subtle in terms of what you do.”
Last summer, McMillan said he would not seek a long-term deal after his contract runs out, instead choosing to renew his deal one season at a time in the way Utah’s Jerry Sloan does. In essence, he would re-create the end-of-contract urgency that was so effective in Seattle every season.
McMillan has coached Portland for five seasons. Only four coaches have longer continuous tenures with an NBA team: Sloan (22 years), San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich (14), Boston’s Doc Rivers (6) and Denver’s George Karl (6).
Meanwhile, it appears McMillan’s sixth season probably won’t include Rudy Fernandez. Quick reports that the Blazers have accelerated talks to trade the Spanish guard. The Bulls, Celtics and Knicks apparently are in play.
What can the Blazers get in return? The Chicago Tribune’s K.C. Johnson reports that Chicago has been shopping forward James Johnson. However, the Blazers apparently don’t have much interest in the 6-9, 245-pound forward, who averaged 3.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 65 appearances last season. The Sun-Times reports that the Blazers turned down the Bulls’ offer of Johnson for Fernandez.
In Boston, NESN.com’s Nick Coman writes that while Boston would have to give up a first-round draft pick to get Fernandez, he would be an upgrade for backup shooting guard Marquis Daniels.
Fernandez is set to make $1,246,680 for 2010-11, with a $2,180,443 team option for 2011-12, so it would be hard to get a quality player in return if he is traded alone.
2. NBA breaks out tamper-proof seal: If Blazers GM Rich Cho’s phone rings and the caller ID comes up “Leon Rose,” he might want to let it go to voice mail. On Tuesday, the NBA issued a warning to teams that they should not be in contact with Hornets point guard Chris Paul or his representatives, ESPN’s Marc Stein reports.
This after reports that Paul’s agent, Leon Rose, has been gauging the interest of teams in obtaining Paul via trade. They included the Blazers, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The league’s memo threatens harsh penalties for contact that breaks tampering rules:
“… suspension of the offending person, prohibition of the offending team from hiring the person being tampered with, forfeiture of draft picks and individual and/or team fines of up to $5 million.”
You figure that and the words of new Hornets GM Dell Demps would quiet Paul trade talk. But Paul, given a chance to definitively make a statement on the matter at his basketball camp at Tulane University, said he would let his Monday statement be his only words on it. “When it’s time (to talk about it), there will be a time, ” he told reporters. “But right now, we’re going to leave it like it is.”
APStan Van Gundy guided Orlando to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.3. Pardon the interruption, but … Turns out Stan Van Gundy was not only not fired by the Orlando Magic, he was given an extension. Both Van Gundy and GM Otis Smith received extensions through the 2012-13 season.
There was speculation, apparently fueled by ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, that Van Gundy might be sacked if the Magic didn’t reach the NBA Finals. They didn’t, losing to Boston 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, but unlike Cleveland’s Mike Brown, Van Gundy was not fired.
Smith was extended and given the title of president. He’s done a nice job of putting this team together, taking a huge gamble by giving free agent Rashard Lewis a six-year, $118 million contract and engineering a trade that brought Vince Carter, who took up some of the scoring slack created by the departure of Hedo Turkoglu.
Certainly, the Lewis and Carter acquisitions aren’t universally applauded, but Smith deserves credit for being bold and trying to surround center Dwight Howard with the talent for title runs. It would surprise nobody if the Magice make a strong run at Chris Paul in the future.
4. Lost in translation? Fernandez’s overseas interviews often cause more stir here than anything he tells local reporters. The Rockets surely know how that feels as their star center, Yao Ming, sometimes says stuff to Chinese media that raises eyebrows in Houston.
This week, Yao told the Chinese state media he might retire at the end of next season because of his surgically-repaired left foot. “If the foot injury does not heal next season, I might choose to call it quits,” he said.
The Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen writes that Rockets GM Daryl Morey has seemed confident about Yao’s return, and Morey addressed the topic in a two-part post on Twitter:
“Yao Ming is working diligently on his return and has consistently received positive feedback at each of his scheduled medical checkups.
“He is currently participating in on-court basketball workouts & we continue to expect him to be ready for training camp which begins on 9/25“
5. The Union seal: You don’t often see a union official quoted in a Republican candidate’s commercial, but you also don’t often see a former NBA player running for governor. So there was Billy Hunter, president of the National Basketball Player’s Association, praising Chris Dudley in a commercial that has been running on ESPN’s local commercial block.
“The guy was always a hard worker,” Hunter says. “He was tenacious, dogged, highly respected.”
That was followed by an on-camera soundbite from Ron Klempner, a NBPA counsel who says, “He knew how to approach people … in order to bridge whatever differences that we had.”
What’s interesting is the careful wording. In the commercial’s graphic identifying Hunter and Klempner, the NBPA is called the “NBA Players Union,” but on Dudley’s campaign website, the word “union” is never used, with Dudley’s bio referring to him “representing the players association as the executive treasurer and participating on the negotiating committee.” A transcript of the ad on the site uses the words “NBA Players Association.”
But then, it’s a political website surely put together by political pros. That’s surely why, in Dudley’s bio, it says he played “six seasons with our Trailblazers.” You might forgive that typo in an out-of-town news story, but geez, who here doesn’t know it’s Trail Blazers?
– Mike Tokito
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LeBron declares intent to sign with Heat
LeBron James wanted to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The only place that could happen was Miami.
Get ready, NBA: A superstar trio is born.
Ending weeks of silence and drama, the two-time MVP said on his ESPN special from Greenwich, Conn. on Thursday night that he’s decided to join the Miami Heat and leave the Cleveland Cavaliers after an unsuccessful seven-year quest for the championship he covets.
“I can’t say it was always in my plans, because I never thought it was possible,” James said. “But the things that the Miami Heat franchise have done, to free up cap space and be able to put themselves in a position this summer to have all three of us, it was hard to turn down. Those are two great players, two of the greatest players that we have in this game today.”
Olympic teammates in Beijing, James, Bosh and Wade all helped deliver gold medals.
This time, it’ll be about a gold trophy, the NBA championship one — the one Wade got in 2006, the one that James and Bosh have yet to touch.
“Winning is a huge thing for me,” James said.
It’s a huge victory for the Heat, who got commitments from Wade and Bosh on Wednesday. That duo, along with James, formed the upper echelon of the most-celebrated free-agent period in league history.
Heat president Pat Riley landed them all, a three-pack of stars to help shape his quest for a dynasty in Miami.
And for Cleveland, a city scorned for generations by some of sports’ biggest letdowns, James’ long-awaited words represented a defeat perhaps unlike any other.
James is gone. Home sweet home no more.
He said he made the decision Thursday morning and knows it won’t go over well in Ohio.
“They can have mixed emotions, of course,” James said, adding that Akron will “always be home for me.”
His new home — part-time or otherwise — wasted no time in beginning the celebration. Horns honked outside the arena and on Miami Beach, where Wade was watching the announcement with members of his inner circle.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Wade said.
James, Bosh and Wade entered the pros in the same year, the respective Nos. 1, 4 and 5 picks in the 2003 draft. They went their separate ways: James to Cleveland, Bosh to Toronto and Wade to Miami, where he won a championship partnered with center Shaquille O’Neal in 2006. That year, James, Bosh and Wade all signed matching contracts to make sure they were all unrestricted free agents at the same time.
Season-ticket sales for the Heat’s coming 41-game season were suspended Thursday afternoon after the entire supply of available seats were sold out. Not every seat has been released for sale yet and some will be held back for single-game purchases at the 19,600-capacity arena.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino said while attending a tournament of high school stars at Cleveland State University, co-sponsored by James and Nike, one of the 25-year-old’s corporate partners.
Believe it.
The Cavaliers, a franchise that was in ruins before winning a lottery drawing and bringing James up Interstate 77 from his Akron home, have had the upper hand ? until now. They were able to offer him more money ? $30 million more ? than any other team.
This wasn’t about money, though.
Wade and Bosh both said they would take fewer dollars to make this happen. And that, combined with what Riley and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said to James on the recruiting tour, was enough to pull off the stunner.
Because they have overspent while trying to please James and win the first title by any of Cleveland’s three pro sports teams since 1964, the Cavs are strapped with a few big contracts that have eaten up salary-cap space and prevented them from making roster moves to improve the team.
They’ve come close to winning it all with James, who at 6-foot-8 and 260 pounds has the quickness of a point guard and brute force of an NFL defensive lineman.
With the possible exception of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, James is the NBA’s premier player, but his legacy cannot be fulfilled until he wins a championship.
If it’s going to happen soon, it’ll happen in Miami.
Canzano: Rob Mullens is the right fit for Oregon
Posted by admin in Commentary on July 15th, 2010
Rob Mullens meets the media upon his introduction as Oregon’s new athletic director. Rob Mullens was not Nike’s pick for the University of Oregon athletic director position.
This is a good thing.
Also, his most recent job as associate athletic director at Kentucky put him in charge of the men’s basketball and football programs.
Also, very good.
Mullens is also a finance guy at a time when athletic departments are desperately seeking ways to find money.
I like that, too.
But none of these things is why I most like the hire of Mullens for Oregon. For me, it’s about attitude and ego and I think Mullens is a wonderful hire because I suspect the Ducks athletic department just added a healthy dose of no-nonsense humility.
Consider that the athletic department at Oregon has been infected in the last decade by paranoia and sensitivity that has paralyzed it at times. The Ducks worried a lot about what outsiders thought of them. And athletic department leaders made decisions with too much emphasis on how they would look personally.
They wanted to look smart. They wanted to look in control. They wanted to appear poised. And they were in a persnickitey panic behind the scenes.
The temptation today is to declare Mullens’ hiring as evidence that university president Richard Lariviere wanted his own guy in the big desk. But what the Ducks really got was a pillar of new philosophy and attitude.
Had Mullens come along a few years ago, he would have joined a poisonous department rife with big egos. Ernie Kent ruled during “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” era of Ducks basketball. And Mike Bellotti thought so much of the job he did as football coach that when he became athletic director his biggest accomplishment was crafting a multimillion-dollar golden parachute for himself.
The department felt as though it operated without a tether. Before Bellotti brief tenure as athletic director, a booster, Pat Kilkenny, was left in charge. An arena project was carried forward without the blessing of key factions on the campus.
The disconnect created by such moves ended up poisonous.
Gone is Kent. Gone is Bellotti. In their place are no-ego basketball coach Dana Altman, and football coach Chip Kelly, who can be wry and sarcastic, but is undeniably authentic. The addition of Mullens puts an experienced professional in charge of the athletic department for the first time since Bill Moos was run out in 2006. For the first time in some time Oregon feels focused as a department.
Team Swoosh will keep an open mind, but at face value, isn’t going to love this hire. They probably would have preferred someone such as Jim Bartko, who was groomed as an associate athletic director for a moment just like this.
Lariviere said early in the process that UO was looking for someone with athletic-director experience. He back off that requirement, but he hired Mullens, the deputy director of the Kentucky athletic department, not Bartko.
Kelly was on the hiring committee and said much of the discussion focused on Mullens’ ability to connect with all corners of the campus. “He’s smart,” Kelly said, “and he has no ego at all. It’s all about ‘we’ and not about him.”
This correction feels refreshing. Mullens feels right. Oregon has had too many personalities who, too often, made it all about them. The moves felt self-conscious. The mood felt paranoid. The athletic department scrambled to fix the unusual messes that were created before anyone noticed. Often, they fell flat when they should have been soaring.
I’m not sure if Mullens can pass his no-ego, no-nonsense style throughout the building, let alone the campus. But this doesn’t feel like a hire that would have been made under Dave Frohnmayer, who too often forgot his mission and pandered to his biggest boosters (or gave the keys to them).
The move signals a shift of atmosphere, and this was overdue at Oregon. Mullens’ appreciation for academia and passion for finance are assets.
Hopefully, it adds up to a new era at Oregon.
— John Canzano
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